Olympic Games Ĭhariot racing on a black-figure hydria from Attica, ca. A chariot race also was said to be the event that founded the Olympic Games according to one legend, mentioned by Pindar, King Oenomaus challenged suitors for his daughter Hippodamia to a race, but was defeated by Pelops, who founded the Games in honour of his victory. The race, which was one lap around the stump of a tree, was won by Diomedes, who received a slave woman and a cauldron as his prize.

The participants in this race were Diomedes, Eumelus, Antilochus, Menelaus, and Meriones. The first literary reference to a chariot race is in Homer's description of the funeral games for Patroclus, in the Iliad. Images on pottery show that chariot racing existed in thirteenth century BC Mycenaean Greece. This was followed by a gradual decline in the sport's popularity. Their displays of civil disobedience culminated in the indiscriminate slaughter of Byzantine citizenry by the military in the Nika riots. Supporters of the Blue teams vied with supporters of the Greens for control of foreign, domestic and religious decisions. It survived much longer in the Byzantine Empire, where the traditional Roman chariot-racing factions continued to play a prominent role for several centuries. Roman and later Byzantine emperors, mistrustful of private organisations, took control of the teams, especially the Blues and Greens and appointed many officials to oversee them.Ĭhariot racing faded in importance in the West after the fall of Rome.

The rivalries were sometimes politicized, when teams became associated with competing social or religious ideas. Spectators generally chose to support a single team, identifying themselves strongly with its fortunes, and violence sometimes broke out between rival factions. In the Roman form of chariot racing, teams represented different groups of financial backers and sometimes competed for the services of particularly skilled drivers. Each chariot held a single driver and was usually pulled by 4 horses. In the ancient Olympic Games, as well as the other Panhellenic Games, the sport was one of the most important equestrian events. Chariot races could also be watched by women, who were banned from watching many other sports. These dangers added to the excitement and interest for spectators.

Chariot racing was dangerous to both drivers and horses as they often suffered serious injury and even death. harmatodromia, Latin: ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. The Palatine Hill and Imperial palace are to the leftĬhariot racing ( Greek: ἁρματοδρομία, translit. Modern depiction (1876) by Jean Léon Gérôme of a chariot race in Rome's Circus Maximus, as if seen from the starting gate.

Circus maximus chariot races