Romans chariot races4/1/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The expansion of the facilities at Olympia had included the creation of a special course, the hippodrome. The course at Olympia could take sixty or more chariots at once. Four-foal and two-foal chariot races were added in the 4th century bc. A four-horse chariot race-the quadriga-was established in the Olympic Games in Greece in 680 bc. Chariot racing of this kind remained the preserve of a small elite, performing and competing as an enhancement of their already well-established reputations for courage, and in acknowledgement of their physical expertise, though it could generate excitement among spectators. Five competitors steered their chariots, and the organizer, Achilles, provided prizes. Homer dedicates almost 700 lines of the Iliad to description of the sporting contests held in mourning for the dead hero Patroclus, in the ninth year of the siege of Troy, 60 per cent of which is dedicated to chariot racing. In Greece, two-horse chariots were initially used. A form of horse racing immensely popular in the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, with some predecessors in the privileged cultures of earlier civilizations, such as in Syria, where chariot-based hunting parties of aristocrats offered a model for the adaptation of the chariot to the competitive racing form. ![]()
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