Chariot-racing and gambling
In addition to gladiatorial games, people in ancient Rome also really loved chariot-racing. Both men and women went to the races all the time. They bet on which horses would win. Chariot races were actually even more popular than the gladiatorial games.
More about gladiatorial games
History of horses
All our Ancient Rome articles
Circus: the Roman name for a racetrack
Men raced chariots all over the Roman Empire. They raced on specially built racetracks called circuses. Most good-sized towns had a circus. But these were not like our modern circuses, with elephants and clowns. They were more like modern racetracks. People sat around the sides, the way they do at a racetrack today. In ancient Rome, people called a racetrack a circus. That’s because a racetrack was like a circle – the chariots went around and around.
All about circles…
Roman charioteers
Professional charioteers (often enslaved) drove the chariots. Charioteers who won a lot of races were very popular. So charioteers sometimes became very famous, and even rich, from the presents people gave them.
Slavery in ancient Rome
Women in ancient Rome
As far as we know, women didn’t drive chariots, though women could own chariots and horses. Chariot-driving itself was very dangerous. So just as we have crashes at Nascar races, or the Indy 500, the Romans often had chariot crashes. And often the charioteers or the horses were killed.
Gamblers tried to cheat
Gamblers who bet on the races and wanted to win tried all kinds of ways to make sure their chariot would win. Some of them offered presents to charioteers. Or sometimes gamblers wrote curses on pieces of lead and buried them in the ground. Because of this, archaeologists find lots of curse tablets buried in the ground all around the big circuses.
More about curse tablets
Politics at the race-track
It wasn’t only about the races, though. The people of Rome didn’t have the right to assemble in public and protest against things their government did, the way Americans do today. If they protested, the Roman government sent soldiers to hit them or kill them. And Roman emperors didn’t appear in public very much. But they did come to the circus, to see the chariot races. A lot of people were at the circus for the races. So this was a place where people could let the Emperor know how they felt about things.
To get their message across, they all chanted together: “Give us bread!” or “Down with Sejanus!” Other times, people held up written signs. Emperors learned that these messages were important, and they listened to them, though they didn’t always do what people wanted.
Roman chariot-racing in the later Roman Empire
Chariot-racing was okay with the Christians, even though gladiatorial games weren’t. So people kept on going to the races long after the gladiatorial games stopped.
Christianity in the Roman Empire
In the later Roman empire, in Constantinople, the charioteers formed teams that were known by their colors (Red, White, Green, and Blue). People rooted for their team. Often they got into fights with the other teams. Sometimes the teams even supported political candidates. Or they led riots against the Emperor!
The Nika riots in Constantinople
Finally, here’s a video of people racing chariots in the Roman circus at Jerash in modern Jordan:
Did you find out what you wanted to know about Roman chariot-racing? Let us know in the comments!
Learn by doing: Roman games
More about the gladiatorial games
Bibliography and further reading about Roman circuses and chariot-racing:
Spend the Day in Ancient Rome: Projects and Activities that Bring the Past to Life, Ages 8-12 by Linda Honan (1998). Chapter 10 is all about the circus. Easy reading.
Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire, edited by David Potter and David Mattingly (1999). Good solid information from specialists, written for college students.
Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing, by John H. Humphrey (1986). Everything you could ever want to know about the racetracks, the seats, the starting gates, and the signals, based on archaeology. By an experienced excavation director, for specialists.
Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium, by Alan Cameron (1993). About the Byzantine political teams, by an expert.
How much did the people pay to watch the races
Some races were free, donated by rich politicians to help their careers. Others cost money, and then it depended on whether you bought expensive seats down front or cheap seats up in the bleachers. Most ordinary people seem to have been able to afford to go without any difficulty, so it probably wasn’t much for the cheap seats anyway. Like going to a baseball game today.
what did the gladiators wear?
You can see more about gladiators in this article: https://quatr.us/romans/roman-gladiators-ancient-roman-games.htm (including pictures of what they wore). They often wore fancy costumes, as if they were in a play, so people could imagine they were watching the Trojan War, or some other famous battle.
thx!
HI
Hi Dan, thanks for stopping by! If you liked this page, please ask your teacher or librarian to link to us… that would help us out a lot!
hi
But who captured the animals for the gladiator games?
That’s a great question, Clarissa! There were organized businesses that captured people and animals for the games and sold them to the rich families that paid for the games. There’s a discussion of it from Tim Cornell’s book, Bread and Circuses (2013), pages 129-130, where poor Symmachus, trying to help his son put together really good games, buys a bunch of people who then kill themselves rather than participate in the games, worries about the alligators that won’t eat their food and are starving, sends all kinds of messengers to get bears and transport them safely, and argues with the customs people about how much duty to pay on importing racehorses.
I’m doing a web quest and one of my questions is that same question. If you click on the link more about gladitorial games, it also shows you.
no
Sorry! What did you want to know? Maybe I can answer your question here.