Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:05:23.754Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chariot-Racing in the Roman Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Elizabeth Rawson
Get access

Corse dei cocchi nella repubblica romana

Si sostiene che le corse dei cocchi a Roma fossero all'origine simili a quelle dell'Etruria, e la loro organizzazione e finanziamento seguissero modelli greci, con uomini importanti che correvano per proprio conto e vincevano ghirlande ed onori per se stessi. Dopo la pubblicazione delle XII Tavole, forse per motivi di povertà o per paura di individui potenti, Roma abbandonò questo sistema, e lo stato cominciò a pagare allevatori perchè fornissero cavalli per le corse; le famose 4 Fazioni o Colori possono essere sorti contemporaneamente all'avvento di questo nuovo sistema, o esserne stati una conseguenza. Probabilmente quando i premi divennero più consistenti furono gli allevatori a pagare lo stato per il diritto a competere. La gloria individuale a quel tempo era ottenuta presiedendo e finanziando i giuochi. Malgrado le testimonianze siano contraddittorie, sembra che i senatori potessero ottenere appalti per la fornitura di cavalli, almeno per alcune feste.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 49 , November 1981 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cameron, A., Porphyrius the Charioteer, Oxford, 1973Google Scholar; Circus Factions, Oxford, 1976Google Scholar.

2 Regner, J., RE Suppl. VII 1940, 1626Google Scholar.

3 Weiler, I., Der Sport bei den Völkern der alten Welt, Darmstadt, 1981, 239Google Scholar.

4 Livy I 35: tum primum circo qui nunc maximus dicitur designates locus est … ludicrum fuil equi pugilesque ex Etruria maxime acciti. Cf. DH III. 68. 1, Tertull., De Spect. 5. 2Google Scholar. The Ludi Magni or Romani seem only to have become annual in the fourth century, however.

It is often thought that the Circus Flaminius was organised in 221 and was the site of the Ludi Plebei (Val. Max. I. 7. 4). But Wiseman, T. P., ‘The Circus Flaminius’, PBSR xlii (1974) 3Google Scholar and idem ‘Two Questions on the Circus Flaminius’, ibid, xliv (1976) 44 argues that it was not really a race-course, though Varro tells us that the quinquennial (and unimportant) Ludi Taurii were held there (implying that no others were—LL v. 154). The ancient festivals of the Equus October (in which the right-hand winning horse was sacrificed) and of the Equirria (which may or may not have included chariot-races, rather than simple horse-races) were held somewhere in the Campus Martius, but possibly not in the Flaminius., CircusCoarelli, F., ‘Il Campo Marzio Occidentale; Storia e Topografia’, MEFRA lxxxiv (1977) 807Google Scholar holds that the Trigarium near the banks of the Tiber, where in the imperial period charioteers probably practised and some races were held, ought from its name to be archaic, as trigae, three-horse chariots were not used after the sixth century; but DH vii 73 says explicitly that this archaic Greek custom persisted in Rome to his own time (he is here probably speaking in his own person, not reproducing his source, Fabius Pictor) and in the second century A.D. Diocles for one occasionally won with a triga (CIL VI 10048; cf. Pliny, NH XXVIII 238Google Scholar, XXIX 9). It remains possible that the Trigarium was old, if it was connected with the underground altar of the Tarentum as the Circus Maximus was with that of Consus; but it is also possible that its site, like much of the rest of this part of the Campus Martius, was private property till the Augustan period, belonging in fact at that time to M. Agrippa (Coarelli, op. cit.; Wiseman, , ‘Strabo on the Campus Martius’, LCM iv (1979) 129Google Scholar).

For the altar of Consus in the Circus Maximus see Piganiol, A., Recherches sur les Jeux Romains, Paris, 1923, chap. IGoogle Scholar: perhaps a Latin agricultural deity in origin, Consus may under Etruscan influence have become a god of the dead, with whom games, basically funeral ceremonies, became associated (speculative); he was later wrongly identified with Neptunus Equester (Poseidon Hippios). One might expect there to be some connection between Castor and horse-racing and indeed Tertull., de Spect. 8. 3Google Scholar says the ‘eggs’ by which the different laps were marked were sacred to the Castores (see Schilling, R., ‘Les “Castores” Romains’, Rites, Cultes, Dieux de Rome, Paris, 1979, 338Google Scholar = Hommages à G. Dumézil, Brussels, 1960, 177Google Scholar), but though we know that the early temple of Castor in the Forum was important to the cavalry in Rome, there is no hint that racing was involved; there was a temple of Castor of uncertain date in the Circus Flaminius, and it might be tempting to see it as a plebeian version of the old aristocratic cult of the Forum, more suited to a time when charioteers were normally of humble status; but if the Circus Flaminius was not primarily a race-course this will not do.

5 Bronson, R. C., ‘Chariot-racing in Etruria’, Studi in onore di Luisa Banti, Rome, 1965, 89Google Scholar. Note Hdt. I. 166–7, Delphi tells Caere to institute –still celebrated in Hdt.'s time; for Veii, the story of Ratumenna, Plut. Popl. 13, Festus 340L, Pliny, NH VIII 161Google Scholar. Chariots in graves of the Orientalising period, associated with weapons, suggest some use in war: Saulnier, C., L'Armée et la Guerre dans le Monde Étrusco-Romain, Paris, 1980, 65 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Tac., Ann. XIV. 21Google Scholar. Sybaris was believed to have founded games meant to rival those at Olympia, with rich prizes of silver (Athen. XII. 522, from Heracleides Ponticus; but Timaeus told the story of Croton); Dionys. Periheget. 374 says the Sybarites were wild for Olympic victories. For its large territory, suitable for horse-raising, see Frederiksen, M. W., ‘Campanian Cavalry: A Question of Origins’, DdA ii (1968) 3Google Scholar. For the great procession of the Sybarite cavalry, Timaeus 566 FGHF50—also for Sybaris’ close relations with Etruria. Aristotle F583 Rose says the cavalry was trained to dance to the flute.

7 For a Greek owner αὐτός ἀνιοχίον, IG V. 1.213 ( = Buck, Greek Dialects no. 71), the fifth century Spartan Damonon. Some of Pindar's Odes show sons or other relations of the owner driving.

8 Colonna, G., ‘Un Aspetto Oscuro del Lazio Antico’, PdelP xxxii (1977) 131Google Scholar: the Tomba del Guerriero at Lanuvium, from the early fifth century, probably that of an aristocrat, has objects connected with the games, including a discus engraved with an armed desultor, and strigils; discuses are occasionally found in Etruscan graves.

Pallottino, M., The Etruscans (tr. Cremona, J.), London, 1965, 179Google Scholar thinks members of distinguished families may have taken part in the sports in Etruria. Heurgon, J., La Vie Quotidienne chez les Étrusques, Paris, 1961, 256Google Scholar notes that in the Tomba degli Auguri at Tarquinia (about 530 B.C.) two wrestlers have Etruscan names appended, one of which, Latithe, ‘a été porté par d'honorables families de Cortone et Chiusi’.

9 Festus 340 L: †clarusci† generis iuvenis Veiis (Etrusci conj. by Ursinus, though surely otiose with Veiis; but a reference to his genus should be laudatory). Studies of the story by Hubaux, J., Bull. Ac. Roy. de Beige xxxvi (1950) 341Google Scholar and Gage, J., ‘Fornix Ratumenus’, Bull. Fac. Lett. Strasbourg, xxxi (1953) 163Google Scholar, who rather arbitrarily holds the story originally to have implied an ‘iselastic’ entry by a victor to his home town—very Greek. For the date, Alföldi, A., Early Rome and the Latins, Ann Arbor, 1965, 141Google Scholar n. 8, adducing Livy X. 23. 12; cf. XXIX. 38. 8—perhaps another one in 203 B.C. (and XXXV. 41. 10). For the fictile quadriga Pliny NHXXVIII. 16, XXXV 157, Serv., ad Aen. VII. 188Google Scholar. The closest Etruscan name to Ratumenna is perhaps raθumsna, Rix, H., Das Etruskische Cognomen, Wiesbaden, 1963, 296Google Scholar.

10 XII Tabulae ed. Schoell, R., Leipzig, 1866, 155Google Scholar (Table X. 7); adopted by Riccoboni, , FIRA I. 68Google Scholar and others. It is unclear to me that honoris really makes the text more logical, or that arduitur, ‘is burnt’, is the proper correction of the readings of the MSS, which might suggest the simple additur.

11 De Leg. II. 24. 60, on the provisions of the XII Tables regarding funerals.

12 For disputes among Roman lawyers as to the exact meaning of pecunia in the XII Tables see Diósdi, G., ‘Familia pecuniaque’. Acta ant. Ace. Hung, xii (1964) 91Google Scholar, and Ownership in Ancient and Pre-Classical Roman Law, Budapest, 1970Google Scholar (pecunia a general term).

13 Inposita on his head or on the bier? He might of course have won several. At some time the crowns given at the games were too big, magnificentiae causa, to be worn on the head (Festus 60L sv donaticae coronae, using the imperfect tense). Livy notes that in 292 B.C. palms were also introduced in victory, X. 47. 3.

14 Wieacker, F., ‘Die XII Tafeln in ihrem Jahrhundert’, Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt XIII: Les Otigines de la Republique Romaine, Geneva, 1966, 291Google Scholar; Watson, A., Rome of the Twelve Tables, Princeton, 1975Google Scholar; Crifo, G., ‘La Legge delle XII Tavole’, ANRW I. 2, 1972, 115Google Scholar.

15 Colonna, loc. cit. in n. 8.

16 NH XXI. 4. 6.

17 Cicero, , De Off. II. 56–60Google Scholar.

18 Pliny, NH X. 34. 71Google Scholar: under the Empire leading members of this admittedly prolific family were in the Senate, so this wealthy eques might be earlier, and even, conceivably, Cicero's friend A. Caecina, also an eques from Volaterrae, who, though his interests might seem more intellectual (rhetoric and the disciplina Etrusca) had fama populi Romani (ad fam. VI. 6. 9) which might come from his horses. These will have been bred in the Maremma Volterrana where large herds of animals have often pastured and where the family had property under the Empire. (Pliny knows of A. Caecina but does not seem to equate him with the horse-breeder; modern sources are sometimes too quick to do so). See JRS lxviii (1978), 138 n. 50Google Scholar.

19 A. Alföldi in numerous studies, notably ‘Die Herrschaft der Reiterei in Griechenland u. Rom nach dem Sturz des Königtums’, in Gestalt und Geschichte, Festschrift K. Schefold, 1967, 13 ff and ‘(Centuria) Procum Patricium’, Historia xvii, 1968, 444Google Scholar; opposed by Momigliano, A., ‘Procum Patricium’, JRS, lvi, 1966, 16Google Scholar and ‘Cavalry and Patriciate’, Historia xviii, 1969, 385Google Scholar. For a sensible summing up, R. M. Ogilvie, Early Rome and the Etruscans, 1976, 43 ff.; for the evidence for the other parts of Central Italy (in Etruria the cavalry seems to be secondary, in Campania it was dominant till much later), Frederiksen, loc. cit. in n. 6. Not all agree about Etruria.

20 Pliny, NH XXXIV. 19–20Google Scholar. DH II. 54 has Romulus dedicating a bronze quadriga to Vulcan from the spoils of Cameria. The date of this presumably real object can merely be surmised.

21 Hölscher, T., ‘Die Anfänge Romischer Repräsentationskunst’, MDAI(R) lxxxv (1978)Google Scholar. I owe this reference, with some helpful discussion, to Herr K.-J. Hoelkeskamp.

22 Festus 43L: currules [curules E] equi quadrigales. It is odd then that Ürögdi, G., RE Suppl. XI 1186Google Scholar thinks they drew the ‘Kultwagen’, tensae, in the procession.

23 Livy XXIV 18. 10. One might sceptically suppose that this was a tale invented to show how patriotic all Romans were in the Hannibalic War. If so it will reflect the situation in the late second or early first century; but it is likely that the system had changed much sooner.

24 Tert., De Spect. IX 5Google Scholar (probably from Suetonius). Mommsen, HenceRG I 227Google Scholar, and most scholars.

25 Circus Factions, 59. He is himself favourably inclined to John Lydus’ notion that there were originally three colours, reflecting the three tribes of the regal period. This will not be true if as I suggest races were on the Greek model; it is surely an antiquarian idea.

26 Festus 76L.

27 Weege, F., Etruskische Malerei, Halle, 1921, Beil 2Google Scholar.

28 Pyth. V. 49; Soph. Electra 708, ten chariots in an imaginary race at Delphi.

29 Bronson, op. cit. in n. 5, notes that both Etruscans and Romans, but not Greeks, tied the reins behind the driver's back (very dangerous—perhaps likelier to be the custom with slaves than with great men?), and also that the short chiton seems to have been used by the Greeks of Asia Minor, though he is hesitant about deriving Etruscan chariot-racing entirely from that source. (See now Laviosa, C., ‘Un rilievo archaico di Iasos’, Ann. Scuol. Arch, di Atene n.s. xxxiv–v (1975) 397Google Scholar; she thinks the scenes derived from oriental representations of war or hunting, not the races). Bronson does not consider the colour of the tunics: see for coloured reproductions Bartoccini, R., Lerici, C. M., Moretti, M., Tarquinia: La Tomba delle Olimpiadi, Milan, 1959Google Scholar (the name only signifies that the tomb was found at the time of the Rome Olympics); Moretti, M., Nuovi Monumenti di Pittura Etrusca, Milan, 1966Google Scholar (another chariot-race by the same painter, more fragmentary); Banti, L., Etruscan Cities and their Culture, London, 1973, pl. 2aGoogle Scholar for an old drawing of the tomb of the Deposito de' Dei. For terracotta friezes, perhaps originating from Veii, probably late sixth century, see Andren, A., ‘Osservazioni sulle terracotte architectoniche etrusco-italiche’, Opuscula Romana viii (1974) 1Google Scholar, who argues that in spite of East Greek influence they reflect religious realities in Italy. The best preserved (bigae with a triga, unGreek) is from Velletri, where it is not likely to have been created; a fragment from Rome itself, pl. VII fig. 20; charioteer not preserved, but doubtless dressed like those from Velletri in a short coloured tunic. It should be added that paintings prove that women were among the spectators in Etruria, as Ovid above all shows they were in Rome; they were absent at least from the most important Greek festivals. Some Etruscan vases show charioteers with long tunics, but are perhaps close copies of Greek pottery scenes: Beazley, J. D., Etruscan Vase Painting, Oxford 1947, pl. 30. 3, 34. 4Google Scholar. The Arnoaldi situla from Bologna, early fourth century, has five chariots, probably at the games, with drivers in long tunics, but caps: Saulnier, op. cit. in n. 5, 80; it probably reflects local life.

For Lucania see Sestieri, P. C., ‘Tombe Dipinte di Paestum’, Riv. Ist. Arch, v/vi (1956–1957) 65Google Scholar and Napoli, M., Il Museo di Paestum, Naples, 1969, tav xxv, xxvii, xxix, perhaps iGoogle Scholar; all from the later fourth century. The charioteers' dress varies, but is often a white tunic, long or more often short, with red borders; sometimes a short red tunic. Bronson argues that the paintings suggest that their artists did not understand and had not often seen races.

29a Numismatic evidence probably proves this for Syracuse: Tudeer, L. O. T., Die Tetradrachmenprägung von Syrakus, Berlin 1913Google Scholar, passim: clear pictures in Jenkins, G. K., Ancient Greek Coins, London 1972Google Scholar.

30 Peter HRR frag. 16.

31 Livy XXXI. 9.

32 Ap. Ascon. In Tog. Cand. 71 St. The Thesaurus suggests that this is a barbarian name (cf. Scorpus, Syme, R., ‘Scorpus the Charioteer’, AJAH ii (1977) 86Google Scholar). Buculus might suggest a hefty chap, a young bullock; Bucolus is attested as a slave name in Rome (Gk. Βουκόλος); Caesar had a centurion Baculus, P. Sextius, BG II. 25 etcGoogle Scholar.

33 Pliny, NH VII. 186Google Scholar dates the episode not long after the death of a Lepidus, caused by the infidelity of his wife Appuleia (cf. VII. 122). He is usually thought to be the consul of 78 B.C. (cf. Plut., Pomp. 16. 9Google Scholar, wife unnamed); so e.g. Criniti, M., M. Aimilius Q.f. M.n. Lepidus: ut ignis in stipula, Milan 1969, 330 and 444–5Google Scholar. Republican historians like to infer a link with the popularis tribune L. Appuleius Saturninus. But Hirschfeld, O., Kl. Schr., Berlin, 1913, 685Google Scholar thinks it unlikely that the scene at Felix' funeral would be mentioned in the acta, as Pliny says it was, until the imperial period; these were perhaps confined to official notices when introduced by Caesar in 59 B.C.—nearly twenty years after the death of the consul of 78, n.b. (Suet. DJ 20). Hirschfeld notes the Apuleia Varilla condemned for adultery in 17 A.D.; her husband is unknown. A charioteer's record-breaking victory in the acta under the Empire, CIL VI, 10048, 13; Baldwin, B., ‘The acta diurna’, Chiron ix (1979) 189Google Scholar, does not note this, or discuss Felix' date.

34 Ovid Amores III. 2, Ars Am. I. 145.

35 Note CIL VI 10046, probably from the spelling not post-Augustan. This familia simply identifies itself as that of T. At(eius) Capito and P. Annius Chelidonius; unless we read panni chelidonii with CIL and take the reference to be to one of the colours—cf. panni russei CIL V 10045; Lucian, 33 has Chelidonius as a name, if a ridiculous one, for a cinaedus. The attempt to connect the word, as an adjective, with Domitian's short-lived purple faction, is desperate, and runs into dating problems. Better, a fancy equivalent of russeus, a sense in which it seems to be attested, though rare, in Greek (LSJ s.v. II 2, cf. Pliny, NH XXXVII 155Google Scholar).

Probably somewhat later the familia of C. Ceionius Maximus is further identified as panni russei (above); perhaps it did not make up the whole of the factio. But usually, perhaps only from a slightly later period, members of a racing familia are simply described as from a certain colour; the only certain domini of a faction are third-century drivers who have perhaps bought their way into the now surely tightly organised factio. (But we may guess that L. Avillius Planta, owner of the well-known driver Thallus in the late first century A.D. was a dominus of some kind; other members of the red factio are freedmen of an Avillius or descended from such: CIL VI 621, 10054, 10069, 10077.)

The Atei Capitones may possible have come from Castrum Novum on the Etruscan coast, where a municipal magistrate of the name undertook extensive building works, perhaps under Augustus; but L. Ateius Capito, who became praetor, and his son the jurist C. Ateius Capito cos. suff. 5 A.D. are Aniensis by tribe, and Castrum Novum may possibly have been in the Voltinia (L. R. Taylor, VDRR 194); for the son's tribe now M. Malavolta, ‘A proposito del nuovo s.c. da Larino’, Sesta Misc. Grec. e Rom., 1978, 347 (I owe the reference to Prof. F. Millar). The praenomen T. is not otherwise attested among the Atei Capitones, and there is no reason to think the dominus a senator; but Castrum Novum, near Caere, might be suited to breeding horses, like other parts of the Maremma.

36 Livy XL. 44. 12. See Veyne, P., Le Pain et le Cirgue, Paris 1976, 387 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. on lucar, the money voted by the senate for the games, at any rate for ludi scaenici.

37 Asc. loc. cit. 69. 72St.

38 At Caesar's games in 46 nobilissimi iuvenes similarly drove four- and two-horse chariots and competed in the races for desultores (who jumped from one horse to another: sometimes thought to be respectable, as related to military training). Could P. Sepullius Macer, moneyer in 44, showing Caesar's and then Antony's head on the obverse, and, on several coins, a desultor on the reverse with crown and palm in token of victory, have been a winner on that occasion? Crawford RRC no. 480.20–22 suggests reference to the Parilia of 44, now a celebration of Munda; Alföldi, A., Essays… Mattingly, London, 1956, 91Google Scholar thinks Sepullius gave games—but he is surely too young and unimportant (a wine-growing family at Patavium? Wiseman CQ,xiv (1964) 130). When coins record the holding of games, specific tokens of victory do not appear; a general reference to the Parilia would not require them either.

Perhaps the historian Claudius Quadrigarius was one of those competing at Sulla's games; or else his (rare) cognomen means he owned chariots. He seems to have no connection with any noble Claudii, whom his work does not favour; but is hardly a freedman, since Suet, , de gramm. 27. 2Google Scholar says the first freedmen to write history was Voltacilius Pilutus (or whatever his name was) who celebrated Pompey and his father. Certainly one would not expect a professional charioteer, or even a freedman horse-breeder, to write history. In fact charioteers were not automatically infamis, and there seems to have been no attempt in the Empire to ban members of senatorial and equestrian families from acting as such; contrast the stage and the arena (Malavolta, loc. cit. in n. 35). However from the late Republic Romans sometimes entered Greek competitions; so in the late 2nd or early 1st century B.C. C. Octavius Pollio won a horse-race and had himself announced as a Telmessian (L. Robert, ‘Catalogue agonistique des Romaia de Xanthus’, Rev. Arch. (1978) 277); the first we know to win with a chariot, perhaps the future Eurperor Tiberius, before 4 A.D., see Cameron, Circus Factions 205: he thinks some may have been drivers, ‘amateurs barred from the Roman circus’ (Nero, however, was able to drive for the Greens, Dio LXII 6. 3). All perhaps however had lands, and bred horses, in the East.

39 Varro, RR IIGoogle ScholarPraef. 6: pecuarias … grandes … ovarias … et equarias. His lack of interest in this work in race-horses, which he just notes require special characteristics (II. 7. 15) makes it clear that this great horse-breeder did not raise them, though they were very lucrative by Columella's day (VI. 27. 1).

40 We do not know where; Apulia and Lucania are attested horse-breeding areas where pastores were a serious problem.

41 Phil. II. 25. 62. See Mayor-Halm, ed. 1861, ad. loc.

42 Treggiari, S., Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic, Oxford, 1969, 140Google Scholar assumes Sergius was a freedman. ILLRP 465 probably shows a freedman taking a public contract for restoring a road.

43 Ed. 1926, ad. loc.

44 Fasti Amiternini, for 14 Sept, and 14 Nov. (ed. Degrassi, A., Inscr. ltal. XIII. 2. 185Google Scholar—Tiberian in date). Probatio was an essential stage in a public contract, at least where the contractor was paid to provide goods or services—does it therefore suggest that this type of contract was still being used ? To be registered in the Fasti, however, the ceremony must have been a public and solemn one. Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, London, 1969, 248Google Scholar seems to confuse the probatio equorum with the transvectio equitum of the Ides of Quintilis (DH, from Fabius, see n. 30. records citizen boys riding in the preliminary pompa, something different again).

45 Bowersock, G., Augustus and the Greek World, Oxford, 1975, 10Google Scholar; Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor, Princeton, 1950, 429, 1278Google Scholar.

46 Appuleius, , Apol. 75. 9Google Scholar (the wife's lovers give the husband presents) ita ei lecti sui contumelia vectigalis est. This is taken as ‘bringing in revenue’ by Butler and Owen, ed. 1914, ad loc, with appeals to our two passages and Tertullian (below); but one could as well look at the event from the opposite end and see the contumelia as paying a tax. As for Tertullian, (Apol. 18. 9Google Scholar: sed et Iudaei palam lectitant. vectigalis libertas; vulgo additur omnibus sabbatis. qui audierit, inveniet Deum.); in fact Walzing (19612), Glover (1931) and Becker (19622) all take the word in its usual sense, Glover explicitly and the others presumably referring it to the tax paid by the Jews to the fiscus Iudaicus for the free exercise of their religion; the other sense would be possible (by going to the reading of the Scriptures one gains profit by finding God) but the intervening phrase (vulgo … sabbatis) would be awkward.

47 Plut., Cato Min. 46. 3Google Scholar (see n. 36 above, on lucar). We know owners of gladiators simply hired them out (Cic., ad Att. IV. 4aGoogle Scholar) but expensive prizes were not given here; nor were munera in the Republican period State festivals.

48 Suet., Nero 5. 2Google Scholar. The grandfather, 4. 1 (estates in the Maremma again, as it happens, at least in the preceding generation: Caesar, BC I. 34Google Scholar, Cic., ad Att. IX. 6Google Scholar. 2, 9. 3 cf. ILLRP 915; not that one could pasture horses on Igilium or the Monte Argentario, but Domitian property may have extended to the mainland.) Aurigarii defined as grooms by the glossographers, see TLL s.v. At least here are people other than drivers being paid (or tipped) with prize money.

49 Dio LXI. 6; McDermott, W. C., ‘Fabricius Veiento’, AJP xci (1970), 129Google Scholar.

50 CIL VI 10048. Drexel, F., in Friedländer, L., Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms 9 and 10 IV, 182 (1921Google Scholar), Regner, in RE Suppl. VII 1637Google Scholar and Balsdon, op. cit. in n. 43, assume that the factions took part of the prize, but I find no evidence, unless quaestum rettulit (CIL VI 10050) means ‘brought it home to the factio’. For Martial, e.g. IV. 67. 5.

51 As asserted by Mommsen, , StR III 899Google Scholar n. 1, cf. 509, who suggests the ban was made in the period covered by Livy's lost second decade.

52 Badian, E., Publicans and Sinners, Oxford, 1972, 101, 120, 151Google Scholar. He notes that in Cic., II Verr. I 144, 150Google Scholar we find an ex-consul, D. Brutus, associated as praes with a client's bid for the contract for the upkeep of the Temple of Castor. I am not sure how relevant this is. (The client is a homo de plebe Romana, though with equestrian relations.)

Nicolet, C., L'Ordre Equestre I, Paris, 1966, 330Google Scholar had thought he had another senatorial praes for a public contract, at Cicero, ad fam. V. 20Google Scholar. 3–4, but see Shackleton Bailey ad loc.: M. Anneius is probably the legate standing surety (not Volusius, probably only a praefectus) and it is not certain that he was a senator, as legati were not necessarily so (Schleussner, B., Die Legaten der Römischen Republik, Munich, 1978, 153 ff.Google Scholar); his financial dealings in Asia, , ad fam. XIII. 55Google Scholar, suggest equestrian rank. Nicolet says that senators could contract to provide the horses for a triumphator's chariot; perhaps, but does the term equus curulis cover this? Racehorses would be most unsuitable, of course.

53 Pliny, NH XXXV. 14Google Scholar; a Cn. Aufidius was tribune in 170 and there are later senatorial Aufidii.

54 Dio undoubtedly means the Ludi Magni or Romani rather than the Ludi Capitolini, which may indeed have been in honour of Jupiter Feretrius, not Jupiter Capitolinus, and which were organised by a collegium of residents on the Capitol and Arx, not by the State, see Wissowa RKR 117 (and for the Equirria and other religious games, 405 n. 1, 450). For the Ludi Martiales see now Simpson, C. J., ‘The date of Dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor’, JRS lxvii (1977) 91Google Scholar. One might note that games ἔξ ἴσου τοῖς were voted on Augustus' death, to be held on his birthday, Dio LVI. 46. 4.

55 For the early Augustan period, one is constrained to wonder whether Agrippa, who was of course a senator, provided horses for the races. As Coarelli, op. cit. in n. 4 notes, four of the five freedmen in T. Ateius Capito's familia quadrigaria (CIL VI 10046) are M. Vipsanii (their precise occupation unfortunately not attested); he thinks Agrippa may have built or rebuilt the stabula on the Campus Martius which were later those of the Greens and Blues, and probably on the land which had once been part of his property there (for which see esp. CIL VI 29781, a private road of his). See also n. 4 above on the Trigarium. Coarelli thinks Agrippa may have re-organized the ludi circenses in general; certainly as aedile in 33 B.C. he improved the Circus, adding the dolphins moved to mark the number of laps run (Dio XLIX. 43, also attributing to him the eggs used for the same purpose, but Livy says these were introduced in 174, XLI. 27. 6). One might add that we know from Dio LV. 8. 4 that Agrippa's sister Polla could be identified as .

Other interests of Agrippa (the Roman water-supply, his estates in the Chersonese) are reflected in the names and occupations of his epigraphically attested freedmen; I also note M. Vipsanius Narcissus, rogator ab scaena (CIL 10094), and it may be that while Maecenas controlled Augustan propaganda at an exalted level, M. Agrippa, who was very popular with the plebs, took an interest in the stage and circus. But it is possible that he only had stables for practical purposes and/or private amusement: Wiseman, ‘Strabo on the Campus Martius', n. 4 above, envisages young Romans driving chariots for pleasure further east on the Campus Martius, along the present-day Corso. Agrippa on a number of occasions presided over very grand games, and Reinhold, M., Marcus Agrippa, Geneva, N.Y., 1933, 155Google Scholar, concludes that he was interested in such matters.

Unfortunately CIL VI 3051* and 3052* are stigmatized as falsae Ligorianae by the editor, who had seen ectypa (the stones now in the Museum at Naples); the first lists several freedmen M. Vipsanii, including Felix, an agitator (identical with, or merely based on, Pliny's Felix, n. 33 above?); the second is a similar list, including M. Vipsanius Eros, an aurigator (perhaps just possible, see Pollack PW II 2849), also a tentor and a succonditor, attested as jobs in racing familiae, and a M. Vipsanius Rufinus medicus fact. Veneta(e). Ligorio's reputation stands higher these days than it did (see Mandowsky, E. and Mitchell, C., Pirro Ligorio's Roman Antiquities, London, 1963Google Scholar; Reynolds, J. M., ‘Mura di S. Stefano, Anguillara: The Inscriptions’, Roman Villas in Italy, ed. Painter, K., London, 1980, 83Google Scholar) but he could well have been misled by forgeries inspired by CIL 10046 (as suggested ad loc.): M. Vipsanius Migio reappears in 3052* (here specified as a viator) but is hardly likely to be genuinely recorded on two funerary inscriptions, and it is not easy to suppose a son or other relative with this rare name, though perhaps not impossible.

56 Pauli Sententiarum Fragmentum Leidense, edd. Archi, G. G., etc., Leiden, 1956, 3–4Google Scholar. Not known to Nicolet (who thinks senators could provide horses for all the games) or Badian.

57 Cic. In Vat. 29, pro Rab. Post. 8. It had at least 101 chapters, ad fam. VIII. 8. 3.

58 The Lex Claudia of 218, cf. Cic., In Verr. II. v. 18. 45Google Scholar.

59 Serrao, F., Il Frammento Leidense di Paolo, Milan, 1956Google Scholar. Archi, reviewing Serrao, in Stud, et Doc. Hist, et Iuris xxiii (1975) 423Google Scholar rejects his thesis. Brunt, P. A., ‘Charges of Provincial Maladministration in the Early Principate’, Historia x (1961) 189Google Scholar doubts if all the statements in the Fragment go back to the original Lex Julia (197 n. 5) but accepts that sections 3–4 may do so; cf. id. ‘Evidence given under Torture in the principate’, ZSS cxi (1980) 257 n. 8, Severan jurists write as if this law was applicable to all officials, not senators alone as in Caesar's day. In the Empire, one should note, local councillors could take no public contracts at all (D. 50. 2. 6. 2).

60 Dio LVI. 25.6; Tac., Ann. XV. 20–22Google Scholar.

61 Cic., ad fam. III. 8. 2–4Google Scholar, 10. 6.

62 I do not at all understand the passage of Varro, attributed to a work de rebus populi Romani (de vita p.R.?) by Servius, on Vergil, , Georg. III. 18Google Scholar, to the effect that olim there were 25 missus, separate races, and the 25th was called aerarius as it was paid for by a collection from the People; it has ceased to be so financed but the name remains. But Livy XLIV 9.4 holds that in 169 B.C. there was only one race of quadrigae at a festival (he does not mention bigae), and DH VII. 73 (Fabius Pictor frag. 16) talks of the race, ὁ δρόμος, of quadrigae, bigae and unyoked horses. This fits our evidence for the imperial period; before Caligula there were only ten races on a single day, Dio LIX. 7; under Claudius the number 24 was often reached, LX. 27. All one can adduce in support of the supposed statement of Varro is that the Ludi Apollinares were orginally paid for by a stips, Livy XXV. 12. 14, cf. Festus 21L.

The number of missus, races, must not be confused with that of curricula, laps: Gellius, A.NA III. 10. 16Google Scholar, also from Varro, et curricula ludorum circensium sollemnia septem esse (which is certainly right).