Hippodrŏmus
（
ἱππόδρομος). The name by which the Greeks designated the
place appropriated to the horse-races, both of chariots and of single horses, which formed a
part of their games. The word was also applied to the races themselves.
The mode of fighting from chariots, as described by Homer, involves the necessity of much
previous practice; and the funeral games in honour of Patroclus present us with an example of
the chariotrace, occupying the first and most important place in those games (
Il. xxiii. 262-650). In this vivid description the nature of the
contest and the arrangements for it are very clearly indicated. There is no artificially
constructed hippodrome; but an existing landmark or monument (
σῆμα) is chosen as the goal (
τέρμα), round which
the chariots had to pass, leaving it on the left hand, and so returning to the Greek ships on
the sea-shore, from which they had started. The course thus marked out was so long that the
goal, which was the stump of a tree, could only be clearly seen by its having two white stones
leaning against it, and that, as the chariots return, the spectators are uncertain which is
first (450 foll.: the passage furnishes a precedent for betting at a horse-race, 485). The
ground is a level plain, but with its natural inequalities, which are sufficient to make the
light chariots leap from the ground, and to threaten an overthrow where the earth was broken
by a winter torrent, or a collision in the narrow hollow way thus formed. The chariots were
five in number, each with two horses and a single driver, who stood upright in his chariot.
See
Currus.
In a race of this nature, success would obviously depend quite as much on the courage and
skill of the driver as on the speed of the horses. At starting, it was necessary so to direct
the horses as, on the one hand, to avoid the loss of time by driving wide of the straightest
course, and on the other not to incur the risk of a collision in the crowd of chariots, nor to
make so straight for the goal as to leave insufficient room to turn it. Here was the critical
point of the race, to turn the goal as sharply as possible, with the nave of the near wheel
almost grazing it, and to do this safely; very often the driver was here
thrown out, and the chariot broken in pieces. There was another danger at this point, which
deserves particular notice as connected with the arrangements of the hippodrome of later
times. As the horse is easily scared, it can readily be understood that the noise and crush of
many chariots turning the goal together, with the additional confusion created by the
overthrow of some of them, would so frighten some of the horses as to make them unmanageable;
and this is expressly referred to by Homer. Among the other disasters to which the competitors
were liable were: the loss of the whip; the reins escaping from the hands; the breaking of the
pole; the light chariot being overturned, or the driver thrown out of it, through the
roughness of the ground, or by neglecting to balance the body properly in turning the goal,
and the being compelled to give way to a bolder driver, for fear of a collision; but it was
considered foul play to take such an advantage. The prizes, as in the other Homeric games,
were of substantial value, and one for each competitor. The charioteer accused of foul play
was required to lay his hand upon his horses, and to swear by Poseidon, the patron deity of
the race, that he was guiltless. This description is shown by the following illustration from
an antique Greek vase, in which is seen the goal as a mere stone post, with a fillet wound
round it; the form of the chariots and the attitude of the drivers is well shown; each has
four horses, as in the earliest Olympic chariot-race; and the vividness of the representation
is increased by the introduction of the incident of a horse having got loose from the first
chariot, the driver of which strives to retain his place with the others (Panofka,
Bilder antiken Lebens, pl. iii. No. 10).
In no other writer is there a description, at once so vivid and so minute, of the Greek
chariotrace as this of Homer's; and it may be safely assumed that, with a few points of
difference, it will give an equally good idea of a chariot-race at Olympia or any other of the
great games of later times. The chief points of difference were the greater compactness of the
course, in order that a large body of spectators might view the race with convenience, and the
greater number of chariots. The first of these conditions involved the necessity of making the
race consist of several double lengths of the course, instead of only one; the second required
some arrangement by which the chariots
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Chariot-race. (From a Vase-painting.)
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might start without confusion and on equal terms. It is now to be seen how these
conditions were satisfied in the hippodrome at Olympia, of which the only description we
possess is in two passages of Pausanias (v. 15.4; vi. 20.7 foll.).
The following is the ground-plan which Hirt (pl. xx. fig. 8) has drawn out from the
description
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Ground-plan of Hippodrome at Olympia. (Hirt. )
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of Pausanias: A, B, the sides; C, the rounded end of the hippodrome, with raised
seats for the spectators (the dotted line D
d is the axis of the
figure);
a, place of honour for the magistrates and musicians;
b, side door, perhaps for the exit of disabled chariots and horses;
c, seats for the Hellanodicae, the judges of the games;
d, principal entrance, corresponding to the
porta triumphalis in a
Roman circus; D, the starting-place;
e, its apex;
f,
g, its curved sides;
h, i, etc., up to
l,
stations of the chariots, their directions converging towards the point E; F, G, the goals, or
turningposts; H, the spina;
p, p, small intervals between the spina and
the goals;
q, the winning line;
m, dolphin used
as a signal;
n, altar, with eagle for signal;
o, o,
o, portico of Agnaptus.
The general form of the hippodrome was an oblong, with a semicircular end, C, and with the
right side, A, somewhat longer than the left, B, for a reason to be stated presently. The
right side, A, was formed by an artificial mound; the left, B, by the natural slope of a hill.
The base of the fourth side, D, was formed by the portico of Agnaptus, so called from its
builder. At this end of the hippodrome was the starting-place (
ἄφεσις), in the form of the prow of a ship, with its apex,
e, towards the area, and each of its sides more than 400 feet long. Along both of these
sides were stalls (
οἰκήματα) for the chariots about to
start, like the
carceres in the Roman circus; and it was in the
arrangement of these stalls that the peculiarity of the Greek starting-place consisted.
According to the view which we follow, the stalls were so arranged as that the pole of each
chariot, while standing in its stall, was directed to a normal point E, at which, as nearly as
possible, each chariot ought to fall into its proper course. As this point, E, was necessarily
on the right side of the area (in order to turn the goal on the left hand),
and as the corresponding stalls on each side were required to be equidistant from the apex,
e (as will presently be seen), and of course also from the point E, it
follows that the base of the
aphesis must have been perpendicular to
the line E
e, and therefore oblique to the axis D
d; and this is the reason why the side A was longer than the side B. The curvature of
the sides of the aphesis,
f, g, is a conjectural arrangement, assumed
as that which was probably adopted to give more space to each chariot at starting. The front
of each stall had a cord drawn across it, and the necessary arrangements were made for letting
these cords fall at the right moments. On the signal being given for the race to begin, the
cords in front of the two extreme stalls,
h, h, were let fall
simultaneously, and the two chariots started; then those of the next pair; and so on, each
pair of chariots being liberated at the precise moment when those which had already started
came abreast of their position; and when all the chariots formed an even line abreast of the
apex of the
aphesis, e, it was a fair start. This arrangement of the
aphesis was the invention of the statuary Cleoetas, and was improved by
Aristeides, perhaps the famous painter.
Precisely the same arrangements were made for the start in the race of single horses
(
κέλητες);
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Race-horse. (Mosaic found near Constantine.) Inscription: Vincas non vincas te
amamus, Polidoxe.
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and in both cases, as in the race described by Homer, the stalls were assigned to
the competitors by lot. How many chariots usually started cannot be determined, but that the
number was large is proved by the well-known story that Alcibiades alone sent to one race
seven chariots. Sophocles (
Elect. 701-708) mentions ten chariots as running at
once in the Pythian games; and the number at Olympia was no doubt greater than at any of the
other games. This is probably the reason why the arrangements of a starting-place were so much
more complicated in the Greek hippodrome than they were in the Roman circus. (See
Circus.) About the centre of the triangular area of the
aphesis there was an altar,
n, of rough brick,
which was plastered afresh before each festival, surmounted by a bronze eagle with
outstretched wings; and above the apex of the
aphesis was a bronze
dolphin,
m. As the signal for the race to begin, the eagle was made to
soar aloft, so as to be seen by all the spectators, and the dolphin sank to the ground.
The chariots, thus started, had to pass several times round two goals (
νύσσαι), the distinction between which is one of the difficult points in the
description of Pausanias. On the whole, it seems most probable that the one which he describes
as having a bronze statue of Hippodameia holding out the victor's fillet as if about to crown
Pelops with it, was the one nearer to the
aphesis, and abreast of the
winning line, F; and that the other, G, round which the chariots made their first turn, was
that which Pausanias calls “Taraxippus, the terror of the horses.” This
was a round altar, dedicated to Taraxippus, who was supposed to strike a supernatural terror
into the horses as they passed the spot, and whom, therefore, the charioteers sought to
propitiate, before the race began, by offering sacrifices and making vows at this altar.
Pausanias gives various accounts as to who this Taraxippus was; some modern scholars take the
word for an appellation of Poseidon Hippius. He was similarly honoured in the Isthmian
hippodrome. At Nemea there was no such hero, but above the turning-point of the course there
was a bright-red rock, which was supposed to frighten the horses. There are several
vasepaintings on which chariots or single horses are exhibited turning the goal, which is
represented as a Doric or Ionic column. (See Panofka,
Bilder antiken Lebens,
pl. iii.) One of these is shown in the following illustration, which exhibits a vivid picture
of a race of single horses. The last rider has been unlucky in turning the goal.
There is no authority in the account of Pausanias for the connecting wall, H, between the
goals, nor does he state that the winning line,
q, was marked out as a
white line; but these details are inserted from the analogy of the Roman circus. So also is
the oblique position of the line of the goals, as compared with the axis of the figure: of
course the greatest space was required at E, where the chariots were all nearly abreast of
each other.
Respecting the dimensions of the Olympic Hippodrome there is no precise information; but
from the length of the measure called
ἵππικον and on other
grounds, it seems probable that the distance from the starting-place to the goal, or perhaps,
rather, from one goal to the other, was two stadia, so that one double course was four stadia.
How many such double courses made up the whole race is not known. The width must have been at
least as great as the length of each side of the
aphesis—namely, more than 400 feet.
The chief points of difference between the Greek hippodrome and the Roman circus are the
smaller width of the latter, as only four chariots ran at
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Race of Single Horses. (Panofka.)
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once, and the different arrangement of the
carceres.
The periods at which the Olympic horse-races were instituted are mentioned under
Olympia.
Among the Romans the term was also applied to an enclosed space for riding and driving in,
attached to a garden or villa, and planted with trees (Pliny ,
Epist. v. 6.19,
32;
Mart. xii. 50, with Paley's note). See
Circus;
Currus.
