According to Pausanias, the following was the method of starting:—The chariots entered the course according to order, previously settled by lot, and drew up in a line. They started at a signal given, and to him who passed the pillar at the top of the course twelve times, and that at the bottom ten times, in the neatest manner, without touching it, or overturning his chariot, was the reward given.—As, however, it was the aim of every one who started to make for this pillar, as to a centre, we can easily imagine the confusion there must have been in forty, twenty, or even ten chariots, all rushing to one given point, amidst the clanging of trumpets, &c.
The following translation of a description of a chariot-race, from the Electra of Sophocles, is worthy of a place.
“When on the sacred day, in order next
Came on the contest of the rapid car,
As o’er the Phocian plain the orient sun
Shot his impurpled beams, the Pythic course
Orestes enter’d, circled with a troop
Of charioteers, his bold antagonists.
One from Achaia came; from Sparta one;