Its measurements, however, are known to us from a Greek metrological parchment manuscript in the old Seraglio, Constantinople, which dates from the eleventh century A. D.[1814] According to it the length of the course, i. e., from the starting-point to turning-post and return, was about 8 stades (1538 meters, 16 centimeters) or nearly 1 mile. One of the two sides—which Pausanias says were of unequal length[1815]—was 3 stades and 1 plethron long. The breadth of the course at the starting-point was 1 stade and 4 plethra. We are told, however, that only a portion of the entire course, six stades, or about two-thirds of a mile, was traversed in the various races.
The oldest literary account of a Greek chariot-race is found in Homer in the description of the games of Patroklos—the longest and finest episode there described.[1816] But the first trace of such a contest goes back to mythology, to the story of Pelops and Oinomaos contending for the hand of the latter’s daughter Hippodameia.[1817] This mythical race began at the village of Pisa in Elis and ended at the altar of Poseidon on the Isthmus of Corinth.[1818] The chariot-race was the chief if not the only event at the oldest funeral games in Greece, those mentioned by Pausanias as held in honor of Azan, the son of Arkas, in Arkadia.[1819] It figured largely in mythology[1820] and was represented in many works of art.[1821] At Olympia it was one of the earliest, and perhaps the earliest, of the events. Pausanias says that the four-horse chariot-race was introduced there in Ol. 25 ( = 680 B. C.),[1822] but this may merely mean, as Gardiner points out, the date of exchanging the older prehistoric two-horse chariot for the one drawn by four horses. In any case the antiquity of the race at Olympia is shown by the great number of early votive offerings in the form of models of chariots and horses, which have been found there in a stratum extending below the foundations of the Heraion.
PROGRAMME OF HIPPODROME EVENTS.
By the middle of the third century B. C. the fully developed programme of equestrian events at Olympia and elsewhere consisted of six races, three for full-grown horses (τέλειοι), and three for colts (πῶλοι); for each of these two classes there were a four-horse chariot-race (ἅρμα, τέθριππον), a two-horse chariot-race (συνωρίς), and a horse-race (κέλης), thus:
ἅρματι τελείῳ, συνωρίδι τελείᾳ, κέλητι τελείῳ.
ἅρματι πωλικῷ, συνωρίδι πωλικῇ, κέλητι πωλικῷ.
These six events comprised the ἀγὼν ἱππικός at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, Corinth, Athens, and elsewhere, as opposed to the ἀγὼν γυμνικός.[1823] The distinction between horses and colts was apparently a matter which was decided by the Hellanodikai at Olympia. Thus, Pausanias recounts how the Spartan victor Lykidas entered a pair of colts for the chariot-race, and that one of them was rejected by the judges; he thereupon entered both for the race with full-grown horses and won it.[1824] Though such a story does not fit the date of Lykidas, who won before the colt-race was introduced at Olympia, it shows the method of selection.[1825] The race in which the chariot was drawn by four full-grown horses (ἵππων τελείων δρόμος) was introduced, as we have seen, in Ol. 25. The contestants drove twelve times round the course, a distance of seventy-two stades or over eight miles.[1826] Pausanias mentions the monuments of eighteen such victors at Olympia for nineteen victories. The race in which the chariot was drawn by four colts (πώλων ἅρμα) was introduced in Ol. 99 ( = 384 B. C.),[1827] and extended eight times round the course, or about 5.5 miles.[1828] Pausanias mentions the monuments of only two such victors at Olympia.[1829] The race in which the chariot was drawn by pairs of full-grown horses (συνωρίς) was introduced in Ol. 93 (408 B. C.) and extended eight times round the course.[1830] Pausanias mentions but one victor in this event at Olympia[1831] and an Olympic victress who had a statue erected to her in Sparta for such a victory.[1832] This was probably the original chariot-race at Olympia revived in Ol. 93, since the two-horse chariot was the historical descendant of the Homeric war-chariot.[1833] Panathenaic vases show that this race existed at Athens in the sixth century B. C., side by side with the four-horse chariot-race and horseback-race. The earliest of these vases, the so-called Burgon vase in the British Museum,[1834] was a prize there for this event. The race in which the chariot was drawn by a pair of colts (συνωρὶς πώλων) was introduced at Olympia in the third century B. C., in Ol. 129 ( = 264 B. C.),[1835] and extended three times around the course. Pausanias mentions no monument erected to a victor in this race. The horse-race (ἵππος κέλης) was instituted in Ol. 33 ( = 648 B. C.)[1836], and the foal-race (πῶλος κέλης) nearly four centuries later, in Ol. 131 (256 B. C.).[1837] Neither of these races was known to Homer, for κελετίζειν in the Iliad,[1838] as we saw in Chapter I, refers only to the acrobatic feat of vaulting from the back of one horse to that of another. Pausanias mentions monuments erected to eight victors (for nine victories) in the regular horse-race at Olympia. We conclude from a passage of his work[1839] that the riding-race consisted of one lap only or six stades, about two-thirds of a mile. A mule chariot-race (ἀπήνη) was introduced in Ol. 70 ( = 500 B. C.), and a trotting-race with mares (κάλπη) in Ol. 71 ( = 496 B. C.), but both were abolished in Ol. 84 ( = 444 B. C.).[1840] Pausanias mentions one monument erected to an anonymous victor in κάλπη, who won some time between Ols. 72 and 84 ( = 492 and 444 B. C.).[1841] He mentions the first victor in the mule-race, Thersias of Thessaly, but this does not occur in his periegesis of the Altis.[1842] Only three other victors in this event are known to us, and they came from Sicilian towns.[1843]
Equestrian events were discontinued at Olympia in the first century B. C., owing to the waning of interest in athletics in consequence of the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B. C. They were revived thereafter under the Empire only spasmodically and were destined finally to be replaced by the amusements of the Roman circus. Thus we learn from the Armenian version of Africanus that the chariot-race ceased at Olympia in Ol. 178 ( = 68 B. C.). It must, however, have been reinstated toward the end of the century, since Tiberius Claudius Nero—afterwards the Emperor Tiberius—won in Ol. 194 ( = 4 B. C.).[1844] It again went into disuse, since Africanus says that it, πάλαι κωλυθείς, was reintroduced in Ol. 199 ( = 17 A. D., when Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius, won.[1845] Once more it was discontinued, and again renewed in Ol. 222 ( = 109 A. D.), according to the same authority, who, however, does not name any victor for that date. Just when this discontinuance took place, we can not say, but it was certainly after Ol. 211 ( = 65 A. D.), when the emperor Nero is known to have won victories in various kinds of chariot-races.[1846] Three Olympiads before, an Elean, Tiberios Klaudios Aphrodeisios, had also won the horse-race.[1847]
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CHARIOT-RACE.
PLATE 26
