Circus Maximus: Some Texts

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 3. 68: Tarquin [fifth king of Rome] also built the largest of the Circuses, which lies between the Aventine and Palatine hills ... in the course of time this work was to become one of the most beautiful and remarkable buildings in Rome; the Circus being 3.5 stadia long [2100 feet] and four plethra wide [400 feet]. There is a canal around it on the two long sides and on one of the shorter ones: this is ten feet wide and ten feet deep. Behind this are three tiers . . . seating 150,000 persons. On the outside of the Circus there is another portico of one storey, which has shops with apartments over them. These have entries and stairways for the spectators at each shop, so that thousands of people may enter or leave without congestion. Pliny Naturalis Historia 36. 102: Suppose we omit from our great achievements the Circus Maximus, (re)built by Julius Caesar, three stades long and one broad, but covering three acres of building space and with seating for 350.000 .... Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XIV. 2884 (Rome, 146 A.D.) Gaius Appuleius Diocles, Charioteer of the Red Stable, a Lusitanian Spaniard by birth, aged 42 years, 7 months, 23 days. He drove his first charuiot for the White Stable in [122 A.D.]; he won his first victory for the same Stable in [124 A.D.]. He drove for the first time for the Green Stable in [128 A.D.]. He won his first victory for the Red Stable in [131 A.D.]. Grand Totals: He drove chariots for 24 years, started 4,,257 times, won 1,462 times, of which 110 were in the opening race. In single-entry races he won 1,064 victories, winning 92 major purses 32 of them (including three with six-horse teams) at 30,000 sesterces. 28 of them (including two with six-horse teams) at 40,000 sesterces. 29 of them (including one with a seven-horse team) at 50,000 sesterces. 3 of them at 60,000 sesterces. In two-entry races he won 347 victories, including four with three-horse teams, at 15,000 sesterces. In three-entry races he won 51 victories. He won or placed 2,900 times, taking 861 second-places, 576 third-places, and 1 fourth-place at 1000 sesterces. He tied a Blue for first-place 10 times and a White 91 times, twice for 30,000 sesterces. He won a total of 35,863, 120 sesterces. In addition, in races with two-horse teams for 1000 sesterces, he won three times, and tied a White once and a Green twice. He took the lead and won 815 times, came from behind to win 67 times, and won under handicap 35 times, won in various styles 42 times, land won in a final dash 502 times—216 over the Greens, 205 over the Blues, 81 over the Whites. He made nine horses 100-time winners, and one horse a 200-time winner. Juvenal, The Satires 10, lines 77-81: "The People have long ago shed their anxieties—since we stopped selling our votes. That Sovereign People, who once disposed of everything–power, fasces, the legions–now restrains itself to two objects of prayer: the grain-dole and the shows in the Circus (panem et circenses).