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Updated: June 24, 2025
Timoleon died B.C. 337—a father and benefactor—and the Syracusans solemnized his funeral with lavish honors, which was attended by a countless procession, and passed a vote to honor him for all future time with festive matches, in music and chariot-races, and such gymnastics as were practiced at the Grecian games.
Then a roar of wheels sounds outside, and you drop the bell-rope handle and go out to see the finest sight of all. I suppose those old Romans thought the chariot-races were pretty nifty, but if an old Roman should reassemble himself and watch the dray-race to a Homeburg fire, he'd wonder how he ever managed to sit through a silly little dash around an arena.
At the thought of that glorious year my pen fails me. Why mention the dread possibility of the negro-worshiper Lincoln being elected the very next month? Why listen, to the rumblings in the South? Pompeii had chariot-races to the mutterings of Vesuvius. St. Louis was in gala garb to greet a Prince. That was the year that Miss Virginia Carvel was given charge of the booth in Dr.
Before we read the story of the other conquests we must inquire who the Roman people were and how they lived. A man's wealth was reckoned according to the number of cattle he owned. Their manner of living was simple and frugal. Like the Greek, the Roman had his games. He enjoyed chariot-races, but used slaves or freedmen as drivers.
Another great building was the Circus Maximus, built to hold the crowds that watched the chariot-races, and at one time having seats for two hundred thousand persons. In their amusements the Romans became more and more vulgar, excitable, and cruel. Some equally splendid buildings were used for better things.
There were to be sacrifices to Consus, where libations would be poured into the flames that consumed the victims. These would be followed by horse-and chariot-races, banquets, and other festivities.
In the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the Aventine itself.
The other side is fully decorated with victories in the spandrils, festoons and chariot-races on the frieze, and the attic develops three pedestals for statues, inscribed to members of the family of Salvia Postumia, who erected it in honour of her husband, Lucius Sergius, his father of the same name, and his uncle Cnæus Sergius. Lucius Sergius was tribune of the 29th Legion.
There were plays in the theatres; there were contests of running, wrestling, boxing, throwing of spears and disks, and other "events," corresponding to our athletic sports; there were chariot-races in the Circus, answering to our horse-races at Epsom or Newmarket; and there were spectacles in the amphitheatre, to which, happily, we have no modern parallel.
It was supposed that the impoverishment of Athens would prevent her from appearing with any splendor at this festival, but that city astonished Greece by her ample show of golden ewers, censers, etc., in the sacrifice and procession, while in the chariot-races Alcibiades far distanced all competitors.
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