Chariot Race described in medieval poem

While chariot races are usually associated with Ancient Rome, they were still taking place long into the Middle Ages. A poem from the twelfth century gives us an exciting look at this sport.

The poem was written by Michael Hagiotheodorites after watching a chariot race take place at the Hippodrome in Constantinople on February 1, 1168. It was written to a friend who was living out in the countryside and could not make it to the Byzantine capital to watch.

Michael tells him to “watch, in your mind’s eye, a chariot race,” and begins by explaining how the horses and their charioteers got ready for the event. Each of them was designated by a colour – Blue, White, Red and Green, which seems to be a long-standing practice. Their teams prepared each chariot in a starting box:

After the horses were yoked together to their chariots,
the souls of the spectators were yoked together in awe.
The charioteers mounted the chariots,
holding horsewhips in their right hands,
controlling the reins with their left hands,
thus restraining the excitement of the horses on the right side
so they would not spring before the horses on the left side.

This race was taking place in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, of which today little is left. During the Middle Ages, this race track measured between 1200 and 1300 feet in length and 600 to 650 feet in width. The oval track had a circumference of 1000 feet and was surrounded by tiers of spectator seats, towering forty feet above the ground. It is believed the seating capacity was between 40,000 to 80,000, and if Hagiotheodorites is accurate, the tension mounted as the track official known as the mapparios readied them to begin:

And the latter immediately raised his hand in the air
and all at once the audience, craving to watch,
rose from their roofed seats and from the tiers.
Great silence bridled the mouth of the theater as
if with a steady bridle.
You would have said that the hand of the mapparios
at this moment locked everybody’s mouths.

The doors to the starting boxes then opened and the race began. Blue was in the lead, followed by White, Green and Red. There was almost an accident before the first turn:

And when the Red ran forward from the starting boxes,
he collided with the right horse of the Green.
But the Green, thanks to his excellent skills,
having detached the right hoof [of the horse] from the wheel of Red,
drove behind the White
on the left of the Red charioteer,
thus opening a passage so he could drive near the statuettes.
This way the four charioteers
galloped towards the turning post itself.

Hagiotheodorites describes the action with the charioteers knocking into each other, hoping to drive their opponents off the course. It gives the impression of a rough sport. He continues:

And the rose-colored, having seen how the chariot
of the lily-colored White had dangerously cut him off,
spurred the horses with a whip to race faster.
And they ran as if they had wings,
keeping pace with the wheels [of the White]
and in this manner, these two ran alongside each other
and they both made a rattling noise
striking vehemently wheels against wheels.
And whipping eight horses at once,
they incited great applause from the audience.

Alas, we do not know who won the race, as after the next two lines the rest of the poem is lost. However, what we do have gives an exciting play-by-play account of what a chariot race must have been like.

You can read the entire poem, translated by Przemysław Marciniak and Katarzyna Warcaba, in Epistolary Poetry in Byzantium and Beyond: An Anthology with Critical Essays, edited by Krystina Kubina and Alexander Riehle. Marciniak and Warcaba also wrote the article, “Racing with rhetoric: a Byzantine ekphrasis of a chariot race,” which offers more insight into the poem. Published in the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift, you can read it here.

Top Image: Byzantine sculpture with chariot racing scenes at the Bode Museum – photo by Dosseman / Wikimedia Commons