In the 6th century BC King Tarquinius Priscus constructed the Circus Maximus for chariot racing and other forms of mass entertainment in the City. This, oldest and largest circus and public space in the City, lies in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills (Valle Murcia), legendary site of the rape of the Sabine women.
In an effort to populate his City, Romulus asked the Sabines to allow their daughters to marry the men of his new colony, and when his request was rejected, created a ruse to achieve his objective. He invited his Sabine neighbors to celebrate a festival of games held in honor of the god Neptune. They and their families accepted, and at his signal in the middle of the celebrations, armed Roman men seized and carried away the Sabine maidens.
War ensued and Sabines gained entry to the City because of the treachery of the Roman maiden, Tarpeia, who opened for them its gate in exchange for the metal bracelets worn on their left arms. She received her just reward, however, because once inside, the Sabines crushed her to death under the weight of the bronze shields they carried on their left arms.
A pitched battle took place around the Forum, halted only by the pleas of the Sabine women to remain with their Roman husbands. Since you didn’t save us when we were virgins, they said, you needn’t save us now. A treaty was concluded: the Sabines agreed to respect the wishes of their daughters to remain with their Roman husbands, and the Romans agreed to celebrate an annual mother’s day feast (Matronalia) in honor of their new spouses. In a later age (1st century BC), Cato the Younger, the statesman, bemoaned the precedent, claiming that it undermined value of traditional Roman manliness whereby Roman husbands should rule over their spouses.
The Circus created by Tarquinius Priscus would become the model for five others but always remained for the Roman people the first, grandest, and most prestigious. It served primarily as a racetrack and one of the first events held there hosted the Ludi Romani, celebrated in honor of Jupiter Maximus Optimus. It came to host public games (Ludi Romani) connected to religious festivals (Jupiter Optimus Maximus) sponsored by wealthy private citizens or the government to procure the blessing of the gods or the state to celebrate a military triumph.
These games consisted of diverse types (horse and chariot racing, foot races, plays and recitals, wild animal hunts, gladiatorial combats, mock sea battles, public executions) and their duration could vary from one to several days.
As the population of the City swelled in the imperial age, and with it the number of the unemployed, emperors used various forms of free entertainment and food as safety valve against public discontent (panem et circenses). Gradually they added more games to the calendar (Ludi Plebei and Ludi Florae), all holidays. In addition to those, Romans celebrated other holidays (feriae publicae) dedicated to various deities: the Lupercalia in February, Vulcanalia in August, and Saturnalia in December. During the reign of Augustus around three hundred horse races per year took place. Within a few decades (Caligula regime) that number soared to twenty-four per day. A kind of Roman ‘hippomania’ set in. By the mid-1st century over one hundred fifty-five days had become official holidays produced at very high costs and resulting not only in the great loss of productive labor but, as well, the softening of the traditional Roman character. The horse races took place not only here in the Circus Maximus, but also in two other venues, the Circus Flaminius in Campus Martius and the Circus Gaius (Caligula) on the Vatican Hill.
Spectators entered for free. Maximum capacity ranged from 150,000 at the time of Julius Caesar to 380,000 during the reign of Trajan a hundred years later. It became, thus, history’s biggest structure built for the entertainment of the general public. Oblong in shape, it measured two thousand feet long and thee hundred-eighty feet wide. Behind its straight west side stood “carceres”, stalls for the horses; at the opposite (east) end, the semi-circular track.
The “spina” whose base now lies buried twenty-five feet under the ground, rose in the center of the course, a low wall around which the horses ran.
Two pillars stood at its ends with two obelisks in the middle. In between these sat columns, statues and fountains. Augustus brought to the City from Heliopolis the first of many obelisks (Ramses II) transported to the City from Egypt: it now stands in Piazza del Popolo, set there by Pope Sixtus V in 1589.
Emperor Constantius II added the second obelisk (Thutmose III) in 357 AD. This, Rome’s tallest, came from Thebes, but later moved to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran by Pope Sixtus V in 1587. Seven white wooden “eggs” on one end and seven dolphins at the other, lowered one by one at each lap, indicated the number of laps made by the horses and riders. Four city teams (factiones) competed, each with its own color: white, red, green and blue. The races began at the stalls (carceres) at the u-shaped end of the course and ran seven laps around the track. From a platform midway down the long side of the track, judges watched over all competitions.
Special boxes for magistrates sat towards Tiber end of the Circus, and imperial boxes on the Palatine Hill. Emperor Claudius began the tradition of starting the games by tossing out a purple napkin, thereby establishing the historical precedent for the modern starting flags for races of all types.
The Circus burned to the ground twice (Nero/Domitian reigns), later rebuilt by Trajan, enlarged by Caracalla, and restored by Constantine. The popularity of the games gradually diminished with the spread of Christianity. The circuses’ last games took place in 549 AD during the Ostrogothic rule of Totila. In the Middle Ages the Frangipani built a fortress, the Torre della Moletta, over the carceres of the Circus. St.
Francis of Assisi resided in a private home there in 1223 during a visit to the City. The Circus site currently serves as a large public park and often the venue for concerts, exhibits, public gatherings, political speech making and protests.
In the early Middle Ages the entire area of the Circus was abandoned. Subject to frequent Tiber flooding it was given over the forces of nature. Its surface became mud covered and eventually buried under eight feet of dirt. In the late medieval period, however, the land was drained and made available for gardens, markets, and residences. Its stone remnants became a quarry for Renaissance buildings of all kinds beginning in the 15th century. Pope Sixtus V removed its two obelisks in the 16th century,: one went to the Lateran and the other to Piazza del Popolo. Sporadic excavations have been undertaken since the 20th century. Mussolini reclaimed the area in
1934, tore down the buildings which covered its surface, and relocated their residents. Excavations of the 21st century have uncovered brick sections of seating, shops, taverns, brothels, latrines and even portions of a triumphal arch. Today the expansive and breathtaking area serves as an open park and occasionally a venue for public rallies and cultural exhibits.
Obelisks
From its simple beginnings, the Circus Maximus had strong connections to religious beliefs and practices related to the sun. Because obelisks symbolized rays of the sun, the course of chariots around the spina resembled heavenly bodies moving around the sun and their seven laps associated with the days of the week. Obelisks, originally Egyptian, syenite (granite-like) pillars with quadrangular shafts and tapered, pyramidal, ends served, usually in pairs, as monuments at the entrances of their temples. Most were carved out of stone quarried at Aswan. Obelisks typically bore inscriptions on four flat sides with hieroglyphic dedications to and commemorations of the rulers. Tapered into an isosceles shaped pyramid at the top, they symbolize solar rays directed toward the sun and designed in this way to facilitate the resurrection of the deceased. Augustus transported the first two obelisks to the City after his victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC. In saw them as highly useful symbols of conquest and power and erected them in highly visible sites, one on the spina of the Circus Maximus (now in Piazza del Popolo).
The other he set as a sundial (gnomen) for his Horologium (sun marker) in Campus Martius, located now in front of Palazzo Montecitorio.
The popularity of obelisks in the City increased rapidly, as did the growing Roman fascination with exotic Egyptian goods of all kinds. Pliny wrote about obelisks at length in his book, Natural Histories. By the end of the Imperial era, at least fifteen obelisks stood in the City, eight Egyptian, the others, Roman creations, transported by several emperors (Augustus, Claudius, Caligula, Domitian, Hadrian, and Constantius II). Only thirteen now remain, the most in the world, even more than the total number in all of Egypt today. Hadrian alone sequestered four. The City’s obsession with obelisks made them an urban status symbol par excellence replicated, to some degree, in other important centers of the western world: Paris, London and New York. Two popes later resurrected many ancient obelisks and erected them as decorative pieces for building projects throughout the City. In the 16th century, Pope Sixtus V commissioned his talented engineer, Domenico Fontana to erect four: at St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and Piazza del Popolo. His plan, in part, was to create a “liturgical ring” connecting the major pilgrim churches in the City.
In the 18th century Pope Pius VI erected three: the Quirinal Hill, the church of Trinita dei Monti on top of the Spanish Steps, and at Montecitorio in front of the Parliament building. Some obelisks were paired: at the Circus Maximus (now at Piazza San Giovanni al Laterano and Piazza Maria del Popolo); the Isia Temple (now at Piazza Santa Maria sopra Minerva and Piazza Navona); the Augustus Mausoleuum (now at Piazza del Esquilino and Piazza del Quirinale).
Rome Rose Garden
Across the street from the Circus Maximus at the base of the Aventine Hill sits the Rose Garden, the park established in 1931 by the Mussolini regime to beautify the area between the Circus Maximus below and the Aventine Hill above. From 1645 until 1934, however, it served as the site the (Orto degli Ebrei Jewish cemetery) in the City, set close to the Ghetto. The cemetery remained there until 1934, when the government transferred graves of the dead there to Campo Verano, a cemetery made accessible to non-Catholics after 1870, the year of Italian Unification.
Pressured by the fascist regime, the Jewish community sold the area in 1934 to the city government to build a broad avenue (Via del Circo Massimo) along the edge of the Circus Maximus. Mussolini intended to glamorize the City and to showcase to the world its colossal ancient monuments. Excavators unearthed many Hebrew Bibles, some of which dated to the 15th century prior to the invention of printing. The Jewish community retained the best of these and reburied the others.
