Circus Maximus

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Circus Maximus first built 329 BC.
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Ludi Circenses

• Factiones 4 companies
• Red, White, Blue, Green
• Chariots light, 4-hours rigs
• Aurigae drivers (slaves or freedmen)
• Pompa began the ceremonies
• magistrates band dignitariesband
  drivers chariots bandimages of gods
• Races- 24 per day/ each 7 laps
• Fans - rabid

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• The races were on, a type of spectacle which has
  never had the slightest attraction for me. I can
  find nothing new or different in them once seen
  is enough, so it surprises me all the more that
  so many thousands of adult men should have such a
  childish passion for watching galloping horses
  and drivers standing in chariots, over and over
  again.... When I think how this futile, tedious,
  monotonous business can keep them sitting
  endlessly in their seats, I take pleasure in the
  fact that their pleasure is not mine. And I have
  been very glad to fill my idle hours with
  literary work during these days which others have
  wasted in the idlest occupations.
• 
  -Pliny the Younger

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• As Robert B. Kebric describes in his Roman
  People,
• Inside its four-story facade, the Circus was a
  maze of shops, rooms, stairways, and arcades.
  Throngs of people moved about the great interior
  corridor that provided access to any part of the
  structure. Vendors hawked their wares and sold
  refreshments and souvenirs and, of course, there
  were always prostitutes, gamblers, pickpockets,
  girl watchers, and drunks. Kebric also notes
  that, unlike today, the Empire had trouble
  conveying information to an illiterate public
  without mass media at its disposal. The Circus
  Maximus allowed emperors an opportunity to
  announce new laws or taxes likewise, the
  populace frequently aired its dirty laundry when
  horses weren't running. Contemporary historian
  Dio outlined a typical episode in 196 A.D. "The
  populace, however, could not restrain itself, but
  indulged in the most open lamentations... they
  shouted 'How long are we to suffer such things?'
  and 'How long are we to be waging war?' And after
  making some other remarks of this kind, they
  finally shouted, 'So much for that,' and turned
  their attention to the horse race."

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Charioteers
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• View of Circus