The Chariot – history’s first personal transport concept

The tunnel had the additional advantage of offering a safe escape from the crowds for the emperor if things should ever turn ugly. On a holiday weekend in January 532AD, they did, and Emperor Justinian used the tunnel to escape the baying mob, then turned a near-bloodless coup against him into a thwarted one, and the ensuing carnage lasted three days and cost 30,000 lives.

Byzantium, nee Constantinople nee Instanbul had been the de facto center of chariot racing for the best part of a thousand years, but nothing it witnessed in that time quite compared with the Nika riots where three days of violence saw more bloodshed than many wars.

Chariot racing’s heritage is alive and well on the horse race tracks of the world – it is part of what has become horse racing’s relationship with power and influence and royalty. In truth, harness racing is much closer to the original sport, but when chariot racing eventually fell from favor and gave way to horse racing as the sport of the socially elite. It remains a potent mix of commercial and political intrigue, influence and power all coming together around a race event.

Everyone in an entire city would attend, from the highest of society, to the lowest. Chariot racing was invariably a free public event as it occurred on public holidays and religious festivals and it no doubt looked very enticing compared to the daily fetch and carry of ancient existence for the common man.

Under the guise of religious festivals, chariot racing became a massive commercial enterprise. On display were the fastest chariots, the best teams, the most skilled charioteers, and with the money and glory came the inevitable betting and corruption.

The best riders were feted, and became incredibly wealthy. Apart from pulling attendances of hundreds of thousands of people, it appears that chariot racing was every bit as colorful as you might expect from the first regularly staged sporting event in history.

Gaius Appuleius Diocles was a famous charioteer of the second century and clearly there was a sophisticated record system of some sort at the time because his career is available in fine detail. He began driving for the Whites at the age of 18; after six years with the Whites, he switched to the Greens for three years, and then drove for a further 15 years for the Reds. Clearly, free agency was practiced in biblical times.

Four-horse races were the modern day equivalent of MotoGP or Formula One – the fastest of all the sport’s variations. Diocles won 1,462 of the 4,257 four-horse races in which he competed which calculates to a winning ratio of 34.34% over a remarkably long career of 24 years.

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