Twelve chariot races take place in the morning, and, after an interval of retirement, a similar number in the afternoon;[1] between the races other exhibitions are introduced, especially fights of men with lions, tigers, and bears,[2] rope walking,[3] and matches of boxing and wrestling.[4] In the contests between two- or four-horse chariots, the competitors make the circuit of the arena seven times, whence the whole length of the course traversed amounts to about a mile and a half.[5] The start is made from the top of the Euripus on the right-hand side, where a rope is stretched across to keep the horses in line after their exit from the Manganon, until the signal is
- [Footnote: was then bidding for the purple, in which he was afterwards buried.
The question turns on the enigma of the word follis, which in some positions has never been solved. But Cod. Theod., XII, i, 159, makes it as clear as daylight that 25,000 folles in ibid., VI, iv, 5, means just about fifty guineas of our money (he had also to scatter £125 in silver as largess), a sum exactly suited to ibid., VII, xx, 3, by which the same amount is granted to a superannuated soldier to stock a little farm. The first law publishes the munificence of the Emperor in presenting the sum of 600 solidi (£335) to the people of Antioch that they may not run short of cash for, and so be depressed at the time of, the public games. And so the colossal sum doubted by Gibbon, accepted by Milman, advocated by Smith, and asserted by Bury may be dissipated like a puff of smoke in the wind. The office of praetor ludorum seems to have been falling into abeyance at this time.]
- ↑ Jn. Lydus, De Mens., i, 12. Twenty-four races were the full number, but they were gradually reduced to eight; Const. Porph., i, 68, p. 307.
- ↑ Anastasius put a stop to this part of the performance—for the time; Procop. Gaz. Panegyr., 15, etc.
- ↑ H. A. Charisius, 19, etc. A favourite exhibition was that of a man balancing on his forehead a pole up which two urchins ran and postured at the top; Chrysostom, Ad Pop. Ant., xix, 4 (De Stat.; in Migne, ii, 195). Luitprand (Legatio, etc.) six centuries later was entertained with the same spectacle, an instance of the changeless nature of these times over long periods.
- ↑ Novel cv; Socrates, vii, 22; Cod. Theod., XV, xi, etc.
- ↑ Aulus Gell., iii, 10, etc.
