The horse races were a fundamental component of the ancient games, especially the four-horse chariot race. As we have seen, they enjoyed the preeminent position in the funeral games of Patroklos; and they appear early in artistic portrayals as well (fig. 144). Yet despite its apparent popularity, the four-horse chariot race, or tethrippon (plural, tethrippa), was not added to the Olympic program until 680, after most of the events of the gymnikos agon had been established. Horses were expensive and could not be trained as a team for chariot racing unless someone was willing to cover the expenses. The relative costs of the gymnikos and the hippikos agon largely determined how often they were contested and who could compete in them.
Our evidence for details of the equestrian events is not very good. Ancient authors were interested in the excitement of the race as a spectacle, but not in the nuts and bolts of running it. Modern scholars generally agree that the tethrippon consisted of twelve laps around the hippodrome (horse track), but the length of the hippodrome is not known. The evidence is late and fragmentary, and no Greek hippodrome has been completely excavated. If we assume, as some have argued, that the hippodrome was three stadia long, then twelve laps (that is, twelve times down the track and twelve times back) would be a distance of about 14 kilometers.
The chariots would turn around a post that was sometimes called a kampter, as in the stadion races, and sometimes a nyssa. It appears frequently in representations of horse races (fig. 145). There was no dividing wall down the center of the track (the Roman spina), and head-on crashes did happen, as described in literary sources (see, for example, Sophokles’ Elektra 727-28; A 68).
Fig. 146 Tethrippon shown from the side. Panathenaic amphora by the Kleophrades Painter, 490-480 B. c. Malibu, Calif,, The J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 77.AE.9, gift of Nicolas Koutoulakis in memory of J. Paul Getty (photo: Lou Meluso).
Fig, 147 Front view of tethrippon, showing how the horses were yoked to the chariot. Black-figure amphora by Exekias, ca. 540 B. c. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, inv. no. 1396,
The chariot appears to have been a light vehicle with a metal or wicker cage around the floor where the charioteer stood (fig, 146). The wheel had four spokes with a central hole for the axle. It narrowed toward the rim, which was sheathed in metal. The horses were attached to the chariot in several ways (fig. 147). The yoke extended out and up, where it was attached to the collars of the two central horses, with a yoke pole that rose above the horses’ backs tied to the top of the chariot frame, perhaps assisting in the stability of the chariot. The outside horses would be loosely connected by means of traces. The charioteer was usually a slave or a professional driver; he was rarely the owner of the tethrippon. He is always shown wearing a long chiton (tunic), holding a long lash and a number of reins, usually divided into two groups, one in the right hand and one in the left (see fig. i8i). These were vital for negotiating the turn around the kampter, in which the two left (inside) horses had to be reined in, while the outside horses were encouraged to pull harder. Indeed, “right-trace horse” was used metaphorically to designate the fastest runner in a group regardless of the nature of the race or the number of legs on the runner. The charioteer also wore a broad waistband to which the ends of the reins were fastened. Something not always shown in artistic depictions, this device kept him from losing the reins completely.
Successful teams were cherished and sometimes had lengthy careers. Kimon, the father of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, won three Olympic crowns with the same team of four horses. Obviously, speed was not the only prerequisite for victory; skill and teamwork in negotiating the turn played a decisive role. The horses were given names that ranged from the descriptive or hopeful to references to important men or mythic figures; some of these names appear on statues set up by victorious horse owners at Olympia. Pausanias (6.10.7; A 70) reports that Kleosthenes of Epidamnos set up statues of himself his charioteer, and his horses, inscribed with their names: Phoinix and Korax (Raven) were the trace horses, and Knakias (Prickly) and Samos were the yoke horses. The names of horses were also given in painted scenes of tethrippon races; it is probable that some of these teams were famous and their names well known (fig. 148).
Fig. 148 Race between two tethrippa with labels gi'hng the names of horses; only some are preserved. Legible at the top are “Minos,” “Nikon" (Winner), and "Hipoto — ” (Stud?); at thebottom one can read “Konon.” Panathenaic amphora, 510-500 B. c. Paris, Musee du Louvre, inv. no. F 283, Reunion des Musees Nationaux / Art Resource, New York.
Regardless of who drove, the winner in a horse race was the owner of the horses, and his name entered the list of victors at Olympia and elsewhere. The prestige of an Olympic victory was enhanced in the equestrian events because of the wealth that such a victory implied. In 416, for example, Alkibiades of Athens entered seven tethrippa at Olympia. His son describes the reasons for his father’s massive participation:
During the years my father was married to my mother he saw that the festival at Olympia was beloved and admired by all men, and it was there that the Greeks made a display of wealth and strength of body and training, and the athletes were envied while the cities of the victors became renowned. In addition, he believed... that services at that festival offered credit to the city in the eyes of the whole of Greece. He thought these things through and, though in no way untalented nor weaker in his body, he held the gymnic games in contempt since he knew that some of the athletes were lowborn and from small city-states and poorly educated. Therefore he tried his hand at horse-breeding, work of the uppermost crust and not possible for a poor man, and he beat not only his competitors, but all previous winners. He entered a number of teams, something that not even the biggest city-states, as public entities, had ever done in the competitions, and their arete was such that he came in first, second, and third. [Isokrates, Team o/Horses32-33; A 67]
The reference to entries in the chariot race by city-states, rather than individuals, reveals another important difference between the gymnikos and the hippikos agon: the victor was not necessarily an individual. Indeed, we know from a fragment of papyrus with a partial list of Olympic victors (POxy 2.222; A 129) that the city-state of Argos
Fig. 150 Detail of figure 149. The second charioteer stoops to duck under handle of amphora.
) Tethrippon race. One kampter stands behind leading team, mother appears on the opposite side of the vase, giving the ision that one turn around the vase equaled a lap around the Irome. Black-figure amphora from the Circle of Leagros,
30 B. c. Cambridge, Mass., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard ¦sity Art Museums, William M. Prichard Fund, inv. no. 1933.54.
Won the Olympic tethrippon victory in 472. Even more revealing is that a woman could win an equestrian victory at Olympia, even though women were prohibited from attending the games. The first female victor was Kyniska of Sparta, probably in 396. Her brother Agesilaos “noted that some of the citizens of Sparta thought that they were important because they were breeding horses, so he pressured his sister Kyniska to enter a chariot in the Olympic Games; he wanted to show the Greeks that an equestrian victory was the result of wealth and expenditure, not in any way the result of arete” (Plutarch, Agesilaos 20.1; A 133c).
Despite the snobbery of the chariot race, it was a popular spectacle, and some sense of that popularity appears in vase paintings of the sixth century where chariots race round and round the vase, accommodating the race to the vase (figs. 149,150).
The horseback race, or keles, was added to the Olympic program in 648 and seems to have covered a distance of six stadia; that is, one run up and one down the hippodrome, approximately 1.2 kilometers. The jockeys were small boys, probably slaves, who rode without benefit of saddle or stirrups (which had not yet been invented), although they did have reins connected to a bit in the horse’s mouth and a whip, similar to a riding crop (fig. 151). In early vases the jockeys are inexplicably portrayed in the
Fig. 151 Two entries in the keles race. Panatlienaic amphora by the Eucharides Painter, ca. 490 B. c. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund 1956, inv. no. 56.171.3. (Photo; ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art).}
Fig. 152 The horses in a keles race are rounding the kampter while a judge raises his rhabdos as if to punish a foul.
The vase was repaired in antiquity. Panathenaic amphora near the Painter of Berlin 1833, ca. 500 B. c. Leiden, Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden, inv. no. PC 7.
Fig. 154 The synods. Note the absence of details about the yoke and other equipment. Panathenaic amphora, ca. 200 B. c. Berlin, StaatlicheMuseen—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikensammlung, inv. no. v. l. 4950.
Fig. 153 Preparing for the keles race: a trainer or stable boy calms a fidgety horse as they head out to the track. Red-figure kylix by the Foundry Painter, ca. 480 B. c. St. Petersburg,
The State Hermitage Museum, inv. no. b 1538.
Nude. By the Hellenistic period they are usually shown wearing a chiton and frequently have negroid facial features. We also know that they, too, could be flogged for fouls (fig. 152). A sense of the nervous atmosphere of anticipation before the race occasionally comes through in some vase paintings (fig. 153), which also underline the extent of our ignorance about what went on behind the scenes in horse racing. For example, to the best of my knowledge no ancient stable has ever been identified.
Successful horses were as famous as they are today, both runners in the keles and the members of a tethrippon team. Hieron of Syracuse, for example, had a horse appropriately named Pherenikos (Victory Bringer) who won at Olympia in 476 and 472. Earlier (512) a mare named Breeze won for her owner, Pheidolas of Corinth, even though she had thrown her rider at the beginning of the race. She continued down the track, made the turn and, at the sound of the trumpet marking the home stretch, sprinted to the finish. Speed was important for a horse, but so was training.
The final equestrian event added to the Olympic program was the synoris, the
Fig. 155 The synoris. Gold coin of Philip II of Fig. 156 The apene. Panathenaic amphora in the manner of the
Macedon (note his name on the coin) advertising Kleophrades Painter, 500-480 B. c. London, The British Museum,
Inv. no. B131 (1837.6 - 9.75) (photo: © The British Museum).
His victory, probably at Olympia in 348 B. c. Note also the thunderbolt of Zeus beneath horses. Athens, Numismatic Museum, inv. 110.1395B (photo; ©Treasury of Archaeological Receipts).
Two-horse chariot race, in 408. The distance seems to have been eight laps of the hippodrome for a total of about 9.5 kilometers. Otherwise, it appears to have been basically the same as the tethrippon. It should be noted, however, that its relatively late addition to the program means that there are no representations of it in the art of the sixth and fifth centuries (figs. 154,155).
The equestrian competitions were expanded with the addition of races for foals (about two years old), orpoioi (singular, polos), the equestrian equivalent of the competitions for paides, although they appeared much later: the tethrippon polikon in 384, the synoris polikon in 264, and the keles polikon in 256. The distances were shorter than those for the races for full-grown horses, but otherwise the same rules apparently applied.
Two additions to the hippikos agon at Olympia in the fifth century were dropped relatively quickly. The first was the apene, or mule-cart race, added in 500. A pair of mules pulled a low cart carrying a seated driver (fig. 156). According to Pausanias (5.9.2; A 72) the race, or at least the animal, was thought to be undignified, so the apene was last competed at Olympia in 444. That was the same year another race, the kalpe, was also dropped. Pausanias tells us that the kalpe was added to the program in 496; apparently riders jumped off their mares and ran alongside them for the last lap. No certain depiction of the kalpe has come down to us. The limited period in which the apene and the kalpe were part of the Olympic program and the implicit lack of popularity of these events resulted in few representations made then or preserved now.
As mentioned before, no ancient Greek hippodrome has been discovered; therefore, we have no details about the size and shape of the track. Indeed, it is not even clear how many entrants may have participated in the various horse races.
Fig. 157 Reconstruction of the aphesis and hysplex of the hippodrome at Olympia on the basis of Pausanias's description. Drawing by Ruben Santos.
Modern estimates have ranged from fifteen or twenty to fifty or sixty chariots. Despite this dismal lack of knowledge, we can still form a picture of features of the hippodrome at Olympia through Pausanias’s description (6.20.10-19; A 69).
Pausanias writes that the starting area for all the horse races, the aphesis, was shaped like the prow of a ship pointed down the track, with a bronze dolphin on a rod at the tip of the prow (fig. 157). Each side of the aphesis was more than 400 ancient feet (about 120 meters) long and had stalls built into it, one for each entrant, who were assigned to their stalls by lot. Cords were stretched in front of the horses in their stalls. A mudbrick altar, plastered on the exterior, was constructed in the middle of the aphesis at the time of the games, and a bronze eagle with its wings outstretched was placed on top. When the race was ready to begin, the mechanism inside the altar was set in motion: the eagle would jump up and the dolphin fall, signals that the race had started. Then the cord across the stalls of the horses on each side of the aphesis farthest from the track would drop, and the horses in those stalls would take off. As they came up to the second stalls, the cords would drop for the second pair of horses; as they reached the third stall, the cords dropped for the third set, and so forth. And the race was on. The reason for this complicated staggered start is not clear.
Pausanias also tells us that on one side of the hippodrome stood an altar to Taraxippos, literally, “Horse Frightener.” As they passed the circular altar, horses would suddenly, for no apparent reason, be seized with fear. There was a similar impediment at Isthmia in the form of an altar to Glaukos, son of Sisyphos, who had been killed by his horses at the funeral games of Akastos. Nemea had no hero like Taraxippos or Glaukos, but the glare from a red rock at the far turn scared the horses. In addition to speed, skill, and good training, then, the hippikos agon required a sure and
Fig. 158 A kithara singer performs on a platform in front of a young judge with a rhabdos who leans on a cane (left) and two older judges. Red-figure pelike by the Argos Painter, 500-475 B. c. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, inv. no. B1570.
I An aulos player performs standing on a m flanked by judges. Note the strap around id and mouth. Panathenaic amphora by ides, 500-470 B. c. St. Petersburg, The State tage Museum, inv. no. TT 1911.12.
Steady hand from the charioteer or jockey, for his anxiety and fear of Taraxippos must have been transmitted to his horses.
The presence of such psychological hurdles emphasizes the basic difference between the hippikos agon and the gymnikos agon. They have little to do with competition, appealing more as spectacle. The need for wealth, the lack of direct participation by the people who received the victory crowns, and the possibility that owners could shift the odds in their favor by entering more than one horse or team set the horse races in a different category from the competitions between men. The horse races were a popular component of the games, but more for their entertainment value than as an expression of arete. The crowd might enjoy a chariot race, but it honored the individual who had developed his talents and used them to their limits.
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