Hippodrome (ancient)
A hippodrome ( ancient Greek ἱππόδρομος hippodromos , German 'horse racing track' ) is a race track for horse and chariot races , as used in ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire .
In ancient Rome the name Hippodromus was used for a garden shape, while the racecourse there was mostly called the circus .
In the early modern period , the name hippodrome was taken up for large buildings and fairground tents, in which acrobatics on horseback ( vaulting ) was performed in front of an audience and with music .
The word “hippodrome” is derived from the ancient Greek words ἵππος hippos , German “horse” and δρόμος dromos , German “run” , “race”, “place of race”. Hippodromos and hippodromus are masculine in ancient Greek and Latin ; the neuter has largely prevailed in standard German .
The hippodrome among the Greeks
The basic shape of the hippodrome consisted of a free field on which two characters were placed, which were called terma (plural termai ). These two signs were to be circled by the horsemen or charioteers. When the racetrack is often referred to as “elliptical” or “oval” in modern literature, then this is probably meant the curve that inevitably turns out to be the cheapest when going around the Termai . The outer shape was irrelevant for the actual racetrack, it usually consisted of a rectangle, one narrow side of which was replaced by a semicircle. There was no space for planting or other uses on the field itself; all facilities were therefore on the edge of the field.
An original form of this system appears in Homer's Iliad . A racecourse is improvised for a chariot race in a flat area (XXIII 257 ff.).
“The sign of the goal is clear enough; you will not miss it:
a dry pole juts up from the length of a fathom,
oak or spruce wood that does not rot in the rain,
and two white stones are rammed into the sides,
there at the turn of the path, where the level path swings around . [...]
Now the divine quick Achilles determines it as the goal.
Drive your team of horses so close that you just brush them,
but even bend
slightly to the left over the tightly woven armchair and drive
the horse with scourge and acclamation on the right and let your hands take the reins.
But the horse on the left should press itself close to the column,
so that the hub of the well-made wheel
almost touches the surface ; but avoid hitting the stone so
that you don't hurt the horses and smash the wagon [...] "
“They stood dead straight now; then pointed to the sign Achilles
Fern in the flat field and sat next to it as guardian
Phoinix, the divine old man, the father's companion in war,
to watch over the race and only to report the truth. "
Only a few archaeological evidence of hippodromes has survived; the most important information comes from written sources. The various systems seem to have differed greatly in terms of their size and technical equipment. The most famous Greek hippodrome, that of Olympia, has not survived either. The termai there were two pillars, the side length of the field was about two stages (= 384.5 m).
List of famous Greek hippodromes
The Roman hippodrome
In ancient Rome a racecourse was called a circus in Latin . The characteristic difference to the Greek hippodrome is considered to be the spina , an elongated wall which the participants in the race had to walk around and which replaced the termai or, depending on the construction, connected it to one another. The earliest horse racing track in Byzantium does not come from Greek, but from Roman times and is a circus according to Roman usage (the Greek-language sources from the Roman East, on the other hand, usually referred to every horse racing track, including a circus , as a hippodrome). The few surviving sources indicate that in the Latin-speaking world, a hippodrome was understood to be a garden with a plan that was connected to that of the Greek hippodrome.
The only surviving building in the Roman West, which is identified with some certainty by a written source as a hippodromus , is part of the Domus Augustana on the Palatine Hill in Rome (often referred to as the stadium ). The typical floor plan is varied here: the arch of the south-western narrow side is not semicircular, and the boundary of the complex is formed by a continuous portico . There are no entrances through which horses could have been brought in; so it cannot have been an actual racecourse.
Pliny the Younger describes in detail in his letters (V, 6, 32-40) a garden called the “hippodrome” (translated here as “riding school”), which belonged to his country estate near today's Città di Castello and has not survived . This system is also designed as a rectangle, one side of which is replaced by a bend.
“[The riding arena] is open in the middle and is presented to the eyes in its full extent as soon as you enter. It is bordered by plane trees [...]. This straight border area […] turns into a semicircle towards its end […]. It is bordered here by cypress trees [...]; at the inner rows of trees [...] he receives the purest daylight. That's why he even lets roses flourish here and swaps shady coolness with pleasant sunshine. At the end of this colorful, varied curve, it becomes dead straight again [...] "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Homer: Iliad and Odysse. Translated by Johann Heinrich Voss (actually by Hans Rupé and ER Weiß). Rheingauer Verlagsgesellschaft, Eltville am Rhein 1980, ISBN 3-88102-005-5
- ↑ Gaius Pliny Caecilius Secundus: Letters . Translated by Helmut Kasten (Munich 1968)
literature
- Andri Gieré: Hippodromus and Xystus. Investigations into Roman garden forms. Zurich 1986 (Zurich, Univ., Diss., 1986).
- Pierre Grimal: Les Jardins Romains à la Fin de la République et aux deux premiers Siècles de l'Empire. Essai sur le naturisme romain (= Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome. Vol. 155, ISSN 0257-4101 ). de Boccard, Paris 1943 (also: Paris, Univ., Diss., 1943).
- Ingomar Weiler : The sport among the peoples of the Old World. An introduction. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1981, ISBN 3-534-07056-9 , pp. 200-206.
Web links
- House of Augustus Floor plan of the Domus Augustana near Roma Antiqua
- House of Pliny: attempted reconstruction of the floor plan (3rd picture)