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SET IN STONE Lissa Oliver discovers fair play for owners was carved in first century stone
SET IN STONE
LISSA OLIVER DISCOVERS FAIR PLAY FOR OWNERS WAS CARVED IN FIRST CENTURY STONE!
Racing has always been very much rooted in its past, but that past extends a good deal further back than the known “founding fathers” of the Byerley, Darley and Godolphin Arabians. In 2016, Professor Hasan Bahar excavated from the ruins of an ancient racecourse in BeyÅŸehir, in Anatolia, Turkey, a set of 2,000-year-old Rules of racing. Prior to this, racing’s earliest known rules had been laid down with the foundation of e Jockey Club in Britain in 1750. ere are records of racemeetings taking place in Roman Britain in A.D. 300 and there is evidence that the lands of Queen Boudica and her Iceni tribe, in and around what is now Newmarket, housed stud farms that supplied racehorses to Rome during the rst century. Boudica’s stud later became part of the Tudor Royal Studs.
Prof. Bahar unearthed a First Century monument erected in honour of the Roman jockey Lukuyanus, who died at an early age in Asia Minor. Impressive Roman monuments to jockeys and charioteers are not unusual, as they were accorded a status only reserved for the MGM-era Hollywood icons of the modern age. Diocles, for example, retired in A.D. 150 a multi-millionaire in modern currency. Portraits of the great horses and popular charioteers hung in every Roman home and it is said they could do no wrong, a blind eye turned to any public misdemeanour.
What set the monument to Lukuyanus apart, however, was a stone tablet set within it, detailing the rules of racing. “I’ve never seen a similar tablet that contains the rules of sports and the way the race is carried out,” says Prof. Bahar. “ ere are sources that mention horseracing, but there weren’t any that described the rules. is tablet is the oldest one describing the rules of horse racing.” e inscription on the tablet reveals that there was a keen sense of fairness in the sport. Prof. Bahar translates, “It says that if a horse comes in rst place in a race it cannot participate in other races at the meeting. A winning owner was also forbidden from entering any other horses into an event’s subsequent races, presumably to give others a chance at glory. is was a beautiful rule, showing that races back then were based on gentlemanly conduct.”
Horseracing was extremely popular and big business throughout the Roman period. e
Prof. Hasan Bahar with the rules of racing
circus was purpose-built for racing and the racetracks were uniformly long rectangles with rounded ends, over which seven laps of 568m each (just under three furlongs) were run for every race, totalling two and a half miles.
During my own extensive research when penning the biography of keen horseman and racing enthusiast Emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68), I was delighted to learn he introduced legislation for pensions for retired racehorses, having recognised a former racehorse pulling a cart through the city’s streets. Subsequently, racehorses, State-owned during their careers, were allotted a small pension to cover their feed, veterinary and hoof care, enabling them to retire to farms at no nancial inconvenience to the farmer.
During the period Lukuyanus raced and the discovered rules covered, there 159 public
holidays per year and much of the populace spent their time at the races. Some of the bigger circuses had seating for up to 255,000 racegoers. Under the rst Emperor, Augustus, there were 12 races per day, but Caligula increased this to 24, which became the norm.
A single day’s racing soon changed to meetings lasting seven days, some even extending to 15 days. e populace sought entertainment during the longer Holidays, such as Saturnalia (17th-25th December), the preChristian version of Christmas with the same feasting, family get-togethers and gi -giving traditions. All of which required the traditional escape to the races! ere were ridden races, but chariot racing was more popular, featuring two, three and, more commonly, four-horse teams. Two mares were harnessed to the sha in the centre, while a stallion, loosely attached by a trace, stood either side of them. Each chariot depended on the strength and handiness of the two outside horses; the o -side stallion swinging out to the right on each turn without giving away valuable ground, while the still more vital near-side stallion acted as a pivot on the tight bends. e teams lined up according to their allotted draw and the start was meticulously observed. Only four teams competed per race and these belonged to the Factions, State-owned, to defray the enormous costs of maintaining and training horse and charioteer. e four teams were e Whites, e Reds, e Blues and e Greens and the public aligned themselves strongly to their chosen Faction, much like modern football fans. e horses were bred in Italy, Greece, Africa, Britain and primarily Spain, and went into training at three, making their rst racecourse appearance at ve. eir pedigrees and victories were meticulously recorded and studied and their names are known to us through inscriptions on common household pottery or mosaic decorations and paintings. In Pompeii a homeowner collected items depicting his favourite horse, the inscriptions stating, “Winner or not, we love you, Polydoxus!” e “immortal racehorse Tuscus” was credited with 386 wins and Victor 429 wins, which seems a tad high given their probable career length! at pair alone may have been responsible for the coming to pass of the Rule set in stone on Lukuyanus’ monument! e jockeys and charioteers were generally low-born or former slaves, but rose to fame and wealth, demanding exorbitant retainers. Lukuyanus had won at least 1,000 races before his early death, Diocles competed 4,257 times and won 1,462 races, Scorpus was the winner of 2,048 races, Pontius Epaphroditus won 1,467, and Pompeius Musclosus was credited with a mighty 3,559 victories. However, Fuscus was killed at the age of 24 a er just 57 victories, Crescens at 22 a er already amassing the equivalent of €1m and Aurelius Mollicius at 20 a er 125 wins.
It was a risky business for punters, too, and Roman satirist Juvenal informs us that “the rich would stake a fortune and the poor their last penny”. Aggrieved Roman punters commonly engraved on bronze sheets curses directed at losing horses, which were consigned “to the vengeance of the infernal gods” to the bottom of tombs and have been amusing the archaeologists unearthing them by the bucket loads ever since. Let that be a lesson to us as we carelessly cast our own betting slips to posterity.
Lukuyanus Monument Aphrodisias circus Turkey
