The names mean nothing to us now, of course, but the mere mention in the stadium of “Abigieus” would drive the people crazy. Some of the names of hero race horses were: Abigieus, Lucidus, Cotynus, Galata, Pompeianus. Notice they are surrounded by the palm leaves of victory. A Roman mosaic of two famous race horses called Diomedes and Aicides. Sports fans knew the breeding line and the intimate details of the horses they adored. The lead horse in a chariot race was often as famous or more famous than the driver. In the Inscription to the famous charioteer Diocles it records: “He made nine horses 100-time winners, and one a 200-time winner.” A hundred-time-winner horse was commonly referred to as a “centenary.” The training of a race horse would begin about the age of 5 and their careers could last up to 20 years after which time they became sires for hopefully breeding more winners.
Andalusian race horsesĬLICK HERE for article about Scorpus Charioteer for the Red Faction with his lead horse The Spanish-bred Andalusian horses were considered the best and it is not incidental that some of the greatest heroes of the ancient races, including young Scorpus and Diocles, were born in Iberia, in Spain. As in our day with the Kentucky Derby and other races, horses for the chariot races were specially bred. There would, of course, have been no chariot races without the horses. This it is to be a disciple of God and this it is to be a soldier of Christ a soldier whom no enemy can dislodge or world snatch from the heavenly camp no artifice ensnare or pain of body subdue or torments overthrow.” “How pleasing the spectacle to God when He beheld you a conqueror, yoking in your chariot not white horses… but those very men who had led captive the nations! After this sort to lord it over the lords of the earth is triumph indeed!….No violence could bereave you of your fidelity and persevering resolution.
CHARIOT RACES ROME DRIVERS
He sees it as a triumph in the Circus Maximus over “those very men who had led captive the nations (the Romans).” The Christian warriors like the chariot drivers in the arena at Rome had persevered and were tough enough to have won the race, to have triumphed: Ancient mosaic depicting triumph of the horses and charioteer in a race Lactantius is saying, God is pleased when he beheld Christians as the winners in the centuries-long and grueling race for religious freedom. For the Romans the chariot races were spectacles, were spectacular. The word “spectacle” is from the Latin spectaculum meaning “a public show,” and is the same word Romans used for the chariot races in the Circus Maximus. Lactantius begins with “how pleasing the spectacle to God when He beheld you (all) a conqueror.” Lactantius (240-320 AD) used a metaphor from the chariot races to describe the great victory his friend and countless other Christian martyrs had achieved by their blood and their endurance. After the Christians won the right to religious liberty in 313, Lactantius in On the Deaths of the Persecutors 16 wrote to his Christian friend Donatus, who had been imprisoned and tortured for his faith.
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