Why Did The Chariot Hunt

The Venationes continued for quite some time and were extremely popular as the fans of the fading gladiatorial combats flocked over to them. The hunts themselves faced little Christian opposition but the fact that the Roman Empire was losing its frontier territories impeded on their ability to acquire vast amounts of exotic animals. There are letters from a Roman Senator named Symmachus, who was a Pagan opponent of Christianity, describing his troubles getting ahold of wild animals, and horses for chariot races. Despite the troubles, the venationes persisted in both the east and west on a reduces scale. This included bear-baiting, bullfights, and lesser and local beasts which were often spared and reused as performers. The last animals hunts
These chariot races were put on display in the circus, which was the Roman equivalent of the Greek hippodrome. The most famous of these was the Circus Maximus in the city of Rome that was located just behind the imperial palace that was on the Palatine Hill. The circus was also a central meeting place for groups of people in the later empire as the forum and Campus Martius were no longer used for such things. The Circus Maximus was extravagant and undoubtedly humongous as it could hold up to 125,000 spectators. At the height of Rome’s population, this would have been able to hold about one eighth of city. Attached to the Circus Maximus were a plethora of shrines and temples that were most like dedicated to Neptune. The circus was by far the most important landmark and space in the city of Rome, even surpassing the impact of the Colosseum. This was probably due to its ability to hold most of the city at any given time and its proximity to the imperial palace. The same could be said about the Hippodrome of Constantinople that was built in Byzantium around 203 A.D. by Septimius Severus. The Hippodrome marked the original boundary of the city before Constantine’s revamp of the city. The stadium happened to enclose the entire imperial complex on one side, giving the Byzantine emperor easy access to enjoy the races. The
The god that is most notably tied to these is Neptune, or Poseidon in the Greek pantheon. Horses were the sacred animal of Neptune, and at one-point dolphins were used to notate the number of laps in a race. The personal deities of