ABSTRACT
The Romans held that the races which took place on the Campus Martius on the occasion of the Consualia and the Equirria, annual rejoicings mentioned in the earliest calendars, dated back to the time of Romulus. Their importance later declined, as the popularity of the games already described increased. Doubtless they were originally races of horses, mules and hinnies; the bigae, or two-horse teams, came later. Ovid, in writing of the rape of the Sabines, has left us a description of supposed chariot races at this time, in which it is easy to see the anachronisms. But there is nothing to prove, as Georges Dumézil says in his book Indo-European Rituals at Rome, that the idea of chariot-racing did not arise independently of all external influence at Rome itself in the ancient times assigned to it by tradition.
