ABSTRACT

Viewed retroactively – and with the historian’s desire to separate the incidental from the essential – Roman sports divided neatly into amateur and professional. There was overlap in the area of chariot racing and equestrian events because young nobles could practice these sports. On the other hand, they never did so in competition with professional drivers and jockeys. And there are also examples of upper class Romans of both sexes – and even eight emperors – becoming enamoured of gladiators and Greek athletics to the point of being trained in these sports and practicing them in public – but again, only among themselves, never against the professionals (Juvenal, Satires, Loeb, 6.246-64; Barton 1993).