Yahoo Autos The Anatomy of a Chariot
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The starting flag drops and a dozen vehicles surge forward. Thousands roar as the drivers careen down the straightaway, the frontrunners jostling for position at the head of the pack. Then, rounding a turn, one of the drivers miscalculates and catches a competitor’s wheel, sending a tangle of vehicles and bloodied bodies flipping end over end. The crowd erupts in horror and delight.
This is not just a scene from a Hollywood classic, but the description of a real running of a four-horse chariot in Imperial Rome’s foremost racecourse, the Circus Maximus, 2,000 years ago. Such chariot racing provides the dramatic centerpiece for the new Peacock original series Those About to Die, premiering July 18. Starring Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian and Iwan Rheon as Tenax, a commoner who uses the sport as a springboard for his dangerous ambition for wealth and power, the period drama explores the underbelly of entertaining the masses through blood and sport.
The high stakes and fast-paced excitement of ancient chariot racing appealed to director and executive producer Roland Emmerich as a dramatic milieu. “It was a very, very dangerous business,” he says. “The crashes were quite common and could be deadly. The driver had to have an enormous amount of courage.”
The racing depicted in the show hews closely to actual historical practice, right down to details like the facts that Spanish horses were highly prized and that top charioteers were sometimes bribed to switch teams. But Emmerich did take some liberties for the sake of the drama. In the real Circus Maximus, charioteers fastened their reins around their torsos and steered by shifting their weight. Emmerich felt that a less constrained form of driving, in which the charioteers hold the reins in their hands as was the style in ancient Greece, would be more visually appealing. “I wanted to see people flying through the air,” he explains.
Horses — A horse is actually able to produce about 15 horsepower, meaning a four-horse quadriga was actually a 60 hp vehicle. Though it doubtless felt fast at the time, that’s more akin to a 1960s sedan than a 750 hp race car.
Axle — The six-foot-long wooden axle, or frame, of the chariot was not much shorter than the seven-foot-long axles of a modern race car.
Wheels — As in modern race cars, the wheels were small to keep the center of gravity low, so that the vehicle wouldn’t flip during high-G turns. But Roman wheels were made of iron, not rubber.
Pole & Yoke — The “transmission” of the chariot connected its body to a yoke worn by the two central horses; the two outer horses were connected separately, through straps called traces.
Cockpit — This was small and low to reduce weight, with a wooden framework stretched with leather or fabric. The floor of interwoven leather straps provided a springy, lightweight perch for the charioteer. (Like modern race cars, chariots were designed to carry only one person.)
Reins — Used to control the direction of the horses. Charioteers’ practice of fastening themselves to their reins could be dangerous in the event of a “shipwreck,” as Romans called a pile-up, so drivers always carried a knife that they could use to cut themselves free.
Whip — Charioteers used their left hands to fine-tune the steering via the reins, and the right to crack a whip.
Helmet — Much like modern race-car drivers, Roman charioteers wore protective clothing, including helmets made of leather or felt. The colors of their clothes indicated which faction, or team, they belonged to.
The danger wasn’t limited to the race course. Charioteers each drove for one of four factions—blues, greens, reds, or whites—which functioned much as major-league sports teams do today, attracting fans whose passion was so intense that it could erupt into violence. And successful drivers were every bit as much celebrities as the racers of today, amassing huge fortunes and amorous hangers-on—but also attracting jealousy and revenge. It’s this and the maneuvering for wealth and power behind the scenes that are the real competition in Those About to Die. And given that this is ancient Rome we’re talking about, what’s at stake isn’t merely money, love, and power—but possession of the greatest empire in the world.
Stream all 10 episodes of Those About to Die beginning July 18 on Peacock.
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