The envious Lachesis, when she cut me off in my twenty-seventh year, considered me, judging by the number of my victories, to be an old man.

O Rome, I am Scorpus, the glory of your noisy circus, the object of your applause, your short-lived favourite. Your wheels always hastened the race – but why was the finishing line of your life so close? Alas for the shame of it! Scorpus, cheated and cut down in your youth and so quickly yoking the horses of death. Sad Glory, cast your crowned locks as a gift for the unjust funeral pyre. Favour, strike your bare chest with wild blows.

Tragic Victory: shatter your Idumaean palms. Praetor replies, “You know, I shall have to give some money to Scorpus and Thallus and would that I had only a hundred thousand sesterces to give them!” Ah! shame, shame on your ungrateful chests, filled to no good purpose! That which you refuse to an equestrian, Praetor, will you give to a horse? Poor Gaurus begged Praetor, a man he knew well from a long-standing friendship, for a hundred thousand sesterces, and told him that he only needed that sum to add to his three hundred thousand and qualify him to applaud the emperor as a full equestrian. One short lived but extremely successful charioteer of the 1st century CE was Scorpus, about whom Martial wrote several poems the two on his death show the extent of Scorpus’ celebrity. Given the incredibly dangerous nature of chariot racing many of them could also die as slaves, never managing to be given or buy their freedom. However, they started their careers as slaves and could be sold to another faction by their masters, rather than picking and choosing between offers like a modern athlete (once freed they could presumably move as they wished).

the enormous amount of money charioteers could earn over their careersĬharioteers could gain wide celebrity and have long careers, moving from faction to faction over the course of their time racing.the (often short) careers of famous charioteers.

Chariot races