Circus Maximus

Rome · the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine · races from the kings to 549 AD

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Race day

View

Slide right to see the site as it looked in 1998.

Drag to look around, wheel or pinch to zoom.

Timeline

    About this simulation

    The building is an illustrative reconstruction of the circus about 103 AD, after Trajan's rebuilding, based on published plans and descriptions; its details are not a measured survey. Every race day uses this building, so Caesar's games (46 BC) and Totila's (549 AD) are shown in a circus they never saw; only the obelisks change with the day.

    The racing is a game, not a measured simulation: speeds, turning limits and crash odds are plausible guesses, the finish line is placed in front of the Aventine stands for the view, and the rule that drivers kept to their lanes at first is left out. All four colours race on every day, though Blues and Greens are attested only from the Empire. The crowd is drawn as simple figures, fewer than the 150,000 the circus held.

    The 1998 view is reconstructed from photographs and general knowledge of the site, not surveyed. Entries from the time of the kings are Roman tradition, written down centuries later. Sounds are synthesized.