Circus Maximus

We finally exited the Palatine Hill. We passed by some impressive ruins but we weren’t able to visit them since the Palatine Hill was closed because of a holiday. At the end of the path is very large open field. It was more like a park in size. Turns out this was one of the relics left from the time of ancient Rome. The Circus Maximus is a circus or a stadium and probably one of the largest at that time as the name implies. Back in Tarragona, Spain which was also a Roman output, there was also the remains of an old cirus, however it wasn’t really very obvious how big it really was since modern Tarragona has already been built over it.

Here in Rome, however, the Circus Maximus pretty much retains it size. There weren’t any other features here other than the field. The field is a depression surrounded by an elevated area where the presumably the seats used to be. The Circus Maximus is a stadium, more accurately, a chariot racing stadium. So before the days of F1 racing, this was the racing everyone was after. Ancient Roman society was so well developed that they have resources allocated for events like these. The stadium is so large it can accomodate 250,000 people, keeping up with its name. It is very interesting to see these facets of ancient Rome that you might forget that this all happened more almost two thousand years ago.

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