Byzantine Sports – A Number of Choices

Posted on by Rob Bauer

Our last post about the Byzantines (click here to read it) described the importance of chariot racing in the Byzantine Empire. Today, we’ll finish this topic with what the races were like and then examine other Byzantine sports.

Byzantine Sports – The Charioteers

Men who were skilled at racing held the public esteem just as famous gladiators had in Rome. One of them, Porphyrius, even had an inscription in his honor on one of the stone obelisks in the Hippodrome. (This man was a great racer, it seems, but also a troublemaker. At one point in his career, when racing in Antioch, he celebrated a victory by leading a rampage against the Jewish people in the city.)

The best charioteers gained fame through their skill. Byzantine racing featured the interesting practice of the diversium. After a chariot racer won a race, he could challenge a loser to a rematch. The winner and loser would then switch chariot teams. (The winner raced with the loser’s team, and vice versa.) If the winner of the first race won again, this was obvious proof of his superiority and talent. One racer named Constantine once won 25 races in the morning and defended those triumphs with 21 victories in the afternoon. (Officials probably shortened the races in this case—there were only so many hours of daylight for racing.)

Halftime Entertainment

Byzantine sports featured no marching bands to entertain the spectators between races. That would have been weak and boring. Instead, dancers twirled and pranced. Clowns appeared. Mimes performed their mimicry. Acrobats walked across wires strung across the stadium. Singers lifted their voices.

Finally, there were the wild beast shows. Bears, panthers, and other exotic beasts appeared in the Hippodrome. Unlike the Roman Colosseum, however, these animals did not generally maul criminals or fight against gladiators. Rather, the more popular form of entertainment was for trained performers to dart amongst the animals, leaping from danger at the last moment into prearranged safe areas just out of the reach of the beasts. Others would vault over the animals using poles. There was even a type of see-saw where men would baffle an animal by lifting just out of its reach with help from their comrade on the other side of the balance.

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Byzantine sports were held in the Hippodrome. This 16th century illustration shows the Egyptian obelisk, the Serpent Column, and the great church of Hagia Sophia in the background.

Byzantine sports were held in the Hippodrome. This 16th century illustration shows the Egyptian obelisk, the Serpent Column, and the great church of Hagia Sophia in the background.

 

Other Byzantine Sports

Polo became a favorite sport to supplement chariot racing. It seems this game came to the Byzantines from Persia but was somewhat different from the modern version. The Byzantine game was akin to lacrosse on horseback—players passed the ball around rather than hitting it with clubs. And because one needed horses to play, aristocrats made up most of the participants. It is possible that lacrosse came to France when French crusaders observed this game in Constantinople. In an example of sports moving in the other direction, the crusaders probably introduced the medieval jousting tournament to the Byzantines.

 

Regular people had sports of their own, and these sports tended to be those that did not require equipment or great expense. Archery, wrestling, footraces, and fencing with sticks all helped the commoners pass the time. (Civilians were not supposed to carry swords in Byzantium.)
One last note on sports. The Byzantine era is when the ancient Olympic Games came to an end. There seems to be some debate about exactly when the final Olympic Games were held, but the late-300s to mid-400s saw the last Olympics until modern times.

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