Factionalism and division, partisanship and parties. Sides. Teams. Colors. The conflict reverberating in those words harkens back, like many of the darker expressions of our humanity, to the Roman Empire—and the racetrack.

Horse racing was an integral part of Roman culture from the beginning, when, according to tradition, the mythical Romulus held chariot contests. The first documented evidence of this sporting life, according to the Roman historian Livy, dates back to at least 329 BC when a permanent Circus Maximus was erected, a structure that stood until it was gutted by fire in 31 BC.  Augustus upgraded the venue with shrines and private boxes circa 7 BC, and about a century later, after another fire, the emperor Trajan embarked on a restoration that elevated the Circus to its now-legendary glory.

By this time, the Empire’s demise was already underway, the distracted and diverted populace contributing to its downfall while remaining frantic about racing, inspiring the poet Juvenal to issue one of the most enduring—and relevant—quotes of all time:

. . . if the old Emperor had been surreptitiously
Smothered; that same crowd in a moment would have hailed 
Their new Augustus. They shed their sense of responsibility
Long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob
That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything,
Curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only, Bread and circuses.

Then as now, the intellectual class despised racing. Representing the Christian moralists a hundred years after Juvenal, Tertullian weighed in on the frenzied action under scrutiny. He didn’t hate the Circus quite as much as gladiatorial combat, or curiously, the theatre, but old Tertullian wasn’t much for the track, either:

Seeing then that madness is forbidden us, we keep ourselves from every public spectacle, including the circus, where madness of its own right rules. Look at the populace coming to the show—mad already! Disorderly, blind, mad already about its bets. They are plunged in grief by another’s bad luck, high in delight at another’s success. Neither has anything to do with them; their love is without reason, their hatred without justice.

Beyond the manic gamblers, Tertullian could have been referring to the teams that had forever divided the Circus. With their own drivers, trainers, and other personnel it takes to get a horse fit for racing, they were the precursors of the so-called super barns that have come to dominate today’s game (a handful of names that wouldn’t mean anything to you if you don’t follow racing). But like our contemporary sports teams, the ancient sides were identified with colors—the original teams were Red, White, Blue, and Green. Some historians speculate that the factions represented a particular god or a political affiliation. What we do know is that the first two eventually fell away: The Blues absorbed the Reds, the Whites succumbed to the Greens, until only Blue and Green remained, sort of like Democrats and Republicans. Hatfields and McCoys. An all-encompassing and far more lethal Capulets and Montagues.

And long before Juvenal or Tertullian hunched over an ancient desk, the aforementioned Livy, commenting on the chariot heats of Rome’s founding era, had observed that “nobody had eyes or thoughts for anything else.” Which is one way of saying the more things change, the more they stay the same. As we shall see.

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I must acknowledge the influence of Edward Gibbon. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a singular work, and although many of Gibbon’s opinions have been challenged by modern classicists, nothing compares to this monumental work, the first volume of which was published in 1776 (there are six volumes, and no, I haven’t read them all).

Gibbon can be hard to follow, not because he gets bogged down in names and dates, but because his literary style is always in the forefront if not always in the service of his material. His description of what history has recorded as the Nika Riots, or Nika Revolt, was my first encounter with these events. The year, racing fans, was 532, and by this time the city of Rome was an afterthought, having capitulated to the barbarians in 422; the final blows meted out in 476; the seat of what was left of the Empire already relocated to Constantinople. And, as in many of the chronicles of antiquity, a woman played a starring role.

Her name was Theodora, a prodigy who found her way to the stage early in life, her talent and beauty advancing with the years until she became the most popular performer of her day. How Theodora won in matrimony the emperor Justinian—Grace Kelly to his Prince Rainer—remains a mystery. Why he chose a woman who was dirtied up by profession (prostitute and actress were synonymous) and by reputation—to be his bride when his options were limitless is unknown. Maybe it was fate.

At the circus of Constantinople, called the Hippodrome, loyalty to one of the two charioteering sides eclipsed any matter of passion or pride. These were no railbirds, aficionados, or students of the game. To be a Blue or a Green spelled identity; it was life and death. Their daggers were much sharper than their handicapping, and they turned them against one another at every chance. Murder was ever in the air.

Rumors rippled through the grandstand that Theodora was aligned through some circumstance of heritage with the Greens, and that may or may not have been true, but there is no question that the Blues were devoted heart and soul to Justinian. He more than returned their fealty. Gibbon:

Insolent with royal fervor, the blues [no capitalization] affected to strike terror. In the day they concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they boldly assembled in arms and in numerous bands, prepared for every act of violence and rapine.

The emperor and his magistrates looked the other way:

The laws were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed; creditors were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to reverse their sentence.

While the Blues rampaged, the Greens, when they retaliated, were persecuted, prosecuted, and executed. They in turn directed their rage on the innocent, “preying without mercy on the society from whence they were expelled.

Taking advantage of a racing festival that celebrated the Ides of January, the Greens implored Justinian to redress their grievances. He bore with them at first, but their complaints grew louder and more pointed until, as the 22nd race on the card was about to be run, their complaints soured toward insult.  When they cursed Justinian’s father, the emperor screamed, “Do you despise your lives?” At this point, the Blues, in their frenzied support of the crown, came to their feet with daggers drawn. The outnumbered Greens rushed for the exits, “to spread terror and despair through the streets of Constantinople,” burning, looting, raping and slaughtering in a berserk orgy of violence that went on for five days.

“Nika,” they exhorted one another, a phrase exported from the racetrack meaning “conquer” or “vanquish,” used to embolden a charioteer.  Now that passion boiled into bloodlust for the emperor, who, it can only be assumed, was exfiltrated from the mayhem by his praetorian guard, force-multiplied by Blue protection. But a weakened and scared Justinian had lost control, and with government officials having fled, a rival to his rule was put forth by the mob. His overthrow seemed ripe. The royal palace fronted the sea; Justinian’s ships were loaded, his escape imminent. And then Theodora saved the day. Addressing her husband, she said:

I implore Heaven that I may never be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple. That I may no longer behold the light when I cease to be saluted with the name of queen. You [Justinian] have treasures, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity that the throne is a glorious sepulchre.

Shot through with courage from the lines delivered by this former actress, Justinian held on. His army inflicted mass casualties, fittingly enough at the Hippodrome. The dead, according to some estimates, may have totaled 30,000. The track was shut. But the moment racing resumed so did the hatred and violence between Blue and Green, and their murderous rivalry roiled the entirety of Justinian’s rule.

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The habitues of the Aqueduct Racetrack, those ripped-ticket gatherers, the luckless castoffs digging through the trash, the busted-out horseplayers betting single, crinkled dollar bills, bear but a pale resemblance to their counterparts in antiquity. Thoroughbred racing, and its poor cousin harness racing, which has more in common with the chariots of old, remain under constant siege from the more “enlightened” elements of our society. The august New York Times recently ran a hit piece on this great and mystical sport. The author, perhaps a contemporary Tertullian carrying a religion of his own, does, in all fairness, make some substantial points. The laborers on “the backside,” share cramped living quarters. They feed and groom the horses, walk them, and shovel their manure, for stingy wages or sometimes, no wages when money is tight. And all so romantics such as myself can wax poetic over their beauty and courage, a Juvenal in my own mind.

I can report that high on the eternal fumes of the Roman Empire—no revelations here—human nature remains unchanged and unchangeable. Our passions connect us to our forebearers; Rome circa AD 100, Constantinople in 532, South Ozone Park, Queens, in 2025, our distinctions are in degree, not of kind, and although we might like to think so, we’re not so different after all.