"Roman Circuses" Review by Lucas Tosi

In this review, I focus on a different kind of literature compared to my previous blogs. After researching for my world history class, I came across this non-fiction book called Roman Circuses, written by John H. Humprey, that encompasses the archaeological and architectural aspects of, well, Roman circuses. Before I dive into the review, I want to explain what Roman circuses are and summarize the book into what I specifically extracted from the text into my project. Firstly, Roman circuses are arenas for chariot racing, which is a sport where a person in a two-wheeled vehicle is driven by either two or four horses. The arena is large and oval-shaped with multiple rows of seats ascending upward. It has “carceres,” or starting gates, and a “spina,” which is a central island where the chariots race around. This book analyzes the architecture of various well-preserved circuses throughout the Roman empire

The greatest Roman circus is the Circus Maximus (see model below). It could hold around 250,000 people at once. It was built in roughly 600 B.C.E. by Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, and continued to be built by the 7th king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus. It is both the largest and oldest known circus in the world.

Another, more well-preserved circus (see real modern aerial view below), is a section of a larger complex founded by the emperor of Rome from about 307-312 C.E. This circus is called the Circus of Maxentius, named after the emperor Maxentius. This circus, which is 520 meters by 92 meters, could hold about 10,000 people, much less than the Circus Maximus because of only the six rows of seats. He built this circus to hold celebrations for himself, also being able to represent his glory with its great build. It represents these underlying values of dignity and glory within equestrian racing.

These are just two examples of circuses that Humphrey describes and analyzes in the book, although he goes much deeper, writing pages, and even chapters on just one circus. His work taught me an immense amount about the history of Roman circuses by looking simply at their architecture. Although I don’t normally read non-fiction, this book was an interesting piece of literature among the others. One of the only downsides to this book is that it is certainly a tough read for someone not well-educated in the history of Rome. I had some trouble following it also because of its professional writing style with many words and references I didn’t know. It is an older book, published in 1986 so along with it comes this older writing style. From the majority of the book that I did understand, I was thoroughly introduced to the marvels of the Roman circus. I would say that the overall enjoyment of Roman Circuses outweighs the negatives mentioned previously. I am glad to have chosen a project topic surrounding some of the architecture of circuses found in this book.