Crescens Inscription Notes

Notes to Crescens Inscription

Crescens: charioteers began their careers as slaves and were frequently given names that fit their profession. This is a present active participle from the verb crescere, with the meaning “growing, thriving, rising in the world.”

agitator, -oris, m.: driver; charioteer; other terms for charioteer were auriga and cursor.

factio, -onis, f.: group; party; faction. The four stables were referred to as “factions,” a word that was also applied to what we might call political parties, which emphasizes the kind of partisanship they inspired.

venetus, -a, -um: blue. This adjective, referring to a sea-blue shade, is regularly used of the Blues; the other adjectives denoting racing colors are prasinus (Greens), russatus (Reds), and albatus (Whites).

natio, -onis, f.: race or nationality as a characteric of a person, ablative of specification.

quadriga, -ae, f.: four-horse chariot, ablative of means, explaining what type of chariot he drove when he won his first race; quadrigae were the most common types of chariots raced in the circus.

consul, -is, m.: consul, ablative absolute indicating a date. Romans regularly dated years according to the name of one or both consuls. Lucius Vipsanius Messalla was consul in 115 CE.

natalis, -is, m.: birthday, ablative of time when. Chariot races, the ludi circenses, were held on holidays; Nerva's birthday was November 8.

divus, -a, -um: divine; deified. Many emperors were deified after their deaths, thus creating additional holidays and occasions for holding games in the Circus and Arena.

missus, -us, m.: a chariot race in the Circus, ablative of time when (with the Roman numeral used adjectivally, indicating the number of the race). This may indicate the number of races Crescens had driven before winning one, or it may indicate which of the races held on that day Crescens won (if the latter, this number would refer to the last race of the day).

Glabrio, -onis: Manius Acilius Glabrio was consul in 124 CE; consulem is in apposition with Glabrio, object of the preposition in, which here means “until.”

Claudius: Crescens drove his last race on the birthday of another deified emperor; Claudius's birthday was August 1. The inscription implies (but does not directly state) that Crescens died in this race. From the dates given here, can you calculate how many years Crescens raced and his age when he won his first race?

mitto, -ere, misi, missum: release, send out; start (runners, horses) in a race; supply est after missus.

ostium, -ii, m.: door; starting-gate in the Circus, ablative of separation with ex understood. The Roman numeral which follows refers to the total number of races Crescens drove in his career, and the following numeral refers to the total number of races he won, not a high percentage, but we must remember that Crescens was very young when he began racing and was probably still something of an apprentice when he died.

inter, preposition + accusative: among; supply a phrase such as hos missus vicit. The Roman numerals that follow specify which types of races he won.

singuli, -ae, -a: one apiece; supply factionum (genitive of the whole with the Roman numeral XIX). The races where each faction supplied only one chariot were the most prestigious, employing the premiere charioteers and making it easy for the spectators to follow their progress. In races where each stable entered two chariots (binarum) or three chariots (ternarum), the field was much more crowded and it was difficult for individual drivers to stand out; the outcome of the race was more of a team effort. Since there were only 12 starting-gates in the Circus Maximus, three was the maximum number of chariots each faction could enter.

praemitto, -ere, -misi, -missum: send in advance, send on ahead; supply est after praemissus. This verb is used in a number of charioteer inscriptions to denote a strategy that made it difficult to win, but scholars do not know its exact reference. It cannot refer to starting a race early, since all chariots left the starting-gates at exactly the same time. Some think it refers to races with more than one chariot from each stable, where one driver is told to set a blistering pace at the beginning to tire out the other stables' teams and allow teammates to take over the lead late in the race; if so, it would indeed be difficult to maintain that pace through the whole race and come in first. Crescens only won once with this strategy.

occupo, -are, -avi, -atum: take possession of; take and hold the front position in a race. With this strategy, the driver seizes the lead and holds onto it for all seven laps to win the race.

eripio, -ipere, -ipui, -eptum: take away; steal away; take by force. This verb was used when a driver came from behind in the last lap to steal the victory from the front-runner; this was apparently Crescens' favorite strategy, which gave him the majority of his victories.

secundus, -a, -um: second; supply praedas, “prizes.” Just as in races today, Roman races paid out money for “win, place and show.”

HS: the standard Latin abbreviation for sestertii. Wealth was typically reckoned in sestertii (a denarius was worth 4 sestertii; each sestertius was worth 4 asses). Can you calculate the amount of prize money that Crescens won? Numerals in a three-sided box are to be multiplied by 100,000, and numerals with an overline are to be multiplied by 1,000. The prize money won by a young driver who was not particularly successful is phenomenal, proving that in antiquity, as now, sports celebrities earned disproportionate amounts of money.