From Circus Maximus to Amazon: The Real Story of Scorpus

Peacock’s new historical drama Those About to Die streaming now to Amazon Prime, casts its gaze on the roaring Circus Maximus and the men who risked everything in the chariot races. Among them stands Scorpus, the Green faction’s greatest star, whose victories and tragic death made him a legend in imperial Rome.

Celebrated in Martial’s epigrams and remembered for more than two thousand wins, Scorpus was the darling of the Roman crowd — a champion whose life blurred the line between spectacle and mortality.

The Circus Maximus: Rome’s Grand Stage and the World of Scorpus

Roman culture was, above all, a culture of performance, and no venue embodied this better than the Circus Maximus. No larger man-made structure existed in the empire, and none could accommodate such vast audiences—about 150,000 at its peak. In its fully developed form, the Circus Maximus became a showpiece of Roman tradition, urban splendor, and imperial ambition, described by Pliny the Younger as:

“a fitting place for a nation that has conquered the world”

Panegyric, 51

Unlike any other spectacle building, it was also intertwined with Rome’s legendary origins: here, tradition placed the rape of the Sabines.

The circus hosted more than races. State religious festivals (ludi publici) such as the ludi Romani, Apollinares, Ceriales, Megalenses, and Florales returned annually; ludi votivi marked great state moments—triumphs, temple dedications, imperial birthdays and funerals, jubilees. Alongside the chariot races came gladiatorial combats, animal hunts, public executions, mock battles, and paramilitary parades.

Chariot racing, however, was the oldest and most beloved spectacle. The earliest races were said to take place in the Vallis Murcia (between Palatine and Aventine) in a ritual setting (Cicero, Republic).

Religion saturated the event: the pompa circensis ushered gilded statues of the gods into the arena; shrines and altars lined the euripus (spina); writers could imagine the track as temple and cosmos (Tertullian, On Spectacles; Cassiodorus, Variae). Astrologers and diviners sold hopes of bending fate—and race outcomes (Cicero, On Divination; Horace, Satires).

By the imperial age, the circus became an arena of ideology and negotiation. The crowd petitioned emperors from the stands (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities); dress codes and seating hierarchies socialized the public (Suetonius, Augustus; Calpurnius Siculus, Eclogues).

Dedicatory inscriptions thanked emperors for expanding seating. Exotic captives and an Egyptian obelisk on the spina broadcast Rome’s global power. As gladiatorial games waned in the fourth century, races grew even more prominent, especially in the East.

The day began with the sacred procession described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities: the gods were placed in the pulvinar to preside with the emperor; behind them came magistrates, young nobles, charioteers, athletes, dancers, musicians, incense-bearers, and attendants.

At the carceres (twelve starting gates) the editor spectaculorum dropped the mappa, (a white cloth or handkerchief) the gates sprang, and teams surged toward the alba linea. Laps were counted by eggs and dolphins on either end of the spina; attendants spread selenite (transparent gypsum) so the track glittered in the sun.

Racing strategy was brutal precision. Drivers hugged the metae (turning post) to shorten distance, guided by hortatores (the mounted assistants who rode alongside the chariots during the race) on horseback. Seven laps—about 5 km—could finish in 8–9 minutes, with straightaway bursts up to ~75 km/h. Naufragia (crashes) were common, especially at the turns, and Roman art reveled in the pile-ups. A trumpet marked the finish; the victor took palm, wreath, prize money, and a victory lap.

By the fourth century, Rome hosted 66 days of games annually, typically 24 races per day. Supplying this machine fell to the four factiones—Reds, Whites, Blues, Greens—whose stabula factionum (the stables of the racing factions) in the Campus Martius stood 1–2 km from the circus. Early on, domini (often equestrians) managed these professional stables; by the later third century, veteran drivers themselves could rise as dominus et agitator factionis.

Within the hierarchy, the two-horse driver was an auriga; the premier four-horse driver an agitator. Talented boys were recruited across the empire; elite horses came from stud farms in Spain, Sicily, Thessaly, Cappadocia, and North Africa. Horses could become celebrities in their own right. Martial joked:

“Martial is known to the nations and to the people. Why do you envy me? I’m no more famous than Andraemo the horse.”

Epigrams, 10.9.50

Fame and Infamy: The Social World of Rome’s Charioteers

Honorific and funerary inscriptions name 200+ charioteers. Where legal status is clear, the majority were slaves or freedmen; only one is securely freeborn. Like gladiators and actors, charioteers were classed as infames, legally dishonored and barred from civic office.

Freeborn Romans were discouraged from the track; when an emperor pursued racing, moralists bristled—Tacitus called Nero’s passion a foedum studium (“disgraceful desire,” Annals), a symptom of flawed character. His choice of chariot, less shameful than stage or arena, and his largely private performances only slightly muted the scandal.

Elite disdain sharpened as earnings and influence grew. Juvenal sneered at the money (Satires); Galen complained of honorary statues (De praenotione ad Posthumum); Pliny the Elder mocked their entourages (Natural History); and Dio Chrysostom raged that mere slaves could wield such sway (Orations).

Yet popular adoration was undeniable. Martial lampooned their riches but immortalized one of them, Flavius Scorpus, as:

“the darling of the noisy circus, the talk of the town and your short-lived darling, Rome”.

Epigrams

Funerary monuments confirm that boys entered stables early. The inscription of Sextus Vistilius Helenus, dead at thirteen, shows he trained first with the Greens and then the Blues under rival coaches. Talent moved between factions like free agents, and managers scouted rising stars with the eye of modern recruiters.

The risks were constant. Drivers tied reins around their waists, increasing control but risking fatal dragging. Naufragia near the metae were routine, and inscriptions commemorate lives abruptly ended. The mixture of skill and sheer luck gave drivers a reputation for supernatural fortune: curse tablets were buried to undo them, while amulets and rings bore their names and race-day chants — “Go!” “Win!” — to harness their success.

A select few reached the premier class of miliarii, those with over a thousand victories: P. Aelius Gutta Calpurnianus, C. Appuleius Diocles, Flavius Scorpus, and Pompeius Musclosus. Their careers were recorded with obsessive precision — wins, purses, race categories, horses’ names — echoing the pride found in gladiators’ epitaphs. Scorpus’ place among them shows how performance, statistics, and fame intertwined. (Roman Chariot Racing. Charioteers, Factions, Spectators, by Sinclair Bell)

Scorpus: Rome’s Fallen Charioteer

Among the miliarii, Scorpus shone brightest for the Greens. His tally of 2,048 victories made him second only to Pompeius Musclosus, far ahead of most rivals. What defined him was speed: by his late twenties, he had amassed a record that others needed decades to achieve. His death, still in youth, sealed his fame.

The Praeneste inscription of Diocles includes Scorpus’ total, listing him as a standard of comparison — proof that his brilliance was recognized beyond faction pride. But it is Martial who gives him voice.

“O Rome, you had but a short time to gaze on your Scorpus, the glory of the noisy Circus. The envious hand of fate snatched him away in his youth”.

Epigrams

And again:

“I am Scorpus, the glory of the clamorous Circus, your applause, Rome, and your brief darling. Envious Lachesis snatched me away before my thirtieth year, but counting my victories, believed me an old man”

Epigrams

These poems capture a man both young and aged by his victories, mourned as a hero of the people.

Scorpus’ fame spread through the city. His name was shouted by thousands, his horses celebrated, and statues raised — Martial hints at a gilded effigy with a “golden nose.” Amulets, rings, and gossip preserved him off the track. For the Greens, he was the embodiment of faction pride.

Like most drivers, he was almost certainly of servile origin, branded infamis and denied civic honor. Elite writers scorned his kind, mocking their wealth and mocking the masses who adored them. Yet for Rome’s people, Scorpus was no outcast — he was the champion who mastered the Circus Maximus, whose victories outweighed his years.

His story distills the essence of Roman spectacle: glory bought with peril, celebrity won from servitude, and life measured in laps around the spina. To die young was the fate of many drivers; to die famous, the privilege of a few. Scorpus achieved both, leaving behind a record and a name that ensured he would be remembered as long as the roar of the circus was recalled. (Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium, by Alan Cameron)

Scorpus’ story is not only the tale of a charioteer but of the empire’s appetite for spectacle. In the Circus Maximus, where gods and emperors presided, a slave or freedman could become the voice of a faction and the idol of a city. His victories — 2,048 in all — and his untimely death before thirty made him both a caution and a legend. In Scorpus, Rome revealed the fragility of life, the hunger for glory, and the enduring power of the crowd’s applause.