a citizen, conscious of his dignity,
would have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the circus
of Rome. The games were exhibited at the expense of the republic, the
magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins were abandoned to servile
hands; and if the profits of a favorite charioteer sometimes exceeded
those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular
extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession. The race,
in its first institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose
drivers were distinguished by _white_ and _red_ liveries: two additional
colors, a light _green_, and a caerulean _blue_, were afterwards
introduced; and as the races were repeated twenty-five times, one
hundred chariots contributed in the same day to the pomp of the
circus. The four _factions_ soon acquired a legal establishment, and
a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colors were derived from the
various appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red
dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and
the cheerful verdure of the spring. Another interpretation preferred
the elements to the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue
was supposed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their
respective victories announced either a plentiful harvest or a
prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners
was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who
devoted their lives and fortunes to the color which they had espoused.
Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but the
names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and
Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green factions of the circus;
they frequented their stables, applauded their favorites, chastised
their antagonists, and deserved the esteem of the populace, by
the natural or affected imitation of their manners. The bloody and
tumultuous contest continued to disturb the public festivity, till the
last age of the spectacles of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of
justice or affection, interposed his authority to protect the greens
against the violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus.

Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient
Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the circus, raged with
redoubled fury in the hippodro