254 Recreations of a Sportsman 



The Pasadena chariots are designed exactly 

 after an ancient Greek chariot supposed to have 

 been invented by Minerva, though Virgil ascribes 

 it to an ancient king of Athens, one Erichtho- 

 nius, who is said to have come to a Panathenaic 

 festival in a model of the Pasadena chariot, with 

 four horses and two wheels. The chariots are 

 clumsy-looking, but they are eminently adapted 

 to the wild sport in which every man takes his 

 life in his hands. One end of the pole is at- 

 tached to the axle, the other end to the yoke. 

 In the old Greek and Roman races there was 

 but one pole, while the Lydians had two and 

 sometimes three. 



The early chariots had but two horses, as the 

 Roman biga; then there were the triya, with 

 three horses, and the quadriga, witli four. This 

 is the most sensational, and the three Pasadena 

 chariots are quadrigas. In the old days the 

 chariots were used entirely in war. When the 

 Philistines made war against Saul, they had 

 thirty thousand chariots. The Assyrians used 

 hundreds of them, and the old tablets and bas- 

 reliefs show them in all kinds of engagements. 

 The races in the Coliseum made Rome famous, 

 and it can be said that no race in the old Coli- 

 seum was ever run with greater fervor than those 

 witnessed in this California town on the first 

 of every year. 



The chariot races are the piece de resistance 



