The London Independent reports: After 1,500 years as a ruin, gladiators’ stadium to be restored:

It still bears its thrilling ancient name, and the antique ruins on the Palatine Hill, the heart of ancient Rome and home of the Caesars, still gaze down upon it. But now it takes a feat of the imagination to see Circus Maximus as it must have been in its pomp.

Today it is little more than a long, narrow park, 340 metres in length, with a small archeological dig fitfully in progress at its south-eastern end. It can still hold a crowd: Genesis played a free concert here last year, and Bob Geldof persuaded Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni, to let him use it for the Italian leg of the Live-8 spectacular in 2005. The rest of the time it is the haunt of dog-walkers, joggers and the occasional conceptual artist.

But 2,000 years ago this was the most exciting spot in the city. Long before the building of the Colosseum, crowds in their hundreds of thousands packed the stands to watch 12 teams of charioteers scorch the earth. Gladiators and wild animals fought in mortal combat, and the central arena was often flooded so miniature triremes could battle it out for the Romans’ delight. If a particularly large number of people had to be crucified, Circus Maximus was the obvious place to do it.

The strip’s last big show was in AD549. Then the Barbarians arrived and laid it to waste, and for the next millenium and a half it was no more than a very large allotment with a fancy name.

But now, after the centuries of neglect and years of debate and campaigning, Circus Maximus is finally to get some attention. Beginning on 20 June, the city’s archeological authorities are to begin a careful and respectful restoration.

Eugenio La Rocca, Superintendent of Rome and lecturere in archeology at Rome’s Sapienza University, said: “We are trying to realise the old dreams that Rome has maintained from the 19th century up to the present. We will do our best to restore this site, which was of the utmost importance in our history.

“[Emperor] Tarquin drained the site 2,500 years ago, but it was Julius Caesar in 46 BC who erected the first buildings here, which were consumed by fire in AD64. With the Emperor Trajan, the performances began to assume the wondrous proportions that we only know today from films.”

Professor La Rocca stressed that he will not be attempting to restore the Circus to its former glory…. [There’s more.]

Meanwhile, this (not quite sympathetic) article gives a little background on the early Christians’ opinions about the Circus:

Not surprisingly, later Christian writers inveighed against the Circus, convinced that it was the devil’s playground, although, to be sure, it was criticized less than the gladiatorial games or the theater. In De Spectaculis, Tertullian writes (c.AD 200) with the fervor of the converted that the very attraction of the Circus is what makes it so damnable.

“Seeing then that madness is forbidden us, we keep ourselves from every public spectacle–including the circus, where madness of its own right rules. Look at the populace coming to the show–mad already! disorderly, blind, excited already about its bets!….Next taunts or mutual abuse without any warrant of hate, and applause, unsupported by affection….they are plunged in grief by another’s bad luck, high in delight at another’s success. What they long to see, what they dread to see,–neither has anything to do with them; their love is without reason, their hatred without justice” (XVI).

Three-hundred years later, Cassiodorus, in his Variae, is just as adamant.

“However, this I declare to be altogether remarkable: the fact that here, more than at other shows, dignity is forgotten, and men’s minds are carried away in frenzy. The Green chariot wins: a section of the people laments; the Blue leads, and, in their place, a part of the city is struck with grief. They hurl frantic insults, and achieve nothing; they suffer nothing, but are gravely wounded; and they engage in vain quarrels as if the state of their endangered country were in question. It is right to think that all this was dedicated to a mass superstition, when there is so clear a departure from decent behaviour (III.51.11-12).”

Ironically, in their condemnation of the Circus, the Christian apologists provide many details about it that otherwise would be unknown. Tertullian (VIII-IX) asserts that the eggs are symbolic of Castor and Pollux, twins born from Leda’s egg; the dolphins, considered by the Romans to be the fastest of creatures, in honor of Neptune, who was patron of the equestrian order and of horses and riders. The chariots are dedicated to the pagan gods: the biga to the Moon, the quadriga to the Sun, and the seiugis to Jupiter. The Whites and Reds represented winter and summer, and were dedicated to Zephyrs and Mars, as the Greens were to the earth (spring), and the Blues to the sky or sea (autumn).

Cassiodorus writes of stewards who ride out to announce the beginning of a race, the white break line, and the spina that divided the track. He also relates the origin of the mappa used to signal the start of the race: Once, when Nero had taken too long at lunch and the crowd grew restive, he threw out his napkin from the royal box to signify that he had finished and the games could begin. Cassiodorus is the last to speak of chariot racing in the west.

A century earlier, Rome had fallen to the barbarians, and increasing political instability led to more factional violence. After AD 541, no more consuls were appointed (they could no longer afford the honor in any event) and the burden of sponsoring the races fell to the emperor. But there were other demands on the imperial purse, and the last race in the Circus Maximus is recorded by Procopius to have occurred in AD 550 (Gothic Wars, III.37).

For a thousand years, horses had raced at Rome.