This kind of race was the most renowned of all the exercises used in the games of the ancients, and that from whence most honour redounded to the victors; which is not to be wondered at, if we consider whence it arose. It is plain that it was derived from the constant custom of princes, heroes, and great men, of fighting in battle upon chariots. Homer has an infinity of examples of this kind. This custom being admitted, it is natural to suppose it very agreeable to these heroes, to have their charioteers as expert as possible in driving, as their success depended, in a very great measure, upon the address of their drivers. It was anciently, therefore, only to persons of the first consideration that this office was confided. Hence arose a laudable emulation to excel others in the art of guiding a chariot, and a kind of necessity to practise it very much, in order to succeed. The high rank of the persons who made use of chariots ennobled, as it always happens, an exercise peculiar to them. The other exercises were adapted to private soldiers and horsemen, as wrestling, running, and the single horse-race; but the use of chariots in the field was always reserved to princes, and generals of armies. Hence it was, that all those who presented themselves in the Olympic games to dispute the prize in the chariot-races, were persons considerable either for their riches, their birth, their employments, or great actions. Kings themselves eagerly aspired to this glory, from the belief that the title of victor in these games was scarce inferior to that of conqueror, and that the Olympic palm added new dignity to the splendours of a throne. Pindar’s odes inform us, that Gelon and Hiero, kings of Syracuse, were of that opinion. Dionysius, who reigned there long after them, carried the same ambition much higher. Philip of Macedon had these victories stampt upon his coins, and seemed as much gratified with them as with those obtained against the enemies of his state. All the world knows the answer of Alexander the Great on this subject.(145) When his friends asked him whether he would not dispute the prize of the races in these games? “Yes,” said he, “if kings were to be my antagonists.” Which shows, that he would not have disdained these contests, if there had been competitors in them worthy of him. The chariots were generally drawn by two or four horses, ranged abreast; _bigæ_, _quadrigæ_. Sometimes mules supplied the place of horses, and then the chariot was called ἀπήνη. Pindar, in the fifth ode of his first book, celebrates one Psaumis, who had obtained a triple victory; one by a chariot drawn by four horses, τεθρίππῳ; another by one drawn by mules, ἀπήνη; and the third by a single horse, κέλητι, which the title of the ode expresses.