No less characteristic of Siena than her faction fights and her preachers of peace are the wild games that the Sienese played, the mad races that they ran and still run round the Campo. The oldest of these was the _Giuoco delle Pugna_--a furious game of fisticuffs which sometimes ended seriously. In 1324, on the Sunday before the Carnival, there was a desperate _giuoco delle pugna_ here, 600 a side, the Terzi of San Martino and Camollia engaging the Terzo di Città. The latter was driven off the ground. Then they set to with stones and sticks, and presently with swords and lances and darts, "and so great grew the uproar in the Campo that it seemed that the world was going upside down, by reason of the vast crowd that drew together." The soldiers of the Commune, the Captain, the Podestà, the Nine strove in vain to stop it. Several of the soldiers were killed; armed men poured into the Campo; the Saracini and the Scotti, whose palaces looked out upon the scene, hurled stones from their windows, and the mob in return tried to fire their houses. The secular authority proving helpless, at length the Bishop with the priests and friars of all the religious orders in Siena came into the Campo, with a processional cross in front of them, and passed through the thick of the battle, until it slackened and the combatants drew asunder. A peculiar variety of the _Giuoco delle Pugna_ were the _Asinate_ or donkey-fights. These were exhibited by the _contrade_--those popular associations, for sport and other purposes, into which Siena is still divided. Each contrada that took part came into the Campo with its captain and ancients (allow me this Elizabethan rendering of _alfieri_, the youths who carry the banners of the contrade), with thirty _pugillatori_ and an ass painted in the colours of the contrada. No arms of any sort were allowed--not even a ring on the finger--under severe penalties, corporal and financial; but almost any other sort of violence was permitted. The struggle was to force these donkeys round the Campo, in spite of all the efforts of the rival contrade, and the one that first completed two rounds was the winner. In later years the _Asinate_ gave place to the less exciting _Buffalate_--races with buffaloes. Last remnants of these departed glories are races which are now run twice a year--on the festivals of our Lady's Visitation (July 2nd) and of her Assumption (August 15th)--with mounted horses by the contrade. The race is still called the Palio, from the rich stuff (now represented by a banner) given as prize. No one who cares for Siena and the Sienese should miss any opportunity of seeing these races as often as he can; for in no other way can he enter into the peculiar spirit of this most picturesque of Tuscan peoples.[72]