Edition Masquer
De spectaculis

9

1 nunc de artificio quo circenses exhibentur. res equestris retro simplex: de dorso agebatur, et utique communis usus reus non erat. sed cum ad ludos coactus est, transiit a dei munere ad daemoniorum officia. 2 itaque Castori et Polluci deputatur haec species, quibus equos a Mercurio distributos Stesichorus docet. sed et Neptunus equestris est, quem Graeci HIPPION appellant. 3 de iugo vero Iovi, quadrigas Soli, bigas Lunae sanxerunt. sed et

primus Erichthonius currus et quattuor ausus

iungere equos rapidusque rotis insistere victor.

Erichthonius, Minervae et Vulcani filius, et quidem de caduca in terram libidine, portentum est daemonicum, immo diabolus ipse, non coluber. 4 si vero Trochilus Argivus auctor est currus, primae Iunoni id opus suum dedicavit. si Romae Romulus quadrigam primus ostendit, puto et ipse inter idola conscriptus est, si idem est Quirinus. 5 talibus auctoribus quadrigae productae merito et aurigas coloribus idololatriae vestierunt. namque initio duo soli fuerunt, albus et russeus. albus hiemi ob nives candidas, russeus aestati ob solis ruborem voti erant. sed postea tam voluptate quam superstitione provecta russeum alii Marti, alii album Zephyris consecraverunt, prasinum vero Terrae matri vel verno, venetum Caelo et Mari vel autumno. 6 cum autem omnis species idololatriae damnata sit a deo, utique etiam illa damnatur, quae elementis mundialibus profanatur.

Traduction Masquer
The Shows

Chapter IX.

Now as to the kind of performances peculiar to the circus exhibitions. In former days equestrianism was practised in a simple way on horseback, and certainly its ordinary use had nothing sinful in it; but when it was dragged into the games, it passed from the service of God into the employment of demons. Accordingly this kind of circus performances is regarded as sacred to Castor and Pollux, to whom, Stesichorus tells us, horses were given by Mercury. And Neptune, too, is an equestrian deity, by the Greeks called Hippius. In regard to the team, they have consecrated the chariot and four to the sun; the chariot and pair to the moon. But, as the poet has it, "Erichthonius first dared to yoke four horses to the chariot, and to ride upon its wheels with victorious swiftness." Erichthonius, the son of Vulcan and Minerva, fruit of unworthy passion upon earth, is a demon-monster, nay, the devil himself, and no mere snake. But if Trochilus the Argive is maker of the first chariot, he dedicated that work of his to Juno. If Romulus first exhibited the four-horse chariot at Rome, he too, I think, has a place given him among idols, at least if he and Quirinus are the same. But as chariots had such inventors, the charioteers were naturally dressed, too, in the colours of idolatry; for at first these were only two, namely white and red,--the former sacred to the winter with its glistening snows, the latter sacred to the summer with its ruddy sun: but afterwards, in the progress of luxury as well as of superstition, red was dedicated by some to Mars, and white by others to the Zephyrs, while green was given to Mother Earth, or spring, and azure to the sky and sea, or autumn. But as idolatry of every kind is condemned by God, that form of it surely shares the condemnation which is offered to the elements of nature.