Chariot racing brought to the classroom

Naturally you have a note of where the chariot race sequence in your departmental video of Ben Hur starts, and you get it out when you reach the topic of the Circus Maximus. Here is something additional, from the Discovery Channel website:

http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/chariotrace/chariotrace.html

There used to be bits of video, which are no longer available as far as I can tell, but there is a chariot race game, where you have to avoid bits of debris on the track while driving at full speed. I'm useless at quick-reaction games like that, but I guess most teens would do well at this one. You can find it also at Channel 4

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/rome/pompeii.html

Also on the site are pages of information about chariot racing, and a click-on-bits-of-the-picture-for-information picture of the Circus Maximus.

Good if you have a data projector or even an interactive white-board, or a class small enough to get round a computer.

For ancient pictures (mosaics etc) of racing from Trier and elsewhere, and photos of reconstruction models, try the vroma site.

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/circus_sources.html

If you are a German-speaker, this might interest you

I pass on, in case anyone would like to follow it up, this link to an Austrian Classics teachers' society, with the rest of the e-mail I received:

I have been led to the following site which, alhough entirely in
German, seems quite active and would be a useful contact in any
pan-European context.

Societas Austriaca magistrorum linguae Latinae Sodalitas appellatur,
periodicum eius Ianus. Hic eam invenies:
http://members.aon.at/ianus/Seite2.htm

I have to comment that the latest edition of their periodical 'Ianus' featured on the site is dated 1998!