(_For the Mirror._)
The Olympian _Hippodrome_, or horse-course, was a space of ground of six
hundred paces long, surrounded with a wall, near the city of Elis, and on
the banks of the river Alpheus. It was uneven, and in some degree
irregular, on account of the situation;--in one part was a hill of
moderate height; and the circuit was adorned with temples, altars, and
other embellishments. There was a very famous _hippodrome_ at
Constantinople, which was begun by Alexander Severus, and finished by
Constantine. This circus, called by the Turks _atmeican_, is four hundred
paces long, and above one hundred paces wide. At the entrance of the
hippodrome there is a pyramidical obelisk of granite, in one piece, about
fifty feet high, terminating in a point, and charged with hieroglyphics.
The Greek and Latin inscriptions on its base show that it was erected by
Theodosius. The machines that were employed to raise it are represented
upon it in basso-relievo. We have some vestiges in England of the
_hippodromus_, in which the ancient inhabitants of this country performed
their races. The most remarkable is that near Stonehenge, which is a long
tract of ground, about three hundred and fifty feet, or two hundred Druid
cubits wide, and more than a mile and three quarters, or six thousand
Druid cubits in length, enclosed quite round with a bank of earth,
extending directly east and west. The goal and career are at the east end.
The goal is a high bank of earth, raised with a slope inwards, on which
the judges are supposed to have sat. The metæ are two tumuli, or small
barrows, at the west end of the course. These _hippodromes_ were called,
in the language of the country, _rhedagua_; the racer, _rhedagwr_; and the
carriage, _rheda_--from the British word rhedeg, to run.
One of these _hippodromes_, about half a mile to the southward of
Leicester, retains evident traces of the old name, _rhedagua_ in the
corrupted one of Rawdikes. "There is another of these," says Dr. Stukely,
"near Dorchester; and another on the banks of the river Lowther, near
Penrith, in Cumberland; and another in the valley just without the
town of Royston."