| Circus (from the Latin “Circus”, verbatim "Circle") is a kind of art.
A circus includes clownery, acrobatics, tightrope walking (balance keeping at the unstable position of a body on a wire, a sphere, etc.), musical clowning, magic, pantomime etc.
Circus specialties include, besides work with animals, various acrobatic and gymnastic disciplines, including: ropemanship, air gymnastics, for example, numbers on trapezes and various land exercises.
Clownery is the most difficult circus genre. The clown owns several disciplines skillfully and its participation in "another's" number is the popular happening in any circus.
The circus was where ancient Romans had a place of horse races and competitions in the speed of driving chariots, and subsequently some other shows (the single combat of gladiators (including venator- trainer, which were counted as gladiators formally too, in spite of the fact that they did not do battle), hunting etc.), which occurred in known holidays and were called “ludi circenses”.
In the beginning of the existence of Rome, at the first tsars, the Mars field was such a place; then, as the legend says, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus had arranged at the expense of the spoils of war with the Latinas a special stadium in a valley between Palatine and the Aventine hills which was known then under the name "Great Circus" (Circus Maximus). Lucius Tarquinius Superbus changed the arrangement of this construction and had increased the number of places for viewers, Julius Caesar had considerably expanded it, and Нерон after the well-known fire which has devastated Rome, built the Great Circus again with great luxury; Traianus and Domitian improved it more, and even Konstantin and his son, Constantius, cared for it. The last races in it occurred in the year 549. Thus, it has existed for six centuries, and its history is closely connected with the history of Rome and the Roman Empire. Its arrangement was similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes. The circus ring after its reconstruction by Julius Caesar had at length of 640m and a width of 130m. From three parties, one short and semicircular and two lateral and long, it has been surrounded based upon the numerous arches, arranged one above another by circles of seats (lat. “Moeniana”) over which pavilions and galleries with columns towered. The bottom circle laying directly over the construction (lat. “Podium”), has been appointed for senators; there, in the days of the emperors that was their tribune (lat. “Pulvinar”). Riders could occupy a circle following that only, and other circles were given for people of other estates. From an outer side all this part of the construction represented arcades and colonnades from under which it was possible to get places for viewers. The huge construction was without a roof, but a cloth tensed over them could protect viewers from the sun.
Horse house (lat. “Equus caballus”) - the kind of odd-toed mammals cultivated and widely used by the humans up to present time. Horses (Equus) in the broad sense of the word - a unique sort of family horse, or solid-hoofed animals (Equidae s. Solidungula), of the perissodactyls group (Perissodactyla). The second name of the family's most typical feature is the feet having only one finger that is quite developed and dressed by the hoof. A skull is extended and characterized with a relatively long obverse part. For a long time horses were the most economical important domestic animals but their importance has fallen in connection with mechanization development. The male horse is called as “stallion”. A female horse is called as “mare”. The castrated stallion is called a “gelding”. The young of a horse is called a “foal”.
Horse - the inhabitant of the big, open spaces of steppes or the prairies, rescued in case of danger only by means of flight.
The science which studies horses is called hippology. |
