Roman Chariot Racing Teams

A while back, when we were still in the Satyricon there was a passage in which we began to talk about chariot racing and the different teams and colors. I meant to look up more on it before, but only just remembered (sometimes your mind will do anything to distract you while studying). There is an article on the vroma page that elaborates on this topic...

The four Roman racing companies or stables (factiones) were known by the racing colors worn by their charioteers; this mosaic depicts a charioteer and horse from each of the stables, Red, White,Blue, and Green. Fans became fervently attached to one of the factions, proclaiming themselves “partisans of the Blue” in the same way as people today would be “Yankee fans.” The factions encouraged this sort of loyalty by establishing what we might call “clubhouses” in Rome and later in other cities of the empire. In the later empire these groups even acquired some political influence (Junius Bassus, a consul of 331 CE, had himself portrayed driving a chariot in a mosaic; behind him are four horsemen wearing the colors of the four circus factions). 

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

Also, the reason I was familiar with this in the first place is because over the summer I read two historical fiction novels that had much Roman history in them. They are a series and the third one just recently came out. The first one is called Mistress of Rome and the second is called Daughters of Rome both by Kate Quinn. The titles are kind of lame, I know, but the first book is an excellent novel and focuses a lot on Domitian, while the second has the bit about the chariot races (one of the daughters is a die-hard Reds fan). The second one is not as good of a story as the first but both have equal amounts of Roman history and the historical notes at the end are very good.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6581303-mistress-of-rome

-just some reviews about the book and a plot summary, etc.