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A bit later this week, on the 21st April, Rome will celebrate its 2762nd birthday–she’s looking good for her age, wouldn’t you say?

In honor of this big event, a long series of concerts, historic reenactments, speeches, and inaugurations began today and will continue through Tuesday.

The fesivities were scheduled to kick off this morning at 10:00am with the traditional parade staged by the historic reenactment organization called the Gruppo Storico Romano.  Rain made the parade a bit less impressive and less photogenic than those of other years, so if you’re interested, we suggest you click over and take a look at our 2008 photos of the birthday celebration.

The rain did hold off long enough, however, to allow the for a “chariot race” in the Circus Maximus–a new event devised to honor the Eterna.

A patriotic group of bikers sporting giallo e rosso (yellow and red) athletic gear cleverly transformed their bicycles into race horses that pulled bigas, or two-wheeled chariots, manned by enthusiastic charioteers.  While ancient Roman chariot teams were divided by color into the greens, the blues, the whites, and the yellows, these modern day Ben-Hurs formed two teams distinguished by their headgear–the helmet heads and the brush heads.  Eager for a bit of Sunday-morning competition, they lined up at one end of the Circus and at the signal, the race for glory and fame began!

Each horse and chariot were required to complete three turns around the spina or central spine of the circus.  Just as in antiquity, things got a little hairy on the tight turn opposite the starting line.  Ancient sources suggest that seating in that area of the circus was desirable, as one of the attractions of the chariot races were the “shipwrecks” or crashes that occurred when chariots took the tight turn at a high speed.

Though the highly trained horses and charioteers of today’s race managed to navigate the turn without any crashes, spectators were still pleased as the terrain is rough at that end of the Circus Maximus and thus it gave the racing teams an opportunity to exhibit their superior skills.

At the finish, a helmet-head (no doubt aided by the aerodynamic design of his headgear) nosed ahead of the leading brush-head chariot, taking the prize!

Stay tuned! We’ll be covering more of the birthday festivities in coming days!   And, we’re wondering if anyone out there has a She-Wolf cake pan we can borrow?