- Adriana Emiliozzi –
Figure 41.14 The parade chariot from Castro (near Vulci) with the same system to absorb the shock
(project by A. Emiliozzi, drawing by D. Lamura).The vehicle could thus process but not run, as shown by the fact that there are chariots
provided with a shock-absorbing system that have wheels partially or entirely covered in
bronze sheathing.^11
In contrast to the fast chariots, none of the parade chariots recovered by excavations and
studied to date seem to have been furnished with loops for the traces of the outriggers.
Among the representations of trigae and quadrigae of the sixth century bc there is only
one type of chariot provided with holes in the body, through which the traces could pass:
this is on the frieze of an architectural terracotta from Caere,^12 but the vehicle is a fast
chariot of a type not known to date from any actual chariots of ancient Italy. It is possible
that the slow gait of the parade chariot, with the horses walking fl anked by a footman,
as shown in numerous representations, did not require the anchoring of outriggers to the
chassis of the chariot.
CARTSIn 1921 the most elaborate and monumental wheels that a cart could have had in the
ancient Mediterranean were discovered (Fig. 41.15), coming from the already-named
Tumulus of the Chariots of Populonia and placed in a chamber separate from that
containing the remains of the chariot. The large diameter (114 cm) meant the wheelwright
had to construct them of two concentric felloes separated by two series of spokes, four on
the inner and eight on the outer circumference. The entire surface of these wheels – hub,
felloes and spokes – was thus covered in bronze sheet, cropped into long cusps along the
outer edge adjacent to the rim of iron.
At a superfi cial glance it might seem that similar wheels could only belong to a
ceremonial vehicle, for the same reasons that we have explained for parade chariots. In