Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Now to the craft by which the circus games are put on. Horsemanship, in its earlier form, was a simple thing — it was practiced from the horse's back, and ordinary use of it carried no guilt. But once it was drafted into the games, it passed over from a gift of God into the service of demons. [2] So this discipline is credited to Castor and Pollux, to whom, Stesichorus teaches, Mercury distributed horses. But Neptune, too, is a horse-god — the Greeks call him Hippios. [3] As for the yoked team, they consecrated the four-horse chariot to Jupiter, the two-horse chariot to the Moon. And also —
Erichthonius was first to dare to yoke a four-horse chariot, and mount, triumphant, on the speeding wheels.
Erichthonius, son of Minerva and Vulcan — and that from a fallen lust spilled onto the earth — is a demonic monstrosity; indeed, he is the devil himself, not some serpent-child. [4] But if Trochilus of Argos is the source, he dedicated the invention of the chariot first to Juno as his own. If Romulus was the first at Rome to display a four-horse team, then I suppose he too is enrolled among the idols, if he is the same as Quirinus. [5] With such founders behind them, the chariot teams, once they came in, were rightly dressed by their patrons in the colors of idolatry. For at first there were only two colors, white and red. White belonged to winter, for its bright snows; red was pledged to summer, for the sun's ruddy glow. But later, as pleasure and superstition both advanced, some consecrated the red to Mars, others the white to the Zephyrs; the green they gave to Mother Earth or to spring, the blue to Sky and Sea or to autumn. [6] But since every kind of idolatry is condemned by God, that kind is certainly condemned too which is profaned by dedication to the elements of the world.