Roman Empire Fan loyalty was fierce and at times erupted into sports riots. Racing was perilous, but charioteers were among the most celebrated and well-compensated athletes. One star of the sport was Diocles, from Lusitania (present-day Portugal), who raced chariots for 24 years and had career earnings of 35 million sesterces. Horses had their fans too, and were commemorated in art and inscriptions, sometimes by name. The design of Roman circuses was developed to assure that no team had an unfair advantage and to minimize collisions ("naufragia," "shipwrecks"), which were nonetheless frequent and spectacularly satisfying to the crowd. The races retained a
The Sinking of the Lusitania that had begun circulating in the years before the film's release. Scholar Ulrich Merkl suggests that as a newspaperman, McCay was likely aware of Freud's widely reported work, though McCay never publicly acknowledged such an influence. "The Sinking of the Lusitania" was noted as a work of war propaganda, and is often called the longest work of animation of its time. The film is likely the earliest animated documentary. McCay's biographer, animator John Canemaker, called "The Sinking of the Lusitania" "a monumental work in the history of the animated film". Though it was admired by his animation contemporaries, Canemaker wrote