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The Carrot and the Stick:
This Man Trained Winners

CIL VI.10069 = ILS 5295

Transcribed and expanded:

1 5	AQVILO N. . . K. . . AQVI LONIS · VICIT C · XXX SECVNDas TVLIT LXXXVIII TERtias TVLit XXX VII
	HIRPINVS Nepos? AQVI LONIS · VICIT CXIIII SECVnDAS · TVLIT LVI TERTias · TVLit · XXXVI ·	9 10
14 15	Dis · Manibus CLAVDIA · HELICE FECit · Lucio · AVILLo DIONYSIO CONDoctori · GRegis · RVSSATAE CONIVGi · DIGNISSImo
• the final NV is a modern cataloguing mark! •

Translated:

Aquilo, ?grandfoal of Aquilo, won 130 races, placed 88 times, and showed 37 times.	Hirpinus, ?foal of Aquilo, won 114 races, placed 56 times, and showed 36 times.
To the gods of the afterlife: Claudia Helice erected this for Lucius Avillus Dionysius, trainer of the Red Team, her most worthy spouse.

A bit of commentary here:

Red Team? Newcomers to things Roman have just learned that in the chariot races in the city, and later in Constantinople as well, there were four professional teams: Red, White, Blue, and Green. Domitian added a purple team and a gold team, but this novelty didn't take, probably because there was not enough room in the Circus Maximus to race 6 teams abreast, so that a 4‑team race was actually more exciting. If you want to learn more about the Roman circus races, see this article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
NK and N: the translations of those abbreviations, as I give them above, are guesses; on the other hand, what else could they be? I'm certainly in the ballpark: the ancients paid just as much attention as we do to the breeding lines of their horses; and nepos is attested for animals.
CONDoctor is a bit doubtful as well, but less so. Dionysius was one of four things: the owner, the breeder, the trainer, or the jockey.
- If he were the jockey, he'd be shown riding.
- If he were the owner or the breeder, the odds are he would be a wealthy man and his main claim to fame would not be these horses — plus he'd have a larger tombstone: this one only measures 30 cm wide. (The blue felt pen at the very top of the photo to the right is exactly 14 cm long.)
- Look carefully: Dionysius is feeding his horses — and carrying a stick (not a riding whip).
- If you want to read conductor, meaning rider or jockey, don't: it didn't. Ducere would be to lead a horse by the bridle, not to ride it. Con‑docere is rare, but attested in literary sources as meaning "to train (a horse)".

The stick is quite visible: no argument there. The carrot is less so, and you should not take me too literally. As far as we know, this common vegetable (Daucus carota esculens) was unknown in Roman times: it seems to be a mediaeval cultivar of the wild carrot, known to most Americans as Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota); and certainly, the modern carrot we take for granted, sweet-flavored and bright orange, is a recent development. At best, the Romans used the proto-carrot (possibly among the roots collectively known as pastinaca) much as we do the rutabaga — i.e., not if we can avoid it, and mostly for feeding. . . horses.

Still, just to be perverse, let me show you what appears to be a carrot, accompanying olives and a little bowl of dip, from a wall painting in a Roman tavern in Ostia (Caseggiato del Termopolio). Remember, though, that the painting has surely been restored by someone who has eaten carrots all their life: