Hippodromus (composed of ἵππος, "horse," and δρόμος, "course," of the verb δρόμω, curro, "I run"), in antiquity, a lift or course wherein chariot and horse races were performed, and horses exercised.

The Olympian hippodrome or horse-course was a space of ground of 600 paces long, surrounded with a wall, near the city Elis, and on the banks of the river Alpheus. It was uneven, and in some degree irregular, on account of the situation; in one part was a hill of a moderate height, and the circuit was adorned with temples, altars, and other embellishments. See Stadium. There is a very famous hippodrome at Constantinople, which was begun by Alexander Severus, and finished by Constantine. This circus, called by the Turks atmeian, is 400 paces long, and above 100 paces wide. At the entrance of the hippodrome there is a pyramidal obelisk of granite in one piece, about 50 feet high, terminating in a point, and charged with hieroglyphics. The Greek and Latin inscriptions tions on its base show, that it was erected by Theodosius; the machines that were employed to raise it are represented upon it in baso-relief. We have some vestiges in England of the hippodrome, in which the ancient inhabitants of this country performed their races; the most remarkable is that near Stonehenge, which is a long tract of ground, about 350 feet or 200 druid cubits wide, and more than a mile and three quarters, or 6000 druid cubits, in length, inclosed quite round with a bank of earth, extending directly east and west. The goal and career are at the east end. The goal is a high bank of earth, raised with a slope inwards, on which the judges are supposed to have sat. The metae are two tumuli, or small barrows, at the west end of the course. These hippodromes were called in the language of the country rhedagua, the racer rhedagur, and the carriage rheda, from the British word rhedeg "to run." One of these hippodromes, about half a mile to the southward of Leicester, retains evident traces of the old name rhedagua, in the corrupted one of rawdikes. There is another of these, says Dr Stukeley, near Dorchester; another on the banks of the river Lowther, near Penrith in Cumberland; and another in the valley, just without the town of Royston.