When Did Acrobats First Appear?

An interesting thing about man is that he has always liked to be entertained. From the very beginning of civilization there have been acrobats, jugglers, animal trainers, and clowns to provide this entertainment. So we cannot really know when the first acrobats appeared but when we think of acrobats today, we think of the circus. And by going back to the first circus, we can get an idea of how today's kind of acrobats originated.

The first and largest circus of ancient times was the Circus Maximus in Rome. It was first begun in the third century B.C., and was chiefly built for chariot races. But the atmosphere of that circus was very much like some of ours today. It was a great big entertainment for the masses.

At the same time, in other theaters, all kinds of entertainment were available such as we associate with the circus today. For about a thousand years after Roman times, the "organized" kind of circus disappeared. There were wandering groups of performers —and they included acrobats, jugglers, and rope walkers.

The first time acrobats appeared in a regular kind of circus again was in England in 1768. They appeared together with clowns and rope-walkers, and people who did trick riding on horses. So you see that acrobats have been entertaining people for thousands of years—and are still among the favorite performers in a circus.

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