All such dragging reduces speed and tires the team with pulling which is energy utterly wasted.
"I hold the ideal racing chariot should have a chariot body as narrow as possible, not much wider than the width of the driver's hips; should have the wheels as close together as possible, to diminish the drag of one wheel against the other, should have the axle set as high as can be managed.
"All charioteers exclaim that such a chariot tends to overset.

So it does.
But I never have had an overset and I never expect to overset.

I know how to drive and poise myself so as to keep my chariot right side up, and I never think of oversetting, I think of winning my race, and always do.
"Anyhow, here before your eyes, is my new racing chariot and of all the chariots ever made on earth this has the longest wheel-spokes, the highest-set axle, the closest-set wheels and the narrowest chariot body.
Now I'm going to try it out and show it off." He did to admiration, amid excited acclaims, his four cream-colored mares fairly flying along the straights and taking the turns at a pace which made us hold our breath.
After this thrilling exhibition he came back under the arcade and spoke to me first.
"Hedulio," he said, "you are one of the most competent horsemasters I ever knew.

What do you think of my idea of the best form for a racing chariot ?" "I think," I said, "that it has all the merits you claim for it, but that not one charioteer in ten thousand could drive in it and avoid an upset, sooner or later, at a turn." "Right you are!" he replied, "but I am one charioteer in ten thousand." "Say in a hundred thousand," I ventured to add.

"For surely you could not find, among all the professionals in the Empire, any other man to equal you in team-driving." He beamed at me.
When we left the Palace Tanno saw me in my litter and insisted on following behind mine in his until he had seen me out of mine and into my own house.
There I had a very brief and very light lunch, Agathemer hovering over me and reminding me of Galen's orders for my diet, so that I found myself forbidden every viand which I craved and asked for, and limited to the very simple fare which had been prepared for me.
After lunch I went to bed and to sleep.
I woke soon and very wide awake.