Two Questions on the Circus Flaminius

Were ludi circenses ever held in the Circus Flaminius as they were in the Circus Maximus? The evidence is as follows. 1. Varro LL v 153–4: Locus idem circus maximus dictus, quod circum spectaculis aedificatus ubi ludi fiunt, et quod ibi circum metas fertur pompa et equi currunt…item simili de causa circus Flaminius dicitur, qui circum aedificatus est Flaminium campum, et quod ibi quoque ludis Tauriis equi circum metas currunt. The ludi Taurii were unlike other games in being celebrated only every five years; they were in honour of the di inferi , and therefore could not be held within the walls. It is clear from Varro that they were the only games that took place in the Circus Flaminius, at least in his day: despite the deliberate parallelism of his two explanations, he cannot invoke a pompa at the Flaminius to make it like the Maximus in that respect as well. The parallelism may in fact be misleading, merely Varro's attempt to justify his etymology by finding spurious similarities between circi that were in reality not alike at all. Certainly the fact that he speaks of horses in both cases does not entitle us to infer that the ludi Taurii took the form of chariot-races, like the ludi circenses proper that were held in the Circus Maximus. It is quite possible that they were simply horse-races, and that Varro emphasises the horses rather than the chariots in section 153 in order to achieve a further similarity.