Der berühmteste Verkehrsunfall der Antike dürfte die Begegnung zwischen Ödipus und seinem Vater Laios sein.

Hier ist ein weiterer, dessen Verlauf allerdings - wie häufig bei Verkehrsunfällen - umstritten ist. Auf jeden Fall waren die Kontrahenten sehr prominent:

Ti. Claudius Atticus Herodes (ca. 101/103-177 u.Z.) war ein steinreicher Athener, der sowohl als Sophist wie auch als Politiker hervorgetreten ist. Antoninus ist der spätere Kaiser Antoninus Pius (reg. 138-161 u.Z.).

Those who accused Herodes of having lifted his hand against Antoninus on Mount Ida, at the time when the former was the governor of the free cities, and the latter of all the cities in Asia, were, in my opinion unaware of the action brought by Demostratus [Δημοστράτος] (1) against Herodes, in which he made many charges against him, but nowhere mentioned this insolent act, for the reason that it never took place [ἐπεὶ μηδὲ ἐγένετο].

For though they did in a manner shove one another aside, as happens in a rough place and a narrow road, still they did not break the law by coming to blows, and indeed Demostratus would not have neglected to describe the incident in his suit against Herodes, when he attacked the man so bitterly that he actually censured those acts of his which are regularly applauded.

(Philostratus: Lives of Sophists II 1 [554 f.]; LCL 134; ed. by Wilmer Cave Wright, pp. 156-159)

(1) = Fronto, Autor und Lehrer Marc Aurels