XLIV. He corrected the confusion and disorder with which the spectators
took their seats at the public games, after an affront which was offered
to a senator at Puteoli, for whom, in a crowded theatre, no one would
make room. He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all
public spectacles of any sort, and in any place whatever, the first tier
of benches should be left empty for the accommodation of senators. He
would not even permit the ambassadors of free nations, nor of those which
were allies of Rome, to sit in the orchestra; having found that some
manumitted slaves had been sent under that character. He separated the
soldiery from the rest of the people, and assigned to married plebeians
their particular rows of seats. To the boys he assigned their own
benches, and to their tutors the seats which were nearest it; ordering
that none clothed in black should sit in the centre of the circle [186].
Nor would he allow any women to witness the combats of gladiators, except
from the upper part of the theatre, although they formerly used to take
their places promiscuously with the rest of the spectators. To the
vestal virgins he granted seats in the theatre, reserved for them only,
opposite the praetor's bench. He excluded, however, the whole female sex
from seeing the wrestlers: so that in the games which he exhibited upon
his accession to the office of high-priest, he deferred producing a pair
of combatants which the people called for, until the next morning; and
intimated by proclamation, "his pleasure that no woman should appear in
the theatre before five o'clock."

XLV. He generally viewed the Circensian games himself, from the upper
rooms of the houses of his friends or freedmen; sometimes from the place
appointed for the statues of the gods, and sitting in company with his
wife and children. He (108) occasionally absented himself from the
spectacles for several hours, and sometimes for whole days; but not