exhibition of gladiators. In the Juvenal, he even admitted senators and
aged matrons to perform parts. In the Circensian games, he assigned the
equestrian order seats apart from the rest of the people, and had races
performed by chariots drawn each by four camels. In the games which he
instituted for the eternal duration of the empire, and therefore ordered
to be called Maximi, many of the senatorian and equestrian order, of both
sexes, performed. A distinguished Roman knight descended on the stage by
a rope, mounted on an elephant. A Roman play, likewise, composed by
Afranius, was brought upon the stage. It was entitled, "The Fire;" and
in it the performers were allowed to carry off, and to keep to
themselves, the furniture of the house, which, as the plot of the play
required, was burnt down in the theatre. Every day during the solemnity,
many thousand articles of all descriptions were thrown amongst the people
to scramble for; such as fowls of different kinds, tickets for corn,
clothes, gold, silver, gems, pearls, pictures, slaves, beasts of burden,
wild beasts that had been tamed; at last, ships, lots of houses, and
lands, were offered as prizes in a lottery.

XII. These games he beheld from the front of the proscenium. In the
show of gladiators, which he exhibited in a wooden amphitheatre, built
within a year in the district of the Campus Martius [569], he ordered
that none should be slain, not even the condemned criminals employed in
the combats. He secured four hundred senators, and six hundred Roman
knights, amongst whom were some of unbroken fortunes and unblemished
reputation, to act as gladiators. From the same orders, he engaged
persons to encounter wild beasts, and for various other services in the
theatre. He presented the public with the representation of a naval
fight, upon sea-water, with huge fishes swimming in it; as also with the
Pyrrhic dance, performed by certain youths, to each of whom, after the
performance was over, he granted the freedom of Rome. During this