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Discrimina Ordinum: The Lex Julia Theatralis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Elizabeth Rawson
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 55 , November 1987 , pp. 83 - 114
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1987

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References

1 Cic. pro Sestio 106 is the classic reference for the Republic. For the Empire see Yavetz, Z.Plebs and Princeps (Oxford 1969) esp. 18ffGoogle Scholar, and among more recent discussions Tengström, E., ‘Theater und Politik im kaiserlichen Rom’, Eranos 75 (1977) 43Google Scholar; Hopkins, K., Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983) 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Cameron, A., Circus Factions (Oxford 1976) 157 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 Cic. pro Sestio 120 (but at a gladiatorial show in the Forum, where the equites may not yet have had separate seats, it is the populus universus that is present). For the concept of ordo see B. Cohen, ‘La notion A'ordo dans la Rome antique’, Bull. Budé. (1975) 259, and Nicolet, C. ed., Des Ordres à Rome (Paris 1984Google Scholar).

3 Tac., Ann. 13. 54Google Scholar. Ordo can mean ‘row of seats’, but is unlikely to do so here.

4 Statius, Silv. 1.6.43Google Scholar. But for ordo matronarum Livy 34.7.1, Val. Max. 8.3.3.

5 Plautus Poen. 266, cf. Paul. Fest. 252L.

6 Hor., Ep. 2.1.197–8Google Scholar.

7 Bollinger, T., Theatralis Licentia, (Winterthur 1969Google Scholar); Kolendo, J., ‘La répartition des places aux spectacles et la stratification sociale dans l'Empire Romain’, Ktema 6 (1981) 301Google Scholar (fuller on the evidence from outside Rome than from the city itself). F. Kolb's announced Theaterpublikum und Gesellschqft based on his Habilitationsschrift (see his Agora und Theater, Berlin 1981, 92, n. 27Google Scholar; this at least is primarily about the Greek world) seems to have been delayed. I have not seen Pinther, De lege lulia theatrali prolusio, (1800), or earlier works.

8 Sons of slaves, even slaves themselves, had sat in the Senate or held office in the armed forces, citizenship had been widely bestowed as a party reward, senators and equites had been ruined while persons of obscure origin had made fortunes.

9 Suet., Div. Aug. 43.3Google Scholar. See now Levick, B., ‘The Senatus Consultum from Larinum’, JRS 73 (1983) 97Google Scholar.

10 E.g. Polacco, L., ‘Théâtre, Societé, Organisation de l'État’, in Théâtre et Spectacles dans l'Antiquité, (Strasbourg 1982) 5Google Scholar.

A wedge, separated by vertical staircases and horizontal gangways, is a cuneus or σελίς. In the Colosseum at least the wedges were numbered. Each horizontal band was separated from that above it by a διάζωμα or balteus. In the Colosseum at least, with too many bands for that to be clear, the purely Roman word maenianum was used, derived from the Maenius, censor in 318 B.C., said to have built overhanging balconies for viewing spectacles in the Forum (Festus 120L, qui primus inforo ultra columnas tigna proiecit quo ampliarentur superiora spectacula), or from a Maenius supposed to have sold his house to the censors of 184 but who kept one column on which he built a projecting box so he and his descendents could still watch the games (ps-Asc. 201 St. Porph. ad Hor., Sat. 1.3.21Google Scholar). A gradus, or an ordo, is a row.

11 See Ovid, , Trist. 2. 283Google Scholar: hic sedet ignoto iuncta puella viro, cf. Ars Am. 3 2 4, cf. 19 cogit nos linea iungi (the line which divided seats). Note still Juv., Sat. 11. 201Google Scholar: spectent iuvenes, quos clamor el audaxjsponsio, quos cultae decet assedisse puellae.

In the theatre and amphitheatre, when he was not presiding on the tribunal over one of the parodoi (or sitting with the president, Dio 55.25. 8, reading ), he probably sat in a curule chair in the orchestra, see nn. 156–7, and cf. Josephus, AJ 19.1.13Google Scholar. Nero had a box, cubiculum, on the podium in the amphitheatre where he reclined, and sometimes in the theatre watched from the top of the proscaenium, Suet., Nero, 12.2Google Scholar, 12.1, 26.2. At the races Gaius watched , probably the pulvinar, with his sisters and the sodales Augustales, Dio 59.3.3–4 and 7.4. Claudius was not allowed there by Augustus, Suet. Claud. 4.3Google Scholar; the children of Germanicus were there on at least one occasion, Suet., Div. Aug. 34.2Google Scholar. Trajan abandoned the pulvinar for the public seats, probably the senators’. For the pulvinar, A. Cameron, op. cit. in n. 1, 176.

12 Wallace-Hadrill, A., Suetonius (London 1983) 47Google Scholar.

13 Pliny, NH 33. 32Google Scholar. From its name, the law could be Caesar's, but we do not hear of him making changes (unless there were some consequential on his changes in the jury courts), while Augustus as Suet, shows did reorganize the whole system.

Scamuzzi, U., ‘Studi sulla Lex Roscia Theatralis’, R. St. Cl. 17 (1969) 133, 259Google Scholar, and 18 (1970) 5, 375, (at once excessively lengthy and too narrow) perversely denies the existence of a real Lex Julia.

14 CIL VI 32098 = ILS 5654; Lugli, , Fontes III pp. 152–3Google Scholar. A few further fragments published by Chastagnol, A., Le Sénat Romain sous le règne d'Odoacre: Recherches sur l'Épigraphie du Colisée au Ve Siècle (Bonn 1966Google Scholar). Unfortunately there are no published photographs. I am grateful to Prof. S. Priuli and Dtssa. Rea for allowing me to examine the inscriptions still accessible in the Colosseum.

15 CIL VI 32098(a) = Chastagnol op. cit. 25 no. (a); cf. (c) [pra]etext(atis) p(edes) VIII S, and (d) [Paedagogis p] uero [rum]. Statius, loc. cit. (n. 4) also suggests parvi sat separately in the Colosseum from the first.

16 Tac., Ann. 6. 3Google Scholar.

17 Suet., Div. Aug. 43.1Google Scholar. The amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus in the Campus Martius was burnt down in the fire of A.D. 64, after which Nero built a temporary one, Suet., Nero 12.1Google Scholar. Suet. Div. Aug. 43; Gaius preferred the Saepta, Dio 59.10.5, and a temporary construction elsewhere.

18 Vitr. 1.7.1; cf. Augustus, RG 22.3Google Scholar. In Greek, , IGRR I 1024.26Google Scholar, from Berenice, said to be first cent. B.C. The adjective ἀμφιθέατρος is applied to the ἱππόδρομος in DH R. Ant. 4.44. Spectacula, ILLRP 645. Arena and stage go together, as circus does not, in Augustus' and Tiberius' attempts to prevent the upper orders appearing on them. Theatre used to cover amphitheatre, Dio 73.17.3–4, 18.1, 20.2, 21.3 e.g.; Virgil, Aen. V 288Google Scholar even says mediaque in valle theatri/circus erat. See Etienne, R., ‘La naissance de l'amphithéatre: le mot et la chose’, REL 43 (1965) 213Google Scholar, noting ILS 5053–4, from Campania.

19 See now Cavallaro, M. A., Spese e Spettacoli: aspetti economici-strutturali nella Roma giulio-claudia (Rome 1984) 115, 119, 207–8Google Scholar.

20 Plautus Poen. 23–7, cf. 41–3, pedisequi can attack the bakery dum ludi fiunt—i.e. they are not watching.

21 Id.ib. 28–31; cf. 17. (the sex of the scorta is not clear). Capt. 11 ff., negal hercle illic ullimus; accedito/si non ubi sedeas locus est, est ubi ambules, clearly attests standing at the back, though it seems to disapprove of it. Poen. 22 also shows latecomers standing. Cure. 643–7, a nurse and a child at the Dionysia, clearly seated; perhaps from the Greek original.

22 Cic. de har. resp. 22–6. Graillot, H., Le Culte de Cybèle Mère des Dieux à Rome et dans l'Empire Romain (Paris 1912) 82Google Scholar believes slaves were totally barred; so apparently Wiseman, T. P., ‘Clodius at the Theatre’, Cinna the Poet (Leicester 1974) 167Google Scholar, though it is not clear if he applies this to all ludi.

23 Lintott, A. W., ‘P. Clodius Pulcher— Felix Catilina?’, G&R 14 (1967) 157Google Scholar; Lenaghan, J. O., A Commentary on Cicero's Oration De Haruspicum Responso (The Hague 1969) 115 ffGoogle Scholar. Whatever happened in 56, no matrona dared go, according to Cicero, and indeed the slaves were left alone in the theatre.

24 FIRA 121 CXXVI. The document is a Flavian copy, and could have been adapted; but there is no reference to special seats for the Augustales, usual under the Empire, which suggests that the theatrical arrangements have not been tampered with, though the mention of Baetica cannot be Caesarian. (Gradenwitz, O., ‘Nochmals: Die römischen Stadtrechte’, ZSS 43 (1922) 439Google Scholar thinks CXXV and CXXVI I seriously interpolated. Ville, G., La Gladiature en Occident des origines à la mart de Domitien (Rome 1981) 437CrossRefGoogle Scholar also thinks CXXVII interpolated, as the right of a Roman senator and his son to a seat in the orchestra presupposes Augustus' s.c. of 26 B.C. Possible but not necessary; according to Suetonius Augustus' rule dealt with all spectacula in all towns, not just the theatre, as at Urso; and some towns may not have needed the new rule. Prof. M. Crawford tells me he intends in a forthcoming study to distinguish two layers, both Republican, in the charter.)

25 Carcopino, J., Daily Life in Ancient Rome (London 1941) 235Google Scholar; he makes peregrini stand here too, holding both categories were excluded from the distribution of tesserae for seats; but see below on the number and importance of foreign spectators; most must have sat.

26 Digest 21.1.65; cf. Hor., Epist. I 14.15Google Scholar (to a slave), nunc urbem et ludos et balnea vilicus optas; and Columella de RR 1.8.2, a lazy slave accustomed to dissipation in Rome, including the theatres.

27 The Neronian date, long canonical, is defended by Townend, G.B., ‘Calpurnius Siculus and the Munus Neronis’ JRS 70 (1980) 166Google Scholar, and R. Mayer, ‘Calpurnius Siculus: Technique and Date’, ib. 175, against Champlin, E., ‘The Life and Times of Calpurnius Siculus’ JRS 68 (1978) 95Google Scholar. Champlin returns to the fray in ‘History and the Date of Calpurnius Siculus’, Philol. 138 (1986) 104Google Scholar (but his argument from theatre-seating confuses theatre and circus) with support from D. Armstrong, ‘Stylistics and the Date of Calpurnius Siculus’, ib. 113 who shows the poet need not be Neronian; but the historical arguments for that date as opposed to a third-century one remain strong.

Corydon climbs to the rear (venimus ad sedes, ubi pulla sordida veste/inter femineas spectabat turba cathedras), where stabam defixus, but by the time he gets into conversation with his left-hand neighbour (lateri quiforte sinistrofiunctus erat) he may be sitting. 26ff.

28 Eder, W., Servitus Publica (Wiesbaden 1980) 49Google Scholar for the slaves of the Arvals, 106 the limus cinctus. He does not mention the theatre.

29 Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford 1946) 20Google Scholar, a slab saying : ‘this in its original use must have reserved a place for the Council staff in the ‘Periclean auditorium’. Cf. Rhodes, P. J., The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 142, 155–6Google Scholar. But the stone is roughly inscribed, and its original purpose cannot be regarded as certain.

30 Seneca, de Tranqu. An. 11.8Google Scholar. Slaves seem to have been present in classical Athens, Plato Gorgias 502 b-d. For a procurator's slaves, acting as a claque and present in different parts of the house (in Epirus), Epict. 3.4. (Exactly how Nero seated his claque, the Augustiani, young equites and apparently also several fadiones of humbler youths, is unclear; Tac., Ann. 14.15Google Scholar, Dio 61.20.4., Suet., Nero 20.3Google Scholar.)

31 Cobet, C.G., ‘Miscellanea Critica’, Mnem. 10 (1861) 337Google Scholar.

32 Propertius 4.8.77; Ovid, Amores 2.7.3Google Scholar.

33 See n. 11.

34 Ecl. 7. 25.

35 Schol. Aristoph. Eccl. 22, the psephisma of Phyromachus or Sphyromachus fixed separate seats for women and among these for hetairai. The date is uncertain and the fact has been doubted. Notoriously, in the fifth century women may not have gone to the theatre in Athens at all: Aristoph Peace 962–7 suggests that they were either at the back or entirely absent, cf. Thesm. 395, men return to their wives from the theatre. Perhaps only comedy was felt unsuitable.

36 Married freedwomen could wear the stola, ILLRP 977.

37 Vestis merelricia, Ulp., Dig. XLVII 10.15Google Scholar. Gardner, J.F., Women in Roman Law and Society (London and Sidney 1986) 251CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Plutarch Sulla 35 does not help to fix the situation in 80 B.C.; in recounting Sulla's first meeting with his last wife Valeria at a gladiatorial show he stresses that at this time men and women sat together at ‘the theatres’; but as we saw the word could be used loosely and Plutarch may not be aware that the scene is probably the Forum anyway.

39 Plautus Poen. 32–5 (cf. 28–31, the nutrkes); Terence Hec. 35 refers to the clamour of women. Vitruvius 5.3.1 says citizens watch the games ‘with their wives and children’; the chapter concerns the theatre proper, but the force of cum is obscure, for V. is talking of a possible health threat to the entire population. He is also not thinking primarily of Rome.

40 ILLRP 713 = Frederiksen, M., ed. Purcell, N., Campania (London 1984) 282 no. 15Google Scholar. Later at Interamna Nahars works done in the theatre in muliebrfibus?), CILX.I 4206, may also refer to the women's section, cf. in equestribus e.g. Sen., Ben. 7.12.4.Google Scholar, popularia for the seats of theplebs, Suet., Dom. 4.5Google Scholar (in muliebr. aeramentis—perhaps with ref. to the copper vessels placed in many theatres for acoustic purposes). Ghislanzoni, E., ‘II rilievo gladiatorio di Chieti’, Mon. Ant. 19 (1908) 541Google Scholar, notes a woman, standing like most of the audience, who waves her arms right at the back, in the early imperial relief of the Augustalis Lusius Storax. Three boys sit at the front but at the side; their function is unclear. The show is probably held in a Forum or other public space; at least de facto sexual segregation at gladiatorial shows in a country town might be due to influence from Rome—or have predated division there.

41 Rawson, E., ‘Theatrical Life in Republican Rome and Italy’, PBSR 53 (1985) 97Google Scholar.

42 Recently, Thuillier, J.-P., Les Jeux Athlétiques dans la Civilisation Étrusque, Bull. Ec. Fr. d'Ath. et de Rome (Rome 1985) esp. 632–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar: women are certainly watching athletics together with men in some representations.

43 Bollinger op. cit. in n.2, 19–20 (he thinks that perhaps even the mariti e plebe had their wives with them), followed by Kolendo op. cit. in n. 2, 305. Cf. Lilja, S., ‘Seating Problems in Roman Theatre and Circus’ Arctos 19 (1985) 67Google Scholar (superficial). Of the other passages B. adduces, Lucretius 4 78–80 is unclear and probably corrupt (it led Taylor, L. Ross, ‘Lucretius in the Roman Theatre’, Studies in Honour of G. Norwood, Toronto 1952) 147Google Scholar to think senators' wives sat with them until Augustus, but the reference may be to the Mater Deorum, not to mattes, or be more radically corrupt); and Petronius 126, on a woman who passes from the orchestra through the XIV Rows to the summa cavea in her search for a lover is surely not to be taken literally.

44 Chastagnol op. cit. in n. 14.

45 Tac., Ann. 4.16Google Scholar (apparently to boost Vestal morale); Gaius' relatives given all the privileges of the Vestals, Dio 59.3.4; Messalina, Dio 60.22.2.

46 E.g. a Theban harpist at Delphi in 86 B.C., Pleket, , Epigraphica II 6Google Scholar, with other honours, also for her descendants.

47 Heberdey, R., Forschungen in Ephesos II 1912 no. 27 469Google Scholar. A. Cameron, op. cit. in n. 1, 79 compares the seats for νεὼτεροι in the Odeum at Aphrodisias, but such bodies, often found in the imperial period, will be older (cf. Latin, iuvenes). Scolastici, CIL XII 714Google Scholar, with special seats in the arena at Arelate (later), are persons with legal qualifications, not schoolboys.

48 There certainly was Roman influence on spectacles in the Greek world, notably in the vogue for gladiators and venationes, and in the architectural development of theatre-buildings (which were often adapted to take such shows). See White, A. N. Sherwin, The Letters of Pliny (Oxford 1966)Google Scholar on Ep. X 39; Juba and Herod built Roman-style theatres, Bejor, G., ‘L'edificio teatrale nell'urbanizzazione Augustea’, Athen. 57 (1979) 126Google Scholar.

49 Aeschines 3 154. Pollux, Onom. 4.122Google Scholar. The schol. to Aristoph. Birds 794 also refers to a at Melos, IG XII 3.1243Google Scholar perhaps Hellenistic (probably the same age-group).

50 Op. cit. in n. 7 (confusing latus clavus and toga praetexta?).

51 Recently, Hadrill, A. Wallace, ‘Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws’, PCPS 207 (1981) 58Google Scholar.

52 The boys’ cuneus should be near the back, if we are to press Statius, loc. cit. in n. 4, talking of the feast served in the amphitheatre by Domitian, as he begins with parvi and goes on to women, plebs, equites and senate in ascending order of importance. (And the paedagogi next them, as slaves, should not be far forward.) Ville, op. cit. in n. 24, 435, thinks that on this occasion they all sat together, and that this is indicated by the next line, libertas reverentiam remisit. But probably the dinner was served in the arena, not the seating (though una mensa may merely mean they all ate the same food). Suet, Nero 20.2Google Scholar, Nero dines in the orchestra.

53 Jos., AJ 14.210Google Scholar shows Hyrcanus and his sons and ambassadors being specially granted the right to sit with the senators under Caesar's dictatorship; so prob. in the s.c. de Aphrodisiensibus of 39 B.C. (Reynolds, J., Aphrodisias and Rome (London 1982) no. 8Google Scholar lines 76–8. Gladiatorial games and venationes are included in both cases, and in the second all such shows within Rome or one mile of it are specified. In fact it is only in this second document that Aycoves in general are referred to. Perhaps all future Aphrodisian envoys are included (cf. no. 9, 1.10, provisions dependent on a subsequent law or treaty: did Augustus override even this?) Earlier scc. referring to gifts and honours to envoys say nothing of seats at the ludi.

54 Even Augustus once put the Parthian envoys directly behind himself on the second subsellium, Suet, Div. Aug. 43; cf. Tac., Ann. 13.54.5Google Scholar (and Suet., Claud. 25.4Google Scholar, probably misdated); Dio 68.15, Trajan put πρεσβευτάς into the senatorial seats.

55 CIL VI 32098(e) =Chastagnol op. cit. in n. 8, 25 no. (e) [hos]pitib [us publicis].

56 PW XVIII 1.1118 sv ‘ornamenta’ (Borszák).

57 Tac., Ann. 16.5.1Google Scholar; Martial, De Sped. 3. 1Google Scholar. Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (London 1977) 365Google Scholar stresses the importance of foreign visitors at the games in Rome, where they could see the Emperor.

58 Theophrastus Char. 9 puzzles; the shameless man buys seats in a special part of the theatre for foreign friends? Is this why it is shameless to sit there himself?

59 Alexis 4IK, a woman complains that she had to sit at the side like a foreigner (just possibly not in Athens).

60 ILLRP 645 (the locus mentioned here is as many parallels show not the seating but the ground for the building.)

61 Wiseman, T. P., ‘Cicero, pro Sulla 60–1’, LCM 2 (1977) 21Google Scholar. It is true that in the theatre at Pompeii extra, inferior seating was added in the Augustan period.

62 Tacitus, Ann. 14. 17Google Scholar, the great riot of A.D. 59.

63 FIRA I 21 CXXV–VII; there is no mention of gladiatorial shows etc., perhaps still less carefully organized. (ILS 5656, decurions are responsible for the arrangements at Nemausus as doubtless elsewhere.) Perhaps these are the genera hominum given seating under the Flavian Lex Imitana ch. LXXI (JRS 76 (1986) 147Google Scholar) Coloni, incolae, hospites and atventores are the regular groups for whom provisions are made for example at the baths in various towns—whether separately or not is unclear (ILS 5671–3). The scene so vividly evoked in Diod. Sic. 37.12, the riot at the theatre at Asculum in 91 B.C., makes better sense if we think of the Picene and Roman parts of the audience as seated separately. So does the great riot at Pompeii if Pompeians and Nucerians were easily distinguishable (see n. 62).

64 Musurillo, H., Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford 1954) 36, 42, 158Google Scholar. White clothing was sometimes necessary for entering sanctuaries or taking part in certain rites in the ancient world, Mills, H., ‘Greek clothing regulations: sacred and profane?’ ZPE 55 (1984) 255Google Scholar. Garlands were sometimes worn; Livy notes that at the first ludi Apollinares populus coronatus spectavit, 25.12.15; on a famous occasion under Commodus the senators at least were wearing laurel wreaths, Dio 73.21.2. But the right to wear a laurel wreath in the theatre was specially granted to Caesar, Weinstock, S., Divus Julus (Oxford 1971) 271Google Scholar. Cf. the honours voted in perpetuity to the Fourth and Martian legions in 43, App., BC 3.74Google Scholar. Permission to wear a crownpompa et circensibus was granted at Puteoli to Cupiennius Satrius, see n. 162. Arnobius, Adv. Mat. 4.35Google Scholar picks out the XVviri as laureati at shows.

65 In his early Die Römischen Tribus, (Altona 1844) 206Google Scholar (when he wrongly thought foreigners were not admitted); the suggestion seems to lapse in the Staatsrecht. But cf. Friedlaender, L. in Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung II, 1855, 534Google Scholar, Bollinger, op. cit. in n. 7, 15.

66 Some of the theatre tickets from Athens with tribe names probably go back to the fourth century B.C., Kolb, op. cit. in n. 7, 93 (unfortunately the tokens from Rome sometimes thought to be theatre tickets are quite unhelpful); at Megalopolis tribe divisions epigraphically attested perhaps in the first cent. B.C., Fiechter, E., Das Theater in Megalopolis, (Stuttgart 1931) 21 ffGoogle Scholar. Later, e.g. at Hierapolis (Kolb, F., ZPE 15 (1974) 255Google Scholar), Stobi in Macedonia (Gebhard, E., The Antiquities ofStobi III, ed. Aleksova, B. and Wiseman, J., Belgrade 1981, 13Google Scholar), and elsewhere.

67 Lambaesis and Lepcis Magna, Torelli, M., ‘Le curiae di Lepcis Magna’, Quad, di Arch, della Libia 6 (1971), 105Google Scholar (second century A.D. ), cf. CIL VIII .3293. Hal., Dion.Ant. Rom. 3. 68Google Scholar says Tarquinius Priscus gave the curiae at Rome separate seats in the Circus Maximus which he built—hardly true, but it might be an invented precedent for a division by tribes in the theatre which either existed or was projected in the time of Dionysius or his source. CIL VI 955, a Trajanic inscription in which the 35 tribes thank for a locorum adiectio contributing to their commoda has been thought to refer to places on the corn distribution, not the circus (where it was found). Cf. Pliny Pan. 51, populo locorum V milia adiecisti, not wholly clear. But Trajan did enlarge the Circus, Dio 68.7.2, cf. Paus. 5.12, and seating at the games is certainly one of the commoda of the plebs. However, the tribes are unlikely to have sat separately in the circus, where even men and women still mingled.

68 Sic., Calp.Ecl. 7 79–82, 28–9Google Scholar (mea numina = the Emperor).

69 Mommsen, , Staatsrecht I 407 n. 5Google Scholar; cf. Ps. Aero ad Hor., Epod 4.15Google Scholar who says that under the lex Roscia the first two rows of the XIV reserved for equites were for tribuni militum, see below for his probable inaccuracy.

70 van Berchem, D., ‘Les ‘clients’ de la plèbe romaine’, Rend. Pont. Ace. R. Arch. 18 (1941–1942) 183Google Scholar. For tribus probably just meaning plebs, e.g. Statius, Silv. 4.1.25Google Scholargaudent turmaeque tribusque/purpureique patres.

71 Bollinger op. cit. in n. 7, 15; ILS 5049—but see d'Escurac, H. Pavis, La Préfecture de l'Annone (Rome 1976) 57Google Scholar, following Dessau rather than Rostovtseff; Chastagnol op. cit. in n. 14 follows the latter.

72 Suet., Gaius 26.4Google Scholar perhaps implies some, not all, seats at the circus were free—though it is odd that equites should rush to occupy free seats; and Emperors are sometimes recorded as giving shows gratis, which suggests they were not all so. In the Republic one certainly might have to pay for a seat in the Forum in the stands put up by magistrates, if one was not given one; see above. ILS 411 shows a statue of Divus Pertinax set up ex reditibus locorum amphitheatri diet muneris, which had apparently gone to the magistrate giving the games; but Cirta is no model for Rome. Cf. Vitr. 5. 1, maeniana in the Forum (probably in an oppidum in Italy) will bring in revenues, and for a commercial operation near Rome, the Fidenae disaster, in a temporary wooden amphitheatre, Tac., Ann. 4.62Google Scholar. Ludi assiforanei were cheap travelling shows at which one paid. The role of locarii, who would make money from a gladiator's popularity (Martial 5.24.9) is unclear.

73 Fronto, Princ. Hist. 17.

74 D. van Berchem, op. cit in no. 70. CIL VI 32098 (f) = Chastagnol, op. cit. in n. 14, 25 no. (f) client[ibus]; ILS 525, 6048, 6057, 6165; see ad locc. and Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia (Oxford 1973) 210Google Scholar. Pace Bollinger, Pliny, Pan. 23.1Google Scholar gives no support for an earlier date for this usage—Trajan's clientes here are clearly not identical with the plebs.

75 Note Melos, (Hellenistic?) τοπός νεανισκῶν, IG 12.3.1243.

76 ILS 6049–50, 6052; compare the corpus Augustale in the Pal. and Esq. and see Mommsen, , Staatsrecht III 190Google Scholar.

77 Cic., ad A. II 1.5Google Scholar. This was the occasion of Cicero's non consulate witticism about Clodia's other foot.

78 Cic. pro Mm. 72–3.

79 Murena was once able to give seats to his tribules when only a praefectusfabrum, and Cicero seems to have done so when a privatus at the ludi Romani in 54, via a freedman (Philotimo tribulibus commendatis, ad Qf 3 1. 1, with Shackleton Bailey ad loc).

80 Plut., Gaius Gracch. 12.3Google Scholar, Cic. pro Sest. 124, pro Mur. 73. This official system of patronage (and the existence at least from Caesar's time of seats for senators, see above) incidentally throws doubt on the suggestion (Balsdon, J.P.V.D., Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, (London 1969) 258 ff.Google Scholar, Ville, op. cit. in n. 24, 433) that men sat with women at Republican munera because these were private affairs to which state regulations could not apply.

Could clientibus in the Colosseum refer not to the tribes as such but to some sort of survival of the private patronage into the Empire? Or is this something that Augustus would be very glad to deprive great men of, and which was tied to the construction by magistrates of temporary seating?

81 Cic. pro Mur. 67.

82 Cic. pro Sest. 124.

83 FIRA I 40.1; Dio 54.30.

84 Bollinger op. cit. in n. 7, 13, suggests Tiberius modified it in 20, but it is not clear that on this occasion he did more than take account of individual hard cases (Tac., Ann. 3.25Google Scholar and 28.3 ff).

85 Martial 5.41.8.

86 Plut., Lyc. 15 1–3Google Scholar. Rawson, E., The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford 1969) 100ffGoogle Scholar. For the evidence on the gymnopaidia, which Pausanias locates in the agora, see F. Kolb, op. cit. in n. 7 79–80.

87 Dio 53.25.1. Hardly Polemon's Empire; Dio must be confused.

88 Id. 54.2.3–5.

89 Bollinger op. cit. in n. 7, 13. Tac., Ann. 13.24.4Google Scholar shows that at most periods in the early Empire there were soldiers on duty in the theatre (Nero briefly removed them; cf. 16.5.1, per cuneos). Cf. Ulpian, , Dig. 1.12.12Google Scholar, the praefectus urbi stations soldiers at the spectacula.

90 Tac., Ann. 16. 27Google Scholar, Hist. 1.38, PW XXII. 2 1624 1625 (Durry).

91 Livy 10.47.3 ‘first’ worn at games in 292 B.C.; on the corona civica see below.

92 At Suet. Div. Aug. 57 they appear with the tribes and decuries as contributing to the restoration of Augustus' house on the Palatine.

93 Tac., Ann. 6. 9Google Scholar: Tiberius rejects Junius Gallio's proposal as against Augustan precedent, cf. Dio 58.18.3.

94 Kolendo, op. cit. in n. 7

95 Forni, G., Il Reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a Diocleziano (Milan/Rome 1953) 119 ffGoogle Scholar.

96 Tac., Ann. 16.12.1Google Scholar.

97 CIL VI 32098 (i) = Chastagnol(i). Or just possibly [decuriae lictorum] curia[tiorum] (Mommsen, Staatsrecht I 392 n 4Google Scholar).

98 Purcell, N., ‘The Apparitores: A study in social mobility’, PBSR 51 (1983) 125–173Google Scholar.

99 FIRA I 10.33; Cohen, B., ‘Some neglected “ordines”: the apparitorial Status-groups’, in Des Ordres à Rome, ed. Nicolet, C. (Paris 1984) 38 ffGoogle Scholar.

100 Petron., Sat. 71.10Google Scholar.

101 Among freedmen made equites note Stat., Silv. 3.3. 142Google Scholar (Vespasian and the father of Claudius Etruscus) in cuneos populo deduxit equestres. Pallas got ornamenta praetoria, Tac., Ann. 12.53.2Google Scholar, Narcissus, quaestoria, 11.38.5Google Scholar.

102 Op. cit. in n. 98.

103 CIL VI 1887 =ILS 1944.

104 ILS 5049, with comm. ad loc. Nobles ad podium spectantes, Juv., Sat. 2.147Google Scholar.

105 ILS 5656 (nautae working on the various rivers); C. Roueché, ‘Inscriptions from the Auditoria at Aphrodisias’ (I am grateful to Mrs Roueche for sending me a draft of this article before publication). One of the official reactions to the riot in the amphitheatre at Pompeii was to disband illegal collegia, Tac., Ann. 14. 17Google Scholar. Moeller, W. D., ‘The Riot of A.D. 59 at Pompeii’, Historia 19 (1970) 84Google Scholar thinks collegia iuvenum were involved in the trouble, but these would hardly be illegal.

106 See n. 28.

107 Cens., de die nat. 12.2Google Scholar says they were allowed ludos publice facere ac vesci in Capitolio.

108 ILLRP 719 = Frederiksen (op. cit. in n. 44) 282 no. 17. There was a magister pagi (only one pagus is known for certain) and twelve boards of magistri fanorum, totalling over 100 persons each year.

109 Apparently in 7 B.C. Dio 55.8.7, noting that the vicomagistri might only flaunt the praetexta and two lictors on certain days and in their own vicus.

110 Most of the relevant passages are dealt with in Stein, A., Der römische Ritterstand, (Munich 1927) 21–30Google Scholar. Cic. pro Mur. 40, Roscius restored dignitas and voluptas to the equites (restituit, restitutus); cf. Vell. Pat. 2.32.3; Plut. Cic. 13.2 speaks of the Lex Roscia as an innovation, but he is inaccurate in other respects. Asc. 61 St., confirmavit, is ambiguous. Wiseman, T. P., Phoenix 27 (1973) 189CrossRefGoogle Scholar (a review of Badian's Publicans and Sinners, see n. 111) suggests that the gift of special seats was within the aediles' competence, and though it had become a custom was omitted by popularity-seeking magistrates in the years before 67. U. Scammuzzi, op. cit. in n. 13 270, also thinks the division had existed de facto. One might still hold it disappeared with Sulla, who took the courts from the equites. Dio 36.42.1, Roscius divided off the equites ἀκριβῶς, perhaps suggests a newly formal arrangement. In some versions, the senators were given their seats in 194 by the presiding aediles, though impelled or approved by the censors or the consuls (see n. 134); there is no evidence there was ever a law.

Note for the Colosseum, , CIL VI 32098Google Scholar (b) = Chastagnol (b), equiti[bus].

111 Asconius 61 St. speaks of the equites benefitting by the Lex Roscia in a passage in which he has just mentioned the Lex Aurelia of 70 and carefully distinguished equites from tribuni aerarii, who had the equestrian census and were sometimes called equites. But Badian, E., Publicans and Sinners (Oxford 1972) 84, 144Google Scholar thinks Cicero would not praise the Lex Roscia as he does before a jury including tribuni aerarii unless they shared in its benefits; cf Schol. Juv. 3.155, the Lex Roscia ordered those who had HS 400,000 in numero equilum esse—the scholiast could easily be confused, but other imperial sources associate the law and the census figure closely. Free birth probably required, Hor., Epode 4.16Google Scholar (reading Othone contempto).

Ferrary, J.-L., ‘Les Chevaliers romains sous la République’ REL 58 (1980) 329Google Scholar suggests that the tribuni aerarii, but not all those with the census, had seats. This is close to my view, but how many tribuni aerarii there were, if any, apart from those serving as jurors, is uncertain.

112 Cic., Phil. 2.44Google Scholar; Suet., Div Aug. 40.1Google Scholar. The poena was perhaps a fine. Schol. Juv. V3 shows Maecenas' freedman Sarmentus being tried, apparently for sitting in the XIV, in the triumviral period (he was acquitted owning to the power of his patron).

113 Pliny, NH 33.32Google Scholar.

114 Henderson, M. I., ‘The Establishment of the Equester Ordo’, JRS 53 (1963) 61Google Scholar, also in Seager, R., ed., The Crisis of the Roman Republic (Cambridge 1969) 69Google Scholar. Cf. Dio 59.9, Gaius enrolled men of wealth and birth from the provinces in the order—Pliny noted that in Augustus' day there were no provincials on the panels, and in his own day still no new citizens. Whether Dio is right that Gaius acted because numbers in the ordo had been sinking is another matter. If some rich provincials thereafter did not or could not get onto the jury-lists, this would explain why they do not call themselves equites on inscriptions.

115 Tabula Hebana 3 (Ehrenberg and Jones 94a): equites omnium decuria[rum quae iudiciorum public] orum gratia constitutae sunt erunt suffragium ferant. …

116 Cic., Phil. 1.20Google Scholar. I would not follow Mrs Henderson in her further suggestion that the Lex Iulia Theatralis mentioned by Pliny as feared by equites impoverished in the civil wars in Augustus' time was passed by Caesar: Horace's references to the Lex Roscia suggest this was still in force in the 30s and even in 20 B.C. when the first book of Epistles was published; I take the point that Juvenal, Sat. 14. 324Google Scholar and Tacitus, Ann. 15.32Google Scholar refer to it as if it were still in force, which it hardly can have been in their time, but perhaps where the equites were concerned the Lex Julia merely supplemented its provisions.

I am delighted to find that my views on the equites are very close to those of J. Linderski in his review of Nicolet, C., L'Ordre Equestre à l'Époque Repub. II, in CP 72 (1977) 55Google Scholar.

117 Cic., ad f. 10.32.2Google Scholar.

118 Cic. pro Balbo 43; Livy Ep. 110

119 Strabo C169; cf. Wiseman, T. P., ‘The Definition of Eques Romanus in the Late Republic and Early Empire’, Hist. 19 (1970) 72Google Scholar. At Arausio later there were three rows for equites, ILS 5655.

120 Hor., Epode 4.15–16Google Scholar, Pseudo-Aero ad loc. (tribuni), Porph. ad loc. (tribunicii).

121 Mommsen, Staatsrecht III 521Google Scholar.

122 Ovid, Fasti 4. 383Google Scholar; cf. Trist. 4.10.7. He certainly had the public horse, Trist. 2.542. Amores 3.8.9 refers to becoming an eques by military service: ecce recens dives parto per vulnera censu/praefertur nobis sanguine pastus eques.

At Trist. 4.10.34 Ovid claims to have been not a Xvir but a IIIvir; attempts have been made to explain the conflict by reading bis denos in Fast 4.383 (a ref. to the minor magistrates in general) or supposing he held both offices. But poetic licence may be the explanation.

Martial 3. 95.9 vidit me Roma tribunum/et sedeo qua te suscitat Oceanus (a dissignator in the theatre or amphitheatre). The two statements are probably causally connected; is he referring to the first two rows or the XIV in general?

123 Op. cit. in n. 119, cf. op. cit. in n. 110.

124 At Stobi later (see n. 66) prohedroi got twice the space of an ordinary seat, at 80 cm. over two and a half feet; at Corfinium the named and numbered seat of C. Vettius Rums is a little broader still (see n. 144).

125 Nicolet, C., L'Ordre Equestre I (Paris 1974) 120Google Scholar thinks there were now more, as does Mrs. Henderson, op. cit. in n. 114. Augustus certainly increased numbers when he reorganized the equites equo publico into turmae. There are also the retired to cope with.

126 Quint., Inst. 6.3.63Google Scholar.

127 Sen., Ben. 7.12.4Google Scholar, Martial 5.14.

128 Tac., Ann. 2.83Google Scholar; presumably this refers to the theatre.

129 Demougin, S., L'Ordre Equestre sous les Julio-Claudiens I 31007Google Scholar (‘these dactilographiée, Paris 1, 1985), adducing Martial 5.14.1–5: sedere primo solitus in gradu semper/tunc, cum liceret occupare, Nanneius/bis excitatus terque transtulit castra/et inter ipsas paene tertius sellas/post Gaiumque Luciumque consedit. As the next lines show, he is still trying to sit in the equestria; perhaps not ‘dans l'espace divisant deux cunei, ceux de Gaius et de Lucius’, esp. as his next move is to perch on the edge of the gangway. He seems to be making a third with G. and L; did they continue to have seats placed for them in the theatre, side by side (see below)? (The commentators take the names as the equivalent of John Doe, etc. and think Nanneius in the row behind the equites along with the plebeians; but we have seen that other privileged groups must have divided the equites from the plebs—though possibly not in the amphitheatre).

130 Op. cit. in n. 65. He thought ‘theatre tokens’ with gods or portraits on them referred to these cunei, but the purpose of these objects is uncertain: van Berchem, D., ‘Tessères ou Calculi? Essai d'interpretation des jetons romains en plomb’, Rev. Num. 35 (1936) 247Google Scholar, Thornton, M. K., ‘The Roman Lead Tesserae’ Hist. 29 (1980) 335Google Scholar. Syracuse, L. Polacco and Anti, C., Il teatro antico di Siracusa (Rimini 1981) 45 ffGoogle Scholar.

131 Rhet., Sen.Controv. 7.3.9Google Scholar; Macrob., Sat. 2.3.10Google Scholar; Quint., Inst. 3.6.18–19Google Scholar, Ps.-Quint. Decl. Min. 302 (late first or early second cent.), Dig. 18.7.1 (emended—lex Julia de vi privata).

132 Pliny, NH 16.13Google Scholar, with Mommsen, Staatsrecht I 438.2Google Scholar for punctuation.

133 Maxfield, V., The Military Decorations of the Roman Army (London 1981) 70Google Scholar; Tac., Ann. 12.31Google Scholar. The curule chair placed in the theatre for Germanicus after his death had his coronae civicae placed on it.

134 Xenophanes frag. 2D 1–10; Heberdey, R., Forschungen in Ephesos II (1912) 127 ff. no. 27.477Google Scholar; Tyrtaeus fr. 9.41D. In archaic times in Rome crowns won at the games could be carried on a great man's funeral bier and possibly qualified for prohedria too; if so the changed organization of the ludi circenses put an end to this. See Rawson, E., ‘Chariot-racing in the Roman Republic’, PBSR 49 (1981), 1Google Scholar.

135 Livy 34.44 (from Val. Antias) and 54.3–8; Cic. pro Corn. ap. Asc. 55 St., de har. resp. 24, Val Max. 2.4.3. With Ungern-Sternberg, J. v., ‘Die Einführung spezieller Sitze für die Senatoren beiden Spielen (194 v. Chr.), Chiron 5 (1975), 157Google Scholar. Plut., Flam. 19.4Google Scholar, senators in front ὢσπερ εἴωθε in 184 B.C. Livy 34.54 falsely says senators nowhere had prohedria in 194.

136 Justin 43.5.10; Val. Max. 4.5.1.

137 Aristoph. Birds 794, cf. Pollux, Onom. 4.122Google Scholar.

138 As Hyrcanus and his sons and envoys were allowed to do, see n. 53.

139 FIRA I 21 CXXVII; cf. Tab. Herc. (FIRA I 13) 135 ff., no-one in any town set up by this law who is unqualified shall stand for office or in loco senatorio decurionum conscriptorum sedeto neve spectato at games or gladiatorial shows. Cf. Vitr. 5.6.2 in orchestra autem senatorum sunt sedibus loca designata (not necessarily in Rome).

140 Auslan, E., ‘Scolacium; Relazione Preliminare’, Atti Centr. St. e Doc. sull'Ital. Rom. 2 (1969/1970) 63–4Google Scholar, lists such theatres.

141 Varro, De LL V 128Google Scholar (written in the 40's B.C.).

142 Rhet., Sen.Controv. 7.3.9Google Scholar, Macrob., Sat. 2.3.10Google Scholar. Note ostensibly for an earlier period Cic. pro Corn. ap Asc. 55 St., in 194 Scipio allowed a populari consessu senatoria subsellia separari; the passage may reflect the situation he was used to.

143 Of course at the amphitheatre senators sat behind the barrier. Those thrown out of the Senate were sometimes allowed to keep their seats at the games, e.g. Cic. pro Clu. 132, Suet., Div Aug. 35.2Google Scholar.

144 E. Gebhard, op. cit. in n. 66. Seats with both names and numbers, probably republican, at Corfinium, , Forma Italiae IV 1 (1984) 48Google Scholar, 38.3 with fig. 189.2, F. Coarelli and A. La Regina, Abruzzo e Molise (Guida Archeologica Laterza) (1984) 122. Prof. Coarelli kindly confirmed to me his view of the date; Miss J. M. Reynolds would not rule out the Augustan period.

145 Epict. 1.25.26–7, who just refers to .

146 Tac., Ann. 3.31Google Scholar. Ville, op. cit. in n. 24, 435 (hence Clavel-Lévêque, M., L'Empire en Jeux (Paris 1984), 218 n. 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Ville argues that the special right given to young Gaius in 6 B.C. to watch with the senators (Dio 55.9.4) shows that the rule did not hold then (surely true) but did by A.D. 21. But Tiberius will not have made such a change, and it is perhaps not likely that Augustus did so in his late years.

147 Syme, R., ‘Domitius Corbulo’, Roman Papers II (Oxford 1979) 824Google Scholar.

148 CIL VI 32340, see PIR C 1463.

149 See esp. Dio 55.2.3, cf. 13.6; Suet., Gaius 15.3Google Scholar and Dio 59.6.6, on Claudius remaining an eques until Gaius' reign. Suet. Ti. 35.3, Nero 20.6, Isid., Etym. 9.4.12Google Scholar.

150 Chastagnol, op. cit. in n. 14, 34. In ‘La naissance de l'ordo senatorius’, now in Des Ordres à Rome (see n. 2) he thinks that when Gaius began to give sons of equites the latus clavus, as a corollary sons of senators ceased to be equites.

151 Arnob., Adv. Nat. 4.35Google Scholar. Chastagnol, op. cit. in n. 14. Hor., Sat. 1.6.40Google Scholar, where Tillius, a freedman's son who has become praetor, says that his colleague Novius who is himself a freedman sits on the row behind him, is rightly taken as figurative; colleagues in a magistracy would sit together whatever their parentage. (Ps-Acro thinks the reference is to the XIV rows, but this is impossible.)

152 Varro, Ant. Div. frag. 82 Cardauns.

153 Dio 44.4.2, 44.6.3; 53.27.6, a tribune praised for his piety in bringing his father to sit on the tribunes' bench with him is puzzling, but the event is clearly exceptional (25 B.C.).

154 Tac., Ann. 2.83.2Google Scholar. Chastagnol op. cit. in n. 14, 26 no. 3 (his numbered fragments are not in CIL) -viris might be for the XVviri sac. fac., but possibly for one of the boards of minor magistrates. At Urso the pontifices and augurs sat with the decurions, FIRA 21 LXVI.

155 Arnob. Adv. Nat. 4.35Google Scholar.

156 Weinstock, S. ‘The Image and the Chair of Germanicus’, JRS 47 (1957) 144Google Scholar. Caesar's chair was ultimately to be gold; so were the chairs voted to Tiberius and Sejanus, Dio 58.4.4.

157 Suet., Div. Aug. 43.5Google Scholar.

158 Livy 2.3.3; Festus 464L; CIL I 254.

159 Octavian attempted to set Caesar's chair in place at the ludi in summer 44, App., BC 3.28Google Scholar, cf. Cic., ad A. 15.3.2Google Scholar.

160 Purely exempli gratia, Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence (London 1934) no. 50Google Scholar, a Magnesian given prohedria for his καλοκαγαθία by Eumenes II; Cf. Urso, where prohedria can be given by the vote of at least half the decurions. FIRA 21 CXXV.

161 Cic., Phil. 9.16Google Scholar.

162 Individual honours continued in other Italian towns, e.g. AE 1927 no. 158 shows C. Cupiennius Satrius, with perhaps his male descendents, getting the ius sedendi opposite the president's munerarium in the amphitheatre at Puteoli; his mother perhaps also has a special place. Date possibly Tiberian.

163 Chastagnol, op. cit. in no. 14.

164 Corfinium, see n. 144; Aquileia, Bandelli, G., ‘Per una storia della classe dirigente di Aquileia repubblicana’, in Les ‘Bourgeoisies’ municipales italiennes aux IIe et ler siecles av. J.-C., (Naples 1983) 178 n. 25Google Scholar (possibly from the circus?). Coarelli, F., Guida Archeologica di Roma (Rome 1974) 173Google Scholar seems to think Roman senators had named seats from perhaps the early Empire.

165 For the interesting inscriptions from Volaterrae see Bacci, R., ‘Le iscrizioni latine di Volterra nel Museo Guarnacci’, Rassegna Volterrana 40–41 (1975) 71Google Scholar; (between the Augustan period when the theatre was built, and the third century when it went out of use). Those saying simply (e.g.) Persia (no. 67) are thought to belong to the family rather than a woman; some, curiously, are shared between two men of different families (nos. 49, 61). In this theatre the orchestra does not seem to have been used for seats.

I am most grateful to Professor Bacci for giving me an offprint of his article and discussing the inscriptions with me, and to the Museo Guarnacci for allowing me to examine them. More work is needed on them.

166 RG 8.5.

167 Op. cit. in n. 65.

168 Suet., Div. Aug. 89.1Google Scholar. He continued the tradition of putting on Greek plays upon occasion, ib. and 43.1; and note Moretti, L., ‘Sulle didascalie del teatro Attico rinvenute a Roma’, Ath. 38 1960 263Google Scholar (IG XIV 1097–10958), perhaps part of some Augustan monument, though Coarelli, F., ‘Il complesso Pompeiano del Campo Marzio’, Atti Pont. Acc. 44 (1971–1972), 99Google Scholar thinks they may be Pompeian.

169 E.g. Hommel, H. ‘Juden und Christen im kaiserzeitlichen Milet: Überlegungen zur Theaterinschrift’, Ist. Mitt. 25 (1975) 167Google Scholar.

170 Herodian 1.9.3. If Calp. Sic. wrote in the third century, seen. 27, his evidence would be relevant here. ILS 6072, a late fourth cent, praefectus urbi puts up a list of offenders including those who have done something at the spectacula, perhaps usurped seats (or free seats?).

171 CIL VI 32098(1) and (m) = Chastagnol op. cit. in n. 14, 25. Justin 43.5.10 (from the Gaul Pompeius Trogus, and so probably ultimately from a Massilote source) says all Massiliotes might sit with the senators at Rome from the time the city helped Rome pay ransom to the Gauls; in the fourth century B.C. the senators as we saw had no formal seating, but some sort of prohedria is possible (cf. that the people of Deceleia had at Sparta); something similar might explain the seats of the Gaditani in the Colosseum.

172 Macr., Sat. 7.3.8Google Scholar.

173 Livy 34.54.5–7; Cic. pro Corn. ap. Asc. 55St., de har. resp. 24; Plut., Cic. 13.3Google Scholar; Pliny, NH 7.117Google Scholar.

174 Dio 55.22.4, 60.7.4, Suet., Claud. 21.3Google Scholar, Tac., Ann. 15.32Google Scholar and Suet., Nero 11.1Google Scholar; Pliny, NH 8.21Google Scholar, Pliny, Epp. 9.23.2Google Scholar. Livy 1.35.8 says Servius Tullius gave equites and senators places in which each might erect seats in the Circus Maximus, no doubt an invented precedent.

175 Martial 5.8 an eques in a purple cloak; cf 23, an eques who used to wear green but now confines himself to purple, but will not get away with it (but it seems to be poverty, not his dress, that will get him thrown out); cf. 4.2.1, 3.95.10. Suet. Claud. 6 is puzzling: when Claudius, before he became Emperor, came into the theatre the equites rose and took off their cloaks; certainly not the official mantle or trabea, probably only worn at the transvectio, for Martial 4.2 ensures that equites wore white at the spectacles. Dio 73.21.3, Commodus orders the senators to appear (cloaks), normally only done when the Emperor dies.

176 Dio 59.7.8—hitherto they had sat on bare σανίδες; Juv., Sat. 3.153Google Scholar.

177 Suet, Dom. 8.3Google Scholar; Martial 5.23.3; Suet., Gaius 26.4Google Scholar—Funke, H., ‘Sueton. Cal. 26.4’, Hermes 105 (1977) 252Google Scholar suggests that the mysterious decimas Gaius gives out should be emended to signify ‘places in the XIV’. At the ludi Palatini held in a temporary theatre before the Palace, at which he was murdered, senators and equites, men and women, even slave and free, were mixed together, Jos., AJ 19 86Google Scholar; it does not appear that the plebs was present. For earlier incidents, see on Sarmentus, n. 112 above; and Suet. Div. Aug. 14, in 41 B.C. a gregarius miles was removed on Octavian's orders by an apparitor from the XIV rows, cf. App., BC 5. 15Google Scholar. (For the plebs rushing to the circus, where they sit indiscriminately, in a crisis, SHA Did. Jul. 4–7, Pesc. Nig. 3.1.)

Hadrian reasserted the toga for senators and equites on all public occasions, SHA Vita 22; Commodus had everyone wear the poenula, as at funerary games, SHA Vita 16.

178 C. Roueché, op. cit. in n. 105. Chastagnol, op. cit. in n. 14, 49–50; Procop., Bella 1.24.6Google Scholar, τάθέατρα—perhaps all spectacles. (But imperial ladies in secluded upper level of the imperial box, Cameron, A.Porphyrius the Charioteer (Oxford 1973) 49 ffGoogle Scholar.)

179 Did Augustus make any regulations for places outside Rome, apart from insisting that Roman senators and their sons should be accommodated at the front? Chap. 80 of the new Domitianic municipal charter, the Tabula Irnitana (see n. 63), lays down that spectacles are to be given in the places and before the spectators customary before the publication of this law, as long as this is in conformance with the ‘laws, plebiscites, scc., edicts and decrees’ of Augustus and his successors. Many new theatres were built in Augustus' reign in Italy, hardly without a general spirit of encouragement from the centre (G. Bejor, op. cit. in n. 48; note many were in the centre of the town. Agrippa himself built that at Ostia). Professor D. Small has drawn attention to the alterations made in the large theatre at Pompeii at this time, with the introduction of tribunalia for the presiding magistrate, whose superior position is thus stressed, and for other grand personages, and a crypta which could help to direct members of the audience to the different parts of the building. (I am grateful to Professor Small for sending me a copy of his paper ‘Social Correlations to the Greek Cavea in the Roman Period’, before its revision and publication.) But the roles of legislation and voluntary imitation are impossible to distinguish.

Versions of this paper were read to Prof. F. Millar's seminar in Oxford and as a public lecture in the British School at Rome; I am grateful to the audience at both events for helpful comments. I am also indebted for information to Prof. J. Gonzales, Dr. N. Horsfall, Prof. J. Linderski and M. J.-L. Mourgues, as well as those mentioned elsewhere in the notes.