the excluded multitude betake themselves to every post of vantage in the vicinity which overlooks the Circus. Then windows and roofs of houses, hill-tops and adjacent eminences of all kinds are seized on by determined pleasure seekers.[1]
Public entertainments are given regularly in the Hippodrome and the theatre during the first week of January, in celebration of the Consul being newly installed for the year. They are given also on the 11th of May, the foundation day of the city, and on other occasions to celebrate some great national event, such as the accession of an emperor, the fifth or tenth anniversary of his reign,[2] the birth or nomination of a Caesar or successor to the throne, or the happy termination of an important war.[3] Several Praetors, officers who were formerly the chief oracles of the law, are nominated annually, their judicial functions being now abrogated in favour of organizing and paying for the amusements of the people.[4]*
- ↑ Chrysostom, De Anna, iv, 1 (in Migne, iv, 660); an almost identical passage; Gregory Naz., Laus Basil., 15.
- ↑ The Decennalia represented the ten years for which Augustus originally "accepted" the supreme power; the Quinquennalia are said to have been instituted by Nero, but may have become obsolete at this date; see the Classical Dicts. There were also Tricennalia.
- ↑ Novel cv; Const. Porph., loc. cit., Codin., p. 17; Procop., De Bel. Vand., ii, 9, etc.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., VI, iv, 5, 26, etc. By a law of 384, eight praetors were appointed to spend between them 3,150 lb. of silver, equal to about £10,000 at that date, a credible sum; but the common belief that three annual praetors used to be enjoined to disburse more than a quarter of a million sterling in games is, I make no doubt, rank nonsense. Large amounts were, no doubt, expended by some praetors (Maximus, c. 400-420, for his sons' 4,000 lb. of gold, over £150,000, yet, only half the sum; Olympiodorus, p. 470), but these were intended to be great historic occasions, and are recorded as such, bearing doubtless the same relation to routine celebrations as the late Queen's Jubilees did to the Lord Mayor's shows, on which a few thousands are annually squandered. Maximus
