39.2
During the plays Decimus Laberius, a Roman knight, acted a farce of his own composition, and having been presented with five hundred thousand sesterces and a gold ring,In token of his restoration to the rank of knight, which he forfeited by appearing on the stage; see chap. xxxiii. passed from the stage through the orchestra and took his place in the fourteen rows.The first fourteen rows above the orchestra, reserved for the knights by the law of L. Roscius Otho, tribune of the commons, 67 B.C. For the races the circus was lengthened at either end and a broad canalEuripus, the strait between Euboea and Boeotia, was used also as a common noun, meaning a ditch or canal. was dug all about it; then young men of the highest rank drove four-horse and two-horse chariots and rode pairs of horses, vaulting from one to the other. The game called Troy was performed by two troops, of younger and of older boys.
39.3
Combats with wild beasts were presented on five successive days, and last of all there was a battle between two opposing armies, in which five hundred foot-soldiers, twenty elephants, and thirty horsemen engaged on each side. To make room for this, the goals were taken down and in their place two camps were pitched over against each other. The athletic competitions lasted for five days in a temporary stadium built for the purpose in the region of the Campus Martius.
