Our Publius Calvus, with no imperial connection, deliberately saved and economized for years prior to his elevation to the prætorship, and during his term of office he spent almost as much energy in corresponding with a friend who was legatus of Numidia to get African leopards, and negotiating with certain racing interests to secure a very desirable jockey, as he did in settling a certain great lawsuit before his tribunal. One good set of chariot races can cost 400,000 sesterces ($16,000), and some of Calvus’s richer colleagues have found the prætors’ games coming to a dozen times as much. He congratulated himself, therefore, on getting out of office for about half their outlay; as it was he had to live very sparingly for the next two years, and sell off a villa.[203] =320. Indescribable Popularity of the Games.=--Everybody in Rome attends the games. Once slaves were forbidden to be present, but that law had broken down several generations ago. Few are the masters that risk the unpopularity of refusing to let their familia frequent at least the more famous contests. The waiting litter bearers, the idling foot-boys, all the parasitical menials about the great mansions discuss every coming event most frantically and wager all the coppers which their masters give them upon the outcome, and their zeal is matched by the ragged plebeians who infest the fetid insulæ, or sleep under the porticoes. Seemingly half of Rome exists only from one chariot or gladiator exhibition to another. Every contest is a display of social importance. The front seats are assigned to the magistrates, who occupy curule chairs in the order of their rank; there are other seats of honor for the senators, others directly behind them for the equites. If the Emperor is present, he sits in a special box (_cubiculum_), which Trajan with democratic condescension caused to be thrown wide open that all the spectators might see him. These seats of honor are free, but the great multitude of well-to-do spectators are expected to purchase tickets for all the better ranges behind the tiers of the equites.[204] The prices ordinarily are low, but concerning these tickets there is a complaint not unknown in another age: that the box-officers (_locarii_) in charge buy up many reserved seats for the more popular games, then sell them over again at an outrageous advance. However, behind these reserved seats there are still a certain number of others thrown open free to the first comers, and behind these is a wide space where plebeians and slaves can stand as a gesticulating, shouting, steaming mass, gazing down on the spectacles below. =321. The Theater Less Popular than the Circus or Amphitheater.=--The public exhibitions are three general kinds,--the theatrical performances, the circus races, and the gladiatorial combats.