As for the men, he not only pitted one against another in the Forum, as had been customary, but he also in the hippodrome brought them together in companies, horsemen against horsemen, fighters on foot against similar contestants, and others that were a match for one another indiscriminately. Some even, forty in number, fought from elephants. Finally he produced a naval battle, not on the sea nor on the lake but on land. He hollowed out a certain tract on the Campus Martius and by letting water into it introduced ships. In all the contests the captives and those condemned to death took part. Some even of the knights, and,--not to mention others,--a son of a man who had been praetor fought in single combat. Indeed, a senator named Fulvius Sepinus[92] desired to contend in full armor, but was prevented; for Caesar had expressed a fervent wish that that should never take place, though he did permit the knights to contend. The patrician children went through the so-called Troy equestrian exercise according to ancient custom, and the young men who were their peers vied with one another in chariots. [-24-] Still, it must be said he was blamed for the great number of those who were slain, on the ground that he had not himself become satiated with slaughter and was further exhibiting to the populace symbols of their own miseries; and much more so because he had expended on all that array countless sums. A clamor in consequence was raised against him for two reasons,--that he had collected most of the funds unjustly, and that he had used them up for such purposes. And by mentioning one feature of his extravagance of that time I shall thereby give an inkling of all the rest. In order that the sun might not annoy any of the spectators he had curtains stretched over them made of silk, according to some accounts. Now this product of the loom is a device of barbarian luxury and from them has come down even to us to satisfy the excessive daintiness of veritable women. The civilians perforce held their peace at such acts, but the soldiers raised an outcry, not because they cared about the money recklessly squandered but because they did not themselves get what was appropriated to those displays. In fact they did not cease from confusion till Caesar suddenly coming upon them with his own hand seized one man and delivered him up to punishment. This person was executed for the reasons stated, and two other men were slaughtered as a kind of piece of ritual. The true cause I am unable to state, inasmuch as the Sibyl made no utterance and there was no other similar oracle, but at any rate they were sacrificed in the Campus Martius by the pontifices and the priest of Mars, and their heads were set up near the palace.