VI. Whilst all the favours of fortune seemed to have accumulated on the idol of the moment, Cæsar, remaining at Rome, was chosen inspector (_curator_) of the Appian Way (687).[902] The maintenance of the highways brought much popularity to those who undertook the charge with disinterestedness; Cæsar gained all the more by his, as he contributed largely to the cost, and even compromised his own fortune thereby. Two years afterwards (689), nominated curule ædile with Bibulus, he displayed a magnificence which excited the acclamations of the crowd, always greedy of sights. The place named _Comitium_, the Forum, the Basilicæ, the Capitol itself, were magnificently decorated. Temporary porticoes were erected, under which were exposed a crowd of precious objects.[903] These expenses were not unusual: since the triumph of the dictator Papirius Cursor, all the æediles were accustomed to contribute to the embellishment of the Forum.[904] Cæsar celebrated with great pomp the Roman games, and the feast of Cybele, and gave the finest shows of wild beasts and gladiators ever yet beheld.[905] The number of the combatants amounted to three hundred and twenty couples, according to Plutarch, a contemptuous expression, which proves the small account made of the lives of these men. Cicero, writing to Atticus, speaks of them as we in our day should speak of racehorses;[906] and the grave Atticus himself had gladiators, as had most of the great people of his time. These bloody games, which seem so inhuman to us, still preserved the religious character which at first they so exclusively possessed; they were celebrated in honour of the dead;[907] Cæsar gave them as a sacrifice to his father’s memory, and displayed in them an unwonted pomp.[908] The number of gladiators which he got together terrified the Senate, and for the future it was forbidden to exceed a given number. Bibulus, his colleague, it is true, bore half the expense; nevertheless, the public gave Cæsar all the credit of this sumptuous discharge of the duties of their office. Thus Bibulus said that he was like the temple of Castor and Pollux, which, dedicated to the two brothers, was never called anything but the temple of Castor.[909] The nobles saw in the sumptuousness of these games only a vain ostentation, a frivolous desire to shine; they congratulated themselves on the prodigality of the ædile, and predicted in his near ruin a term to his influence; but Cæsar, while spending millions to amuse the multitude, did not make this fleeting enthusiasm the sole basis of his popularity; he established this on more solid grounds, by re-awakening in the people the memories of glory and liberty.