From an inscription in the Stabian Baths, to which reference has
already been made (p. 195), it is clear that some freedom of choice
was permitted to the city officials regarding the disposition of the
sum which they were required to contribute for public purposes in
recognition of the honor conferred upon them by their election. The
Amphitheatre was not provided with seats at the beginning, and one
wedge-shaped section (_cuneus_) after another was added until the
divisions were complete; meanwhile the spectators made themselves as
comfortable as they could on the sloping ground. As the organization
of the Pagus Augustus Felix did not take place till 7 B.C., the
construction of the seats could not at that time have been completed;
but they were all finished before the overwhelming of the city.
The north entrance to the arena was adorned with two portrait statues
of Gaius Cuspius Pansa, father and son, placed in niches in the walls
facing each other. The statues have disappeared, but the inscriptions
underneath are still in place. What services the Pansas had rendered
in connection with the Amphitheatre to merit this distinction, we do
not know; but the father, as the inscription indicates, was 'prefect
in accordance with the law of Petronius' (p. 14); that is, he was
appointed by the city council to exercise the functions of the two
duumvirs when no valid election occurred. Bulwer Lytton, by a natural
error, makes Pansa a commissioner to secure the execution of an
altogether different _Lex Petronia_, which forbade the giving of
slaves to wild beasts unless judicial sentence had been previously
passed upon them.
The attraction of the gladiatorial exhibitions, together with the
ample seating capacity of the building, stimulated attendance from
neighboring cities, and on one occasion unfortunate results followed.
In the year 59 A.D. a Roman senator, Livineius Regulus, who had been
expelled from the Senate, and had apparently taken up his residence
at Pompeii, gave an exhibition that attracted a great concourse. Among
those who came to witness the combats were many inhabitants of
Nuceria. The people of the two towns may not have been on the best of
terms previously; whatever the cause, the Pompeians and Nucerians
commenced with mutual bantering and recriminations, then resorted to
stone-throwing, and finally engaged in a free fight with weapons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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