The increasing wealth and luxury of the age naturally gave rise to sumptuary legislation; and the nobility could allow the comitia to revel in this field, devoid as it was of political significance. The first act, however, was to undo the Oppian law of 215[2193] through the plebiscite of M. Valerius, 195, enacted probably without a senatus consultum.[2194] It was the senate which initiated the tribunician statute of C. Orchius, 181, for limiting the number of guests at banquets.[2195] Cato opposed the enactment of this measure on the ground that it was too easy,[2196] but twenty years afterward he protected it from abolition.[2197] It was reinforced in 161 by the lex cibaria of the consul C. Fannius Strabo, which prescribed that ordinary meals should cost no more than ten asses; on ten days of the month meals should cost no more than thirty; and on the days of the ludi plebeii, Saturnalia, and certain other great festivals, no more than a hundred.[2198] It also forbade the use of fowls excepting one unfattened hen.[2199] The lex Didia cibaria, pretorian or tribunician, 143, extended the application of the Fannian statute to all Italy, and rendered liable to punishment not only the host who violated the law but also the guests at such illegal repasts.[2200] Closely akin to sumptuary laws are those for the regulation of theatres and games. A plebiscite of Cn. Aufidius of unknown date, possibly 170,[2201] permitted the importation of wild beasts from Africa for use in the circensian games. The statute repealed a senatus consultum which had prohibited such importation.[2202] The arrangement of the social classes in the theatre and at the games was determined partly by law. It was the censors of 194, persuaded by Scipio Africanus the Elder,[2203] who reserved the front seats for senators.[2204] The assignment of fourteen rows to the knights next to those of the senators was effected by a plebiscite, possibly of 146, the author of which is unknown.[2205]