You should, then, before entering, provide yourself with a real tessera, which you may purchase for very little money. Plautus asked that folks should pay an _as_ apiece. "Let those," he said, "who have not got it retire to their homes." The price of the seats was proclaimed aloud by a crier, who also received the money, unless the show was gratuitously offered to the populace by some magistrate who wished to retain public favor, or some candidate anxious to procure it. You handed in your ticket to a sort of usher, called the _designator_, or the _locarius_, who pointed out your seat to you, and, if required, conducted you thither. You could then take your place in the middle tier, at the top of which was the statue of Marcus Holconius Rufus, duumvir, military tribune, and patron of the colony. This statue had been set up there by order of the decurions. The holes hollowed in the pedestal by the nails that secured the marble feet of the statue are still visible. Finally, at the summit of the half-moon was the uppermost cavea, assigned to the common herd and the women. So, after all, we are somewhat ahead of the Romans in gallantry. Railings separated this tier from the one we sit in, so as to prevent "the low rabble" from invading the seats occupied by us respectable men of substance. Upon the wall of the people's gallery is still seen the ring that held the pole of the _velarium_. This velarium was an awning that was stretched above the heads of the spectators to protect them from the sun. In earlier times the Romans had scouted at this innovation, which they called a piece of Campanian effeminacy. But little by little, increasing luxury reduced the Puritans of Rome to silence, and they willingly accepted a velarium of silk--an homage of Cæsar. Nero, who carried everything to excess, went further: he caused a velarium of purple to be embroidered with gold. Caligula frequently amused himself by suddenly withdrawing this movable shelter and leaving the naked heads of the spectators exposed to the beating rays of the sun. But it seems that at Pompeii the wind frequently prevented the hoisting of the canvas, and so the poet Martial tells us that he will keep on his hat. Such was the arrangement of the main body of the house. Let us now descend to the orchestra, which, in the Greek theatres, was set apart for the dancing of the choirs, but in the Roman theatres, was reserved for the great dignitaries, and at Rome itself for the prince, the vestals, and the senators. I have somewhere read that, in the great city, the foreign ambassadors were excluded from these places of honor because among them could be found the sons of freedmen.