Certain sums were set aside for this
purpose, differing in amount from time to time; thus in 217 B.C., for
the Ludi Romani, on which up to that time 200,000 sesterces (L16,600)
had been spent, the sum of 333,333-1/3 sest. was voted, because the
number three had a sacred signification, and the moment was one of
extreme peril for the State.[476] On one occasion only before the end
of the Republic do we hear of any public collection for the ludi; in
186 B.C. Pliny tells us that every one was so well off, owing no doubt
to the enormous amount of booty brought from the war in the East, that
all subscribed some small sum for the games of Scipio Asiaticus.[477]
There was no doubt a growing demand for magnificence in the shows, and
thus it came about that the amount provided by the State had to be
supplemented. But the usual way of supplementing it was for the
magistrate in charge of the ludi to pay what he could out of his own
purse, or to get his friends to help him; and as all the ludi except
the Apollinares were in charge of the aediles, it became the practice
for these, if they aspired to reach the praetorship and consulship, to
vie with each other in the recklessness of their expenditure.
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