s diversion, he presented with a gold collar, and
allowed him and his posterity to bear the surname of Torquati. But soon
afterwards he gave up the exhibition of this game, in consequence of a
severe and bitter speech made in the senate by Asinius Pollio, the
orator, in which he complained bitterly of the misfortune of Aeserninus,
his grandson, who likewise broke his leg in the same diversion.

Sometimes he engaged Roman knights to act upon the stage, or to fight as
gladiators; but only before the practice was prohibited by a decree of
the senate. Thenceforth, the only exhibition he made of that kind, was
that of a young man named Lucius, of a good family, who was not quite two
feet in height, and weighed only seventeen pounds, but had a stentorian
voice. In one of his public spectacles, he brought the hostages of the
Parthians, the first ever sent to Rome from that nation, through the
middle of the amphitheatre, and placed them in the second tier of seats
above him. He used likewise, at times when there were no public
entertainments, if any thing was brought to Rome which was uncommon, and
might gratify curiosity, to expose it to public view, in any place
whatever; as he did a rhinoceros in the Septa, a tiger upon a stage, and
a snake fifty cubits lung in the Comitium. It happened in the Circensian
games, which he performed in consequence of a vow, that he was taken ill,
and obliged to attend the Thensae [185], reclining on a litter. Another
time, in the games celebrated for the opening of the theatre of
Marcellus, the joints of his curule chair happening to give way, he fell
on his back. And in the games exhibited by his (107) grandsons, when the
people were in such consternation, by an alarm raised that the theatre
was falling, that all his efforts to re-assure them and keep them quiet,
failed, he moved from his place, and seated himself in that part of the
theatre which was thought to be exposed to most danger.

XLIV. He corrected the confusion and disorder with which the spectators
took their seats at the public games, after an affront which was offered
to a senator at Puteoli, for whom, in a crowded theatre, no one would
make room. He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all
public spectacles of any sort, and in any place whatever, the first tier
of benches should be left empty for the accommodation of senators. He
would not even permit the ambassadors of free nations, nor of those which
we