3.[472] In 204 were
instituted the Ludi Megalenses, to celebrate the arrival in Rome of
the Magna Mater from Pessinus in Phrygia, i.e. on April 4; but the
ludi were eventually extended to April 10.[473] Lastly, in 202 the
Ludi Ceriales, which probably existed in some form already, were made
permanent and fixed for April 19: they eventually lasted from the 12th
to the 19th.[474] After the war was over we only find one more set of
ludi permanently established, viz. the Florales, which date from 173.
The original day was April 28, which had long been one of coarse
enjoyment for the plebs; like the other ludi, these too were extended,
and eventually reached to May 3.[475] April, we may note, was a month
chiefly consisting of holidays: the Ludi Megalenses, Ceriales, and
Florales occupied no less than seventeen of its twenty-nine days.

When Sulla wished to commemorate his victory at the Colline gate, he
instituted Ludi Victoriae on November I, the date of the battle, and
these seem to have been kept up after most of Sulla's work had been
destroyed; they are mentioned by Cicero in the passage quoted above
from the Verrines, as Ludi Victoriae, but we hear comparatively little
of them.

Before we go on to describe the nature of these numerous
entertainments, it may be as well to realise that the spectators had
nothing to pay for them; they were provided by the State free of cost,
as being part of certain religious festivals which it was the duty
of the government to keep up. 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 hel