If we may suppose that the Ludi Plebeii were instituted just before the second Punic war, it is interesting to note that three other great ludi were organised in the course of that war, no doubt with the object of keeping up the drooping spirits of the urban population.  The Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus Maximus:  in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and eventually extended to eight, viz.  July 6-13.[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 help