If money for such purposes could
not be obtained by honest means, the nobles, who lived on popular
applause, would seek to force it from poor citizens of the colonies or
win it by intrigue at home.
There were impressive games celebrated from the fourth to the twelfth
of September, called the great games of the Roman Circus, but it is a
disputed point what divinities they were in honor of. Jupiter was
thought surely to be one, and Census another, by those who believed the
legends asserting that they were a continuation of those established by
Romulus when he wished to get wives from the Sabines. Others think that
Tarquinius Priscus, after a victory over the Latins, commemorated his
success by games in a valley between the Aventine and the Palatine
hills, where the spectators stood about to look on, or occupied stages
that they erected for their separate use. The racers went around in a
circuit, and it is perhaps on this account that the course and its
scaffolds was called the circus (_circum,_ round about). The course was
long, and about it the seats of the spectators were in after times
arranged in tiers. A division, called the _spina (spine)_, was built
through the central enclosure, separated the horses running in one
direction from those going in the other.
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