ABSTRACT
The idea of spectacles as we know them was alien to the Romans. A spectacle did not, in fact, represent for them an entertainment intended for the pleasure of a casual audience. It was impossible to conceive at Rome any enterprise so commonplace as the opening of a theatre. The organization of spectacles was a sort of public service. The role of private initiative was limited to providing the officials responsible with the means of staging a programme the main lines of which had been laid down in advance. This seems astonishing in a society in which state control was yet not the rule. The reason is that the spectacles at first had no legitimate function per se; they had something sacred about them, and everything that in any way concerned religion was at Rome subject to strict state control.
