ABSTRACT
Despite political discord, the late Republic was a period of prosperity for many. Town life was obviously thriving in Italy, and the archaeology of a town such as Pompeii displays the increasingly luxurious lifestyle of the wealthy. Private spending on residential opulence was coupled with an increase in public spending, and a number of public structures were erected in the cities of south-central Italy; for example, theatres were erected at Pompeii, Sarno, Teanum and Capua (Dyson 1992: 31-2). In Pompeii a large stone theatre was constructed in the second century BC, with tiered seating resting on a natural slope in the Greek style. It seems most likely that donations from wealthy locals financed this construction, by the mechanism known as euergetism.2 Indeed, when Pompeii became a Roman colony in 80BC, the original theatre was further supplemented by the Odeion, built by two members of the local elite, the duumviri Gaius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Portius (CIL I2.126).
