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[335]
Now as Agrippa was a great builder in many places, he paid a peculiar
regard to the people of Berytus; for he erected a theater for them, superior
to many others of that sort, both in Sumptuousness and elegance, as also
an amphitheater, built at vast expenses; and besides these, he built them
baths and porticoes, and spared for no costs in any of his edifices, to
render them both handsome and large. He also spent a great deal upon their
dedication, and exhibited shows upon them, and brought thither musicians
of all sorts, and such as made the most delightful music of the greatest
variety. He also showed his magnificence upon the theater, in his great
number of gladiators; and there it was that he exhibited the several antagonists,
in order to please the spectators; no fewer indeed than seven hundred men
to fight with seven hundred other men 1
and allotted all the malefactors he had for this exercise, that both the
malefactors might receive their punishment, and that this operation of
war might be a recreation in peace. And thus were these criminals all destroyed
at once.
2
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