In ancient Rome, gladiatorial combat was the most popular spectacle. It was widely recognized as savage and bloody, yet a famous gladiator, even if he was a slave, could earn the cheers of tens of thousands as long as he put on a brilliant performance in the arena.
The soldiers of the Roman legions actually did much the same thing, except their opponents were not merely lions and other beasts, and wars could not be arranged as easily as gladiatorial matches, nor could they earn ticket money.
War cost a great deal of money. Launching a war did not necessarily burden the people, so long as the plundered spoils and profits were sufficient. Roman citizens did not mind this sort of "profitable" war. In fact, many of Rome's builders were slaves captured by the Roman legions, while the exquisite statues decorating temples, theaters, and other buildings had been torn down from Greek temples. But wars of conquest carried enormous risks. If the losses were too great, or the target was not particularly wealthy, then the war would burden the people. A major cause of the Nika Revolt was that Justinian launched wars while extensively rebuilding Constantinople.
Those barbarians had no money to speak of. The army Justinian sent out mainly recovered territory; he had likely wanted to restore Rome's former borders. Together with the expenses of the Persian wars, this eventually made the people unable to bear the burden. When Justinian appeared at the hippodrome, people did not cheer for him as they would for Gaius Julius Caesar or a gladiator. Instead, they called him a bastard to his face because he had married Theodora, once a burlesque actress, as his empress.
One day, when Caesar went to the theater to watch a performance as usual, he wore a purple