The “bestiarii” were feasted in public on the day before their encounter with the beasts. See Tertull. Apologet. § 42: “I do not recline in public at the feast of Bacchus, after the manner of the beast-fighters at their last banquet.” Ib. § 9: “Those also who dine on the flesh of wild beasts from the arena, who have keen appetites for bear and stag.” These latter, however, were chiefly the poor, to whom flesh was a rarity: Apuleius Metam. iv. 14, quoted by Oehler.