Tertullian, De Spectaculis 16

Since frenzy is forbidden to us, we are taken away from every spectacle, even the Circus, where frenzy properly presides. Look at the crowd coming to the show already in a frenzy, already riotous, already blind, already worked up over their wagers. The praetor is too slow for them; their eyes stay fixed on the urn as the lots are shaken. Then they hang anxiously on the starting signal, a single voice screaming for one man's madness. Recognize the madness for what it is: sheer vanity. They shout 'It's been sent!' and pass the word to each other about what everyone just saw at once. I have the testimony of their blindness: they do not see what it really is; they think the mappa has been dropped, but it is the devil's throat flung down from above. From this they plunge into frenzies and discord and everything forbidden to priests of peace. From there come curses, unjust insults, even hatreds voted on without any merit of love. What are they doing there, these people who do not belong to themselves? Unless this is the only thing they do — because they do not belong to themselves: they grieve over another's misfortune and rejoice over another's happiness. Whatever they wish for, whatever they abhor, is foreign to them; so love among them is idle, and hatred is unjust. But perhaps it is permitted to love without cause rather than to hate without cause. Certainly God forbids hating even with cause, since he commands that enemies be loved. God also does not permit cursing even with cause, since he instructs that those who curse be blessed. But what is more bitter than the Circus, where they do not spare even their own princes or fellow citizens? If any of these things that drive the Circus mad compete anywhere with the saints, then it would be permitted in the Circus too. But if nowhere, then not in the Circus either.