And that brings us to a deep paradox, of which the Romans themselves were acutely aware. For the shame of "making a spectacle of oneself" runs counter to an even more important Roman cultural imperative: to be "the observed of all observers." [...]
The tension between the inviolability from the gaze and the necessity to be seen is at its most extreme for the most visible of all: orators and politicians, those individuals who entered their reception halls to the greatest number of clients, who entered the Forum with the greatest number of attendants, and who entered the theater under the greatest number of eyes. The similarities between the two classes-actors, who are infames, and orators, who above all ought to have fama — was a common paradox in the Roman mind, a source of potential insult and anxiety. [...] To appear in the theater under the eyes of the multitude carried the risk of assimilation to those who appeared on the stage or in the arena. The power of the gaze is the power to turn the object into actor, gladiator, or whore.
«The Observed of All Observers:
Spectacle, Applause, and Cultural Poetics in the Roman Theater Audience», Holt N. Parker
