4 Sjef van Tilborg favor. For this reason they become so important politically that hereafter — starting from and under Augustus — the emperor appropriates the exclusive right to hold these games. No games then are organized which have not been in one way or another approved by the authorities: in Rome by the emperor himself and in the provinces by the local authorities. In Asia Minor these games — they are called monomacia in Greek v — are organized specifically by the asiarchs. Many inscriptions have been preserved: inscriptions of honor for the people who have organized them once or several times; reliefs with depictions of what has happened and memorials for the gladiators themselves. Just only for the cities of the Apocalypse some 94 inscriptions are involved. The dating is roughly first to third century; a small minority of these is demonstrably first century; the greater majority is second/third century. A more precise indication is not possible. What is interesting to note is the fact that in a number of cities of the Apocalypse there was even standard talk of the presence of a school for gladiators (a familia gladiatorum; or in Greek a familiva monomavcwn), which implies that there were also barracks, training fields, instructors and attendants. As usual we find most of the inscriptions in Ephesus. In these texts also the connection between being the asiarch and the organizing of the games is most clearly expressed. At the time of Trajan the phamilia monomach˛n erects a statue for their asiarch Ti. Kl. Tatianos (9). This becomes a tradition. In the middle of the second century it is the famous and rich Vedii family which owns a school for gladiators: see the inscription of the phamilia monomach˛n on the tomb of the Vedii (10); the relief of the gladiator on the tomb of the Vedii (11); the mention of the philoploi philobèdioi (12) with next to this the competing group of the philoplia hierou makellou (13); the monomachoi of the asiarch Loukios Aufidios Euphèmos (14); and the phamilia monomach˛n of the asiarch Tib. Ioulios Rhègeinos (15); the asiarch Klaudios Kleoboulos (16) and the asiarch Tib. Klaudios Pankratidès (9) Inscr Eph IV-1182; V-1620; ROBERT, 204. (10) ROBERT, 208. (11) ROBERT, 203. (12) Inscr Eph VII-1-3055; ROBERT, 201 and 202. (13) Inscr Eph VI-2226; ROBERT, 202. (14) Inscr Eph IV-1171; see also IV-1172; 1173. (15) Inscr Eph V-1621; ROBERT, 205. (16) SEG 1992 nr 1031.