Michael Crawford suggests that it may have been a political promise from Didius to offer gladiatorial shows, should he be elected curule aedile (the magistrate in charge of organising such games).
He is noted for attempting to veto fellow tribune Gaius Norbanus's prosecution of Quintus Servilius Caepio in the aftermath of the Battle of Arausio, which resulted in him being driven off from the proceedings by force.
[7] Didius earned another triumph after slaughtering a colony of "robbers"[8]—in actuality, poor people who had banded together to subsist through banditry after losing their property.
Didius lured them in with promises of land to live on, and when the families assembled within the Roman castra in good faith, he had them all killed.
[7] The historian Appian indicates that Didius's exceptional cruelty and treachery caused an even greater uprising which his experienced successor, Gaius Valerius Flaccus, had to put down.