Molossians from the mountains of Greece, had got another venator down and were stretching him out on the sand, two pulling him by the face and shoulder and two holding him by the legs. A fifth dog rushed in and attacked the helpless man's genitals. Another venator was trying to get his pike out of a wolf's body while being attacked by other members of the pack. A young venator had grabbed a lioness by the tail and was holding her while two of his companions stabbed the animal with their pikes.
'You'd better leave the arena,' said the armed venator to Carpophorus. 'The crowd will let you go.' The crowd had been watching Carpophorus' feat and were giving him a big hand.
Carpophorus hardly heard him. He was blind with rage and had a sudden savage hatred of the beasts. He stooped and tried to pick up his sword but his side was numb where the tiger had been shaking him. He cursed and the spearman picked up the sword for him. By an effort, Carpophorus made his fingers close over the hilt although he could feel nothing.
He started forward toward the melee, blood from his wounded side filling up the footprints made by his right foot as he staggered on. The armed venator and the spearman exchanged looks, shook their heads, and followed him. The crowd were shouting, 'No, Carpophorus, no!' and waving their handkerchiefs but Carpophorus paid no attention to them. He was going to get himself another tiger or die trying.
Domitian turned and gave an order to a courtier behind him. The man shouted to the trumpeter who gave a single blast on his long horn. From the Gate of Life marched a detachment of heavily armed soldiers armed with spears. These men formed a line across the far end of the arena and then locked their shields together, each shield fitting into a bracket on the shield next to it until there was a solid shield wall stretching across the arena. The great rectangular shield covered a man from the bridge of his nose to his knees. Before the shields was a solid line of spears held in such perfect alignment that from the side it seemed as though there were only one weapon. At an order from the centurian in command, the line moved forward at the regulation legion step, so perfectly timed that it could be used to measure distances. A thousand (milla) such steps measured exactly 5,280 feet, or what has later become known as a mile.
Behind the line of troops came bestiarii with their lead-tipped cat-o'-nine-tails in case any of the beasts broke through the soldiers. Behind them came gladiators called andabatae, men wearing helmets without a visor so they could not see. As soon as they reached the arena, these andabatae began to swing widely around trying by chance to hit one another. The andabatae were necessary for the hunt was now over and even while the arena was being cleared, there had to be something going on.
As soon as he heard the trumpet signal the end of the hunt the Master of the Games, who functioned as ringmaster, gave orders to open the doors of the chutes. The order was immediately obeyed and slaves hurriedly put out basins of water to help lure the exhausted animals inside. Before the steadily advancing line of spears, the remaining animals gave back. Most of them eventually found the open doors of the chutes and rushed in, drinking feverishly from the basins. A few charged the soldiers and died under the spears. Two lions and a leopard managed to force their way through the serried ranks; the lions leaping over the men and the leopard fighting his way through. The animals were promptly driven out through the Gate of Life by the bestiarii with their flails.
Carpophorus, still in a daze, did not at first understand what was happening. He continued to stride toward the remaining beasts looking for another tiger. The spearman pulled at the bloody sleeve of his tunic.
'The hunt's over, Carpophorus,' he said softly. 'The soldiers are clearing the arena for the next act. Come on, let's get out of here.'
Carpophorus shrugged him off. A wolf trying to escape from the spears ran past him and Carpophorus kicked at the animal irritably. There were no tigers left.
The crowd had forgotten about the hunt by now and were watching the andabatae, roaring with laughter at the men's clumsy swings. Slaves followed the andabatae, pushing them together with long forked poles. Carpophorus saw a lion and plunged toward the animal. Martial says that rather than face him, the lion rushed on the spears and was killed.
The line of soldiers was almost up to Carpophorus now. The centurian was yelling, 'Get that crazy bastard out of here.'
A venator with a cape stepped up quietly behind Carpophorus and threw the cape over his head. Instantiy the armed venator and the spearman grabbing the raging bes-tiarius. They dragged him out of the arena while Carpophorus fought like a madman. Under the stands, the arena doctors were waiting.
'All right, boys, bring him in here,' said one of the doctors taking command. Carpophorus was pulled into a small room where several of the venatores were under treatment. The doctor shouted and four giant Negroes hurried over. Instantly grasping the situation, they seized the raging venator and pulled him to a wooden bed with shackles at the top and bottom. For a gladiator or a venator to go mad with wounds or bloodlust—berserk, the Norsemen used to call it—was a common occurrence. Carpophorus struggled with superhuman strength, but the Negroes were expert manhandlers and he had no chance. They flung him down on the heavy wooden frame and shackled his arms and legs.
“You'll feel better in a few minutes, my boy,' said the doctor soothingly as he prepared a potion containing opium. 'Some fight you put up. Those tigers are hell, aren't they? Now some people think that lions are worse because they roar and put on a big show, but any good venator can handle a lion. Drink this.' He grabbed the raving man's cheek, taking care not to be bitten, pulled it away from the gums, and skilfully poured the draught down Carpophorus' throat. 'I'll- never forget the ludi sollemnes that old Vitellius gave to get the people's minds off the Pannonian mutiny. Fifty tigers in the arena at one time. That was a day! Blood all over the place. Does this man have to fight again today?' he shouted to the Master of the Games who was hurrying past.
'No, but he will tomorrow afternoon,' said the Master as he went by.
'You'll be all right by then,' the doctor assured Carpophorus, who was now sobbing in great heaving gasps. 'I'll have the slaves squeeze some blood out of those dead cats and you can drink that. You've lost plenty of blood but that will restore it as well as feed your spirit. Now let's sew up that cut in your shoulder.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Outside in the arena while the andabatae were slugging it out, slaves were busy rolling out a model of a mountain through the Gate of Death up to the inner barrier. On it were live trees, flowers, flowering shrubs, and even streams of running water, kept flowing by pumps worked by slaves in the interior. Set designers scurried over the mountain making last-minute changes and carpenters checked to be sure that everything was in working order.
The Master of the Games was watching anxiously as the wretched andabates slashed each other with wild blows, seldom inflicting a mortal wound. The real gladiators who were known to the mob and had a chance of putting up a good fight might be given the thumbs-up signal but these miserable creatures, always condemned criminals of the lowest order, were unknown and could show no skill. Their only hope was to exhibit such a desperate courage that the mob might be kind enough to have one or two spared for another day. So they fought with the mad bravery of desperation. As a man fell, an arena servant, dressed as Charon who ferried souls across the River Styx, motioned to slaves who followed him with a brazier full of hot coals in which irons were constantly being heated. With a hot iron, he tested the man to see if he were still alive. If the fallen man twitched when the hot iron was applied, another arena servant dressed as Hermes, a god of the underworld, motioned his slaves to cut the rawhide straps that kept the andabate's helmet in place. Then he hit the prostrate man over the head with a hammer. Instantly the regular arena slaves stuck hooks in the corpse and dragged it out through the Gate of Death to the spoliarium where slaves stripped off the armour. The body was then turned over to butchers who cut it up to feed the wild animals.
Although the patricians in the lower tier of seats regarded the pointless struggles of the andabates with contempt, the crowd loved them. They pretended to shout advice to the fighters, yelling, 'He's on your left! No now, he's on your right!' deliberately fooling the blindfolded men to see them whirl around in terror and frantically slice the air. But with the help of the slaves using the long forked poles, the re-remaining andabates were pushed
