in hiring the best performers in Rome to fight, all out. Usually professional sword-fighters were very careful about hurting themselves and each other and spent most of their energy on feints and parries and blows which looked and sounded Homeric but which were really quite harmless, like the thwacks that slaves give each other with stage- clubs in low-comedy. It was only occasionally, when they lost their temper with each other or had an old score to settle, that they were worth watching. This time Livia had got the heads of the Gladiatorial Guild together and told them that she wanted her money's worth. Unless every bout was a real one she would have the guild broken up: there had been too many managed fights in the previous summer. So the fighters were warned by the guild-masters that this time they were not to play kiss-in-the-ring or they would be dismissed from the guild.
In the first six combats one man was killed, one so seriously wounded that he died the same day, and a third had his shield-arm lopped off close to the shoulder, which caused roars of laughter. In each of the other three combats one of the men disarmed the other, but not before he had given such a good account of himself that Germanicus and I, when appealed to, were able to confirm the approval of the audience by raising our thumbs in token that his life should be spared. One of the victors had been a very rich knight a year or two before. In all these combats the rule was that the antagonists should not fight with the same sort of weapon. It was sword against spear, or sword against battle-axe, or spear against mace. The seventh combat was between a man armed with a regulation army sword and an old-fashioned round brass-bound shield and a man armed with a three-pronged trout-spear and a short net. The sword-man or 'chaser' was a soldier of the Guards who had recently been condemned to death for getting drunk and striking his captain. His sentence had been commuted to a fight against this net and trident man--a professional [^] from Thessaly, very highly paid, who had killed more than twenty opponents in the previous five years, so Germanicus told me.
My sympathies were with the soldier, who came into the arena looking very white and shaky--he had been in prison for some days and the strong light bothered him. But his entire company, who it appears sympathised very much with him, for the captain was a bully and a beast, shouted in unison for him to pull himself together and defend the company's honour. He straightened up and shouted, 'I'll do my best, lads!” His camp nickname, as it happened, was 'Roach', and this was enough to put the greater part of the audience on his side, though the Guards were pretty unpopular in the City. If a roach were to kill a fisherman that would be a good joke. To have the amphitheatre on one's side is half the battle to a man fighting for his life.
The Thessalian, a wiry, long-armed, long-legged fellow, came swaggering in close behind him, dressed only in a leather tunic and a hard round leather cap.
He was in a good humour, cracking jokes with the front-benches, for his opponent was an amateur, and Livia was paying him a thousand gold pieces for the afternoon and five hundred more if he killed his man after a good fight. They came together in front of the Box and saluted first Augustus and Livia and then Germanicus and me as joint-presidents, with the usual formula: 'Greetings, Sirs.
We salute you in Death's shadow!' We returned the greetings with a formal gesture, but Genrmanicus said to Augustus: 'Why, sir, that chaser's one of my father's veterans. I know him well. He won a crown in Germany for being the first man over an enemy stockade.' Augustus was interested. 'Good,' he said, 'this should be a good fight, then. But in that case the net-man must be ten years younger, and years count in this game.' Then Genrmanicus signalled for the trumpets to sound and the fight began.
Roach stood his ground, while the Thessalian danced around him. Roach was not such a fool as to waste his strength running after his lightly armed opponent or yet to be paralysed into immobility. The Thessalian tried to make him lose his temper by taunting him, but Roach was not to be drawn. Only once when the Thessalian came almost within lunging distance did he show any readiness to take the offensive, and the quickness of his thrust drew a roar of delight from the benches. But the Thessalian was away in time. Soon the fight grew more lively; the Thessalian made stabs, high and low, with his long trident, which Roach parried easily, but with one eye on the net, weighted with small lead pellets, which the Thessalian managed with his left hand.
'Beautiful work!' I heard Livia say to Augustus. 'The best net-man in Rome. He's playing with the soldier. Did you see that? He could have entangled him and got his stroke in then if he had wished. But he's spinning out the fight.'
'Yes,' said Augustus. 'I'm afraid the soldier is done for.
He should have kept off drink.'
Augustus had hardly spoken when Roach knocked up the trident and jumped forward, ripping the Thessalian's leather tunic between arm and body. The Thessalian was away in a flash and as he ran he swung the net across Roach's face.
By ill-luck a pellet struck Roach in the eye, momentarily blinding him. He checked his pace and the Thessalian, seeing his advantage, turned and knocked the sword spinning out of his hand. Roach sprang to retrieve it but the Thessalian got there first, ran with it to the barrier and tossed it across to a rich patron sitting in the front rank of the seats reserved for the Knights. Then he returned to the pleasant task of goading and dispatching an unarmed man. The net whistled round Roach's head and the trident jabbed here and there; but Roach was still undismayed, and once made a snatch at the trident and nearly got possession of it.
The Thessalian had now worked him towards our Box to make a spectacular killing.
'That's enough!' said Livia in a matter-of-fact voice, 'he's done enough playing about. He ought to finish him now.' The Thessalian needed no prompting.
He made a simultaneous sweep of his net around Roach's head and a stab at his belly with the trident. And then what a roar went up! Roach had caught the net with his right hand and, flinging his body back, kicked with all his strength at the shaft of the trident a foot or two from his enemy's hand. The weapon flew up over the Thessalian's head, [153] turned in the air and stuck quivering into the wooden barrier. The Thessalian stood astonished for a moment, then left the net in Roach's hands and dashed past him to recover the trident. Roach threw himself forward and sideways and caught him in the ribs, as he ran, with the spiked boss of his shield. The Thessalian fell, gasping, on all fours.
Roach recovered himself quickly and with a sharp downward swing of the shield caught him on the back of his neck.
'The rabbit-blow!' said Augustus. 'I've never seen that done in an arena before, have you, my dear Livia? Eh?
Killed him too, I swear.'
The Thessalian was dead. I expected Livia to be greatly displeased but all she said was: 'And served him right.
That's what comes of underrating one's opponent. I'm disappointed in that net-man. Still, it has saved me that five hundred in gold, so I can't complain, I suppose.'
To crown the afternoon's enjoyment there was a fight between two German hostages who happened to belong to rival clans and had voluntarily engaged each other to a death-duel. It was not pretty fighting, but savage hacking with long sword and halberd: each wore a small, highly ornamented shield strapped on the lert forearm. This was an unusual manner of fighting, for the ordinary German soldier does all his work with the slim-shafted, narrow-headed assegai: the broad-headed halberd and the long sword are marks of high rank. One of the combatants, a yellowheaded man over six feet tall made short work of the other, cutting him about terribly before he gave his final smashing blow on the side of the neck. The crowd gave him a great cheer, which went to his head, for he made a speech in a mixture of German and camp-Latin, saying that he was a renowned warrior in his country and had killed six Romans in battle, including an officer, before he had been given up as a hostage by his jealous uncle, the tribal chief. He now challenged any Roman of rank to meet him, sword to sword, and make the lucky seventh for him.
The first champion who sprang into the ring was a young staff-officer of an old but impoverished family, called Cassius Chserea. He came running to the box for permission to take up the challenge. His father, he said, had been killed ^
CLAUDIUS [134] in Germany under that glorious general in whose memory this display was being held: might he piously sacrifice that boastful fellow to his father's ghost? Cassius was a fine fencer. I had often watched him on Mars Field.
Germanicus consulted with Augustus and then with me; when Augustus gave his consent and I mumbled mine Cassius was told to arm himself. He went to the dressing-rooms and borrowed Roach's sword, shield and body armour, tor good luck and out of compliment to Roach.
Soon there began a far grander fight than any that the professionals had shown, the German swinging his
