Those About to Die

use them, myself'

Everyone nodded agreement. The group would have been considerably surprised if they could have forseen that the Colosseum would be preserved only because of the edict of Pope Benedict XIV who wished it to remain as a shrine to the Christian martyrs—although comparatively few Christians ever died there; the great Neroian persecutions were in the Circus Maximus.

One of the young patricians was a friend of Titus, the juvenile editor giving the games. This adolescent lordling had been drinking too much and now burst out in praise of his friend. (This speech, by the way, is taken from the 'Satyricon' of Petronius.)

'The next three days ought to be really good—no cheap slave gladiators but nearly all the fighters freemen. Good old Titus has a heart of gold and a hot head—the boys will have to fight it out and no thumbs-up. Titus will see that they have sharp swords and no one backs out. The arena will look like a butcher's stall before the day's over. Titus is lousy rich. Suppose he does spend four hundred thousand sesterces a day on the games, his old man left him thirty million so why should he worry? These games will make his name live for­ever. He's got some fine chariot horses and a female charioteer and Glyco's boy friend who's going to be tossed by a wild bull. Glyco found the youngster knocking-up his mistress. It wasn't the kids fault; he was only a slave and had to do what the woman wanted. She's the one who ought to go to the bull, but if you can't beat a donkey you have to beat his pack, I suppose. Anyhow, it'll be a good show. What did the other candidate for magistrate give us? A lousy show with stinking gladiators—if you farted you could knock half of them over. I've seen better bestiarii, too. The shows were staged at night by torchlight; what did he think he was giving us, a cockfight? The gladiators were either knock-kneed or bow-legged and the substitutes for the dead men ought to have been ham­strung before the fight started. The only one to show any guts was a Thracian, and the slaves had to burn him with hot irons to get him going. The crowd was crying, 'Tie 'em up!' for they were all obviously escaped slaves. Afterwards, the louse said to me, 'Well, anyhow, I gave you a show.' 'You did and I applauded,' I told him. 'The way I look at it, I gave you more than I got.''

Carpophorus was drunk by now as were most of the men. He shouted for food and the innkeeper brought him a steak. 'I've seen bullock's eyes that were bigger than this,' snarled the venator, hurling the plate to the floor. He grabbed for his wine cup and managed to spill it over the table. 'More wine! ^’ roared the venator, pulling himself to his feet by holding on to the bar. 'More wine for the greatest man in the empire! I'm greater than the emperor, you know why? That son of a diseased sow couldn't hold his throne a week if it wasn't for men like me. Who was it who broke the Lucius Antonius mutiny? Me! I arranged to have forty little blonde girls all under ten years old raped by a band of baboons. The soldiers stopped the mutiny to watch the show. And what about the time lightning struck the Capitoline Temple, a very bad omen? The mob rioted and would have wrecked the city if I hadn't staged that chariot race, using naked women instead of horses. What's that dog's-dung, Domitian, ever done? I'm running this empire and I can lick any man in the house!'

An old bestiarius sitting in the corner cackled obscenely. He looked like a mummy, hairless, and eyes so sunk into his head that only the sockets showed, his skin taut against his bones.

'Ah, you bestiarii are nothing but geldings today,' screeched the old man as he gummed his winecup. 'In my day, we were men. I made the sand smoke under me, I can tell you. We fought aurochs with swords and . ..'

'Hold your noise, you old wreck,' bellowed the venator. ^“I know you old-timers—a lion, to hear you talk; and a fox, to see you act. None of you were worth your own dirt. Look at you now!'

'Yes, look at me now!' screamed the old man. 'Wait 'til you're too old for the arena and have eaten your clothes and can't even get employment as a cageboy. I've seen you in the arena. You run around like a mouse in a pot. In my day . ..'

He got no further. Carpophorus had rushed across the room and seized the old man by the head and throat. Instantly half a dozen men threw themselves on the rabid venator while Chilo rushed up flourishing a heavy wooden stool. He brought it down with all his strength on Carpophorus' head, but before the venator was knocked out, he had twisted the old man's neck in the grip he had learned in the arena. There was a sharp crack as the aged bestiarius dropped lifeless to the floor.

'The Watch! The Watch!' shouted a dozen voices. Into the wineshop strode a young centurion in gleaming armour fol­lowed by a squad of soldiers with iron-tipped staves.

'What's going on here?' snapped the young man. 'Chilo, you'll lose your licence for this. Who's this man. By Mars, it's Carpophorus! Throw some water on him—I have fifty ses­terces riding on the bastard for tomorrow's games.'

'He killed a man!' shouted Chilo, dancing in agony.

'Who, this old sack of bones? Don't lie to me, Greek, the man died of a stroke. Here, Telegonius, drag the corpse out and have it thrown in the Tiber. Keep better order, Chilo, or you'll find yourself in the arena one of these days. See that Carpophorus is ready for the hunt tomorrow afternoon or it'll go hard with you.'

Several bestiarii carried Carpophorus to the nearest baths where expert masseurs kneaded him back to life, a feather was thrust down his throat to make him vomit up the wine, and a doctor patched his head and resewed the tiger scratches which had began to bleed again. By next morning, Carpo­phorus was back at the Colosseum, feeling as though his mouth was the Cloaca Maxima, but able to enter the arena.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The arena had been flooded during the night with salt water carried from the port of Ostia. (And how the Romans even with their unlimited manpower and wealth were able to accomplish this miracle I can't imagine.) The arena had been transformed into an enormous aquarium full of 'sea mon­sters'—I suppose sharks and giant rays. Sicilian sponge divers with knives between their teeth dove from the podium wall into the artificial lake and fought the monsters. After­wards, there was a nautical engagement between two fleets of galleys, one fleet sailing in by way of the Gate of Life and the other through the Gate of Death. While the arena was being drained, a seal act was put on; the seals barking in response to their names and retrieving fish for their masters. Then a bullfight was staged on the soggy sand.

The bulls were aurochs, a species of wild cattle now extinct, musk ox and the European bison. The Romans perfectly understood the difference between these animals, having seen them many times in the arena, but as late as the eighteenth century naturalists were still confusing the different species. The aurochs somewhat resembled the long-horned cattle of the old West except that they were considerably heavier and had short beards. An old bull's horns might be over six feet long. The European bison is much like his American cousin but rather smaller. The musk ox are the same. Bullfights were first introduced into the games by the Emperor Claudius because they were comparatively cheap. Probably even semi-wild animals could be driven to Rome by mounted men just as the wild longhorns were herded by cowboys or the modern Spanish fighting bulls can be herded by mounted men with wooden lances. As long as the animals remain in a herd, they are fairly docile. Only when a single animal is cut off from the group does he become savage.

When the wild cattle first entered the arena, they were thrown dummies to toss. This trick put them in the mood to handle humans. Then the bestiarii dodgers entered the arena. The inner barricade to keep the animals in the centre of the arena had been erected and burladeros (the Romans called them cochleas) such as are used in a modern bullring had been put up at intervals. The dodgers darted out from behind the shelter of these burladeros and rushed across the arena, encouraging the bulls to pursue them. An experienced dodger could tell without looking back how far the bull was behind him. If he had a lead, he'd slow down to make it look good. When the bull began to catch up, he'd put on a sudden sprint to reach the burladeros. As the man slipped behind the burladeros, the pursuing bull would often hit the wood with his horn, sometimes knocking off a large splinter two or three feet in length. One such splinter shot into the stands and killed a spectator.

Often two dodgers would work together,