The games themselves that I had so far taken part in, were hardly the best that Rome could provide. Of course, I well understood that one did not just walk into the Great Arena. One first had to prove oneself in the smaller venues, and build up a following amongst the people. The best way to do this was to win, and to win with style. I now prided myself on my ability to read the mood of the crowd, and to give them what I thought they wanted. For, example, I never allowed the fight to end too quickly, even if I thought the advantage was clearly my own. It was better to draw the thing out, and to strut about the small wooden floorboards that made up the street venues, before delivering one's next blow. This made them cheer and chant one's name, and after the fight the children would come up to me, wanting to touch my armour, or ask me how they too could become gladiators one day.
After six months of going from one place to the other to fight, always supervised by several trainers and guards, I had managed to score a dozen victories, and no defeats. Such an unblemished record was rare, and my fellow gladiators had become more and more repectful in my presence as time went on, and as my list of victories grew. Even the Ludus guards, hardly ones to have anything but distain for anyone, had begun to treat me with a little more respect. All in all, I had been able to become something of a small celebrity, and was considered a minor champion, and Veteran Beast, who had done very well, and yet who had still to prove himself in the Great Arena.
The price for these advancements in my own fortunes had been steep though. Only one week before, Titus, my good friend, who had later become my great friend, had been killed while fighting the raging Retiarius Storax, in yet another shabby fighting pit somewhere on the edge of town. I had seen it happen, but had been powerless to stop it, and yet vowed to avenge my friend's death one day. Gladiators were not supposed to take this kind of thing personally -it was just business- but Storax had displayed a little too much enjoyment in his task, and I yearned for the day when I would be able to face him in combat. Afterwards, they had lifted Titus's body off the stage and put it on a cart. Presumably, it would be held in storage until his family could be notified to come and pick it up.
Before Titus, I had believed that all Romans were a bloodthirsty lot, or at the very least, the masters whom I must please in order not to die. But he had shown me that this was not neccessarily so. For several nights after he had died, I had wept when alone in my room, not able to bring myself to believe that the one true friend I had in this place had been ripped forever from the very fabric of existance -at least this existance. I reminded myself that he had been a firm believer in the gods -had been completely and strangely devoted to them- even as he sought out endless new ways of bribing or outsmarting them. I tried to imagine him as he must be now, as a soul, and wondered how he was getting on in the underworld. It seemed to me, that he must be occupying some chair in some dirty gambling den down below, and he was no doubt laughing, and placing impossible bets with the other souls of the dead.
Just after he had died, my training had slowed down, as my mind was distracted by my sense of loss. I had not had time to grieve, but was expected to work to full capacity out in the training sands. I had tried, but it had been difficult, as everything I was doing, everything from lifting weights, to practicing my swordsmanship, I had always done with Titus. Doctore Furius noticed my lack of focus, but had said little all that first day to me about it. Later that night, after the baths, he sought me out, and in the hallway had stopped me.
"I know that you and Titus were friends. I feel his loss as well, and not just because he was a fellow Roman. It is always a shame to see a good gladiator depart this world."
I did not know how to respond to this, as I had never heard Furius do anything but yell orders, and tell us slaves that we were not worthy, and yet he seemed genuine enough.
"As I've said, I was once a Legionary, a dog's life ago. I served in many places, and fought many battles, and in that time, many of my friends died. Later, in the arena, the same thing... Even though I am a Roman, I, like you, did not choose this life. It was chosen for me by circumstances, or by the gods, I don't know."
He spit onto the ground, and above our heads a torch on the wall burned, lighting the hallway, as a swarm of midges circled about the flames frenetically.
"Sometimes I cursed the gods, or Rome, for my fate, but I've learned to make the best of it... You seem to me to have a similiar outlook. The only thing to do is to keep on surviving, no matter what the price... We serve Rome, and its rulers. I have fought men all over the Empire. But men like us -fighting men- we don't make the rules. We impose them maybe, sometimes -but we don't make them. Rome has succeeded because it's been able to blend military conquest with good administration, which secures what it has taken... Mark my words, one day all the world will kneel down before Rome and its Emperors... All this is just to say that men die everywhere, every day, and far less nobly than Titus did, and for little or no cause. You should be proud that he was your friend. He died a like a Roman, and has helped to teach you something of what it means to be a member of this Ludus. Don't forget, that to be a servant of this great city, especially as a gladiator, is more noble than to be the proud Chief of a lesser race."
As he said these things, Furius stood with his hands on his hips, as though he were confronting me with the facts of life. I was not sure whether to be grateful or resentful for this lecture. As soon as he had finished, he turned and abruptly walked away, and never brought it up again. I understood his words, and what he was trying to say to me, but was still conflicted. What was I to make of this people, who watched as members of its own community fought to the death for their entertainment?
Then again, perhaps it was not really so different than many of the rituals of my own tribe of the Sicambri. One of the things that we did was to take one of our own, someone who had willingly offered himself up as a sacrifice to the gods, and then either ritually slit his throat, or threw him, still living, into a bog where he would drown. If I had learned anything about the games, it was that they were not merely entertainment, but seemed to be some sort of ritual, enacted by willing or unwilling participants, it did not seem to matter. This was meant both to appease the god's bloodlust, as well as represent the beliefs of the people, which had to be enacted time and again as a kind of reaffirmation of their core values.
I say that Doctore Furius never brought the matter up again, but he did, either out of pity, or as some sort of reward for my many victories, send a slave girl to my cell. Her name was Lollia, or at least that was her Roman name. I never found out what her real name was, though she did say that she had come from the Island of Brittania, and had been sold into slavery as a child by her parents. Now she served in the kitchens beneath the Ludus -hard work that had prematurely aged her beyond her sixteen years by at least ten more. She still looked attractive though, especially in the shaft of moonlight which streamed through the window of my cell, and I took her gratefully. Afterwards, we had lain very still, her face against my side, neither of us saying anything, just feeling our breath slowly and steadily rising and falling in unison.
I had not had a woman in years, and had not even really had time to think about them. All day I trained, and at night I was far too exhausted to even imagine one. We fighters did not come into contact with women at all, except in the bathhouse, and we were not allowed to touch those girls. I had, of course, been briefly observed as I trained by a Roman Lady, but in the meantime, I had disciplined myself not to look up into the stands. These women were at once too aloof, high up as they were, and also too full of adulation. I took their cries and squeals as I took any that came from the crowd, and tried to focus only on fighting. I had heard rumours, of course, of some of the men being called forth to entertain some noble lady or other, but had never been asked to do this sort of thing myself. If I had been, I would certainly have had to comply.
Once Lollia had gone, and just as dawn was beginning to shed its first rays through the window, I vowed to myself that that next evening, in the arena, I would become a great champion. I looked on it as an opportunity, as a stepping stone on my path to becoming the greatest gladiator of this age, and prayed fervently to the gods to help me in this ambition. As to whom I would fight, that would be up to Procurator Incintatus and Doctore Furius, as well as with the Editor of the games, but I knew that whoever it was I woud meet in combat, they were bound for the afterlife...
CHAPTER NINE
The Gate of Life
When the sun had passed its zenith in the sky, and was slowly plummeting to earth, we were called by the Captain of the Guards to assemble.
Over two dozen of us gladiators had been warming up our muscles by engaging in some light sword-play in the Ludus arena. All day we had been hearing the screams and cries of both the crowds, and the participants of the Great Flavian Amphitheater, which was only about three-hundred paces away from the school. In the mornings, they always staged the beast hunts first, wherein specially-trained hunters, called Venators, tried their best to kill all sorts of exotic animals, while trying not to be killed themselves. Beasts like hippos, elephants and tigers had been shipped all the way from Africa, and beyond, to serve as entertainment for the ever-voracious public.
After a short break, the afternoon show featured public executions of criminals, which involved everything from whippings, to crucifixions, and burnings at the stake. I felt sorry for those who did not even get a chance to defend themselves. At least I would have a sword. After this spectacle, came the highlight of the day, the Munis, or sword-combat, which I was to fight in for the first time ever. This time, on orders from the Emperor himself, the Munis had been delayed till the sun set, because he preferred to watch death in partial darkness as a way of heightening the mystery. We were on his orders, and had to obey without question. The only thing I hadn't like about this was that it delayed the whole thing, and set my nerves on edge.
Dropping our swords where we stood, we put our woolen togas back on, in order to keep our muscles loose and warm, and lined up in single file before the entrance to the passageway that would lead us into the bowels of the arena. Long ago, a tunnel had been dug under the street by engineers, and it connected the Ludus with the arena. It was much better for the spectators if they did not catch a glimpse of us before the show, so that we should be seen to just enter the arena as if from out of nowhere, which served to heighten the mystique of gladiators. At the mouth of the passageway was a large iron gate, and this the Captain of the Guards unlocked with a key. Two junior guards then swung it open with a creak.
Inside the tunnel it was pitch black, except for the dim illumination cast by the torches that lined the walls. We followed the guards down a steep incline, which soon enough levelled out. We walked in silence for about two-hundred paces in the cool ehoey tunnel, till we came to another gate. Behind the gate was a guard, who unlocked it from his side, and then let us pass through. What I noticed right away, was the terrible smell that assaulted my nostrils as soon as I walked in. It was as if every rancorous odour in the world had been mixed together to create some new and ten-times more terrible smell.
It was clear that most of the stink came from the many animal cages that lined the hallways. We had now entered the Hypogeum, which was a system of tunnels and cells which lay directly beneath the arena floor. As we made our way through the maze of cells and chambers, I saw several dozen separate pens, each housing a different type of animal. In one pen there were about six snapping, leering hyenas, which I had never seen before, and in another, there were what looked to be three half-starved lions. In the largest of the pens was a giant grey creature, which I took to be what they call an elephant. I had always heard that elephants were vicious creatures, though this one actually appeared to be sad.
This did not suprise me, as these poor creatures had obviously been forced to endure all sorts of miseries beyond calculation, both on their long, and no-doubt arduous journeys to Rome, as well as in the arena. About everything, there hung an almost palpable stink of excrement and sweat and blood, and over all this horror-show presided the Beastmaster himself, a big fat man who wore a thick leather apron -to protect against tooth and claw, and who carried a bullwhip. It was he who oversaw the workings of the Hypogeum.
Now he shouted unintelligibly at two slaves who were trying as best they could to manhandle a hissing tiger down a narrow shaft. It appeared that there were dozens of these narrow passages that led up to the arena floor, coupled with platforms and cages that could be hoisted by ropes up to the top levels. These platforms were being pulled down by half a dozen men, and there were small trees, and exotic-looking plants being unlaoded and carried away. I imagined that these had been used as stage-props for the earlier shows. The intricacy of these operations amazed me. I had had no idea of the level of work and sophistication that went into the games, nor the number of slaves it took to keep things running smoothly and on time.
It seemed impossible that anyone could survive for long toiling under these conditions. In many ways, it was worse than the mines, as the heat and sense of claustrophobia were far more terrible, as well as the noise. We had been told that it would be loud here, but I had never imagined it to be this bad. Already, the crowds were getting impatient to see us fighters, and they stamped out a steady beat with their feet to show their displeasure. This, mixed with the rythmic beat of the music which accompanied the games, caused vibrations that sent sand sifting through the floorbaords of the arena, and this fell into our eyes as we walked.