Talbot Mundy

“ Whoever faced a Roman gladiator under the critical gaze of a crowd that knew all the points of fighting and could instantly detect, and did instantly resent pretense, fraud, trickery, the poor condition of one combatant or the unwillingness of one man to have at another in deadly earnest, had to be not only in the pink of bodily condition but a fighter such as no drunken sensualist could ever hope to be. So it was easy to suppress the scandal that the gladiator Paulus was the emperor himself, although half Rome half-believed it ”

“ I will rid Rome of the brood! They kill the shadow—they shall feel the substance!”
Suddenly he turned on his attendants—pointed at the murderer and his victim:
“Throw those two into the sewer! Strip them—strip them now—let none identify them. Seize those spineless fools who let the murder happen. Tie them. You, Narcissus—march them back to the arena. Have them thrown into the lions’ cages. Stay there and see it done, then come and tell me.”
The courtiers backed away from him as far out of the circle of the lamplight as the tunnel-wall would let them. ”

“ Commodus strode up and pulled out the javelin, setting one foot on the leopard and exerting all his strength.
“Look here, Varronius. Do you see how deep my blade went? Pin-pricks are no use against man or animal. Kill when you strike, like great Jove with his thunderbolts! Life isn’t a game between Maltese kittens; it’s a spectacle in which the strong devour the weak and all the gods look on! Loose another leopard there! ”

“ I will bet a talent that he gets you—and I hope he does! You hold your spear the way a woman holds a distaff—but observe the way he gathers all his strength in readiness to leap instantly in any direction! Ah!”
The leopard made a feint, perhaps to test the swiftness of the spear-point. Leaping like a flash of light, he seemed to change direction in mid-air, the point missing him by half a hand’s breadth. One terrific claw, outreaching as he turned, ripped open Varronius’ tunic and brought a little stream of crimson trickling down his left arm. ”

“ No man in the known world was less incapable than Commodus of self-defense against an armed man. There was no deception about his feats of strength and skill; he was undoubtedly the most terrific fighter and consummate athlete Rome had ever seen, and he was as proud of it as Nero once was of his “golden voice.” But, as he explained to the fawning courtiers who shouldered one another for a place beside him as he hurried down the tunnel:
“How could Rome replace me? Yesterday I had to order a slave beaten to death for breaking a vase of Greek glass. ”

“ Now emulation had him; he would not be beaten to a scene of action by a gladiator. He let his cloak fall and a senator tripped over it.
There were no lamps. Something less than twilight, deepened here and there by shadow, filled the tunnel. By a niche intended for a sentry the attendants were standing helplessly around the body of a man who lay with head and shoulders propped against the wall. Narcissus and another, like knotted snakes, were writhing near by. There was a sound of choking. Pavonius Nasor was silent. He appeared already dead.
“Pluto! Is there no light?” ”

“ But he allowed the legend of his monstrous orgies in the palace to gain currency, partly because that encouraged the Romans to debauch themselves and render themselves incapable of overthrowing him, and partly because it helped to cover up his trick of employing a substitute to occupy the royal pavilion at the games when he himself drove chariots in the races or fought in the arena as the gladiator Paulus.
Men who had let wine and women ruin their own nerves knew it was impossible that any one, who lived as Commodus was said to do, could drive a chariot and wield a javelin as Paulus did. ”

“ He appeared to be a man of no ambition other than to get through life as easily as might be—of no personal dignity, no ruling habits, but possessed of imitative talent that enabled him, without the slightest trouble, to adopt the very gait and gesture of the emperor whom he impersonated. ”

“ A gladiator, though the crowd might almost deify him, was a casteless individual, unprivileged before the law, whom any franchised citizen would rate as socially far beneath himself. To have identified the emperor with Paulus in a voice above a whisper would have made the culprit liable to death and confiscation of his goods. ”

“ He had raised up the man’s head by the hair. Commodus stamped on the face with the flat of his sandal, crushing the head on the flagstones.
“Christian!” he shouted. “Is this Marcia’s doing? Is this Marcia’s expedient to keep me out of the arena? ”

“ The senate needs pruning! I will purge it the way Galen used to purge me when I had the colic! Dioscuri! But these leaky babblers suffocate me!”
He was true to the Cæsarian tradition. He believed himself a god. He more than half-persuaded other men. ”

“ Debauchery, of wine and women, entered not at all into his private life although, in public, he encouraged it in others for the simple reason that it weakened men who otherwise might turn on him. He was never guilty of excesses that might undermine his strength or shake his nerves ”