by F. W. Farrar
CHAPTER XXXVIII
_THE GLADIATORS’ SCHOOL_
‘Commorabor inter homicidas, inclusus turpiore custodia et sordido cellarum situ.’ ‘In ludo fui, qua pœna nullam graviorem scelera noverunt, cujus ad comparationem ergastulum leve est.’--QUINCTILIAN.
Although the intervention of the vestal and the kindly ruse of Pudenshad saved the life of Onesimus, his condition was far from enviable.He was once more--now for the third time in his life--in overwhelmingdisgrace. It is true that all the legal customs were observed, in ahouse controlled by that respect for archæology which the fashion hadbeen set by Augustus. The chains were taken off his limbs and flungout of the court through the impluvium. None the less he felt thathe was marked and shunned. One day, after his escape, Nero passed himin one of the corridors, and, struck by the appearance of a handsomeyouth, beckoned him to approach. He came forward trembling, and theEmperor, peering into his face, recognised the purple-keeper ofOctavia. Inspired by sudden disgust at the memories thus called tohis recollection, he summoned his dispensator Callicles into hispresence, and ordered him to get rid of ‘that worthless Phrygian.’
‘Shall I put him in prison, or have him sent again to the ergastulumat Antium?’ asked Callicles.
‘Neither,’ said Nero. ‘The City Prætor, Pedanius Secundus, is aboutto give some votive games of beasts and gladiators. Make a present tohim of this youth.’
Onesimus heard the words, and his heart sank within him. Butresistance was useless. On his way he passed the door of Acte’sapartments, and not without peril ventured to sing a few notes ofthe old Thyatiran ballad which had first attracted her notice. Sheheard it, and came out.
‘That youth comes from my native land,’ she said to the dispensator.‘Step back a few paces and let me have a word with him.’
Callicles would hardly have granted the favour to any one else,but every one loved Acte, and he only said, ‘If Nero should come?’...
‘I will hold you clear,’ said Acte.
Onesimus, overcome with shame, knelt on one knee, kissed the fringeof her robe, and whispered, ‘Oh, Acte, I am condemned to be agladiator.’
‘In which school?’
‘Under Rutulus, the trainer of Pedanius Secundus--the cruellest manin Rome.’
He told her something of his story, and she saw that to help himwas beyond her power. All she could do was to slip into his hand herown purse, and to tell him that if ever the day came when she couldbefriend him she would do her utmost. More she dared not say, for thesuspicious eyes of Callicles were upon her, and she had to repressthe emotion which agitated her frame.
In the school of Rutulus, Onesimus experienced a phase of miseryeven deeper than in the slave-prison of Antium. Once more he was thecompanion of felons of every dye and fugitives of every nationality.Every day came the severe drill, the coarse food which was worse thanhunger, the odious society of hardened ruffians, the recounting ofthe brutal tragedies with which they were familiar. Among them all hefound but one whose society he could tolerate. He was a dark-haired,blue-eyed Briton, young like himself, but in all other respectsunlike him. For Æquoreus, as they called him, was full of manly prideand hardihood, and had none of the subtle softness of the Asiaticin his temperament. He had been reduced to his hard lot for no othercrime than the outburst of a passionate independence. He had beenbrought over with Caractacus, as one of the Britons pre-eminentin stature and beauty to grace the ovation of Claudius and AulusPlautius. He had not been treated cruelly, for the admirationinspired by the dauntless bearing of the British king had securedprotection to his countrymen; but Glanydon--to give him his Silurianname--loathed the effeminate luxuries of Rome, and, forgetting thathe was a captive, had once struck in the face a Prætorian officerwho insulted him. For this offence he had been first scourged andthen handed over to the master of the gladiators. It was orderedthat he should fight, as soon as he was trained, in some greatdisplay. Onesimus saw that the young Briton shared his own disgustat the orgies of ribald talk in which their fellows indulged. The twohad no other friends, and they were drawn together for mutual defenceagainst the rude horse-play of their comrades. Glanydon was one ofthe class of gladiators called Samnites, who fought in heavy armour,while, after various trials, the trainer (_lanista_) decided thatthe exceptional activity of Onesimus marked him out for the work ofa net-thrower (_retiarius_). Their training had to be hurried on atthe utmost speed, for the games were to take place within a month.
The other gladiators sometimes talked of their lot with pretendedrapture. They spoke of the liberal supply of food, of the presentssent them, of the favour with which they were regarded by fairladies--even by the wives and daughters of great patricians--ofthe fame they acquired, so that their prowess and the comparisonof their merits was one of the commonest topics of talk at Romandinner-parties. They boasted of the delight of seeing theirlikenesses painted in red on the play-bills; of the shouts withwhich a favourite fighter was welcomed; of the yell of applause whichgreeted them when they had performed a gallant feat; of the chanceof retiring with wreaths and gifts and money, when they had earnedby their intrepidity the wooden foil.[74]
‘Poor wretches,’ said Onesimus to Glanydon; ‘they do not talk of thepanic which sometimes seizes them, and how they are howled at when,in ignominious defeat, they fly to the end of the arena to beg fortheir lives; how, when they see overwhelming odds against them andgrim death staring them in the face, they are still driven intothe fight with cracking scourges and plates of iron heated red hot;nor--but what is the use of talking of all this, Glanydon? you knowit all better than I do.’
‘Brutal, bloody, slaves and women, are these Romans,’ cried Glanydon.‘The Druids of my native land served the gods with cruel rites, butthey did not play with death as though it were a pretty toy, as theseweaklings do. And to think that by arms and discipline they conqueredmy countrymen! Oh, for one hour again under Caradoc or under Boudicca!I would never leave another field alive.’
‘You do not, then, fear death?’ said Onesimus.
‘Why should I? What has life for me? The maiden I loved is in herhut on my Silurian hills. I shall never see her more, nor set footon those purple mist-clad mountains. I shall be butchered to amusethese swine. Death! No,’ he said, while he indignantly dashed awaythe tear which had burst forth at the thought of his home--‘I do notfear death, but I hate to die thus.’
‘Did your Druids think that death ended all?’
Glanydon turned his blue eyes on the speaker. ‘I do not think theydid. There were mysteries which they hid from us. But’....
With amazement Onesimus saw him sketch in the dust the helmet ofa mirmillo, of which the crest was a dolphin. The Phrygian saidnothing, but scratched in the dust the same symbol. Glanydon startedup and seized his hand. ‘A Christian?’ he asked in amazement; ‘andyet here?’
‘You too are here,’ said Onesimus, hanging his head.
‘Ah, yes!’ said the Briton; ‘but surely for no crime. What could I dobut strike a wretch viler than a worm? Nor have I been illuminated--my teacher would not baptise me till he could see proof that I hadcontrolled the fierce outbursts of passion.’
‘Your teacher?’
‘There came from Jerusalem an old white-haired man. They called himJoseph. He had seen the Christ; he had buried Him in his own tomb.--But you, Onesimus?’
‘I am no better than a renegade. My own follies have brought me here.There is no more hope for me. Ask me no more.’
‘Do you fear death?’ asked the Briton. ‘If so, I pity your lot.’
‘The gods--or God if there be but one God--cannot be _worse_ thanmen,’ answered Onesimus gloomily.
Glanydon was silent. After a pause, he said, ‘I am a rude barbarian,as they call me here; yet he who taught me spoke much of “love forall and hope for all.”’
Onesimus sat with bowed head, and the Briton was moved. ‘We arebrothers,’ he said. ‘Even in this hell we can love one another.’
But one sickening
thought was in the breasts of both of them.They had sat side by side in daily intercourse; their commonfriendlessness, their common sympathies, had thrown them togetherin the closest bonds, and those bonds had been strengthened by thediscovery that both had been taught at least the rudiments of a holyfaith. But the day of the games was rapidly approaching, and thechances of the lot, or the caprice of the Prætor, might easily causethem to be pitted against each other. It was horrible to think thateither of them might be compelled to drive sword or dagger into thethroat or heart of his friend.
‘Supposing that we are matched together?’ said Glanydon, the eveningbefore the display.
‘Then we must fight,’ said Onesimus. ‘Have we not taken the oath “tobe bound, to be burned, to be scourged, to be slain,” or do anythingelse that is required of us as legitimate gladiators, giving up alikeour souls and our bodies?’[75]
‘Which of us will win?’ asked Glanydon, with a sad smile.
‘You,’ said the Phrygian. ‘You are stronger than I am, and taller.’
‘Yes, but you are quicker and more active, and you can’t tell how Ihate that net of yours. I know you will catch me in it--’
‘If I do, you will still have fought so well that the people will allturn down their thumbs, and you will be spared. A tall fine fellowlike you is just the gladiator whom the Roman ladies like to look at,and they won’t have you killed in your first fight. But as for me--amere Phrygian slave!--Yes, Glanydon, to-morrow your short sword willperhaps be red with my blood.’
‘Never!’ said Glanydon. ‘I will fight because I must, and will do mybest; and when my blood is up I might kill you or any other opponentin the blind heat of the combat; but as for slaughtering in coldblood I could not do it--least of all could I murder the friend Ilove.’
‘You won’t be able to help yourself, Glanydon. And we netsmen (worseluck!) have our faces uncovered. Many of the spectators, like thelate “divine” Claudius, as they call him, like to see us killed,because our dying expression is not concealed by a helmet.’
‘But why should we not both escape?’ asked the Briton. ‘Perhapsbefore this time to-morrow we may each be the happy possessor ofthe ivory ticket with “_Sp._”[76] upon it, or even of the palm andthe foil. Who knows but what by our bravery we may be _rude donati_?’
‘Don’t you know, then, that to-morrow’s games will very likely be_sine missione_? We must either die or kill.’
The Briton had not been aware of it. He sank into gloomy silence.Onesimus gently laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and said,‘Well, perhaps, like Priscus and Verrus, we may both be victors andboth vanquished. _Pugnavere pares, succubuere pares._’
Glanydon shook his head. He said, ‘Let us talk no more, or we shallboth be unmanned. Life--death--to-morrow; the _rudis_ or the stab?Which shall it be?’
‘It is in God’s hands,’ said Onesimus, ‘if what we have been taughtis true.’
With that awful issue before them, overshadowed by misgivings andalmost with despair, finding life horrible, yet shrinking from thedeath which neither of them dared to regard with full Christian hope,the two youths lay down on their pallets. Before they closed theireyes in sleep, each of them had breathed some sort of unuttered cryinto the dim unknown.
