CHAPTER XXX
FESTUS
Domiciled in the Choragium and busy there and in the Colosseum I spentalmost a year. Until the approach of winter put a stop to spectacles inthe arena and after the outset of spring permitted their resumption, I wasnot only continuously busy, but entirely contented. Of the dreary andtedious winter between, which was intensely dispiriting and appearedinterminable, the less I say the better. I do not want to remind myself ofit.
I was of course free from the bodily miseries which had made my winters atPlacentia and Nuceria so terrible: I did not suffer from cold, hunger,vermin, sleeplessness, overwork, exhaustion, weakness, blows and abuse. Iwas, on the contrary, comfortably lodged and clothed, well attended,lavishly and excellently fed and humored by the procurator.
But at Placentia and Nuceria I had solaced myself amid the horror of mysituation by reminding myself that I was, at least, alive, and, as long asI was in an _ergastulum_, entirely safe from any danger of beingrecognized and executed. Here, in Rome, often in the arena, under the eyesof sixty thousand Romans, thousands of whom had known me in my prosperityand hundreds of whom had known me familiarly from my childhood, I was,every instant, in peril of recognition and of betrayal to the secretservice. While I was actually in the arena I was so busy or so exhilaratedby my participation in the most magnificent spectacle on earth that Inever worried a moment. I seldom worried while I was occupied with any ofmy duties in the Colosseum or Choragium, although I knew I was very liableto recognition, for the passages and vaults of the Colosseum and thecourtyards of the Choragium were habitually visited by men of sportingtastes; gentlemen, wealthy idlers, noblemen, senators, courtiers, even theEmperor himself. I was, in my intellect, conscious of my danger; but,while I was occupied, it did not perturb my feelings.
During the idleness of the long winter my peril did rob me of sleep, ofappetite and of peace of mind. I had continually to devise excuses forremaining in my lodgings, for declining invitations to banquets, forkeeping to myself. I dreaded that the procurator himself was growingsuspicious of me. He had, in the kindness of his heart, thrown in my wayoffers of opportunities for outings, for diversions, for entertainments,which any man in my situation might have been expected to accept withalacrity. My refusals, I felt, might set him to thinking. He was entirelyloyal to the Emperor and the government. If the idea ever crossed his mindhe would, at once, have reported to the secret service that it would bewell to take a look at Festus the Beast-Tamer; he might be other than heappeared. The anxiety caused by these thoughts preyed upon my mind.
Without reason, apparently. The procurator, as I look back on that deadlywinter, seems to have accepted all my peculiarities without question. If Iwould remain content and quell obstreperous beasts when spring opened as Ihad until autumn ushered in winter, I might do and be anything I pleased.If I pleased to mope in my quarters, pace under the arcades of thecourtyard, lie abed from early dusk till after sunrise, what mattered thatto him? Such, apparently, was his attitude of mind. He gave orders that Iwas to have my meals alone in my quarters, as I requested. He had broughtto me, from the libraries of the Basilica Ulpia, most of the books I askedfor. I had read all the books on catching, caring for, curing, managing,taming and fighting beasts which formed the library of the Choragium.After they were exhausted I asked the procurator for more. As he had acousin among the assistant curators at the Ulpian Library he was able togratify me. After I could learn of no more books on beasts I took tocomedies and read Naevius, all of Menander and Caecilius, and most of thebest plays of other writers of comedies; then. I turned to histories,which I thought safe, and spent my days for the remainder of the wintersleeping early, long and late, eating abundant meals of good food, walkingmiles round and round the big courtyard under the empty arcades,exercising in the gymnasium of the Choragium, steaming and parboiling andhalf-roasting myself in its small but very well-appointed and well-servedbaths, and, otherwise, reading every bit of my daylight. I kept well and Iremained safe, ignored and unnoticed. The procurator kept his word as toshielding me from visitors, and he said he had much ado to succeed, forthe ease and certitude with which, in the open arena, before all Rome, Iapproached a lion or tiger which had just slaughtered a criminal andlapped his blood, seized the beast by the mane or scruff of the neck, asif he had been a tame dog, and led him to a postern or into his cage,roused much interest, much curiosity, many enquiries and not a littledesire to see me closer, question me, talk with me, get acquainted with meand learn the secret of my power.
I thanked the procurator for his resolution and success in rebuffingwould-be patrons eager to pamper me. Also, all winter, I dreaded that hewould he less lucky or less adamantine when spring came.
Thus passed my fourth winter since my disaster.
I might have been spared much of my anxiety during the winter if I hadlearned sooner that such aloofness as mine was no novelty to theprocurator, that he had, among his most valued subordinates, a man evenmore unsociable than I, and even more highly esteemed and more sedulouslypampered. This was the celebrated and regretted Spaniard, Mercablis, who,for more than thirty years, was accorded by the Choragium a home of his.own, a retinue of servants and the fulfillment of every whim, of which thechief was his determination to have as little as possible to do with anyhuman being except his wife and their three children, for he was not aslave, but a freeman. In his way Mercablis was as celebrated as FelixBulla the brigand or Agyllius Septentrio the actor of mimes, and thememory of his fame yet lingers in the recollections of the aged and in thetalk of their children and grandchildren. For it was Mercablis who, forhalf a life-time, invented, rehearsed, and kept secret till the moment ofits display the noon-hour sensational surprise for each day of games inthe Colosseum.
I have, in my later years, met many persons who congratulated me on myluck in having personally known and frequently talked with Mercablis, justas many have similarly envied me my encounters with Felix Bulla. Formyself I have never plumed myself on such features of my adventures,though they are not unpleasing to recall.
When, in the spring of the next year, while Fuscianus and Silanus wereconsuls, I came to know Mercablis and to consider him, I arrived at theconclusion that his inclination for solitude and his aloofness were notthe result of any dread of strangers or of any need for seclusion, likemine, but the product of a disposition naturally churlish, crabbed, andunsocial.
Habituated as the procurator had been to Mercablis and his loathing forstrangers, my desire for privacy had seemed to him as a matter of course.
Resolute as Mercablis was to be let alone, he was enormously vain andself-conceited and puffed up with his conviction of his own importance. Henever smiled, but some subtle alteration in his countenance betrayed thatany flattery pleased him.
He was a tall, spare, bony man, with a dry, brown, leathery skin, leanlegs and arms, a stringy neck, almost no chin, a hooked nose, deep setlittle greeny-gray eyes and intensely black, harsh, stiff, curly hair andvery bushy eyebrows. He wore old, worn, faded garments and stalked aboutas if the fate of the universe depended on him.
Certainly he never failed to surprise all Rome when the time came for hisnovelty to be displayed. Every one which I saw, either earlier when I wasmyself or while in the Choragium as Festus the Beast-Wizard or later,justified the claim of Mercablis to being the most original-mindedsensation-deviser ever known in the Colosseum or elsewhere.
One of his utterly unpredictable surprises recurs often to myrecollection.
It was a hot July day and, during the noon pause, the vendors of coolingdrinks did a good business among the spectators of the upper tiers. To thering-rope round the opening in the awning, over the middle of the arena,had been fastened a big, strong, pulley block. One of the lightest andmost agile of the awning-boys hung by his hands from the radial ropestretched from nearest that pulley, worked out to it, sat on it, rovethrough it a light cord which he carried coiled at his waist, and workedback along the radial rope, leaving the cord trailing from the pulley-wheel
to the sand of the arena. By means of the cord the arena-slaves rovethrough the pulley first a light rope, then a very strong one.
The end of this rope they fastened to an iron ring, from which hung fourstout chains, three of them of equal length, each about thirty feet, whoselower ends, at points precisely equidistant from each other, were fastenedto a big iron hoop all of twenty-four feet across. From the hoop hung sixlighter chains, like the fourth chain which hung from the ring. As the sixwere fastened to the hoop either where one of the upper chains ended orexactly between two of them each of the six was precisely twelve feet fromthose on either side of it and from the center chain hanging from thering. The hoop hung perfectly level and each of the seven chains, aboutthirty feet below the level of the hoop, had hung to it an iron disk, ayard or more across, hanging by a ring-bolt in its center and perfectlylevel. From a second ring-bolt in the underside of each disk depended moreof the same light, strong chain, to a length of some thirty feet below thedisks.
I, like all the arena-slaves and Choragium-slaves, like all thespectators, knew that this apparatus portended some unpredictablesurprise; but I, like the others, like the audience, gaped at it,incredulous and unable to conjecture what it could be for.
Then arena-slaves carried in and set down on the sand a full hundred feetfrom the hoop and chains, a dozen or more wicker crates full of quackingwhite ducks with yellow bills. They and the noise they made recalledunpleasantly to me my sensations as I clung to the alder bush immersed inBran Brook, after Agathemer and I had crawled through the drain at VillaAndivia.
Then there was a delay and I was called out to assist the mahout of theChoragium's best trick elephant, the smallest full-grown elephant I eversaw and the worst-dispositioned elephant of any age or size which ever Iencountered. When I and the _mahout_ had put him in a good humor heentered the arena and stationed himself by the crates of quacking ducks.
Then there marched out into the arena a procession of arena-slaves, fourby four, each four carrying by two poles a strong cage housing a bigAfrican ape. These cages they set down each under one of the chainsdepending from the hoop. Then I was called to deal with the baboons.
Now I fear no beast, but of all beasts I most dislike an African ape.These creatures, inhabiting the mountains of Mauretania, Gaetulia and theProvince of Africa, are big as a big dog and have teeth as long and cruelas any big dog. They are violent and treacherous. Whereas any wild bear orwolf I ever approached would permit me to handle him without snarling orgrowling, every baboon I ever had to handle made some sort of threateningnoise inside him. Although none ever bit me or attempted any attack on meyet the hideousness of such apes and their vile odor always made me timidin dealing with them.
Each of these seven had around his middle an iron hoop-belt, with a strongring-bolt in the back. It was my task to affix the end of each pendantchain to the ring-bolt in the belt of one of the baboons. This was easy todo, as each cage, in addition to a door in one side, had a trap-door inits top; and each chain had a snap-hook ringed to its last link. Moredifficult was managing so that the apes should be hauled up out of theircages without any two swinging sideways enough to clutch each, other; for,while baboons in their native haunts hunt in packs, male baboons not ofthe same pack always fight venomously and members of the same pack, ifseparated for a time, are as hostile to each other as males of differentpacks.
By care and caution, the slaves at the rope obeying my signals promptly, Iat last had all seven apes clear of their cages, and not swinging toomuch. Then the cages were removed and the hoop lowered somewhat. Then Isteadied each chain till none had any side-ways swing. Each ape finallyhung on a level with every other ape, and about two yards above the sandof the arena.
I say finally, for it was at once manifest why the disks were hung to thechains; each baboon swarmed up his chain; each got no higher than thedisk, for it was too broad for his arm to reach the chain above it, sothat each failed to climb past it, and, after some chattering, andhesitation, each climbed down his chain again and hung by his belt, everyone mewing and chattering at his neighbors, frantic with hostility andeager for a fight.
When all seven were quiet the herald proclaimed that wagers might now belaid on the apes, the survivor of the seven to be the winner. Each had adifferent color painted on his iron ring: blue, green, red, yellow and soon. The spectators appeared to make bets.
Then when the arena was clear between the elephant and the baboons andbeyond them, the mahout spoke to his charge, the elephant inserted histrunk through the opened lid of a crate of ducks, grasped a duck by theneck, lifted it out, swung it, and hurled it at the hanging apes. Ithurtled through the air, napping its wings in vain, and passed between thebaboons, they grabbing for it as it shot by, it falling far beyond them onthe sand.
A roar of appreciative yells rose from the spectators.
The elephant threw another duck and another. The third came within reachof one ape. He seized it and bit it savagely, tearing it to pieces withvicious glee. Its impact set him swinging.
Duck after duck was hurled till another baboon caught and rent another.This went on till two of the swinging apes came within grasping distanceof each other. At once they grappled, bit each other and fought till onewas killed.
It made a queer spectacle; the crates of quacking ducks, the thin-legged,blackskinned, turbaned _mahout_, the wickedly comprehending littleelephant, the chattering baboons, the ducks hurtling through the air, andrunning about the sand all over the arena, for many of them fell andescaped alive, the yelling spectators of the upper tiers, the mildlyamused parties in the Imperial and senatorial boxes, the blaze of sun overeverything.
The duck-throwing was continued till only one ape remained alive.
It was all very exciting and so whimsically odd that it was acclaimed amost successful surprise. It is yet remembered by those who saw it orheard of it from them as the most spectacular and peculiar of all theinventions of the lamented Mercablis.
Of my experiences while in the Choragium and about the amphitheater themost notable were my opportunities for observing Commodus as a beast-fighter, the passion for the sport which possessed him, his absorption init, even rage for it, his unflagging interest in it, his untiring pursuitof it, and his amazing strength and astounding skill in the use of arrows,spears, swords, and even clubs as weapons for killing beasts.
Keen as was his enjoyment of his own dexterity and fond as he was ofdisplaying it to admiring and applauding onlookers, infatuated as he waswith the intoxication of butchery, proficiency and adulation, he retainedsufficient vestiges of decency and self-respect to restrain him fromexhibiting himself as a beast-fighter in public spectacles before allRome. Of late years I have heard not a few persons declare and maintainthat they had seen and recognized him in the arena during the mornings ofpublic festivals; that his outline, attitudes, movements and his manner ofhandling a sword, a club, a spear or a bow were unmistakable. I asseveratethat these persons were and are self-deceived, or talking idly orrepeating what they have heard from others or merely lying. Commodus neverso far debased himself as to take his stand in the arena of the Colosseumon the morning of a public spectacle with all Rome looking on; still lessdid he ever disgrace himself by actually killing beasts in full sight ofthe whole populace. I speak from full knowledge. I know.
I may remark here that, taking the other extreme from these detractors orgossips, there exist persons who maintain that Commodus never drove achariot in public, let alone as a competing jockey in a succession ofraces in the Circus Maximus on a regular festival day in full view of allRome; likewise that he not only never, as a gladiator, killed an adversaryin public combat, but never so much as shed blood in any of his fights;asserting that he merely practised with lath foils inside the Palace.
These latter persons are of the class who are horrified that a Prince ofthe Republic should have debased himself as did Commodus, who feel that itis discreditable to Imperial Majesty in general that such shamefuloccurrences took place and who ar
e foolish enough to fancy that harm donemay be undone by forgetting what happened, by whispering about it, bykeeping silent, by hushing up as much as possible all reports of it, byexpunging all mention of it from the public records, by garbling historiesand annals so as to make it appear that Commodus merely longed to do andpracticed or played at doing what he actually did.
These wiseacres are as far from the truth as his libellers and slanderers.
If anything in addition to my solemn assertion is needful to convince anyreader of this chronicle that I am right, let me remind him that all Romeknew or knew of Palus the Gladiator, afterwards of Palus the Charioteer,later yet again of Palus the Gladiator; of Palus, the unsurpassable, theinimitable, the incomparable: incomparable in his ease, his grace, hislitheness, his agility, his quickness, his amazing capacity for seeing theone right thing to do, the one thing which no other man could have thoughtof, and for doing it without a sign of perturbation, haste or effort, yetswift as lightning, with the effectiveness of Jove's thunderbolts and withthe joyousness of a happy lad; always the same Palus and always in everydimension, attitude and movement the picture, the image, the double ofCommodus: whereas no one ever heard or saw Palus the Beast-Fighter.
I think the chief reason why Commodus could not resist the temptation todegrade himself to the level of a public character and a public gladiator,yet, despite his infatuation for beast-killing, shrank from dishonoringhimself by appearing at a public festival as a beast-fighter, was thatbeast-fighters are not merely more despised than charioteers or gladiatorsbut the contempt felt for them has in it quite a different quality fromthat felt for gladiators and charioteers. Everybody sees criminals killedby beasts and there are all sorts of variations in the manner in whichcriminals are exposed to death by wild animals. Some are turned naked andweaponless into the arena to be mangled by lions or bears or other hugebeasts: others are left clad in their tunics; some of these are allowedthe semblance of a weapon; a club, knife, dagger or light javelin; so thattheir appearance of having some chance may make their destruction morediverting to the spectators: others, in order to prolong their agonies,are furnished with real weapons, as a sword, a pike, a trident, even ahunting spear with a full-sized triangular head, its edges honed sharp asrazors; others are left completely clad, with or without sham weapons oractual arms, yet others are protected by armor, corselets, kilts, greaves,or even hip-boots and helmets, and wear swords and carry shields as wellas pikes or spears: these last differ in appearance in no respect fromprofessional beast-fighters.
This produces, in the minds of persons of all classes a sort of confusionbetween beast-fighters and criminals and brings it about that thereattaches to those persons of noble-birth or free-birth who, whether fromhope of gain, from poverty, or from infatuation with the sport or frommere bravado, abase themselves as beast-fighters, an obloquy far intenserthan that which attaches to freemen or nobles who dishonor themselves bybecoming gladiators or charioteers. Such self-abasements have been knownever since the reign of Nero, began to become more common under Domitianand have ceased to be regarded as anything unusual; in fact, so many menof good birth or even of high birth have become gladiators or charioteers,so many of these have acquired popularity, so many, even if actually few,have won wealth and fame, that professional charioteering or swordsmanshiphas almost ceased to be regarded as a degradation. Not so beast-fighting.No one can point to a record of any freeman or noble having appeared inthe arena as a beast-fighter and afterwards having regained by anyacquisition whether of reputation or fortune the position in society whichhe had forfeited by his dishonor.
At any rate, Commodus gratified his enthusiasm, for beast-killing in twoentirely different ways. One was by regaling the people with spectacles ofunheard-of, even of incredible magnificence, at which not only the noon-hour was filled with ingenious and novel feats of trick-riding, tightrope-walking, jugglery, acrobatics and the like, and one of the surprisesinvented by Mercablis and the afternoons ennobled by hosts of gladiators,paired or fighting by fours, sixes or tens, twenties or in battalions, asif soldiers in actual battles; but the mornings were exciting with theslaughter of hordes of animals of all kinds; with fights of ferociousbeasts, and with, the fighting and killing of fierce animals by the mostexpert and venturesome beast-fighters. At these spectacles Commodusparticipated as a spectator, in the Imperial Pavilion, surrounded by hisofficials and the great officers of his household, clad in his princelyrobes, seated on his gold-mounted ivory throne.
His other method of gratifying his infatuation was by himself killing allsorts of beasts, either from the coping of the arena, or from platformsconstructed out on the arena or from the level of the sand itself, forwhich feats he had as spectators the whole Senate and the entire body ofour nobility, summoned by special invitation and most of them by no meansreluctant to enjoy the spectacle of the superlative prowess possessed bytheir Prince.
When any of the Vestals were present at these eccentric exhibitions theyoccupied their front-row box and Marcia usually sat with them, generallyaccompanied by as many of her intimates among the wives of senators as thebox would accommodate. The Vestals, as the only human beings in Rome whodid not fear Commodus, were often entirely independent in their behaviorand refused his invitations; but they did it politely, alleging that theregulations of their cult forbade any Vestal absenting herself from theTemple and Atrium on that particular day. When no Vestal was presentMarcia occupied their box, by their invitation, and filled it with hernoblest and wealthiest favorites among the senatorial matrons, often wivesof ex-consuls.
On these occasions Commodus wore fulldress boots of a shape precisely aswith his official robes but not of the usual color: they had indeed theImperial eagles embroidered on them in gold thread, but, instead of beingof sky-blue dull-finished leather, they were of a shiny, glaze-surfacedleather as white as milk, their soles gilded along the edges. Goldembroidery set off his tunic, which was of the purest white silk,shimmering brilliantly. He always wore many gold rings, set with rubiesand emeralds; also an elaborate necklace matching his rings. His bright,soft, curly, yellow hair haloed his face as did his almost as bright andfully as yellow and curly beard. His eyes were very bright blue, hischeeks very red. He was very handsome. The expression of vacuousmiscomprehension like that on the face of a country bumpkin, which was sousual with Commodus when dealing with official business or social duties,never appeared on his countenance when revelling in his favorite sport:then his expression was intelligent, lively and even charming.
He was at this time in his twenty-sixth year and in the very prime of hislife. Before his death, instead of the rosiness of health on his face andthe glow of youth on his cheeks, his entire countenance was unbecominglyflushed and florid, like that of a drunkard.
His weapons were as exquisitely designed and finished as his costume. Whenhe used a club it was of the wood of some Egyptian palm or of cornel-wood,heavily gilded; a heap of such clubs was always in readiness when heentered the arena. Similarly there was ready for him an arsenal of swords,of every style, shape and size, from short Oscan swords not much longerthan daggers to Gallic swords with blades a full yard long and thin askitchen spits. All were gold-hilted, sheathed in colored, tooled,embroidered, gilded or even bejewelled leather; many had their bladesgilded except the edges and points. There was piled up ready for hischoice a mountain of spears, of patterns as various as the swords. All hadtheir shafts whitened with some novel sort of paint which produced agleaming effect like the sheen of the white portions of the finer sorts ofdecorated Greek vases. This glaze effect was over all of each shaft exceptat the grip, where the natural wood always appeared, roughened like thesurface of a file with criss-cross lines to afford him a surer grasp. Hisbows were all gilded, his quivers gilded or of gem-studded, brightlytinted leather, in many colored patterns; his arrows gilded all over,points, shafts and feathers; or with feathers dyed red, blue, green orviolet. Every detail of his get-up and equipment was to the last degreeperfect, reliable, beautiful, unusual and
costly.
I pondered a great deal over his infatuation and its consequences.
In the first place, as when contemplating the torrent of beast-wagonsflowing down the Flaminian Highroad, I was, being still inwardly a Romannoble, overwhelmed with shame that the enormous, but even so insufficient,revenues of the Republic should be diverted from their proper uses for themaintenance of our prosperity and the defence of the frontiers of theEmpire and squandered on the silly amusements of a great, hulking, empty-headed lad.
Then I was almost equally ashamed that a man who could, on occasion, ifsufficiently roused, be, for a space, as completely Prince and Emperor asCommodus had repeatedly shown himself in my sight, could, on the otherhand, waste his time and energies on displaying his dexterity in feats ofarchery, javelin-throwing, swordsmanship, agility and mere strength. Itappeared to me not only shameful but incredible that a man who was capableof such complete adequacy in his proper station in life as Commodus hadshown himself to be, for instance, when berating Satronius and Vedius or,still more, when facing the mutineers and dooming Perennis, should bewilling to leave the management of the Republic and the ruling of theEmpire to an ex-slave and ex-street porter like Cleander, and occupy histime with spearing bears, shooting with arrows lions, tigers, or elephantsand what not, burying his sword-blade in bulls, even with clubbingostriches.
I oscillated or vacillated between these two lines of thought. The sightof Commodus dodging the lightning rush of an infuriated ostrich and neatlydespatching him with a single blow on the head from a palm-wood club nolonger and no thicker than his own forearm not only stirred my wonder thatany man could possess such accuracy of eyesight, such power of judgingdistances and time, such perfect cooerdination of his faculties ofobservation, of his will and of his muscles; but also roused my disgustthat a man capable of ruling the world and with the opportunity to showhis capabilities should degrade himself to wasting time on tricks ofagility and feats of strength and skill.
On the other hand the sight of Commodus using a full-grown male Indianelephant as a target for his arrows enraged me. Next to a man an Indianelephant is the most intelligent creature existing on this earth of ours,as far as we know. An elephant lives far longer than a man. His life ofuseful labor is longer than the total life of a long-lived man. And hislabor can be very useful to mankind. An elephant can travel, day afterday, as fast and far as a horse, he can accomplish easily tasks to whichno team of horses, not even of sixteen horses, is adequate, he can outdoany gang of men at loading or unloading a ship with massive timbers orwith many other kinds of cargo in heavy and bulky units. It can only be ashame to kill, for mere sport, so noble a creature. It is bad enough toexhibit in the arena fights of elephants, which kill each other for ourdiversion, when we might utilize their courage and prowess in battle, asthe Indians do. But to use an elephant as a mere target for arrows is farworse.
Then again, while I watched Commodus killing an elephant with his arrows Icould not but think of the hundreds of men who had been employed intracking his herd, building a stockade, driving into it what elephantsthey could, fettering them, taming them, caring for this one after he hadbeen tamed, tending him on his journey of many thousand miles from India,across Gadrosia, Carmania, Susiana, Mesopotamia and Syria to Antioch andfrom there to Rome; on getting food for him on his journey and atdifferent cities; on the vast expense of all this; and for what? That asilly and vainglorious overgrown child should shoot him full of arrowstill he bled to death!
I raged inwardly.
I quite agree that Commodus enjoyed killing for killing's sake; it gavehim a sort of sense of triumph to behold any animal succumb to hisweapons. But I think his sense of triumph was also far more for hisrepeated self-congratulation on his accuracy of aim for shot or blow, onthe perfection of his really amazing dexterity.
When he shot at elephants the procedure was always the same; two elephantswere turned into the arena, and Commodus was matched against some archerof superlative reputation, whose prowess had been repeatedly demonstratedbefore the audiences of the Colosseum, a Parthian, Scythian, orMauretanian. A prize was offered to him if he won and wagers were laid,mostly of ten to one or more on Commodus; he, of course, betting onhimself with at least one senator at any odds his taker chose. Then thecontest began, Commodus shooting from the Imperial Pavilion, hiscompetitor from any part of the _podium_ which he might choose, so thatboth archers were on an equality, being placed on the coping of the arenaat spots they had chosen. The prize went to whichever killed his elephantwith the fewest arrows. Commodus always won. Not that his competitors didnot do their best. They did. But he was, in fact, the best archer alive.His accuracy of aim was uncanny and his strength really terrific. He couldhimself string a hundred and sixty pound bow and he shot a bow evenstiffer than that without apparent effort and with fascinating andindescribable grace. He never missed, not only not the animal, but noteven the vital part aimed at. I was told that, when he first practiced onan elephant, he killed it with arrows in the liver, of which eleven wererequired to finish the beast. He then had it cut open under Galen'ssupervision, he watching. He thereafter never failed to reach anelephant's heart with his third arrow, killed most with his second, andnot a few with his first, a feat never equaled or approached by any otherarcher, for the killing of an elephant with five arrows by Tilla the Gothremains the best record ever made in the Colosseum by any other bowman.The impact of his arrows was so weighty that I have beheld one go entirelythrough the paunch of a full-grown male elephant and protrude a foot onthe other side.
With rhinoceroses and hippopotami the procedure was similar. Neither ofthese animals could be had as plentifully as elephants, of which I sawCommodus and his competitors kill more than thirty; mostly Mauretanianelephants, but some Indian and a few Nubian. I saw killed for hisamusements in similar contests in which he participated four rhinocerosesand six hippopotami. In these matches he killed one rhinoceros with twoarrows and the rest with one; so of the hippopotami. As with theelephants, after he had seen a rhinoceros and a hippopotamus cut openunder Galen's direction, he retained so vivid an impression of thelocation of its heart that, from any direction, whether the beast wasmoving or still, he sent his arrow so as to reach the heart. This soundsincredible, but it is exactly the truth.
As I watched I kept imagining the baking deserts of Libya or the steamingswamps of Nubia, the shouting hordes of negroes, the many killed by thebeast, its capture, and the infinite and expensive care necessary to bringone alive to Rome.
Besides these enormous animals he practiced archery on the huge long-horned bulls from the forests of Dacia and Germany; on the bisons from thesame regions, beasts with heavy shoulders, low rumps and small horns,parallel to each other, curving downwards over the brows; on the big stagsfrom these far-off forests, or any sort of stags! And on two varieties ofAfrican antelope not much inferior in size to stags or bulls. He veryseldom needed a third arrow to put an end to any beast of these kinds, notoften a second arrow, and, actually, killed hundreds, even thousands,neatly and infallibly with his first shot. All these animals he shot fromthe _podium_, often leaning on the coping, his right knee on it, generallystanding, his feet wide apart, the toes of his right foot against thecoping wall; for, as with sword or spear or club, he also shot left-handed.
Prom the arena itself, standing on the sand on which they scampered about,he shot multitudes of smaller animals: wild ponies, wild asses, stripedAfrican zebras, gazelles, and at least a dozen varieties of small Africanantelopes, for which there are no special names in Latin or even in Greek.The antelopes and gazelles, although they ran quicker than hares, he nevermissed and seldom did he fail to kill with one arrow whatever animal heaimed at. He never, to my knowledge, missed even the incredibly speedywild asses.
Nor did he ever miss an ostrich, though he shot both from the _podium_ andthe sand these birds, which are swifter than even the wild asses. He shotat them with arrows made specially after a pattern of his own, withcrescent-shaped heads set on the shaft w
ith the two horns of the crescentpointing forward, the inner curve sharpened to a razor edge. Shooting atan ostrich racing at top speed he never failed to decapitate it with oneshot, invariably severing its neck about a hands-breadth below its head.
He also killed with javelins or arrows wolves, hyenas, bears, lynxes,leopards, panthers, tigers and lions. But when killing such dangerous andferocious animals he took his stand on a platform, the floor of which wasabout three yards square and elevated about that distance above the sand,constructed well out in the arena so that he could shoot down in anydirection on beasts rushing towards or past the platform or driven past itor towards it. He slaughtered incredible multitudes of these creatures andcertainly displayed amazing strength and skill, habitually killing a lionwith one javelin, almost as often with one arrow, and the like for tigers;and oftener for panthers and leopards. He never needed a second arrow tofinish a wolf or hyena or even a lynx. The marvellous accuracy of his aim,the way he planted his arrow unerringly in the heart of a galloping wolfscudding across the sand far from him; the way he drove a broad-bladedhunting-spear clear through a huge shaggy bear, never failed to rouse mywonder, even my admiration. [Footnote: See Note J.]
Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Page 31