CHAPTER XXXIV
PALUS THE INCOMPARABLE
Within a very few days after my encounter with Vedia at Bambilio's dinnerFalco and I had just ascended the stair of his residence after returningfrom a conference with Pullanius and his partners at which both sides hadfinally agreed on terms to the last detail and the contracts had beendrawn up, executed, signed and sealed. He said:
"Phorbas, I am pleased with you. Such imposture as I have enticed you intocannot have been palatable to a man of your character. You have manifestlydisrelished it, but you have valiantly stomached it for my sake. Actuallyyou may be comforted, for it has not really been dishonest ordishonorable; you have only acted and spoken vicariously for Salinator: toa certainty he would have done and said just what you have, had he beenpresent in person.
"You are a wonderful actor. No Greek or part Greek or half Greek orquarter Greek or thirty-second Greek I ever knew or heard of, clever asGreeks are at histrionics, could so perfectly act a Roman noble in everydetail of demeanor, manner and word: down to the most trifling expressionof every prejudice inherent in a Roman born. I admire you. Also I thankyou.
"And I am as relieved as you will be to be able to tell you that yourmasquerade is at an end, successful and unsuspected.
"Now the important thing is for Salsonius Salinator to vanish from Rome atonce.
"I suppose you have the wigs and false-beards you said you would buy orhave made?"
"They are in my dressing-room," I replied.
"Then," he continued, "have yourself waked early, have your valet paintyou and powder you and rouge you and fit you out with a wig like the headof hair you had before I made you impersonate Salinator, and with a falsebeard no one will suspect; have him rig you up in your favorite attire andload you with jewelry, then set off in my travelling-carriage for Baiae.Be out of Rome by sunrise. Travel straight to Baiae as rapidly as you findpracticable without fatiguing yourself. At Baiae you will have the Villaand servants all to yourself. Stay there until you have grown your hairand beard as it was before your masquerade. Then return to Rome asPhorbas."
He paused, gazed at me and added:
"And I mean to make a new will. Besides leaving you your freedom and thelegacy specified in my last will I mean to leave you my gem-collection anda full fourth of all my other estate. You deserve a lavish reward and Ibelieve I love you better than any living human being."
I thanked him with my best imitation of the manner of a Greek, but withgenuine feeling and from a full heart.
Actually I was glad to get out of Rome, glad to linger at Baiae. I made mytime as long as I could and resisted several importunities from Falcobefore I finally returned to the city more than a year after I had leftit. Thus I was out of Rome during the great fire, which destroyed, alongwith the Temple and Altar of Peace, the Temples of the Divine Julius andthe Divine Augustus, the Temple of Vesta, the Atrium of Vesta and most ofthe other buildings about the great Forum, also the Porticus Margaritariaand the shop of Orontides. Strangely enough, when, at Baiae, I readletters from Falco, Tanno and Agathemer describing the devastation, mymind dwelt more on the annihilation of the shop where I had encounteredVedia than on the destruction of the Palace records and most of the publicrecords, or of the many revered temples which had vanished in the flames.
When I returned to Rome the ruins were already largely cleared, andrebuilding, especially of the Temple of Vesta, was vigorously under way.
In Falco's household and manner of life I found few changes, except thatFalco, really in excellent health, had become concerned about his triflingailments, and, after trying one and another physician, had enrolledhimself among the patients of the most distinguished exponent of thehealing arts. Galen therefore, was a frequent visitor at my home and I sawhim not infrequently. When I had some minor discomfort, Falco, alwayspampering me, called Galen in and enrolled me also among his charges.
After my return to the City the chief topic of conversation among personsof all grades of society and the pivot, so to speak, on which thespectacles of the amphitheater revolved was Palus the Gladiator.
I may set down here that I, personally, am now, as I was when I saw himappear as a charioteer for the last time, certain that Palus was Commodusin person. And I set this down as a fact. It will be seen later that I hadmore opportunity than any man in Rome, outside of the Palace, to know thefacts.
Many people then believed and not a few still maintain that Palus wasmerely a crony of Commodus. Some whispered that he was a half-brother ofCommodus, a son of Faustina and a favorite gladiator, brought up by theconnivance of her too-indulgent husband; which wild tale suits neitherwith Faustina's actual deportment, as contrasted with the lies told of herby her detractors, nor with the character of Aurelius. Others even hintedthat Palus was a half-brother of Commodus on the other side, off-spring ofAurelius and a concubine. This invention consorts still worse with thenature of Aurelius, who was one of the most uxorious of men and by naturemonogamic and austere, almost ascetic. Some contented themselves withconjecturing that Palus accidentally resembled Commodus, which was not sofar from the truth.
For I knew Ducconius Furfur from our boyhood and I solemnly assert thatPalus was Commodus and that, whenever Palus appeared in the circus and,later, in the amphitheater, while the Imperial Pavilion was filled by theImperial retinue, with the throne occupied apparently by the Emperor, thethrone was occupied by a dummy emperor, Ducconius Furfur, in the Imperialattire, and Commodus was in the arena as Palus. Anyone who chooses may,from this pronouncement, set me down as a credulous ninny, if it suits hisnotions.
When Palus drove a chariot in the circus he never appeared with his facefully exposed, but invariably wore over its upper portion the half-mask ofgauze, which is designed to protect a charioteer's eyes from dust andflying grains of sand. Similarly, when Palus entered the arena as agladiator he never fought in any of those equipments in which gladiatorsappear bareheaded or with faces exposed: as a _retiarius_, for instance.He always fought as a _secutor_ or _murmillo_, or in the armor proper to aSamnite, Thracian, or heavy-armed Greek or Gaul; all of which equipmentsinclude a heavy helmet with a vizor. Palus always fought with his vizordown.
It seems to me that the plain inference from these facts corroborates myopinions concerning Palus: certainly it strengthens my belief in my views.And these facts were and are known to be facts by all who, as spectatorsin the circus or in the amphitheater, beheld Palus as charioteer or asgladiator.
As a gladiator he was more than marvellous, he was miraculous. I waspresent at all his public appearances from the time of my return fromBaiae. Also I had seen him closer, from the senatorial boxes in theamphitheater, three several times during my impersonation of SalsoniusSalinator. Moreover I had seen him as a gladiator not a few times beforethat, since Falco, soon after we came to Rome from Africa, because of hisaffection for me and his tendency to indulge me in every imaginable wayand to arrange for me every conceivable pleasure, had contrived to use theinfluence of some new-found friends to make possible my presence at showsin the Colosseum, and that in as good a seat as was accessible to anyfree-born Roman not a noble or senator.
The very first time I saw Palus in the arena I felt sure he was Commodusin person, for he had to a marvel every one of his characteristics ofheight, build, outline, agility, grace, quickness and deftness and all histricks of attitude and movement. The two were too identical to be anythingexcept the very same man.
It will occur to any reader of these memoirs that Palus was a left-handedfighter, and that Commodus not only fought left-handed, but wrote, bypreference, with his left hand and with it more easily, rapidly andlegibly than with his right. But I do not lay much stress on this forabout one gladiator in fifty fights left-handed, so that the fact thatPalus was left-handed, while it accords with my views, does not, in myopinion, help to prove them.
What, to my mind, much more tends to confirm my views, is the well-knownfact that Palus was always equipped with armor and weapons moremagnificent and mo
re expensive than any ever seen on other gladiators.Everything he used or wore was of gold or heavily gilt; even his spearheads and sword blades were brilliantly gilded; so were his helmets,shields, bucklers, corselets, breastplates, the scales of his kilt-strapswhen he fought as a Greek, and his greaves, whether of Greek pattern or ofsome other fashion. If he appeared in an armament calling for arm-rings,leg-rings, or leg-wrappings, these were always also heavily gilt. So washis footgear, whether he wore thigh-boots, full-boots, half-boots,soldiers' brogues, half-sandals or sandals. His shoulder-guards (called"wigs" in the slang of the prize-ring) were, apparently, of pure cloth ofgold, which also appeared to be the material of his aprons when hisaccoutrements did not include a kilt.
Now it may be said that this merely indicates that his equipment was themost extravagant instance of the manner in which opulent enthusiastslavished their cash on the outfitting of their favorites in the arena. Tome it seems too prodigal for the profusion of any or all of suchspendthrifts: it appears to me more like the self-indulgence of thevainglorious master of the world. Palus often wore a helmet so bejeweledthat its cost would have overtaxed the wealth of Didius Julianus.
I consider that my opinions are corroborated by the well-known fact thatwhenever Palus appeared as a gladiator in the amphitheater, Galen waspresent in the arena as chief of the surgeons always at hand to dress thewounds of victors or of vanquished men who had won the approbation orfavor of the spectators or of the Imperial party. True, Galen was oftenthere when Palus was not in the arena, for he was always on the watch foranatomical knowledge to be had from observation of dying men badlywounded. But, on the other hand, while he was often in the arena whenPalus was not there, he was never absent when Palus was fighting.
Similarly, after Aemilius Laetus was appointed Prefect of the Palace, hewas always present in person in the arena whenever Palus appeared in it.This, too, makes for my contentions.
The first fight in which I saw Palus revealed to me, and brought home tome with great force, the reason for his nickname, its origin and itsastonishing appropriateness. The word "_palus_" has a number of verydifferent meanings: manifestly its fitness as a pet name for the mostperfect swordsman ever seen in any arena came from its use to denote thepaling of a palisade, or any stake or post. Palus, in a fight, alwaysappeared to stand still: metaphorically he might be said to seem asimmobile as the post upon which beginners in the gladiatorial art practicetheir first attempts at strokes, cuts, thrusts and lunges. So little didhe impress beholders as mobile, so emphatically did he impress them asstationary, that he might almost as well have been an upright stake,planted permanently deep in the sand.
I first saw him fight as a _secutor_, matched against a _retiarius_. Thiskind of combat is, surely, the most popular of all the many varieties ofgladiatorial fights; and justly, for such fights are by far the mostexciting to watch and their incidents perpetually varied, novel andunpredictable. It is exciting because the _retiarius_, nude except for onesmall shoulder-guard and a scanty apron, appears to have no chancewhatever against the _secutor_ with his big vizored helmet, his completebody-armor, his kilt of lapped leather straps plated with polished metalscales, his greaves or leg-rings or boots and his full-length, curvedshield and Spanish sword. The _secutor_, always the bigger man and fullyarmed and armored, appears invincible against the little manikin of a_retiarius_ skipping about bareheaded and almost naked and armed only withhis trident, a fisherman's three-tined spear, with a light handle andshort prongs, his little dagger and his cord net, which, when spread, isindeed large enough to entangle any man, but which he carries crumpled upto an inconspicuous bunch of rope no bigger than his head.
Yet the fact is the reverse of the appearance. No one not reckless ordrunk ever bet even money on an ordinary _secutor_. The odds on the_retiarius_ are customarily between five to three and two to one. And most_secutors_ manifestly feel their disadvantage. As the two men face eachother and the _lanista_ gives the signal anyone can see, usually, that the_retiarius_ is confident of victory and the _secutor_ wary and cautious oreven afraid. Dreading the certain cast of the almost unescapable net, the_secutor_ keeps always on the move, and continually alters the directionand speed and manner of his movement, taking one short step and two long,then three short and one long, breaking into a dogtrot, slowing to asnail's-pace, leaping, twisting, curving, zigzagging, ducking and in everyway attempting to make it impossible for the _retiarius_ to foretell fromthe movement he watches what the next movement will be.
Palus behaved unlike any other _secutor_ ever seen in the arena. Heavailed himself of none of the usual devices, which _lanistae_ taught withsuch care, in the invention of which they gloried and in which theydrilled their pupils unceasingly. He merely stood still and watched hisadversary. The cunning cast of the deadly net he avoided by a very slightmovement of his head or body or both. No _retiarius_ ever netted him, yetthe net seldom missed him more than half a hand's breadth. When thedisappointed _retiarius_ skipped back to the length of his net-cord andretrieved his net by means of it, Palus let him gather it up, never dashedat him, but merely stepped sedately towards him. If the _retiarius_ ranaway, Palus followed, but never in haste, always at a slow, even walk. Nomatter how often his adversary cast his net at him, Palus never alteredhis demeanor. The upshot was always the same. The spectators began to jeerat the baffled _retiarius_, he became flustered, he ventured a bit toonear his immobile opponent, Palus made an almost imperceptible movementand the _retiarius_ fell, mortally wounded.
I was never close enough to Palus to see clearly the details of hislunges, thrusts and strokes. I saw him best when I was a spectator in theColosseum while impersonating Salsonius Salinator, for in my guise ascolonial magnate I sat well forward. Even then I was not close enough tohim to descry the finer points of his incomparable swordsmanship. Yet whatI saw makes me regard as fairly adequate the current praises of himemanating from those wealthy enthusiasts who were reckoned the best judgesof such matters. By the reports I heard they said that Palus never cut athroat, he merely nicked it, but the tiny nick invariably and accuratelysevered the carotid artery, jugular vein or windpipe.
I can testify, from my own observation, to his having displayed comparableskill in an equally effective stab in a different part of his adversary'sbody. As is well known, a deep slash of the midthigh, inside, causes deathnearly as quickly as a cut throat; if the femoral artery is divided theblood pours out of the victim almost as from an inverted pail, a horriblecascade. Most of the acclaimed gladiators use often this deadly strokeagainst the inside midthigh, slashing it to the bone, leaving a long,deep, gaping wound. Palus never slashed an adversary's thigh; in killingby a thigh wound he always delivered a lunge which left a small puncture,but invariably also left the femoral artery completely severed, so thatthe life-blood gushed out in a jet astonishingly violent, the victimcollapsing and dying very quickly. Such a parade requires altogethertranscendant powers of accuracy from eye and hand.
Besides fighting as a _secutor_ against a _retiarius_ Palus in the sameaccoutrements fought with men similarly equipped, or accoutred as Greeks,Gauls, Thracians, Samnites, or _murmillos;_ also he appeared in theequipment of each of these sorts of gladiators against antagonistsequipped like himself or in any of the other fashions.
In all these countless fights he was never once wounded by any adversarynor did he ever deliver a second stroke, thrust or lunge against any: hisdefence was always impregnable, his attack always unerring; when he lungedhis lunge never missed and was always fatal, unless he purposely spared agallant foe.
Besides the exhibitions of bravado and self-confidence traditional withgladiators, all of which he displayed again and again, Palus devised morethan one wholly original with himself.
For instance, he would take his stand in the arena equipped as a_secutor_, the _lanista_ would have in charge not one _retiarius_, butten, or even a dozen. One would attack Palus and when, after a longer orshorter contest, he was killed, the _lanista_, would, without any respite,allow a
second to rush at Palus; then a third; and so on till everyone hadperished by the _secutor's_ unerring sword. No other secutor ever killedmore than one _retiarius_ without a good rest between the first fight andthe second. Palus, as was and is well known, killed more than, a thousandadversaries, of whom more than three hundred wore the accoutrements of a_retiarius_.
Palus was even more spectacular as a _dimachaerus_, so called from havingtwo sabers, for a _dimachaerus_ is a gladiator accoutred as a Thracian,but without any shield and carrying a naked saber in each hand. Such afighter is customarily matched against an adversary in ordinary Thracianequipment. He has to essay the unnatural feat of guarding himself with onesword while attacking with the other. Such a feat is akin to those ofjugglers and acrobats, for a sword is essentially an instrument of assaultand cannot, by its very nature, take the place of a shield as aprotection. Everybody, of course, knows that showy and startling ruse saidto have been invented by the Divine Julius, which consists in surprisingone's antagonist by parrying a stroke with the sword instead of with theshield and simultaneously using the shield as a weapon, striking its upperrim against the adversary's chin. But this can succeed only against anopponent dull-witted, unwary, clumsy and slow, and then as a surprise. A_dimachaerus_ has to depend on parrying and his antagonist knows what toexpect.
Palus was the most perfect _dimachaerus_ ever seen in the Colosseum.Without a shield he fought and killed many Thracians, Greeks, Gauls,_murmillos_, Samnites and _secutors_. He even, many times, fought twoThracians at once, killing both and coming off unscathed. I saw two ofthese exhibitions of insane self-confidence and I must say that Palus madegood his reliance on his incredible skill. He pivoted about between hisadversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attacksimultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even iftheir thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval,brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turnon the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit myown eyes. With my belief as to the identity of Palus I marvelled that aman whose life was dominated by the dread of assassination, who fearedpoison in his wine and food, who hedged himself about with guards and thenfeared the guards themselves, who distrusted everybody, who dreaded everyouting, who was uneasy even inside his Palace, felt perfectly at ease andserenely safe in the arena with no defence but two sabers, and he betweentwo hulking ruffians, as fond of life as any men, and knowing that theymust kill him or be killed by him. In this deadly game he felt no qualms,only certitude of easy victory.
The controversies over the identity of Palus have produced a wholeliterature of pamphlets, some maintaining that he was Commodus, othersprofessing to prove that he was not, of which some rehearse every possibletheory of his relationship to Aurelius or Faustina. Among these the mostamazing are those which set forth the view that Palus was Commodus, but noskillful swordsman, rather a brazen sham, killing ingloriously helplessadversaries who could oppose to his edged steel only swords of lath orlead.
This absurdity is in conflict with all the facts. Manifestly theantagonists of Palus were as well armed as he, both for defence andattack.
And, what is much more, the populace clamored for Palus, booed and cat-called if Palus did not appear in the arena; cheered him to the echo whenhe did appear; yelled with delight and appreciation at each exhibition ofhis prophetic intuition as to what his adversary was about to do, of hispreternaturally perfect judgment as to what to do himself, of theinstantaneous execution of whatever movement he purposed, of its completesuccess; and applauded him while he went off as no other gladiator everwas applauded. It was the popular demand for him which made possible andjustified the unexampled fee paid Palus for each of his appearances in thearena. The managers of the games were obliged to include Palus in eachexhibition or risk a riot of the indignant populace.
Now no sham fighter could fool the Roman populace. A make-believeswordsman, such as the pamphlets which I have cited allege Commodus tohave been, might, if Emperor, have overawed the senators and nobles ofequestrian rank and compelled their unwilling applause of sham feats. Butno man, not even an Emperor, could coerce the Roman proletariat intoapplauding a fighter unworthy of applause. Our populace, once seated toview a show of any kind, cannot be controlled, cannot even be swayed. Nofame of any charioteer, beast-fighter or gladiator can win from themtolerance of the smallest error of judgment, defect of action, attempt atfoul play or hint of fear: they boo anything of which they disapprove andnot Jupiter himself could elicit from them applause of anything exceptexhibitions of courage, skill, artistry and quickness fine enough to rousetheir admiration. They admired Palus, they adored him.
This is well known to all men and proves Palus a consummate artist as agladiator. Not only would the populace howl a bungler or coward off thesand, they know every shade of excellence; only a superlatively perfectswordsman could kindle their enthusiasm and keep it at white heat yearafter year as did Palus.
Palus, I may remark, was always a gallant fighter, and a combination ofskill and gallantry in an adversary so won his goodwill that he neverkilled or seriously wounded such an opponent. If his antagonist had anunusually perfect guard and a notably dangerous attack, was handsome,moved gracefully, displayed courage and fought with impeccable fairnessPalus felt a liking for him, showed it by the way in which he stood on thedefensive and mitigated the deadliness of his attacks, played him longerthan usual to demonstrate to all the spectators the qualities he discernedin him, and, when he was convinced that the onlookers felt as he felt,disabled his admired match with some effective but trifling wound.
Then, when his victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheathhis sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended andpressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of theindex finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angleat which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallenadversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest himimitate his gesture and give the signal for mercy by extending their armsthumbs flat to fingers.
Except Murmex Lucro I never saw any other gladiator presume to suggest tothe spectators which signal he would like them to display; and Murmex hadthe air of a man taking a liberty with his betters and not very surewhether they would condone his presumption or resent his insolence;whereas Palus waved his arm much as Commodus raised his from the Imperialthrone when, as Editor of the games, he decided the fate of a fallengladiator concerning whom the populace were so evenly divided betweendisfavorers and favorers that neither the victor nor his _lanista_ daredto interpret so doubtful a mandate.
The most amazing fact concerning Palus was that his audiences neverwearied of watching him fence. It is notorious that the spectators in theColosseum always have been and are, in general, impatient of anynoticeable prolongation of a fight. Only a very small minority of thepopulace and a larger, but still small, minority of the gentry andnobility, take delight in the fine points of swordsmanship for themselves.Most spectators, while acclaiming skilled fence and expecting it, lookupon it merely as a means for adding interest to the preliminaries of whatthey desire to behold. Even senators and nobles admit that the pleasure ofviewing gladiatorial shows comes from seeing men killed. Contests arethrilling chiefly because of their suggestion of the approach of themoment which brings the supreme thrill.
The populace, quite frankly, rate the fighting as a bore; they do not cometo watch skilled swordsmen fence; they want to see two men face each otherand one kill the other at once. It is the killing which they enjoy. Theupper tiers of spectators in the amphitheater seldom give the signal formercy when a defeated man is down and helpless, even though he be handsomeand graceful and has fought bravely, skillfully and gallantly. One seldomsees an outstretched arm, with the hand extended, fingers close togetherand thumb flat against them, raised anywhere from the back seats; theiroccupants habitually, in such cases, wave their upraised arms with thehands clenched and thumbs extend
ed, waggling their thumbs by half rotatingtheir wrists, to make the thumb more conspicuous, yelling the while, sothat the amphitheater is full of their insistent roar and the upper tiersaflash with flickering thumbs. They weigh no fine points as to the worthof the vanquished man, they do not value a good fighter enough to want himsaved to fight again, they come to see men die and they want the defeatedman slaughtered at once.
They are habituated to acquiescing if the Emperor--or the Editor, if thePrince is not present--or the nobility contravene their wishes and givethe signal for mercy when a gallant fighter is down by accident,misadventure or because he was outmatched. But there is often a burst ofhowls if the signal for mercy comes not from the Imperial Pavilion or thewhole _podium_, but merely from some part of the nobility or senators.Generally, if the Emperor has not given or participated in the signal formercy, scattered individuals among the proletariat proclaim theirdisappointment by booing, cat-calls, or strident whistlings.
Now Palus was so popular, so beloved by the slum-dwellers, that wheneverhe showed a disposition to spare an opponent, the whole mass of thepopulace were quick with the mercy-signal: the moment they saw Palussheathe his blade their arms went up with his, almost before his, thumbsas flat as his, never a thumb out nor any fingers clenched.
More than this, no spectator, while Palus played an adversary, ever yelledfor a prompt finish to the bout, as almost always happened at the firstsign of delay in the case of any other fighter. So comprehensible, sounmistakable, so manifest, so fascinating were the fine points of theswordsmanship displayed by Palus that even the rearmost spectator, eventhe most brutish lout could and did relish them and enjoy them and cravethe continuance of that pleasure.
Most of all the Colosseum audiences not only insisted on Palus appearingin each exhibition, not only longed for his entrance, not merely came toregard all the previous fights of the day as unwelcome postponements ofthe pleasure of watching Palus fence, but were manifestly impatient forthe crowning delight of each day, the ecstacy of beholding a bout betweenPalus and Murmex Lucro, which contests were always bloodless.
Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Page 35