enough for a carcass which shall so soon soak the dust of the
spoliarium.'
'Croakest thou thus, old raven!' returned the gladiator, laughing
scornfully; 'thou shalt live to hang thyself with despite when thou
seest me win the palm crown; and when I get the purse at the
amphitheatre, as I certainly shall, my first vow to Hercules shall be to
forswear thee and thy vile potations evermore.'
'Hear to him--hear to this modest Pyrgopolinices! He has certainly
served under Bombochides Cluninstaridysarchides,' cried the host.
'Sporus, Niger, Tetraides, he declares he shall win the purse from you.
Why, by the gods! each of your muscles is strong enough to stifle all
his body, or I know nothing of the arena!'
'Ha!' said the gladiator, coloring with rising fury, 'our lanista would
tell a different story.'
'What story could he tell against me, vain Lydon?' said Tetraides,
frowning.
'Or me, who have conquered in fifteen fights?' said the gigantic Niger,
stalking up to the gladiator.
'Or me?' grunted Sporus, with eyes of fire.
'Tush!' said Lydon, folding his arms, and regarding his rivals with a
reckless air of defiance. 'The time of trial will soon come; keep your
valor till then.'
'Ay, do,' said the surly host; 'and if I press down my thumb to save
you, may the Fates cut my thread!'
'Your rope, you mean,' said Lydon, sneeringly: 'here is a sesterce to
buy one.'
The Titan wine-vender seized the hand extended to him, and griped it in
so stern a vice that the blood spirted from the fingers' ends over the
garments of the bystanders.
They set up a savage laugh.
'I will teach thee, young braggart, to play the Macedonian with me! I
am no puny Persian, I warrant thee! What, man! have I not fought
twenty years in the ring, and never lowered my arms once? And have I
not received the rod from the editor's own hand as a sign of victory,
and as a grace to retirement on my laurels? And am I now to be lectured
by a boy?' So saying, he flung the hand from him in scorn.
Without changing a muscle, but with the same smiling face with which he
had previously taunted mine host, did the gladiator brave the painful
grasp he had undergone. But no sooner was his hand released, than,
crouching for one moment as a wild cat crouches, you might see his hair
bristle on his head and beard, and with a fierce and shrill yell he
sprang on the throat of the giant, with an impetus that threw him, vast
and sturdy as he was, from his balance--and down, with the crash of a
falling rock, he fell--while over him fell also his ferocious foe.
Our host, perhaps, had had no need of the rope so kindly recommended to
him by Lydon, had he remained three minutes longer in that position.
But, summoned to his assistance by the noise of his fall, a woman, who
had hitherto kept in an inner apartment, rushed to the scene of battle.
This new ally was in herself a match for the gladiator; she was tall,
lean, and with arms that could give other than soft embraces. In fact,
the gentle helpmate of Burbo the wine-seller had, like himself, fought
in the lists--nay under the emperor's eye. And Burbo himself--Burbo,
the unconquered in the field, according to report, now and then yielded
the palm to his soft Stratonice. This sweet creature no sooner saw the
imminent peril that awaited her worse half, than without other weapons
than those with which Nature had provided her, she darted upon the
incumbent gladiator, and, clasping him round the waist with her long and
snakelike arms, lifted him by a sudden wrench from the body of her
husband, leaving only his hands still clinging to the throat of his foe.
So have we seen a dog snatched by the hind legs from the strife with a
fallen rival in the arms of some envious groom; so have we seen one half
of him high in air--passive and offenceless--while the other half, head,
teeth, eyes, claws, seemed buried and engulfed in the mangled and
prostrate enemy. Meanwhile, the gladiators, lapped, and pampered, and
glutted upon blood, crowded delightedly round the combatants--their
nostrils distended--their lips grinning--their eyes gloatingly fixed on
the bloody throat of the one and the indented talons of the other.
'Habet! (he has got it!) habet!' cried they, with a sort of yell,
rubbing their nervous hands.
'Non habeo, ye liars; I have not got it!' shouted the host, as with a
mighty effort he wrenched himself from those deadly hands, and rose to
his feet, breathless, panting, lacerated, bloody; and fronting, with
reeling eyes, the glaring look and grinning teeth of his baffled foe,
now struggling (but struggling with disdain) in the gripe of the sturdy
amazon.
'Fair play!' cried the gladiators: 'one to one'; and, crowding round
Lydon and the woman, they separated our pleasing host from his courteous
guest.
But Lydon, feeling ashamed at his present position, and endeavoring in
vain to shake off the grasp of the virago, slipped his hand into his
girdle, and drew forth a short knife. So menacing was his look, so
brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to that
fashion of battle which we moderns call the pugilistic, started back in
alarm.
'O gods!' cried she, 'the ruffian!--he has concealed weapons! Is that
fair? Is that like a gentleman and a gladiator? No, indeed, I scorn
such fellows.' With that she contemptuously turned her back on the
gladiator, and hastened to examine the condition of her husband.
But he, as much inured to the constitutional exercises as an English
bull-dog is to a contest with a more gentle antagonist, had already
recovered himself. The purple hues receded from the crimson surface of
his cheek, the veins of the forehead retired into their wonted size. He
shook himself with a complacent grunt, satisfied that he was still
alive, and then looking at his foe from head to foot with an air of more
approbation than he had ever bestowed upon him before:
'By Castor!' said he, 'thou art a stronger fellow than I took thee for!
I see thou art a man of merit and virtue; give me thy hand, my hero!'
'Jolly old Burbo!' cried the gladiators, applauding, 'staunch to the
backbone. Give him thy hand, Lydon.'
'Oh, to be sure,' said the gladiator: 'but now I have tasted his blood,
I long to lap the whole.'
'By Hercules!' returned the host, quite unmoved, 'that is the true
gladiator feeling. Pollux! to think what good training may make a man;
why, a beast could not be fiercer!'
'A beast! O dullard! we beat the beasts hollow!' cried Tetraides.
'Well, well said Stratonice, who was now employed in smoothing her hair
and adjusting her dress, 'if ye are all good friends again, I recommend
you to be quiet and orderly; for some young noblemen, your patrons and
backers, have sent to say they will come here to pay you a visit: they
wish to see you more at their ease than at the schools, before they make
up their bets on the great fight at the amphitheatre. So they always
come to my house for that purpose: they know we only receive the best
gladiators in Pompeii--our society is very select--praised be the gods!'
'Yes,' continued Burbo, drinking off a bowl, or rather a pail of wine,
'a man who has won my laurels can only encourage the brave. Lydon,
drink, my boy; may you have an honorable old age like mine!'
'Come here,' said Stratonice, drawing her husband to her affectionately
by the ears, in that caress which Tibullus has so prettily
described--'Come here!'
'Not so hard, she-wolf! thou art worse than the gladiator,' murmured the
huge jaws of Burbo.
'Hist!' said she, whispering him; 'Calenus has just stole in, disguised,
by the back way. I hope he has brought the sesterces.'
'Ho! ho! I will join him, said Burbo; 'meanwhile, I say, keep a sharp
eye on the cups--attend to the score. Let them not cheat thee, wife;
they are heroes, to be sure, but then they are arrant rogues: Cacus was
nothing to them.'
'Never fear me, fool!' was the conjugal reply; and Burbo, satisfied with
the dear assurance, strode through the apartment, and sought the
penetralia of his house.
'So those soft patrons are coming to look at our muscles,' said Niger.
'Who sent to previse thee of it, my mistress?'
'Lepidus. He brings with him Clodius, the surest better in Pompeii, and
the young Greek, Glaucus.'
'A wager on a wager,' cried Tetraides; 'Clodius bets on me, for twenty
sesterces! What say you, Lydon?'
'He bets on me!' said Lydon.
'No, on me!' grunted Sporus.
'Dolts! do you think he would prefer any of you to Niger?' said the
athletic, thus modestly naming himself.
'Well, well,' said Stratonice, as she pierced a huge amphora for her
guests, who had now seated themselves before one of the tables, 'great
men and brave, as ye all think yourselves, which of you will fight the
Numidian lion in case no malefactor should be found to deprive you of
the option?'
'I who have escaped your arms, stout Stratonice,' said Lydon, 'might
safely, I think, encounter the lion.'
'But tell me,' said Tetraides, 'where is that pretty young slave of
yours--the blind girl, with bright eyes? I have not seen her a long
time.'
'Oh! she is too delicate for you, my son of Neptune,' said the hostess,
'and too nice even for us, I think. We send her into the town to sell
flowers and sing to the ladies: she makes us more money so than she
would by waiting on you. Besides, she has often other employments which
lie under the rose.'
'Other employments!' said Niger; 'why, she is too young for them.'
'Silence, beast!' said Stratonice; 'you think there is no play but the
Corinthian. If Nydia were twice the age she is at present, she would be
equally fit for Vesta--poor girl!'
'But, hark ye, Stratonice,' said Lydon; 'how didst thou come by so
gentle and delicate a slave? She were more meet for the handmaid of
some rich matron of Rome than for thee.'
'That is true,' returned Stratonice; 'and some day or other I shall make
my fortune by selling her. How came I by Nydia, thou askest.'
'Ay!'
'Why, thou seest, my slave Staphyla--thou rememberest Staphyla, Niger?'
'Ay, a large-handed wench, with a face like a comic mask. How should I
forget her, by Pluto, whose handmaid she doubtless is at this moment!'
'Tush, brute!--Well, Staphyla died one day, and a great loss she was to
me, and I went into the market to buy me another slave. But, by the
gods! they were all grown so dear since I had bought poor Staphyla, and
money was so scarce, that I was about to leave the place in despair,
when a merchant plucked me by the robe. "Mistress," said he, "dost thou
want a slave cheap I have a child to sell--a bargain. She is but little,
and almost an infant, it is true; but she is quick and quiet, docile and
clever, sings well, and is of good blood, I assure you." "Of what
country?" said I. "Thessalian." Now I knew the Thessalians were acute
and gentle; so I said I would see the girl. I found her just as you see
her now, scarcely smaller and scarcely younger in appearance. She
looked patient and resigned enough, with her hands crossed on her bosom,
and her eyes downcast. I asked the merchant his price: it was moderate,
and I bought her at once. The merchant brought her to my house, and
disappeared in an instant. Well, my friends, guess my astonishment when
I found she was blind! Ha! ha! a clever fellow that merchant! I ran at
once to the magistrates, but the rogue was already gone from Pompeii. So
I was forced to go home in a very ill humor, I assure you; and the poor
girl felt the effects of it too. But it was not her fault that she was
blind, for she had been so from her birth. By degrees, we got
reconciled to our purchase. True, she had not the strength of Staphyla,
and was of very little use in the house, but she could soon find her way
about the town, as well as if she had the eyes of Argus; and when one
morning she brought us home a handful of sesterces, which she said she
had got from selling some flowers she had gathered in our poor little
garden, we thought the gods had sent her to us. So from that time we
let her go out as she likes, filling her basket with flowers, which she
wreathes into garlands after the Thessalian fashion, which pleases the
gallants; and the great people seem to take a fancy to her, for they
always pay her more than they do any other flower-girl, and she brings
all of it home to us, which is more than any other slave would do. So I
work for myself, but I shall soon afford from her earnings to buy me a
second Staphyla; doubtless, the Thessalian kidnapper had stolen the
blind girl from gentle parents. Besides her skill in the garlands, she
sings and plays on the cithara, which also brings money, and lately--but
that is a secret.'
'That is a secret! What!' cried Lydon, 'art thou turned sphinx?'
'Sphinx, no!--why sphinx?'
'Cease thy gabble, good mistress, and bring us our meat--I am hungry,'
said Sporus, impatiently.
'And I, too,' echoed the grim Niger, whetting his knife on the palm of
his hand.
The amazon stalked away to the kitchen, and soon returned with a tray
laden with large pieces of meat half-raw: for so, as now, did the heroes
of the prize-fight imagine they best sustained their hardihood and
ferocity: they drew round the table with the eyes of famished
wolves--the meat vanished, the wine flowed. So leave we those important
personages of classic life to follow the steps of Burbo.
