THE TRAINING‐SCHOOL
But Licinius had an ordeal to go through on the following day, which was
especially painful to the kind heart of the Roman general. When the terms
of the combat were explained to the person chiefly interested, that young
warrior eagerly accepted the challenge as affording an opportunity for
indulgence in those feats of arms which early education had rendered so
pleasing to his martial disposition. He could vanquish two such men as the
tribune, he thought, at any exercise and with any weapons; but his face
sank when he learned the penalty of failure, and a shudder passed through
his whole frame at the bare possibility of becoming a slave to anyone but
his present master. It nerved him, however, all the more in his resolution
to conquer; and when Licinius, reproaching himself bitterly the while,
promised him his liberty in the event of victory, Esca’s heart beat fast
with joy and hope and exultation once more.
A thousand vague possibilities danced through his brain; a thousand wild
and visionary schemes, of which Mariamne formed the centre figure. Life
that had seemed so dull but one short week ago, now shone again in the
rosy light with which youth—and youth alone—can tinge the long perspective
of the future. Alas for Licinius! he marked the glowing cheek and the
kindling eye with a sensation of despondency weighing at his heart.
Nevertheless the lot was cast, the offer was accepted. It was too late for
looking back. Nothing remained but to strain every nerve to win.
In all bodily contests, in all mental labours, in everything which human
nature attempts, systematic and continuous training is the essential
element of success. The palm, as Horace says, can only flourish where the
dust is plentiful; and he who would attain a triumph either as an athlete
or a scholar, must cultivate his natural abilities with the utmost
attention, and the most rigid self‐denial, ere he enters for the prize. It
is curious, too, how the mind, like the body, acquires vigour and
elasticity by graduated exertion. The task that was an impossibility
yesterday, is but a penance to‐day, and will become a pleasure to‐morrow.
Let us follow Esca into the training‐school, where his muscles are to be
toughened, and his skill perfected for the deadly exercises of the arena.
It is a large square building, something like a modern riding‐house,
lighted and ventilated at the top, and is laid down three inches deep in
sand, an arrangement which increases, indeed, the labour of all pedestrian
exertion, but renders a fall comparatively harmless, and accustoms the
pupil, moreover, to the yielding surface on which hereafter he will have
to struggle for his life. Quoits, dumb‐bells, ponderous weights, and
massive clubs are scattered in the corners, or propped against the walls
of the edifice, and a horizontal leaping‐bar, placed at the height of a
man’s breast, denotes that activity is not neglected in the acquisition of
strength. Beside these insignia of peaceful gymnastics, the _cestus_ hangs
conspicuous, and racks are placed at intervals supporting the deadly
weapons and defensive armour with which the gladiator plies his formidable
trade. There are also pointless spears, and blunted swords for practice,
and a wooden figure, hacked and hewed out of all similitude to an enemy,
on which the cuts and thrusts most in request have been dealt over and
over again with increasing skill and severity.
At one end of the building paces the master to and fro; now glancing with
wary eye at the movements of his pupils; now pausing to adjust some
implement of instruction; now encouraging or chiding with a gesture; and
anon catching up, as though in sheer absence of mind, one of the idle
weapons, and whirling it round his head with a flourish that displays all
the power and skill of the practised professional. Hippias, the retired
gladiator, is a man of middle age, and of somewhat lofty stature, rendered
more commanding by its lengthy proportions, and the peculiar setting on of
the head. Constant exercise, pushed, indeed, to the verge of toil, and
continued for many years, has toughened each shapely limb into the
hardness and consistency of wire, and has rendered his large frame lean
and sinewy, like a greyhound’s. All his gestures have the graceful pliant
ease which results from muscular strength, and his very walk—light,
smooth, and noiseless—is like that of a panther traversing the floor of
its cage. His swarthy complexion has been deeply tanned by exposure to
heat and toil, but the blood courses healthfully beneath, and imparts a
warm mellow tint to the skin. The fleshless face, in spite of a worn eager
look, and a dash of grey in the hair and beard, is not without a wild
defiant beauty of its own; and though its expression is somewhat dissolute
and reckless, there is a bold keen flash in the eye, and the man is
obviously enterprising, courageous, and steel to the backbone.
The Roman ladies, with that depravity of taste which marks a general
deterioration of manners and morality, delighted at this period to choose
their favourites from the ranks of the amphitheatre. There was a rage for
warlike exercises, Amazonian dresses, imitations of the deadly sports,
played out with considerable skill and ferocity, nay, for the very persons
of the gladiators themselves. It was no wonder then, that the handsome
fencing‐master, with his reputation for strength and courage, should have
been a marked man with the proud capricious matrons of the Imperial City.
The favour of each, too, was doubtless his best recommendation to the good
graces of the rest; and Hippias might have sunned himself in the smiles of
the noblest ladies in Rome.
He made but little account, however, of his good fortune. The peaches
fallen on the ground are doubtless the ripest, yet they never seem so
tempting as those which sun themselves against the wall, a hand’s‐breadth
above our reach. Nor can a man pay implicit obedience to more than one
dominion (at a time); and unless the yoke be _very_ heavy, it is scarce
worth while to carry it at all. Hippias was neither dazzled nor flattered
by the bright eyes that looked so kindly into his war‐worn face. He loved
a flask of wine nearly as well as a woman’s beauty—two feet of pliant
steel and a leathern buckler far better than either; nevertheless, amongst
all the dainty dames of his acquaintance, he was least disposed to
undervalue Valeria’s notice, the more so, that she rarely condescended to
bestow it on him; and he took more pains with her fencing lessons, than
those of any other female pupil, and stayed longer in her house than in
that of any lady in Rome. He approved of her strength, her resolution, her
quickness, above all her cold manner and her pride, besides admiring her
personal charms exceedingly, in his own practical way. There is a gleam of
interest, almost of tenderness in his eyes, as he pauses every now and
then in his walk, and reads a line or two from a scroll he carries in his
hand, which Myrrhina brought him not an hour ago.
The scroll is from Valeria. She has heard of Esca’s peril—nay, she has
herself brought it on his head; and who knows the price it cost her
haughty wilful heart? Yet in all her bitter anger, vexation, shame, she
cannot bear to think of the noble Briton down on the sand, writhing and
helpless at the mercy of his enemy. It is the weapon now she hates, and
not the victim. It would give her intense pleasure, she feels, to see
Placidus humbled, defeated, slain. Such is the sense of justice in a
woman’s breast; such are the advantages gained by submission at any
sacrifice to do her bidding. We need not pity the tribune, however, in his
dealings with either sex; he is well able to take care of himself.
Valeria accordingly sat her down and wrote a few friendly lines to the
fencing‐master, who had always stood high in her favour, and whose frank
bold nature she felt she could trust. Womanlike, she thought it necessary
to fabricate an excuse for her interest in the Briton, by affirming that
she had staked heavily on his success in the coming contest. She adjured
Hippias to spare no pains in counsel or instruction, and bade him come to
see her without delay, and report the progress of his pupil. He raised his
eyes from the scroll, and watched the said pupil holding his own gallantly
at sword and buckler with Lutorius.
“One, two—Disengage the blade! A feint at the head, a cut at the legs, and
come in over the shield with a lunge! Good! but scarce quick enough. Try
that again—the elbow turned outwards, the wrist a little higher. So—once
more. Now, look at me. Thus.”
The combatants paused for breath, Hippias seized a wooden foil, and,
beckoning to Hirpinus, engaged him in the required position, for Esca’s
especial benefit. Trained and wary, the old gladiator knew every feint and
parry in the game. Yet had those blades been steel, Hirpinus would have
been gasping his life out, at the master’s feet, ere the close of their
second encounter. Hippias never shifted his ground, never seemed to exert
himself much, yet the quickest eye in Rome was puzzled to follow the
movements of his point, the readiest hand to intercept it where it fell.
Again he pitted Esca and Lutorius in the mimic strife, and stood with
well‐pleased countenance to watch the result. The Briton had, indeed, lost
no time in beginning a course of instruction which he hoped was to ensure
him victory and its reward—his much desired freedom. That morning Hirpinus
had brought him to the school; and the veteran gladiator watched, with an
interest that was almost touching, the preparations which were to fit his
young friend for a career that at best must end ere long in a violent
death. Hippias was delighted with the stature and strength of his new
pupil. He had matched him at once with Lutorius, a wiry Gaul, who was
supposed to be the most scientific swordsman of “the Family,” and smiled
to observe how completely, with an occasional hint from himself, the
Briton was a match for his antagonist, who had expected an easy victory,
and was even more disgusted than surprised. As the encounter was
prolonged, and the combatants, warming to their work, advanced, retreated,
struck, lunged and parried; now traversing warily at full distance—now
dashing boldly in to close, the other gladiators gathered round, excited
to unusual interest by the excellence of the play, and the dexterity of
the barbarian.
“He is the best we’ve seen here for a lustre at least,” exclaimed Rufus, a
gigantic champion from Northern Italy, proud of his stature, proud of his
swordsmanship, but above all, proud that he was a Roman citizen, though a
gladiator; “those thrusts come home like lightning, and when he misses his
parry, see, he jumps away like a wild‐cat. Faith, Manlius, if they match
him against thee at the games, thou wilt have a handful. I would stake my
rights as a Roman citizen on him, toga and all, barbarian though he be.
What, man! he would have thee down and disarmed in a couple of passes!”
Manlius seemed to think so too, though he was loth to confess it. He
turned the subject by vowing that Lutorius must be masking his play, and
not fighting his best, or he never could be thus worsted by a novice.
“Masking his play!” exclaimed Hirpinus indignantly, “let him unmask, then,
as soon as he will! I tell thee this lad of mine hath not his match in the
empire. I shall see him champion of the amphitheatre, and first swordsman
in Rome, ere they give me the wooden foil with the silver guard,(9) and
lay old Hirpinus on the shelf. I shall be satisfied to retire then, for I
shall leave some good manhood to take my place.”
“Well crowed!” replied Manlius, not quite pleased at the value placed on
his own prowess in comparison. “To hear thee, a man would say there never
was but one gladiator in Rome, and that this young mastiff must pull us
all down by the throat, because he fences like thyself, wild and wide, and
by main strength.”
“It is no swordsmanship to run in like a bull and take more than you
give,” observed Euchenor, listening with his arms folded, and an
expression of supreme contempt on his handsome features.
“Nevertheless his blows fall thick and fast, like a hailstorm, and
Lutorius shifts his ground every time the young one makes the attack,”
argued honest Rufus, who had not a grain of either fear or jealousy in his
disposition; and who considered his profession as a mere trade by which he
could obtain a livelihood for wife and children in the meantime, and a
remote chance of independence with a vineyard of his own beyond the
Apennines, should he escape a violent death in the amphitheatre at last.
“He thrusts too often overhand,” observed Manlius, “and his guard is
always open for the wrist.”
“He is a strong fencer, but he has no style,” added Euchenor; and the
boxer looked around him with the air of a man who closes a controversy by
an unanswerable argument.
Hirpinus was boiling over with indignation; but his eloquence was by no
means in proportion to his corporeal gifts, and he could not readily find
words to express his dissent and his disdain. Banter, too, and a coarse,
good‐humoured sort of wrangling, was the usual form by which difference of
opinion found expression in the training‐school. Quarrelling, amongst men
whose very trade it was to fight to the death, seemed simply absurd; and
to come to blows except in public and for money, a mere childish waste of
time. Indeed, with all their contempt for death, and their extraordinary
courage when pitted against each other to amuse the populace, these
gladiators, perhaps from the very nature of their profession, seem to have
been unsuited for any sustained efforts of energy and endurance. When
banded together under the eagles, they were often so undisciplined in
camp, as by no means to be relied on before an enemy. Perhaps there was
something of bravado in the flourish with which they entered the circus,
and hailed Cæsar with their greetings from _those about to die_!(10)
Moreover, they had to fight in a corner, and with the impossibility of
escape. Courage is of many different kinds. Men are brave from various
motives—from ambition, from emulation, from the habit of confronting
danger; some from a naturally chivalrous disposition, backed by strong
physical nerves. The last alone are to be trusted in an emergency; and a
really courageous man faces an unexpected and unaccustomed peril, if not
with confidence, at least with an unflinching determination to do his
best.
Hirpinus turned upon Euchenor, for whom he had no great liking at any
time.
“You talk of your science,” said he, “and your Greek skill, against which
even our Roman thews and sinews are of no avail. Dare you stand up to this
barbarian with the _cestus_ on? Only to exchange half a dozen friendly
buffets, you know, in sheer sport.”
But Euchenor excused himself with great disdain. Like many another
successful professor, he owed no inconsiderable share of his fame to his
own assumption of superiority, and the judgment with which, when
practicable, he matched himself against inferior performers. Champions who
exist on their reputation, such as it is, are not to peril it lightly
against the first tyro that comes, who has everything to gain and nothing
to lose by an encounter with the celebrity; whereas the celebrity derives
no additional laurels from a triumph, and a defeat tends to take the very
bread out of his mouth. Euchenor said as much; but Hirpinus was not
satisfied, till the subtle Greek, who had learned the terms of the match
in which Esca was engaged, observed carelessly, that all the time the
Briton had to spare should be devoted to practice in the part he was about
to play before the Emperor. The suggestion took effect upon Hirpinus at
once. He sprang across the school to where the master had resumed his
walk. The old gladiator positively turned pale while he entreated Hippias
to instruct his pupil in all the scientific devices by which those deadly
meshes could be foiled.
“Nothing but art can save him,” said he, in imploring accents, which
seemed almost ludicrous from one of his Herculean exterior. “Courage and
strength, ay, and the activity of a wild‐cat, are all paralysed when that
accursed twine is round your limbs. I know it! I have felt it! I was down
under the net myself once. If a man is to die, he should die _like_ a man,
not like a thrush caught in a springe. He must learn, Hippias, he must
practise day by day, and hour by hour; he must study every movement of the
caster. Pit him against Manlius, he is the best netsman in the Family. If
he learns to foil _him_, he will take the conceit out of Placidus readily
enough. I tell you I shall not be easy till I see him with his foot on the
gay tribune’s breast!”
“Patience, man,” replied Hippias, “thou fearest but one thing in the
world, and that is a fathom of twine. Thinkest thou all others are scared
at the same bugbear? Mind thine own training,—thou art yet too lusty by
half to go into the circus,—and leave this young barbarian to me.”
The master kept up his influence amongst these lawless pupils, partly by a
reserved demeanour and a silent tongue, partly by never suffering his
authority to be disputed for a moment. To have said as much as he now did
was tantamount to a confession of interest in the Briton’s success; and
Hirpinus resumed his own labours with a lightened heart, whilst Esca, in
all the delightful flush of youth and health, and muscular strength
developing itself by scientific practice, plied his antagonist with
redoubled vigour, and enjoyed his pastime to the utmost.
It was like taking an old friend by the hand to grasp a sword once more.