. They wear helmets with visors, and carry spears and the
round shield (_parma_), but they are lightly armed. Only one of their
arms--that which sustains the spear--is covered with bands or armlets of
metal. Their names and the number of their victories already won are
known. The first is Bebrix, a barbarian, who has been triumphant fifteen
times; the second is Nobilior, a Roman, who has vanquished eleven times.
The combat is still undecided. Nobilior is just delivering a spear
thrust, which is vigorously parried by Bebrix.

Would you prefer a still more singular kind of duel--one between a
_secutor_ and a _retiarius?_ The retiarius wears neither helmet nor
cuirass, but carries a three-pronged javelin, called a trident, in his
left hand, and in his right a net, which he endeavors to throw over the
head of his adversary. If he misses his aim he is lost; the secutor then
pursues him, sword in hand, and kills him. But in the duel at which we
are present, the secutor is vanquished, and has fallen on one knee; the
retiarius, Nepimus, triumphant already on five preceding occasions, has
seized him by the belt, and has planted one foot upon his leg, but the
trident not being sufficient to finish him, a second secutor, Hippolytus
by name, who has survived five previous victories, has come up.
Hippolytus rests one hand upon the helmet of the vanquished secutor who
vainly clasps his knees, and with the other, cuts his throat.

Death--always death! In the paintings; in the bas-reliefs that I
describe; in the scenes that they reproduce; in the arena where these
combats must have taken place, I can see only unhappy wretches
undergoing assassination. One of them, holding his shield behind him,
is thinking only how he may manage to fall with grace; another,
kneeling, presses his wound with one hand, and stretches the other out
toward the spectators; some of them have a suppliant look, others are
stoical, but all will have to roll at last upon the sand of the arena,
condemned by the inexorable caprice of a people greedy for blood. "The
modest virgin," says Juvenal, "turning down her thumb, orders that the
breast of yonder man, grovelling in the dust, shall be torn open." And
all--the heavily armed Samnite, the Gaul, the Thracian, the secutor; the
_dimachoerus_, with his two swords; the swordsman who wears a helmet
surmounted with a fish--the one whom the retiarius pursues with his net,
meanwhile singing this refrain, "It is not you that