I do not recall any special feat of the Imperial beast-killer during the summer and autumn of the year in which I had fooled Bulla and been transferred from the stud-farm to the Choragium, which was the year in which Crispinus and Aelian were consuls, the nine hundred and fortieth year of the City, [Footnote: 187 A.D.] and the eighth of the Principate of Commodus. But, when the season for spectacles in the arena opened with the first warm, fair weather of the following spring, he returned to his favorite sport with redoubled zest, amounting to a craze.

It was during the spring and early summer of this year that he began to make huge wagers with wealthy senators, betting that he could kill a specified number of a specified variety of animal with a specified number of spears or arrows; always proposing so to limit himself as to number of weapons that the exploit appeared impossible. The result was that avaricious Midases were eager to wager, as they felt certain of winning. Yet he never lost, not once.

And, after each wager made, or won, he made the next on a narrower margin at smaller odds, until he struck the whole nobility numb by offering to wager even money that he could kill one hundred full-grown male bears from his usual platform with one hundred hunting spears, covenanting that he was to lose if he needed one hundred and one spear-casts to lay out those hundred bears limp, flabby and utterly dead. This appeared so utterly an impossibility that Aufidius Fronto offered to put up two million sesterces against him. The pompous sham philosopher, who feigned the profoundest contempt for riches, could not resist what looked like enormous gains. He made the wager, and Commodus won.

Now I cannot insist too positively on the amazing, the incredible strength and skill and nerve required for this fatiguing and taxing feat. Any other man I ever knew or heard of would have shown evidences of weariness long before he had despatched his hundredth bear; would certainly have betrayed the terrific strain on his nerves. Commodus was, apparently, as fresh, as jaunty, as full of reserve strength, as far from being unsure of himself when he finished the hundredth bear as when he drove his first spear into the first.

Now it requires altogether exceptional strength so to cast even the best design of hunting-spear, as keen as possible, as to drive it through the matted pelt, thick hide and big bones of a bear; in so driving it, to aim it so that it will pierce his heart calls for superhuman skill. And to reiterate this feat ninety-nine times in succession argues a perfection of eye, hand and nerve never possessed by any man save Commodus. Any other man would have felt the strain, most men would have become so anxious towards the end as to become agitated. He kept calm and cool.

I thoroughly enjoyed the discomfiture of Aufidius Fronto and relished his futile efforts to appear indifferent to his money loss.

Not many days later Commodus made a similar and still more hazardous wager with Didius Julianus, the most opulent and ostentatious of the senators, who was afterwards nominally Emperor for two months and five days. This wager covenanted that Commodus, from his platform in the arena, would despatch one hundred full-grown male lions, in their prime and vigorous, with one hundred javelins. On this arduous frivolity they wagered ten million sesterces and had the actual gold, fifty thousand big, broad, gold pieces, carried into the arena and piled up in a gleaming mound on a monster crimson rug for all to behold. This bit of ostentation was like Didius Julianus and not unnatural for Commodus. I have never seen any man perform so easily so difficult a feat. Killing a lion with three javelins requires very unusual strength and skill. To kill ten lions with forty casts would tax the muscles, dexterity and nerves of the best spearman the world ever knew. To kill a hundred lions with, barely one javelin apiece was bravado to propose and miraculous to accomplish. Accomplish it he did and without any visible effort or strain. Eighty-nine of the hundred he shot through the heart; the remaining eleven with difficult fancy shots which he was, against all reason, tempted to essay, and which, against all probability, uniformly were fully successful.

Didius Julianus paid his wager without any show of chagrin, as he could well afford to do.

At once Commodus offered to bet that he could kill a hundred similar lions with a bare hundred arrows. Didius at once wagered the same sum he had just lost and the bet was made. The exhibition was delayed more than a month until it had been possible to accumulate at Rome a full hundred full-grown male lions. Then Commodus again shot in sight of a pile of gold pieces on an expanse of crimson velvet spread on the sand of the arena.

Commodus won as before, with exactly the same number of heart shots and fancy shots. If one miracle can be greater than another this feat surpassed its predecessor. For a lion takes a great deal of killing before he dies, and each of these hundred lions died as quickly as any lion ever does. Instant killing of a lion with a javelin is a miracle, even more miraculous is instant killing of a lion with one arrow. Commodus so killed the full hundred.

I know of no more astounding demonstration of his infallible and tremendous muscle power than the fact that, shooting at a lion fully twenty yards away, and in the act of rearing rampantly at the beginning of a bound, he sent his arrow into the roof of its mouth, through the brain, the entire length of the spinal cord and so far that its point protruded from the dead beast's rump above the root of its tail. Galen, who, as often, was in the amphitheater in case of injury to the Prince, and who was in the habit of dissecting such dead beasts as interested him, cut along the path followed by the missile, cleaving the dead lion in two lengthwise and laying the two halves hide downward on the sand, so as to demonstrate to a bevy of curious and awed spectators the incredible path of that arrow.

Commodus lived on miracles. Of all the thousands of darts, javelins and spears which I saw him throw, of all the countless arrows I saw him shoot, not one ever missed its mark, not one merely hit the beast aimed at, everyone, even if launched at an ostrich skimming the sand or a gazelle, struck deep and true precisely where he had aimed it.

As I am about to narrate the occurrence which put an end to the insensate indulgence in beast-killing in which Commodus had revelled, I am reminded that, besides his vilifiers, who assert that he publicly exhibited himself as an ordinary beast-fighter, and his apologists, who maintain that he not only did not do so, but never so much as drove a chariot in public or spilt human blood with an edged weapon, there are others who, while not retailing or inventing any fictions or attempting to blink or suppress any facts, yet inveigh against Commodus as absurdly assuming the attributes of Hercules while really a weakling and as pretending to powers which he never possessed, as having been largely or wholly a counterfeit spearman, a make-believe archer, a sham swordsman and a mock athlete.

Among other alleged proofs of these baseless contentions they cite the ecstatic joy with which, to the limit of the supply gathered from all parts of the African deserts, he day after day, on the sands of the arena, delightedly clubbed ostriches, alleging that killing an ostrich with a sword or club is child's play and no feat of skill. As to this particular citation of vaunted evidence, as in their contentions at large, they are egregiously mistaken and far from the facts and the truth.

Actually, for a lone man, on level ground, far from any shelter, an angry full-grown young male ostrich is a formidable assailant and a dangerous antagonist. No living creature that roves the surface of our earth moves faster than a healthy ostrich. When running it skims the arena, when attacking it darts. It kicks forward, raising its long and powerful leg high in the air and bringing it down with a blow so swift that the eye cannot follow it and so forcible that I have seen one such stroke smash all together the collar-bone, shoulder-blade, upper arm-bone and half the ribs on that side of its unfortunate victim, a big, agile, vigorous Nubian, habituated to ostriches in their haunts. And, if the leg misses its mark, as it very seldom does, the bird, as it hurls past its enemy, pecks viciously at his face, its sturdy beak being capable of inflicting a serious wound wherever it strikes, and often destroying an eye, its usual target.

To stand alone, far out in the arena, bare-headed, clad only in a diaphanous silken tunic, armed only with a club no longer or thicker than his forearm; so habited and armed to await the assault of an infuriated bird so bulky, so swift, so agile and so powerful; to dodge jauntily, but infallibly, both the stroke of the leg and the stab of the beak, and invariably to bring his club down on the darting head and finish the bird neatly with that one blow; this was equally a feat of self-confidence, of dexterity, of agility and of strength. I hold no man justified in condemning Commodus because he gloried in clubbing ostriches.

The incident I recall occurred when spring had already waned and was merging into summer. The lower tiers of the Colosseum were well filled with senators, nobles and other persons of sufficient importance to be invited. None of the Vestals were present and their box was occupied by Marcia and her intimates. There were enough spectators seated to give the amphitheater an appearance of gaiety and vivacity almost as great as if it had been filled by all classes of the populace. The weather was clear, warm and sunny, with a light, soft breeze.

Commodus had exhibited his dexterity as an archer by shooting a great number and great variety of small antelopes, each one of which he had killed with a single arrow. Next he began clubbing ostriches and disposed of a dozen or more. Altogether there were about fifty. It was characteristic of Commodus that he was impatient of any delay between different exhibitions when he was thus displaying his prowess. After the ostriches he intended to mount his platform and shoot fifty or sixty lions. In order to have them handy to begin on as soon as the last ostrich was despatched he had commanded that those which were to be let out of posterns should be disposed behind the doors and that some of the cages of those which were to be liberated from cages should be hoisted from the crypt and set ready in the arena. A full dozen of such cages had been set out. I was not with the gang hoisting these cages and marshalling other lions behind posterns, but was at the opposite end of the arena with a smaller gang which was engaged in getting ready a score or more of tigers which were to be let out after the lions and which were giving a great deal of trouble.

Commodus was facing my end of the arena and so had his back to the lions in their cages, which were about thirty yards from him. The liberated ostriches did not seem to pay any attention to the caged lions and each, as he was driven back towards Commodus by men with long hayforks, with which they caught the birds' necks and held them off, turned furiously on Commodus and charged him viciously. Each bird Commodus dodged with one slight instantaneous and effortless movement; each bird fell dead at once, neatly clubbed on the head.

As he clubbed the last ostrich I saw a lion step dazedly and tentatively out of one of the cages. Of course, it was not intended that any of the lions should be liberated until the Emperor had mounted his platform, approved the bow selected for him or chosen one for himself, and similarly inspected and approved as many arrows as he expected to need. It was hardly possible that any cage-door came open by accident. I conjectured a plot similar to that which I had seen fail when the piebald horse threw himself and his fall and the wreck of the chariot he helped to draw failed to cause the death of Palus the Charioteer.

The lion, once he was wholly out of his cage, sneaked forward his length or more, crouched, and bounded towards Commodus. A shout of dismay, horror and warning went up from the audience. Marcia shrieked and leapt to her feet. Most of the spectators also stood up, the audience rising in a sort of wave as it emitted its yell of consternation.

Commodus whirled round, saw the lion, stood and eyed him precisely as if he had been a charging ostrich; appeared to measure the diminishing distance, showed no sign of perturbation, crouched slightly, dodged as the lion sprang at him; dodged so slightly that I was sure the lion had him, but so effectively that no claw touched him; straightened up as the lion, wholly in the air, shot past him; swung his short club and brought it down on the lion's neck; and stood there, triumphant, by a lion stretched out motionless on the sand, totally limp and unmistakably dead.

Marcia fainted.

So did half her guests.

So did some of the older senators.

Commodus, not so much as noticing the perturbation of his guests, not even
Marcia, called out to the overseer in charge of the cages:

"Not a man of you dare move. Stand where you are."

The guards, a batch of whom were stationed at each postern by which the attendants entered and left the arena, ran towards the Emperor. He ordered them to summon all their fellows from all through the Colosseum and when their chief officer approached him gave orders that they form a cordon behind the cages and see to it that no man of those who had been getting out the cages should escape.

While this was being done the spectators had reseated themselves, the inanimate had been revived and even Marcia had recovered consciousness and composure and, with her guests was as before their fright.

When all were in order Commodus ordered:

"Let out another lion!"

The overseer in charge of the cages and the officer of the guards demurred.

"Do as I tell you!" Commodus browbeat the overseer. To the officer he said:

"If I, with only a tunic and club, am not afraid of a lion charging me, you and your men, in armor and with shields and swords ought not to be afraid." "We are not," the officer declared, "we are concerned for you, not for ourselves."

"Pooh!" said Commodus. "If I could kill the first handily when I was not expecting him, I can kill all the rest the same way when I know what is coming. A lion, by that sample, is as easy to dodge and club dead as an ostrich or easier. Send me another."

Another was let out amid the dead silence of the dazed and astounded spectators. Commodus killed the second as handily as the first.

Now I must say that no exploit recorded of any human being or traditional of any legendary hero, outclasses as a feat of strength, coolness, courage and perfect coordination of all the mental and physical faculties, this act of Commodus' in killing two successive lions with a palm-wood club. A charging lion is an object so terrifying as to chill the blood of a distant onlooker. Very unusually good nerves and very exceptional self- confidence are required to face with composure a portent which appears so irresistible. And when the lion emits his tremendous roar and rises, bodily, into the air in his mortal spring, mouth wide open, its crimson cavern glaring, teeth gleaming, eyes blazing, mane erect, paws spread, claws wide, the stoutest heart might well quail. Yet, after barely escaping one lion, this foolhardy coxcomb, this vainglorious madcap, joyously called for another and jauntily despatched him: whatever may be said against Commodus as a man and an Emperor, as an athlete he believed in himself and justified his belief.

He called for a third, in spite of Marcia's shrieks, gesturing to her to sit down and keep still, and laughing up at her. But by this time Aemilus Laetus, who was afterwards the last Prefect of the Praetorium to Commodus and who was then an officer of the Guards, superior to the officer who had protested, approached, saluted and spoke to the Emperor. Their conference was conducted in tones too low to be overheard, but it was afterwards reported, both by those who claimed to learn of it from Commodus and by those who claimed to have been informed by Laetus, that he had urged upon the Emperor that his personal importance to the Republic was too great for him to risk himself so needlessly, and that Commodus had yielded to his expostulations.

At any rate Commodus ordered arrested and bound the entire gang who had been handling the lions' cages. He then walked up to them and enquired who had let out that lion. When no one confessed to having been responsible and several were accused by their fellows, the Emperor gave orders to lead off all concerned, hale them not before the Palace court, nor the commission in charge of prosecutions for offences against Imperial Majesty, but before the regular public magistrate in charge of trials for murder, assassination, poisoning, homicidal conspiracy and the like.

"Let him put the entire gang to the torture," the Emperor was reported as ordering. "Let him prosecute his enquiry until he gets a confession plainly naming the man who bribed the poor wretch who left that cage half- fastened, or the man who bribed the man who forced him to do it, or the whole chain of scoundrels, from the noble millionaire conspirators who hatched the idea, through their rabble of go-betweens down to the fool who hocussed that door-snap."

After the prisoners were marched off Commodus had the herald apologize for the interruption of the entertainment, proclaim that it would now proceed and request everyone to remain to enjoy it. Then he mounted his platform.

Yet this was his last exhibition of himself in the role of beast-slayer. I conjecture that as the episode of the piebald horse enlightened him as to the facilities for unobtrusive assassination afforded his enemies by his public appearances as a charioteer, so this episode of the accidentally liberated lion awakened him to the ease with which it might be arranged, whenever he entered the arena as a beast-slayer, that some monster might be loosed at him rather than for him. At any rate he never again took his stand in the arena for his long idolized sport. Beast-slaying he thenceforth eschewed.

Of course it was not by any means at once that we in the Choragium realized that the Emperor had abandoned his vagary. We knew only that we were suddenly unemployed and were merely glad of the respite and then uneasy at the change. I had time to reflect how marvellous had been my luck. Commodus himself had three several times asked me questions about my ability to control beasts; Galen had many times stood by me or passed near me, often with his eyes apparently meeting mine. Satronius Satro had stood and gazed at me, not three yards away. A score of other senators, all of whom had known me in the days of my prosperity, had been as near me, and noblemen to the number of something like a hundred. Not one of these had identified me.

If I escaped recognition it was, I conjectured, because of the deep-seated habit of mind of noblemen and more exalted personages and of men, like Galen, who have risen to a station in life which places them on an equality with nobles; the habit of mind which makes them regard a slave not as a human being, to be looked at as an individual, as they look at an equal or any freeman, but as a mere object like a door, or gate or piece of statuary or of furniture or a sort of utensil. Such men look full at a slave, if unknown to them, without really perceiving him. From this cause, I conceive, I escaped recognition, detection, and annihilation.

Much less than a month after the episode of Commodus and the two lions I was reading in my quarters, when the slave detailed as my personal servant entered and, cringing, said that there was a gentleman who wanted to see me. I gazed at him severely and said:

"I think you are mistaken. Please remember what the procurator told you about persons desiring to intrude on me."

The fellow fairly cowered, visibly sweating and trembling, but insisted:

"I really think that you really will be glad to see this gentleman."

I perceived that some unusual enticement must have been offered the pitiful wretch to induce him to brave the terrors of the punishments with which the procurator had threatened him if he allowed any would-be visitors to reach me. It also appeared to me that the fellow was fond of me and had the best of intentions.

"Show the gentleman up," I finally said.

He had been gone but a very short time when the door opened and in came….

Tanno!

He shut the door fast and, without a word, we were clasped in a close embrace.

When our emotions quieted sufficiently I pressed Tanno into a chair and resumed mine. We gazed at each other some time before either mastered himself enough for words. Tanno spoke first, veiling his feelings beneath his habitual jocularity. He said:

"Caius, you are certainly unkillable or bear a charmed life. You have been officially certified as dead two several times. First you were butchered by the Praetorians at Ortona, then you were assassinated by a disgruntled public-slave in the Umbrian Mountains: after two demises here you are, as alive as possible. Please explain."

"I feel faint," I said, "and, illogically, both thirsty and hungry."

I signalled for my servitor and, almost at once, he brought plenty of the Choragium's more than passable wine, fresh bread and a variety of cold viands. A draught of wine and a mouthful of bread and ham made me feel myself. Then I told about my close shaves when I three several times barely escaped assassination at the hands of partizans of Bulla, about the kindness of the Villicus and procurator and why I had changed my name.

"Why didn't you send at least a tiny note to Vedia and let her know you were alive after all?" he queried.

"I have lain awake night after night," I replied, "composing letters to Vedia and to you, letters which would tell you what I wanted if, by good luck, they came into your hands, but which, if they fell into the hands of secret-service agents, would tell nothing and not so much as arouse enough suspicion to cause them to investigate me and take a look at me. I could not frame, to my satisfaction, even one such letter. I knew that any messenger I employed would most likely post off to some Imperial spy and show him my letter before he took it to its destination or instead of delivering it. I canvassed every possible messenger, from my personal servitor here in the Choragium, through all the slaves I knew here or in the Colosseum who are free to run about the city, up to every sort of street-gamin, idler, loafer, sycophant and what not. I could not think of any kind of messenger who would be safe, nor of any letter which would not be dangerous. Much as I wanted to apprise Vedia of my survival I could not but feel that any attempt on my part to communicate with her or with you would lead straight to betrayal, detection, recognition and the death from which Agathemer saved me."

"I believe you were right," Tanno agreed. "It has all come out for the best. You are alive and unsuspected and I have found you."

"How did you find me?" I queried.

"Galen," he said, to my astonishment, "told me that you were sheltered in the Choragium, cloaked under the style and title of Festus the Beast- Tamer. He said he recognized you last fall, but did not judge it wise to give me or Vedia so much as a hint as long as you were busy in the arena in full view of all Rome on festival days and under the eyes of our entire nobility during our Prince's exhibitions of himself as Hercules Delirans. When Commodus abruptly realized that beast-killing might not suit his health because of the opportunities it gave for accidentally letting lions or tigers or what not out of their cages at unexpected moments, since he was not likely to revert to his renounced sport and you were not likely to be so much in demand and therefore less likely to be much under observation, Galen thought it safe to tell me. He says he has always believed that you had nothing to do with Egnatius Capito's conspiracy, had merely been seen by some secret-service agent while talking to Capito, never were a member of his conspiracy, never conspired against Commodus, never were disloyal, have never been and are not any danger to our Prince, and therefore are a man to be shielded rather than informed on. So he kept his face when he recognized you in the arena masquerading as Festus and kept his counsel till he judged the time ripe to tell me.

"I at once told Vedia, in person and privately. She is overjoyed, and, just as her encounter with you on the Flaminian Road not only stopped her proposed marriage to Orensius Pacullus, but made her feel she never wanted to hear of him again, so your resurrection and reappearance now has spoiled an apparently prosperous wooing of her by Flavius Clemens, who is as good a fellow as lives; noble, rich, handsome, charming and just such a suitor as Vedia might and should have married if you were really dead, and one she could not, in any case, help flirting with. She must have admiration, attention and admirers. With all her love of gaiety she loves you unalterably."

"I infer," I said, "that she told you of our encounter on the Flaminian
Way."

"She did," he answered, "and gave me a full report of your story of your adventures from Plosurnia's Tavern till she saw you. As soon as we conferred we both started to use all our influence and any amount of cash necessary (we both have cash to spare, hoards of it) to arrange for your legal manumission by the fiscus, your disappearance, and your comfort in some secure shelter until it might be safe for you to reappear as yourself in your proper station in society.

"We found we should have no difficulty in arranging for your manumission. It has already been favorably reported on the recommendation of the authorities of Nuceria. We had only to slip a small bribe or two to expedite matters. But when we sent off a dependable agent, armed with all the necessary papers, to set you free from your captivity on the Imperial estate, and provide you with plenty of cash to make everything smooth for your disappearance, he was confronted with a most circumstantial story of your assassination and burial, with the official reports of both and the affirmation of an upper inspector who had investigated the matter.

"We could not but think you dead in fact and Vedia was as heartbroken as five years ago, if not more so, for the glamour of that romantic encounter with you was magical. I believed you dead and was astounded when Galen gave me his information. Vedia is as amazed as I."

After some mutual desultory chat he fell to questioning me about my adventures and, drinking and eating when the humor took us, we spent most of the day together, I rehearsing for him all that I had told Vedia and much more in detail and also telling of all which had befallen me since then.

When Tanno left, it was as late as he could possibly remain and yet reach the Baths of Titus in time for the briefest bath there.

Next day he came again.

By this time both he and I had had time to think over the situation and to arrive at definite conclusions as to what was best to do. I was delighted to find that his ideas and mine agreed as to all essentials.

When he first came in he said:

"I had mighty little sleep last night. I could hardly close my eyes for thinking over your marvellous adventures. The more I ponder over them the more wonderful they seem; especially your involvement with Maternus; your encounter with Pescennius Niger; your presence in the Circus Maximus when Commodus:—I mean Palus:—drove his car over the axles of the stalled chariots and escaped between them out of the smash and wreckage; your involvement with the mutineers, and your safety in Rome all these months, even in the arena of the amphitheater. I congratulate you."

Then he told me his plan which he had already talked over with Vedia and which she approved. There happened to be in Rome a distinguished and wealthy provincial of senatorial rank, about to leave for Africa, where his estates were situated and where he owned vast properties near Carthage, Hippo Regius, Hadrumetum, Lambaesis and Thysdrus, in all of which places he had residences of palatial proportions and luxury. He had been making enquiries among his acquaintances for a slave much of the sort Agathemer had been to me. He had not found one to suit him. Tanno thought that I would suit him and could easily pass myself off as the sort of man he wanted. Then I would get out of Rome unsuspected and be comfortable and well treated in the most Italian of all our out-provinces, in a delightful climate, amid abundance of all the good things of life.

I agreed with him.

Then he disclosed his plan for bringing this about. By influence or bribing or both he would arrange to have me sold out of the Choragium, ostensibly as now superfluous there, and to have me bought from the fiscus by a dependable and close-mouthed go-between buyer, who would agree to hold me for quick resale to a purchaser designated by Tanno. Thus Nonius Libo, the wealthy provincial who was to be induced to purchase me, would know nothing of my identity with Festus the Animal Tamer or of my connection with the Choragium.

I acclaimed this project, as far more promising than Vedia's plan to seclude me in the dreary wilds of Bruttium.

Tanno gave me a letter and went off. I found the missive a long and loving letter from Vedia: one to soothe and transport any lover.

Tanno had said that he would not visit me again except as was absolutely needful, considering it reckless and venturesome to run the risk of some Imperial spy noticing his visits to the Choragium and making investigations. Though he remarked that no man in Rome seemed less likely than he to be suspected of disloyalty, intrigue or of being a danger to the Prince.

Within a very few days he paid me one more visit to inform me that everything had gone well, that all necessary arrangements had been made for my sale by the fiscus out of the Choragium, and all necessary preparations made to take full advantage of it.

A few days later I was formally sold for cash to a provincial slave- dealer, named Olynthides. In a slave-barrack which he had hired for the month only I found myself with a motley crew, but kept apart from them and comfortably lodged, well fed and considerately treated, as valuable merchandise.

The day after Olynthides had bought me Nonius Libo came to inspect me. He talked to me in Latin and in Greek, commended my fluency and polish in the use of both, had me write out a letter in each at his dictation, read both and commended my accuracy, script and speed; questioned me about the history of music, painting, and sculpture and as to my opinions on the works of various sculptors, painters, architects and composers; asked about my tastes along these lines and as to jewelry, fine furniture, tapestries, carpets and the like; also as to my personal tastes concerning lodging, bathing, hunting, food and clothing and was I a good sailor and fond of the sea; and stated that I suited him.

I was not present at his chaffering with Olynthides but, after no long interval I was summoned into the courtyard and Olynthides handed me over to Nonius Libo, along with a bill of sale.