CHAPTER XVI

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.