CHAPTER 60

I could breathe again. I had watched in amazement as a wounded Mansuetus fought off one attacker after another. He moved with a fury and speed I had never witnessed before. The long sword sliced through the air and landed with such force that the other gladiators were helpless before him.

But now he stood there, in open defiance of the emperor, displaying contempt for every spectator who had enjoyed watching forty-five men fight to the death. Nobody around me knew how to react.

In the rain, Mansuetus took one last look at the carnage and began walking toward his friend Cobius. He reached the man and looped one of Cobius’s arms around his own neck to prop him up. Together they headed toward an exit.

Caligula barked out orders, and his guards descended on the arena. Some of them grabbed the dead gladiators and started dragging them out of the arena to be discarded. Others surrounded Mansuetus and Cobius.

At Caligula’s orders, they separated the men and forced Mansuetus off to the side of the arena. Blood was still spilling from the gash in his left shoulder. He was covered in wet sand, and the armor on his right arm was stained with the blood of his opponents. Cobius was left standing alone, barely able to hold himself up.

“A champion has not yet been crowned!” Caligula announced. “The two remaining gladiators have earned the right to fight the great Flamma!”

Even as the emperor spoke, Flamma entered the arena and headed straight toward Cobius. I heard Mansuetus cry out, “No!” as he tried to break free of the Praetorian Guards, but there were too many men holding him back. I turned in disgust as Flamma ran his sword through Cobius and spun to go after Mansuetus.

The fury returned to Mansuetus’s face as he picked up a sword and marched forward to meet his fresh new challenger. Flamma threw down his shield, an attempt to even the fight. But Mansuetus was exhausted and injured, dragging his right foot and unable to raise his left arm.

Flamma let out a battle cry, gripped the hilt of his sword with two hands, and moved in for the kill. The two traded blows, but Flamma was striking with a speed and power that Mansuetus couldn’t match with a single hand. One blow sliced Mansuetus across the back of his right hand, and he dropped his sword.

Flamma hesitated as Mansuetus fell to both knees. The wounded gladiator tilted his head back, and Flamma, whose face could not be seen through his helmet, put the tip of his sword against Mansuetus’s neck.

Men throughout the arena turned their thumbs up, a tribute to the amazing valor that Mansuetus had shown throughout the day. Everyone looked at Caesar.

Like the others, Flamma turned to see what Caligula’s verdict would be.

It was apparently the opening that Mansuetus was looking for. He knocked the sword away from his neck and lunged.

At first, he caught Flamma off guard and had his opponent in his grasp. But Flamma recovered quickly, pulled his right arm free, and drove his sword into Mansuetus’s exposed side, burying it halfway to the hilt.

For a second, the entire world seemed to stop. Mansuetus leaned on Flamma, the sword piercing his side.

Flamma stepped back, and the great Mansuetus, just two fights away from earning his freedom, fell face-first into the wet sand.

This time Flamma took no chances. He pulled the sword out of Mansuetus’s side, put his foot on the gladiator’s neck, and finished the job.

The crowd was stunned. I was sickened. Mansuetus had seemed invincible. I never thought it would end like this.

Nobody cheered. No sestertii were thrown into the arena. An eerie stillness filled the place, the only sound coming from the driving rain.

Caligula stood at the edge of the imperial box and spoke into the silence, loud enough for the spectators to hear. “It’s a pity Mansuetus took things into his own hands. I was about to extend him mercy.”

Flavia had tried to rush the arena floor when Flamma was brought in for the final fight. She screamed and battled, but the Praetorian Guards dragged her outside the arena. When her hood came off, one of them realized she was a woman.

“I won’t kill you this time,” he sneered. “But if you ever try to sneak into the lower stands again, I’ll see to it that you are crucified with the prisoners.”

She was still outside when the place went silent. She knew immediately that Mansuetus was dead.

She sobbed uncontrollably and made a vow to the gods that Caligula would one day pay.

After Mansuetus died, I sprinted down the steps, pushed my way through the crowd, and ran as fast as I could to the exit where they were dragging out the bodies of the slain gladiators. By the time I got there, the spectators were leaving the arena, and I had to fight my way against the flow. Men seemed anxious to get out of the rain and shake off the disconcerting memories of the day’s events. The games weren’t supposed to conclude that way.

I elbowed my way through the spectators until I found the two guards who were disposing of Mansuetus’s body.

“Where are you taking him?” I asked.

“He was an honorable contestant. We’ll cremate him with the other brave ones.”

The less courageous ones, I knew, would be dragged to the Tiber.

“I know him,” I said.

“You and everyone else.”

I reached into my pouch and pulled out two gold coins. “An aureus for each of you,” I offered. Each aureus was worth more than a hundred sestertii. It was more than either of these soldiers would earn in the next three months.

“Where do you want him?” one of the soldiers asked under his breath.

I gave him a location in an alleyway near the shops at the foot of the Palatine Hill. “If you have him there in ten minutes, there will be another aureus for each of you.”

By the time I arrived, the soldiers were already there. A few minutes earlier I had purchased a horse at an exorbitant price. We now loaded the body of Mansuetus and tied it down. His hair was matted with blood, his body covered with dirt and sand. We wrapped the body with blankets I had brought, and I paid the soldiers. They left without saying a word.

I rode slowly down the cobblestone streets of Rome and ignored the looks of those who watched me pass. It was four miles to the estate of Apronius. Once there, I would build a funeral pyre from the driest wood I could find. I would place the body of Mansuetus on top of the wood and prepare it for a proper funeral.

I had spent a considerable amount to bribe the soldiers and buy this horse. But that was the last thing on my mind.

I was sickened by what had become of my country. A mad emperor was single-handedly destroying the greatest civilization the world had ever known. Good men like Mansuetus were paying with their lives.

My emotions swung between despair and rage. I thought about the heartbreak that today’s events would cost Flavia. I thought about the complicity and cowardice of so many who allowed Caligula to continue his tyrannical ways. I thought about my own naiveté in thinking that good people doing things the right way would ultimately prevail.

I was supposed to be an unemotional Stoic, but every inch of my being was consumed with hatred and thoughts of revenge. That night I planned on lighting the fire and watching the flames rise and the sparks fly, carrying the body of Mansuetus to the heavens.

That fire would quickly go out. But a second one, burning hot within me, would not be quenched until Caligula was dead.