Hirnio asked him:
"Are you in any way related to Murmex Frugi?"
"He was my father," Murmex replied, simply.
"Was!" Hirnio repeated. "The word strikes ominously on my ear. Someone from this neighborhood, I forget who, was in Nersae since the roads became fit for travelling this spring and returned from there, or perhaps some wayfarer from Nersae stopped with someone hereabouts. At any rate we heard he had seen Murmex Frugi still hale and sound, even at his advanced age."
"My father," said Murmex, "was still hale and sound on the Kalends of May and for a day or two thereafter. He fell ill with a cough and fever, and died after only two nights' illness, on the Nones of May, barely more than a month ago."
"He lived to a green old age," said Hirnio, "and must have enjoyed every moment of his life."
"He seemed to," said Murmex.
"And I conjecture," I put in, "that he was proud of his son."
"He seemed so," Murmex admitted, "but he was never a tenth as proud of me as I of him."
"It is an honor," I said, "to be the son of the greatest gladiator of our fathers' days, of the man esteemed the best swordsman Italy ever saw live out his term of service and live to retire on his savings."