“Hail, my friends!” said the tribune, pausing in the entrance, and looking graciously around him on the crowd.
“Hail, patron!” answered a multitude of voices, in every key, from the subdued and polished treble of Oarses to the deep hoarse voice of the gladiators.
Placidus moved from one to the other, with an easy though dignified cordiality of manner which he well knew how to assume when disposed to cultivate the favour of his inferiors. Clear-headed and discerning, in a wonderfully short space of time he had despatched the various matters which constituted the business of his morning levée. He had admired the model, declined the painting, ordered the statue, bought the jewels, answered the fair suppliant’s message, and secured the mullet by sending to the market for it at once. The honest countrymen, too, he dismissed sufficiently well pleased, considering they had received nothing more substantial than smiles; and he now turned leisurely to Hippias, as if life had no duty so engrossing as the pursuit of pleasure, and asked him eagerly after the training of his gladiators, and the prospects of the amphitheatre.
Hippias knew his own value; he conversed with the patrician as an equal; but Hirpinus and Euchenor, appreciating the worth of a rich patron, gazed on Placidus with intense respect and admiration. The latter, especially, watched the tribune with his bright cunning eye, as if prepared to plant a blow on the first unguarded place.
“But your swordsmen are all too well known,” urged the patrician on the fencing-master. “Here is old Hirpinus covers his whole body with two feet of steel as if it were a complete suit of armour, and never takes his point off his adversary’s heart the while. The others are nearly as wary; if they encounter ordinary fencers they are sure to conquer; if we match them against each other and the people would see blood drawn, they must fight blindfolded,[8] and it becomes a matter of mere chance. No, what we want is a new man—one whom we can train without his being discovered, and bring out as an unknown competitor to try for the Emperor’s prize. What say you, Hippias? ’Tis the only chance for a winning game now.”
“I have heard of such a one,” answered Hippias. “I think I can lay my hand on an untried blade, that a few weeks’ training will polish up into the keenest weapon we have sharpened yet; at least, so Hirpinus informs me. What say’st thou, old Trojan? Tell the patron how thou camest to light on thy match at last.”
Thus adjured, the veteran gladiator related at considerable [pg 79]length, interrupted by many exclamations of wonder from Damasippus and Oarses, his chance meeting with Esca in the Forum, and subsequent trial of strength and skill at the gymnasium. Somewhat verbose, as we have seen, when he could secure an audience, Hirpinus waxed eloquent on so congenial a theme as the beauty and stature of his new friend. “As strong as an ox, patron,” said he, “and as lithe as a panther! Hand, and foot, and eye, all keeping time together like a dancing girl’s. The spring of a wild-cat, and the light footfall of a deer. Then he would look so well in the arena, with his fair young face, set on his towering neck, like that of the son of Peleus. Indeed, if he should be vanquished, the women would save him every time. Why, one of the fairest and the noblest ladies in Rome stopped her litter in the crowded street while we walked together, and bade him come and speak to her from sheer goodwill. In faith, he was as tall, and twice as handsome, as the very Liburnians who carried her on their shoulders.”
The tribune was laughing heartily at the athlete’s eloquence; but Damasippus, who never took his eyes off his patron’s face, thought the evil laugh was more malicious than usual at the mention of the Liburnians, and there was a false ring in the mirthful tones with which he asked for more information as to this young Apollo, and the dame on whom his appearance seemed to have made such an impression.
“I know most of the great ladies pretty well by sight,” answered the honest swordsman. “Faith, a man does not easily forget the faces he sees turned on him in the arena, when he has his point at his adversary’s throat, and they bid him drive it merrily home, and never spare. But of all the faces I see under the awning, there’s not one looks down so calm and beautiful on a death-struggle as that of the noble Valeria.”
“Like the moon on the torrent of Anio,” observed Damasippus.