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The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa cover

The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

Chapter 66: Transcriber’s Note
By G. J. Whyte-Melville
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About This Book

The narrative follows intersecting lives caught between imperial authority and provincial resistance, focusing on trained fighters, domestic memory, and religious leaders as tensions escalate. It alternates vivid scenes of gladiatorial training and arena combat with intimate recollection, ritual observance, and political deliberation, building toward siege and urban catastrophe. Personal loyalties, romantic entanglement, and ethical quandaries are set against the demands of warfare and governance, and recurring concerns include the costs of conquest, the ethics of spectacle, the collision of faith and power, and the human toll of honor, vengeance, and survival.

Footnotes

1.
The dinner or prandium of Rome was the first meal in the day.
2.
A technical term for a school of gladiators trained by the same master.
3.
“Sicarii,” or homicides—bands of assassins, regularly organised in Judæa, who made a trade of murder.
4.
“You may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will;
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”
5.
According to Pliny, the distinguishing sign of newly-arrived slaves.
6.
About twelve pounds sterling.
7.
The sestercius was at this period about 1¾d., or rather more. The sestercium, or thousand sesterces, about £7, 16s.
8.
This inhuman practice was actually in vogue.
9.
The form by which a gladiator, who had repeatedly distinguished himself, received his dismissal and immunity from the arena for life.
10.
The well-known “Morituri te salutant!”
11.
About forty pounds sterling.
12.
“Christiani ad leones! virgines ad lenones!”—a sentence that found no small favour with the Roman crowd.
13.
The clepsydra, or water-clock—a Greek invention for the division of time—consisting of a hollow globe made of glass, or some transparent substance, from which the water trickled out through a narrow orifice, in quantities so regulated, that the sinking level of the element marked with sufficient exactitude the time that had elapsed since the vessel was filled.
14.
This game is played to-day with equal zest, under its Italian name of “Morro.” Perhaps its nature was best rendered by the Latin phrase micare digitos, “to flash the fingers.”
15.
Domitian.
16.
Hippicus, Phasaelus, and lovely Mariamne, for whom, in the dead of night, the great king used to call out in his agony of remorse when she was no more.
17.
Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book v. sec. 5.
18.
The first call of the Roman trumpets in camp, about two hours before dawn, was distinguished by that name.
19.
Now when he had said this he looked round about him, upon his family, with eyes of commiseration and of rage (that family consisted of a wife and children, and his aged parents), so in the first place he caught his father by his grey hairs, and ran his sword through him, and after him he did the same to his mother, who willingly received it; and after them he did the like to his wife and children, every one almost offering themselves to his sword, as desirous to prevent being slain by their enemies; so when he had gone over all his family he stood upon their bodies, to be seen by all, and stretching out his right hand, that his action might be observed by all, he sheathed his entire sword into his own bowels. This young man was to be pitied, on account of the strength of his body, and the courage of his soul.—Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book ii. sec. 18.
20.
Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps of old hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibres, and sold a very small weight of them for four Attic (drachmæ).—Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book vi. sec. 3.
21.
This frightful supper is said to have been eaten in the dwelling of one Mary of Bethezub, which signifies the House of Hyssop.—Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book vi. sec. 3.
22.
For a description of these portentous appearances, both previous to and during the siege of Jerusalem, see Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book vi. sec. 5, as related by the historian with perfect good faith, and no slight reproaches to the incredulity of his obdurate countrymen—that generation of whom the greatest authority has said, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”
23.
The exclamation with which the spectators notified a conclusive thrust or blow in the circus.
24.
In bringing forward their heavy battering-rams, or otherwise advancing to the attack of a fortified place, the Roman soldiers were instructed to raise their shields obliquely above their heads, and, linking them together, thus form an impervious roof of steel, under which they could manœuvre with sufficient freedom. This formation was called the testudo, or tortoise, from its supposed resemblance to the defensive covering with which nature provides that animal.
25.
“Utrinque parati.”
26.
Then did Cæsar, both by calling to the soldiers that were fighting, with a loud voice, and by giving a signal to them with his right hand, order them to quench the fire; but they did not hear what he said, though he spake so loud, having their ears already dinned by a greater noise another way; nor did they attend to the signal he made with his hand neither, as still some of them were distracted with passion, and others with fighting, neither any threatenings nor any persuasions could restrain their violence, but each one’s own passion was his commander at this time; and as they were crowding into the Temple together many of them were trampled on by one another, while a great number fell among the ruins of the cloisters, which were still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same miserable way with those whom they had conquered.—Josephus, Wars of the Jews, book vi. sec. 4.
27.
The ground occupied by the Roman lines during the siege.

Transcriber’s Note

The illustrations have been placed between paragraphs in the electronic text.

Variations in hyphenation have not been changed.

Other changes, which have been made to the text:

page 9, exclamation mark added after “Jugurtha”
page 98, quote mark removed after “plans.”
page 114, quote mark removed before “after”
page 137, “wel” changed to “well”
page 164, “Brition” changed to “Briton”
page 259, “inbibed” changed to “imbibed”
page 335, “Where s” changed to “Where is”
page 433, “Jeruslaem” changed to “Jerusalem”