The victor looked toward the magistrate, who raised an eyebrow and turned his head from side to side to assess the will of the crowd. Spontaneously, the crowd produced a multitude of fluttering hand-kerchiefs. Voices cried, "Spare him! Spare him!" Even the men behind me took up the chant: "Spare him! Spare him!"

In my experience, the judgment of the mob is like quicksilver, hard to pin down and impossible to predict. If I had turned at that moment and asked the men behind me, "Why spare the pale gladiator?", no doubt they would have given the rote answer: "Because he fought well, and deserves to fight another day." But the Samnite had fought just as bravely, if not as beautifully, and they had been eager to see him die. I think it was the fact that the two dimacheri had fought so well together that swayed the crowd to spare the loser; they were like a matched set that no one wished to see broken. The pale gladiator owed his life as much to his opponent as to himself; had they not been so precisely matched, those two daggers would have been thrust into his gullet in the blink of an eye. Instead, one by one, the daggers withdrew. The pale gladiator dropped to his knees, his head bowed to show deference both to the spectators who had spared him and to the man who had bested him, as the victor received his palm frond from the presiding magistrate.

"Well!" said Cicero, breaking his silence. "So far it's been a better show than any of us expected, I daresay. I wonder what the final match will bring?"

Sometimes, if the games are boring, spectators begin to vacate the stands after the first or second match, deciding they've adequately paid their respects to the dead and need stay no longer. On this day, for the final match, not a single spectator stirred from his seat. Instead, there was a new arrival. I was not the only one who noticed her; one of the men behind me released a wolf whistle.

"Feast your eyes on that beauty!" he murmured.

"Where?" said his friend.

"Right across from us, looking for a place to sit."

"Oh, yes, I see. A beauty, you say? Too dark for my taste." "You need to broaden your palate then. Ha! I'll bet you've never had a Nubian." "As if you had!"

"Of course I have. You forget that I spent a few years traveling around Libya and Egypt…"

I grew deaf to their prattling, fascinated by the newcomer. She was strikingly beautiful, with high cheekbones, full lips, and flashing eyes. Her dense black hair was piled on her head in the latest style and tied with ribbons, and she wore a tunica of pale blue that contrasted with the ebony sheen of her naked arms and throat. Her burnished-copper necklace and bracelets glinted in the bright sun-light. Her bosom heaved slightly, as if she were excited or slightly out of breath. One seldom saw in Italy a Nubian who was not a slave, but from her dress and the fact that she appeared to be out and about on her own, I took her to be a free woman. While I watched, a row of male spectators, clearly as struck by her beauty as I was, nudged one another and obligingly made room for her, giving her an aisle seat.

The two gladiators who strode into the arena for the final bout could not have been more different. The first was stoutly built, his chest and legs covered by curly red hair. He was outfitted in the manner of the Gauls, with a short sword and a tall, rectangular shield, a loose loincloth and bands of metal-plated leather wrapped around his midsection, leaving his legs and chest bare. His helmet covered not only his head but, tapering and flaring out again like an hour-glass, extended down to cover his neck and breastbone as well.

Following him into the arena was a retiarius, to my mind the most fearsomely attired class of gladiators. Retiarii carry not a sword and shield, but a long trident and a net. This one was all the more striking because of his contrast to the red-haired Gaul, for he was the tall, smoothly muscled Nubian we had seen in the opening parade of gladiators, as ebon-hued as the woman who had just found a seat in the stands. I wondered briefly if there might be some connection be-tween them-then drew in a breath as the Gaul made a rush at the retiarius, and the combat commenced.

Sword clanged against trident. Already heated to fever pitch by the previous matches, the crowd became raucously vocal at once, jumping from their seats and crying out for blood. The gladiators responded with a bout that exceeded anything we had previously seen that day. For two men so heavily muscled, they moved with surprising speed (although the retiarius, with his long legs, was considerably more graceful than his opponent). They seemed almost to read one another's thoughts, as blows were deflected or dodged at the last pos-sible instant, and each attack was followed at once by a counterattack of equal cunning and ferocity. Beside me, Cicero repeatedly flinched and gasped, but did not look away. Neither did I, swept up by the primal fascination of watching two men in a struggle for life and death.

As the match continued, the attributes of each fighter became clear. The Gaul was stronger, the Nubian quicker; he would need to be, if he were to succeed in casting the net over his prey. Several times, when the Gaul closed the distance between them in order to slash and thrust, the net almost captured him, but the Gaul eluded it by dropping to the sand, rolling out of harm's way, and springing back to his feet.

"At this rate, the Gaul's going to exhaust himself," said one of the men behind me. "Then watch the Nubian catch him in that net like a fish out of water and start poking holes in him!"

Irritated, Cicero turned to shush the man, but I was thinking ex-actly the same thought. And indeed, almost more quickly than my eyes could apprehend it, the very thing happened. The Gaul rushed in, slashing his sword. Wielding the trident with one hand, the Nubian parried the Gaul's thrust, and with his other hand he spun the net in the air and brought it down directly over the Gaul. The lead weights sown at various points around the edge of the net caused it to collapse around the Gaul and swallow him, sword, shield, and all.

If the Gaul had tripped, which seemed almost inevitable, that would have been the end of him. But somehow he managed to stay upright, and when the Nubian, wielding his trident with both hands now, rushed toward him, he managed to spin about so that the three sharp prongs landed squarely against his shield. The prongs, failing to penetrate flesh, instead became enmeshed in the fabric of the net. The Nubian yanked at his trident to free it, but the net held it fast, and the Gaul, though pulled forward, managed to stand his ground.

Sensing more than seeing his advantage-for the net must have greatly blocked the view from his narrow visor-the Gaul rushed forward. Holding fast to the trident, the Nubian was unable to stand his ground and was pushed back. Tripping, he fell onto his rump and released the shaft of the trident with one hand, still gripping it with the other. The Gaul, using his bull-like strength, twisted to one side. The Nubian, his wrist unnaturally bent, gave a cry and released the trident altogether.

The Gaul, slashing at the net with his sword and thrusting upwards with his shield, managed to push the net up and over his head, taking the trident with it. Stepping free, he kicked the net behind him, and with it the now hopelessly entangled trident. The Nubian, meanwhile, managed to scramble to his feet, but he was now without a weapon.

The Gaul might have made short work of his opponent, but eschewing his sword, he used his shield as a weapon instead. Rushing headlong at the Nubian, he struck him with his shield, so hard that the Nubian was knocked backwards against the wooden wall of the arena. The spectators directly above him, unable to see, rushed forward from their seats and craned their necks, peering over the rail-ing. Among them-not hard to pick out in that crowd-I saw the