To see an animal hunted, whether by a man or by another animal, thrilled the audience. But far more exciting was the spectacle of seeing one fearsome beast pitted against another in equal combat. For the inaugural games, the emperor had arranged a pairing that had never been seen before. First a wild aurochs was released into the arena. The gigantic bull had huge horns and a fiery temper, as was demonstrated when trainers behind wooden enclosures taunted the creature by throwing red balls at it. The aurochs charged at the cloth balls and managed to spear one of them on his right horn. The clinging ball angered the creature even more. He snorted and tossed his head furiously until the ball went flying into the stands. Spectators leaped to their feet, shoving and struggling against one another to claim it.
Next, a creature that many of those present had never seen before was released into the arena. This was the rare rhinoceros, a beast whose iron-coloured flesh appeared to be made of plated armour and whose enormous nose terminated in a formidable pair of horns, one large and one small. As fearsome as the aurochs might be, it was clearly a relative of the domesticated bull familiar even to the city-dwellers of Roma, and was a creature of grace and beauty, but the rhinoceros was like no other animal, an exotic being from the ends of the earth.
By taunting both animals with balls, prods, and torches, driving them closer and closer together, the trainers eventually induced them to fight. Their methods of combat were so similar that one seemed to be the distorted mirror image of the other. They stood their ground, stamped their feet, shook their haunches, lowered their heads, and finally charged. On the first clash, they only grazed each other, as if each were merely testing his opponent. They drew apart, faced each other, then charged again. This time the aurochs delivered a glancing blow against the rhinoceros, which snorted in pain. The wagering in the stands, which had been heavily against the aurochs, was suddenly reversed.
On the third charge, the rhinoceros demonstrated its brute strength and the sheer power of its horn. The creature landed a shuddering blow against the aurochs’s head. The bull was dazed. While it staggered and stumbled, the rhinoceros backed away just enough to reposition itself for a fresh charge, then struck the aurochs with such power that the beast was thrown clear into the air before it plummeted to the ground, landing on its side. The aurochs beat its hooves against the ground but was unable to stand. Again the rhinoceros charged, sinking its horn into the aurochs’s vulnerable flank and throwing it into the air again. The aurochs bellowed out in pain. When it struck the ground, it thrashed it limbs for a moment, then threw back its head and expired.
The rhinoceros goaded the carcass for a while, then appeared to realize that its opponent was no longer a threat. It charged one of the attendants, who ducked behind a wooden enclosure. The rhinoceros struck the enclosure with such force that its horn became stuck in the wood.
This provoked laughter in the audience but also posed a problem for the trainers. How could the rhinoceros be pulled free? While the animal was in such a fury, no one dared get close to it. Finally, someone decided to make the best of the situation by improvising yet another combat. A bear was released and driven towards the rhinoceros.
The audience spontaneously rose to its feet in excitement. No one could imagine how this unscheduled, unprecedented combat would proceed. If the rhinoceros remained trapped and unable to move, it would be completely at the mercy of the bear, unless its armour-like flesh offered adequate protection against the bear’s sharp claws.
The bear landed a few blows against the rhinoceros’s haunches, drawing blood, but these served only to incite the beast to exert the effort necessary to free itself. To the sound of splintering wood, the rhinoceros at last extricated its horn.
Once the rhinoceros was mobile again, the bear stood no chance. Just as the aurochs had been tossed into the air, so was the bear, which landed with a gaping wound in its belly and did not get up again.
Trainers moved in to corral the rhinoceros, which was surprisingly docile once its fury was expended. The spectators remained on their feet and enthusiastically cheered the beast, which had triumphed in not one but two death matches, without even pausing to rest. One of the acrobats ran up to touch the horn for luck. The startled rhinoceros jerked its head, and the small but powerful movement knocked the man flat on his back. The audience gasped, then roared with laughter when the acrobat sprang to his feet and made his exit by executing a series of nimble cartwheels and backflips.
Passing the acrobat on his way out, a massively muscled man strode into the arena. He wore only the briefest of loincloths and a hooded cloak made from a lion’s pelt. Clearly he was meant to be Hercules, about to perform one of his famous labours.
A bull was released into the arena. Streamers of yellow, blue, and red on its horns identified it as Cretan bull, the creature that sired the monstrous minotaur on Queen Pasiphae.
The man playing Hercules flexed and preened for the crowd, looking supremely confident even as the bull snorted and stamped its feet. When the bull charged, the man grabbed its horns and vaulted onto its back. Crouching as he held the horns, he managed to stay on the bull’s back even as it furiously bucked and kicked its hind legs. When the bull at last began to tire, the man leaped off. In a remarkable show of strength, he seized the bull by the horns, twisting them this way and that until he forced the bull to kneel before him.
The sight of a man overcoming a bull with his bare hands would have been amazing enough, but this contest was only the first stage of the spectacle. While the bull wrestler held the beast immobile in the very centre of the arena, a team of men ran onto the field and fitted a harness on the bull. A rope descended from the sky. It seemed to have appeared from nowhere, but in fact it was part of a system of ropes and winches that stretched from one side of the amphitheatre to the other across its highest point, from rim to rim above the canvas awnings. The hoisting mechanism had been put in place while all eyes were on Hercules wrestling the bull.
The dangling rope was hooked to the harness on the bull. The man playing Hercules mounted the beast. The rope drew taut and the bull began to rise into the air. When its hooves lost contact with the ground the bull panicked and began to buck violently, spinning wildly in midair. The rider clutched the rope with one arm and waved the other. He threw back his head with a raucous shout.
Higher and higher the bull rose. Looking upwards to follow its ascent, the spectators were dazzled by the sun. The bull and its rider became a silhouette, and the thin rope seemed to vanish. The bull appeared to be running through the air, flying without wings.
Small, brightly-coloured objects showered down on the audience from above. The little squares of parchment flitted and skipped on the air like butterflies. Blinded by the sun, no one could tell where the little tokens came from as they descended by the thousands. As they landed amid the crowd, there were cries of joy and excitement.
“A loaf of bread! My token says I receive a free load of bread!”
“Ha! Mine’s a lot better than that. I get a silver bracelet!”
“And I get a basket of sausages and cheese. That’ll feed my family for a month!”
People began to compete for the little squares of parchment, jumping for them as they descended or scrambling for those that fell underfoot. The scene was chaotic but jubilant.
“Titus manipulates them as if they were children,” said Epaphroditus with a sigh, looking at the token in his hand, which promised a jar of garum.