EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
had been champion gladiator of Castrum Mare for five years. If the people had an idol, it was he. They roared their approval of him. “Claudius Taurus! Claudius Taurus!” rose above a babel of voices. A few mean thieves, some frightened slaves, and a half dozen lions completed the victims that were to make a Roman holiday.
Erich von Harben had often been fascinated by the stories of the games of ancient Rome. Often had he pictured the Colosseum packed with its thousands and the contestants upon the white sand of the arena, but now he realized that they had been but pictures—but the photographs of his imagination. The people in those dreams had been but picture people—automatons, who move only when we look at them. When there had been action on the sand the audience had been a silent etching, and when the audience had roared and tumed its thumbs down the actors had been mute and motionless.
How different, this! He saw the constant motion in the packed stands, the mosaic of a thousand daubs of color that became kaleidoscopic with every move of the multitude. He heard the hum of voices and sensed the offensive odor of many human bodies. He saw the hawkers and vendors passing along the aisles shouting their wares. He saw the legionaries stationed everywhere. He saw the rich in their canopied loges and the poor in the hot sun of the cheap seats.
Sweat was trickling down the back of the neck of the patrician marching just in front of him. He glanced at Claudius Taurus. He saw that his tunic was faded and that his hairy legs were dirty. He had always thought of gladiators as clean-limbed and resplendent. Claudius Taurus shocked him.
As they formed in solid rank before the loge of Caesar, von Harben smelled the black men pressing close behind him. The air was hot and oppressive. The whole thing was disgusting. There was no grandeur to it, no dignity. He wondered if it had been like this in Rome.
And then he looked up into the loge of Caesar. He saw the man in gorgeous robes, sitting upon his carved throne. He saw naked blacks swaying long-handled fans of feathers above the head of Caesar. He saw large men in gorgeous
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