8.

I won fight after fight.  My fame was spreading.  I had to kill a girl in one of them after she submitted.  But I did not do it for spite but for mercy.  She was mortally wounded at her side and she would not live anyway.  My slight nod towards Lucilla brought her thumb down.  The girl, a blonde of great beauty, braced her chest for the kill.
“Sleep, sister…” I whispered and pushed the point of my gladius into the upper part of her left breast.
She fell and lay there, spread-eagled.  A rolling cart was pulled to her side and soon she was towed away.  The bay would claim another pretty trophy.
Not all fights were easy.  Sometimes, I was so hard pressed that my back was against the earthwork that surrounded the area covered by sand. And when I finally won, Lucilla was so furious that she put her thumb down despite my wish to spare my opponent.  
“Kill! Kill!” The crowd chanted.
“Close your eyes.” I said to the one kneeling down.
“No, let me die with dignity.  I am not afraid to die.”
She was a proud one.
I thrust my gladius into her chest.

9.

Not all my opponents were women.
Sometimes, I had to fight male gladiators though none that I could not handle.  I fought once with two dwarfs, retiarius with their weighed nets and tridents.  I was nearly ensnarled by one of those nets and if I was, I would be at their mercy.  Even Lucilla might not save me as they might decide to finish me off without asking for the thumb sign.  The very thought of being helpless in the net as the three-pronged trident made holes in my torso made me sweat all over.  I was not afraid to die but I never wanted to die that way.  They also told me that dwarfs, due to their grotesque sizes, usually made fun of their victims before killing them off.  I might end up naked, my scanty armor ripped from me as my arms were incapacitated by the ropes of the net, my breasts fondled and sucked before the crowd.  How would Lucilla feel if she saw me in such predicament?  Fortunately, I side-stepped at the very last moment and instead of trapping me, it was one of them who got the net over his head.  While he was struggling with it, I quickly dispatched the other one.  Then, I came back to the other who had just managed to get rid of his encumbrance.  With his partner dead, he knew he had no chance.  He turned to flee.  
“Kill him!  Kill him!”
The crowd was mad with blood.  It was undignified to try fleeing for one’s life.  Those who were defeated were expected to accept their fate stoically.
I picked up the trident he had left on the ground and took aim.   He fell, the three prongs buried into his back.

10.

“When will you stop?” Lucilla asked that night after we made love. “You are pushing your luck too far.”
She coughed after finishing her sentence and it was quite some time before she could stop the coughing.
“I will let you know.” I said.
“Give me a date!” She was breathing heavily.
I was silent.  On one hand, I would not want to make her sad and worry over me.  On the other hand, I saw my end approaching, one way or another.  How long could she live?  How long must I live?  
Oh, Lucilla! I would rather you see my end than for you to worry what would happen to me after they sent your body into your family mausoleum.
“One more fight.”
“Promised?”
“Yes, I promise.”
I knew when the next fight was to take place.  It was three days from now, the birthday of a consul from Rome who was rumored to have good chance of becoming the next emperor.  
He loved gladiator shows.  He also never gave the thumb-up sign.
And he had brought his champion gladiator, Marcus of Macedonia, with him.

11.

It was a huge performance.
All together there were thirty gladiator fights.  I was arranged to be the last one to step into the ring.  By that time, seventeen of the participants were dead.  In two of the fights, both combatants died.
“Be careful, Eponina.  The consul is the one who decides to grant mercy or to order death today, not I.  You must triumph!” Lucilla was anxious.
“I know.  Do not worry.” I smiled to assure her.
May be my calmness betrayed me.  She did not seem assured and her face was so pale when she went up to the ima cavea, the area reserved for the upper echelons and naturally, the guest of honor.
I had chosen my garb with care.  Instead of armor, I opted for a simple strophium lined in gold which accentuated the curves of my breasts while exposing my round shoulders.  Around my waist was the subligar, also white.  There was nothing between these two pieces of fabric.  My slender waist was exposed.  I chose no helmet but tie my golden hair behind me into a pony-tail.  There was a bronze ocrea, a greave to protect my left leg.  For weapon, I picked up my favorite gladius and my parmula, my small round shield.  I knew I was stunning and the crowd would go wild with me, alive, or dead.

I walked out of the vomitoria.  And the amphitheater roared with approval.

My opponent appeared, a veteran gladiatrix from Syria with twenty victories to her credit.  She wore a leather harness and carried two javelins.  There was also a big dirk at her belt.
“Nos morituri te salutamus!” We made the customary salute.
The fight began.
She was good.  I tried every trick to induce her to cast her javelin prematurely as I knew once she had done that, she would be at my mercy.
But she was experienced and held back until she spotted the right moment, or when she thought she spotted the right moment.  
The crowd was booing as we continued to keep our distance.  Both of us knew we had to make a move.  It was not unheard of that disappointing gladiators, and gladiatrices at that, were both crucified for their lack-lustra performance.
I used the old trick and kicked up sand at her face.  A less experienced fighter would immediately shield her eyes with her arm since she did not carry a shield.  This would give her opponent to jump in and finish her off.
But she was no novice and instead of bringing up her arm, she cast her first javelin at the path which she was certain I would take to close in.   She did not even intend to hit me with the missile.  She knew I would use my shield to deflect it. If I did that, my front would be open and since I was in a jumping forward movement, would be most vulnerable to another missile.  
But she had forgotten that I was no novice too.
I did not jump.
Instead I made a roll and before she knew what was happening, her two missiles had whistled past me above my head and my gladius had cut the sinew of her left foot!
She went down, shocked but managed to pull out her dirk as a last defense.
I employed my shield to knock it off her hand.
The fight was over.
No surprise.
Thumb down.
I killed her.
And Lucilla was smiling.
But her smile froze when, instead of walking back to the vomitorium, and safety, I remained standing in the arena.
“I challenge Marcus of Macedonia to a fight!”
It would be a rude thing to do under any other situation.  But the consul beamed and nodded to his champion. The crowd roared in excitement. Lucilla was petrified.
He was tall, and powerful as his biceps bore evidence.  He wore a leather armor and used a sica, the curved scimitar, as his weapon.  He needed no shield.
“Nos morituri te salutamus!” Once again, the pledge was given.
The fight began.  
I knew I was not his match.  He was stronger, faster and far more experienced.  But I had fought hard, and fought well.  I even scored two cuts across his left arm though none of these were fatal, not even serious enough to cause him serious trouble.  It also failed to enrage him.  Instead, I saw respect in his eyes.  It was obvious no one had succeeded in wounding him, least of all by a woman.  The fight was now not between a gladiator and a gladiatrix.  It was a fight between equals, in spirit if not in might.  We were comrades of the arena, a brother and a sister who were fated to meet in this pit of sand where only one of them would survive.
I was not the one.
After numerous attacks and counter-attacks, my gladius was sent across the empty air.  I blocked his next slash with my shield but the impact was so great that it brought me down to my knees.  I had lost and he knew it.  His eyes fixed on my panting chest, the breasts now clearly visible as the strophium, thoroughly dampened by my sweating, adhered to my skin so that it seemed to have become part of me.  He nodded in admiration at my beauty, and courage shown.
I conceded, moved the arm that still carried the half-broken shield to one side so that my breasts were exposed.
“Plead for mercy!” He murmured.
I shook my head and smiled.
Both of us turned our heads towards the consul, and Lucilla.
She was begging with her eyes: Mercy! Mercy!
The crowd had very different idea.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
The consul would not have it any other way in any case.
The thumb turned down.
I took a deep breath, tore down one side of my strophium so that my heart was exposed.  
“Finish your job!” I said.
He held one of my shoulders to steady me.  Then, he plunged his sica into my exposed breast.
I felt the bitter-sweet blood oozing from my mouth.
My body shook involuntarily as the pain sank in.  In the distance, Lucilla was covering her face with her hands.
“Please, please, Lucilla…do not grieve…I love you…I am so happy it happened this way…do not forget me…”
Marcus of Macedonia pulled the blade back and I fell backwards.  My back hit the sand and I was lying there, spread-eagled, and gazed at the empty sky.
From a distance, a cart was heard rolling in….
I closed my eyes….

12

“Come here please, ladies and gentlemen.” The tour guide was beckoning the group, mostly Americans. “This is something very special.”
The men and women gathered around him.  Some were even taking notes.
“As you probably may have read in the brochure, this villa was only recently rediscovered by archeologists.  For nearly two thousand years, it had been buried by the ashes from the volcano Vesuvius.”
“In A.D. 79.” A boy in the group shouted out.
“Very good!  Yes, there was a great eruption which destroyed the city and this villa simply disappeared.  It is a miracle that this and that building over there could be found intact.”
“What is so special about it?  I cannot make out a thing from these mosaic tiles.  They are colorful enough though.” A man with a full belly commented.
“Ah, that is because we are looking at it from a wrong place.  You see, this was an open bath and these mosaic tiles hid a secret which could only be understood if we follow me to the veranda of that building.”
“That one over there?” The fat man asked.
“Yes, it was built by a Roman nobleman who left it to his wife Lucilla, when he was killed in battle somewhere in the east.  Anyway, please follow me.”
The group followed the tour guide climbing up the stairs to a veranda of the only building left standing.
“Is it safe?” An elderly woman asked with some nervousness.
“It is very safe.  Do not worry.” The guide assured her.
“Now, tell me what you see.”
The group looked down at the same tiles now from the height of the veranda.
“It is a picture!” The boy who gave the correct date of the eruption shouted.
“Yes! And what was in the picture?”
“I can see two people, one lying down and another kneeling at the side.” The boy answered. “Hey, both of them were women!”
“Correct! And why do you think was that woman lying there?”
The group felt silent.
Finally, a man replied. “It seems she was a kind of warrior.  There is a sword on the side.”
“Yes, sir.  She was a gladiatrix and her name was Epionina.”
“How do you know?”
“You see that group of letters?  It is her name in Greek. As you may know, the Romans liked to use Greek as their literal language, thinking it was classy.”
“So, the woman kneeling over her was Lucilla.” A young woman seemed to have got it. “Is the other woman dead?”
“Right.  Look at that sign over there.  It is a theta, the Greek alphabet Θ, meaning death.”
“Why did the woman, Lucilla I presume, build a bath with these mosaic tiles at the bottom?” The woman asked.
“To remember her, Madam.  The room we are in was once the bedroom of Lucilla.  So, every morning, when she woke up, she could look down and see something or someone she had great feelings for.  From the tiles, we could presume she was in love with Epionina who was killed.”
“Lesbians?”
The man nodded. “Seems so.”
“So, this Lucilla was killed in the eruption?” The fat man asked.
“Not exactly.  According to articles dug up by the archeologists, there were tablets and scrolls that told us that Lucilla actually died five years before the eruption.  She was then sixty some years old, rare for the people living at that time, particularly that it was also told that when she was in her mid-forties, her doctor had given the diagnosis that she had no more than one year to live.  That was shortly before Epionina was killed in the arena. Yet somehow she survived”
“So, she had been standing on this balcony for over twenty years every morning mourning the death of her beloved?” The woman was close to tears.
“Yes, that is most likely.”
The group felt silent.
Then, the woman took a deep breath.  
“Excuse me, I have to make a call back home.”
“To you husband?” The fat man chuckled.
“No! To my love, Carmen.  I want to tell her I love her so much.”
The tour guide nodded understandingly.
This was not the first time one of his group members felt touched by what he or she saw.  And it would not be the last.

(End)