From the Arena to the Cross

Flavius contemplated his confinement. He knew that freeing himself from the arena was as slim as a mouse caged in with a hungry cat. Therefore, he would use rhetoric and eloquence to denounce a ribald, profane, and bloodthirsty society, so that a message will go forth to all lands - even to those beyond the Empire’s bounds. So with a sober mind and without a dint of thought he spoke of the pits of wretchedness and the damnation of servitude in Rome. He accused emperors, slave owners, and traders alike. “Your end will be bitter; tears will not suffice for your ruin of this land and people should you continue this futile course of destruction. You garb your tongue in Justice’s robe, but Injustice bedaubs thy deeds as oft as thine heart pulses. You have made forlorn the humble and lowly in state.” Those words he also once told to his master who reaped bountifully from his slaves - both in the arena and in his vineyards and fields. “The sun of sorrow is at high noon in the annals of this Empire when emperors, kings, governors, procurators, and upholders of these games enter the arena to do battle, so that they too may taste the gall and sordidness of the games they so cherish. Rome should revisit herself and her abomination unto fellow men.” He turned to where sat Gaius Farlo and continued. “You seek occasion against me Gaius Farlo because I seek the open vale of freedom. Thou art a wedge of injustice driven with a sledge of hate and forced into a crevice of happiness, and restlessness shall companion you even in your tomb. Thou art Somnus the brother of Death. You have walled in many men betwixt the prickly palisades of serfdom; you have made heavy their chain by light of day and draw it taut at dark of night. And when they seek freedom of self will you set them betwixt gaping jaws of man-eating beast, or against the hands of strong, demented gladiators.” His flowing words took wings. “Rulers of Rome this is the sea that many men of the ages have filled with tears of dreadfulness, solitude, and forlorn lamentation, and whose shores are the onlookers.” The crowd hummed, Flavius continued. “Warped and distorted is your conscience. You act like children toying with the lives of ants and frogs. You trade human lives for self-gratification and morbid enjoyments; you create massive ripples upon life’s tranquil waters. Thou art sopped in the muddy waters of filthy lucre.” Flavius, with piercing eyes, gestured every which way.

The Emperor, in consternation, briskly arose and indexed his finger disgustingly at Flavius. “You have contumely spoken against Empire and leaders and affronted those that honour, uphold, and cherish these games. Your voice echoes condemnation upon those who chart Rome’s course. Your intent is to relegate them in jungles of isolation that they may not enjoy these honourable games. You hold in discord and contempt the laws of the land. Had you not set feet upon Rome’s soil it may have been better for you and Rome. If there ever dawned a season for thy freedom you have now forfeited that. Have you more revile against Rome and her people ere your duel to death? You may speak, but I know that my subjects will not heed your grandiloquence.”

After the Emperor’s words two goliath slaves in crude armour led a lion from its den. One man led the mean beast by a thick leather leash; the other man held another leash from the rear. They freed the beast to roam in an enclosure on the outskirts of the arena and within sight of Flavius. The lion, powerfully built, shone in its dark-brown coat as if smeared with tallow, while it dragged its dull, black tuft of tail. A dark-brown mane neatly fringed its face, but shagginess masked its shoulders, back of neck, and chest. A fringe of hairy growth also continued along its belly. The beast scaled about 450 pounds. Its legs were shorter than that of the leopard’s legs, but its head was much larger. A slave hurled a slab of meat; the beast gulped it down voraciously.

Flavius shifted his gaze from the beast and towards the pulvinar, then winged he these words. “Yea me lord more words have I yet to utter, so that the morrows’ generations will not forget the deeds that leaders have wrought and perpetrated, and the words that a downtrodden and ill-treated slave has uttered this day.” His words emerged naked, not bereft of accusation. And as if he had imbibed a potion of eloquence, Flavius clamoured with a silvery tongue clothed in erudite language.

“Give ear unto my words this day men of Rome, give ear; for the Spirit bespoke of this age and men long ere your mothers conceived this generation of men. I see the arrows of the mighty are cleaved; I see their strained bow. Power and prowess you may wield no more, for you will soon yield to age and slumber upon beds of agony. The mighty will fall from the summit of thrones and fate will bow them upon bent knees. Oh historians of this land, I pray by the God of my fathers please pen you these words, so that they may echo down the winding corridors of time and history, and penetrate the veil of the ages. Let not these words get lost like echos from the walls of this colossal and elite Circus, or like waves crushing against a defenseless land, then returning into the bowels of the sea from whence they came. In the stead, preserve the tomes and scrolls until eternity so that nations hereafter will not forget Rome’s Empire - even as men are not oblivious of evil and corrupt men of bygone ages. Their history told that they crumbled with the swirling dust of the ages combined with the ashes of time. Likewise will this Empire. Howbeit, the written word will prevail and scatter like seeds with the wind of time to germinate in this and other lands.”

The smell of blood hung in the air like the odour that permeates an abatoir, while Flavius’ life, hung like a tapestry, was worn thin by the repeated hands of torment. He stopped, scattered his eyes over the people, and continued in low tones with words of sapience. “Thou that sit upon grassy knolls, wander into glens and upon mountaintops, and weave wisdom into golden strands of verses and rhymes, thou art the poets of this land. Rome will surely fall, as did Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Medo-Persia, and the eminence of Greece. Again I say the written word shall survive the intervening years and the vagaries of merciless time.” He turned towards a cluster of Greek spectators. “My Greek brothers ear my words this day. You possess the gift of expressing odes and tragedies. Nations bestow respects unto you for your paramount intelligence and dramatic composition of words. I beseech you by the grace of living words that you pen these acts in prose or rhymes so that children of yet unborn morrows may know of tragedies that have befallen the ancestors of many races of men in this Empire. I intend that our children should also know of thos