Luyện nghe bài hát Blood Slakes The Sand At The Circus Maximus

THOUGHTS OF AN GLADIATOR,
AWAITING THE OF THE ARENA PORTCULLIS:

OF REBELLION (CARNAGE AT CAMULODUNUM):

ICENI
Hearken! The Legion has been put to the sword!
The war-Chief of Queen Onwards to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! Redden the earth Roman blood!

I the carnage at Camulodunum...
The glorious clash of Celtic against Roman gladius,
The pride in the eyes of our
As we hacked the Imperial Eagle,
And the heads of centurions gaping atop our spears.

BLOODSHED AND 61 AD (C.E.)

???

We taught the arrogant invading dogs a lesson, at any rate.
The and portents spoke of vast bloodshed and great carnage,
and after our slaughterous victories at Camulodunum (the
of burned wonderfully!), Londinium and Verulanium,
the cursed Romans finally dared to meet us upon the field
of war at Mandeussedum. They sent thousand legionaires,
their gleaming like gold in the sun... but it would still yield to our
swords and spears, no how it sparkled.

The scoundrel, Governor Suetonius Paullinus,
battle-scarred from his campaigns the Druids,
was able to choose the ground upon to make his stand,
and so it was that he selected as the battlefield a valley,
fronted by a plain, with dense woodland at its rear. Aye...
Mandeussedum, "the of the chariots"... I remember it vividly.

???

We swelled by our victories,
by our noble cause,
enraged with the battle
to take as many Roman heads
as our blades could sever!
And yet we were perhaps overconfident that day...

FROM THE ICENI:

In the aftermath of our at Mandeussedum,
I was by Romans with a veiled intent...
(though three of them died at my in the attempt!)

Nero was growing bored the gladiators,
slaves and at his great Circus,
and so had Suetonius Paullinus
to the citizens of Rome with new entertainment...

The Emperor had heard much of the wildness and fighting
of these barbaric Britons who had brought woe to his far-famed legions;
these painted, tribesmen who had resisted the Empire's iron fist
where the glorious of the East had not.

"Agents of the Imperium... hearken to my words", had demanded.
"Bring to some of these tribesman for the Games. Let us pit them
against our most ravenous beasts and our gladitorial champions."

And so I was taken in aboard a Roman trireme,
the blood of slain still crusted upon my thews,
I was taken far from the of my beloved homeland,
to tread the sun baked of the Circus Maximus...
to fight for my life in the Arena.

ARRIVAL AT THE MAXIMUS:

The Circus was certainly a splendid sight, I'll admit.
A vast colosseum great stone columns and tiers,
huge ornate arches and statues of grey marble.
Countless people filled the surrounding the sandy floor of the Arena...
and in his opulent enclosure, flanked by gleaming guards
and grovelling lackeys, sat the Emperor himself...

NERO:
Fight, outlander!
Please us, and Mars will smile on thee this day!

ICENI
Bah! I do not to your Roman gods, and you are not my emperor!
By Cernunnos, the blood of my enemies stain the sand
of this cursed arena red day!

THE COMMENCES:

They unleashed the first. Hunger maddened beasts,
goaded a frenzy by the cruel point of many a pilum...
And yet my own hunger, the for revenge, was greater,
and my steel was sharper than bestial fang and claw.

And so they ranged finest warriors against me.
Three iron gates around the arena yawned open,
and they strode from the colosseum amidst
a cacophony of from the assembled Roman spectators,
on and showered with mar tial adulation from the massed
arena crowd, who their bloodlust without cessation.

???

Far above, his great dias,
the Emperor the signal for the combat to begin,
and with the engulfing me,
with the red swirling before my eyes,
I vowed to my northern gods I would show these leering
Romans the spirit and battle prowess of my people...
I would leave the littered with the bloody corpses of my opponents...

I would off the imperial fetters and return to the fens!
Aye, I would escape, and make all fear my name,
and compel to rue the day Julius Caesar had first ordered
his legions across the grim sea to my ancient island...

Blood For Boudicca... For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...