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 Ninth has been put to the sword!
The war-Chief of Queen Boudicca: to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! Redden the with Roman blood!

I remember the at Camulodunum...
The glorious of Celtic sword against Roman gladius,
The pride in the of our war-queen
As we down the Imperial Eagle,
And the severed of centurions gaping atop our spears.

BLOODSHED AND 61 AD (C.E.)

???

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

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

???

We were by our victories,
empowered by our cause,
enraged with the frenzy;
thirsting to take as many Roman
as our blades could sever!
And yet we were perhaps somewhat overconfident day...

ABDUCTED THE ICENI:

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

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

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

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

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

ARRIVAL AT THE CIRCUS

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

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

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

THE COMBAT

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

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

???

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

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

For Boudicca... Carnage For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...