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 of Queen Boudicca: Onwards to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! the earth with Roman blood!

I remember the at Camulodunum...
The glorious clash of Celtic sword 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 invading dogs a lesson, at any rate.
The omens and portents spoke of vast and great carnage,
and after our slaughterous victories at Camulodunum (the
of Claudius burned wonderfully!), and Verulanium,
the cursed finally dared to meet us honourably upon the field
of war at Mandeussedum. They sent thousand legionaires,
their armour gleaming like in the sun... but it would still yield to our
and spears, no matter how it sparkled.

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

???

We were by our victories,
by our noble cause,
enraged the battle frenzy;
thirsting to take as many Roman
as our bright could sever!
And yet we were perhaps somewhat that day...

ABDUCTED FROM THE

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

Nero was growing with the gladiators,
and lion-fodder at his great Circus,
and so had Suetonius Paullinus
to provide the citizens of with new entertainment...

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

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

And so I was taken in fetters aboard a trireme,
the blood of legionaires still crusted upon my thews,
I was taken far from the fens of my homeland,
to tread the sun baked of the Circus Maximus...
to fight for my in the Imperial Arena.

AT THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS:

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

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

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

THE COMBAT

They unleashed the first. Hunger maddened beasts,
into a frenzy by the cruel point 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 tunnels
a of cheering from the assembled Roman spectators,
urged on and showered mar tial adulation from the massed
crowd, who howled their bloodlust without cessation.

???

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

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

For Boudicca... Carnage For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...