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

THOUGHTS OF AN GLADIATOR,
AWAITING THE OPENING OF THE ARENA

MEMORIES OF (CARNAGE AT CAMULODUNUM):

ICENI
Hearken! The Ninth has been put to the sword!
The war-Chief of Boudicca: Onwards to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! Redden the earth with blood!

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

AND BATTLE: 61 AD (C.E.)

???

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

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

???

We swelled by our victories,
by our noble 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 FROM THE

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

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

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

"Agents of the Imperium... hearken to my words", had demanded.
"Bring to Rome some of these for the Games. Let us pit them
against our most ravenous beasts and our greatest 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 baked of the Circus Maximus...
to fight for my in the Imperial Arena.

ARRIVAL AT THE MAXIMUS:

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

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

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

THE COMMENCES:

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

And so they ranged their finest against me.
Three more iron gates around the arena open,
and they strode from the colosseum tunnels
a cacophony of cheering from the Roman spectators,
urged on and showered mar tial adulation from the massed
arena crowd, who howled their 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 that I would show these
Romans the fighting and battle prowess of my people...
I would leave the arena littered the bloody corpses of my opponents...

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

For Boudicca... Carnage For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...