re cloth of
gold, which also appeared to be the material of his aprons when his
accoutrements did not include a kilt.

Now it may be said that this merely indicates that his equipment was the
most extravagant instance of the manner in which opulent enthusiasts
lavished their cash on the outfitting of their favorites in the arena. To
me it seems too prodigal for the profusion of any or all of such
spendthrifts: it appears to me more like the self-indulgence of the
vainglorious master of the world. Palus often wore a helmet so bejeweled
that its cost would have overtaxed the wealth of Didius Julianus.

I consider that my opinions are corroborated by the well-known fact that
whenever Palus appeared as a gladiator in the amphitheater, Galen was
present in the arena as chief of the surgeons always at hand to dress the
wounds of victors or of vanquished men who had won the approbation or
favor of the spectators or of the Imperial party. True, Galen was often
there when Palus was not in the arena, for he was always on the watch for
anatomical knowledge to be had from observation of dying men badly
wounded. But, on the other hand, while he was often in the arena when
Palus was not there, he was never absent when Palus was fighting.

Similarly, after Aemilius Laetus was appointed Prefect of the Palace, he
was always present in person in the arena whenever Palus appeared in it.
This, too, makes for my contentions.

The first fight in which I saw Palus revealed to me, and brought home to
me with great force, the reason for his nickname, its origin and its
astonishing appropriateness. The word "_palus_" has a number of very
different meanings: manifestly its fitness as a pet name for the most
perfect swordsman ever seen in any arena came from its use to denote the
paling of a palisade, or any stake or post. Palus, in a fight, always
appeared to stand still: metaphorically he might be said to seem as
immobile as the post upon which beginners in the gladiatorial art practice
their first attempts at strokes, cuts, thrusts and lunges. So little did
he impress beholders as mobile, so emphatically did he impress them as
stationary, that he might almost as well have been an upright stake,
planted permanently deep in the sand.

I first saw him fight as a _secutor_, matched against a _retiarius_. This
kind of combat is, surely, the most popular of all the many varieties of
gladiatorial fights; and justly, for such fights are by far the