alus let him gather it up, never dashed
at him, but merely stepped sedately towards him. If the _retiarius_ ran
away, Palus followed, but never in haste, always at a slow, even walk. No
matter how often his adversary cast his net at him, Palus never altered
his demeanor. The upshot was always the same. The spectators began to jeer
at the baffled _retiarius_, he became flustered, he ventured a bit too
near his immobile opponent, Palus made an almost imperceptible movement
and the _retiarius_ fell, mortally wounded.

I was never close enough to Palus to see clearly the details of his
lunges, thrusts and strokes. I saw him best when I was a spectator in the
Colosseum while impersonating Salsonius Salinator, for in my guise as
colonial magnate I sat well forward. Even then I was not close enough to
him to descry the finer points of his incomparable swordsmanship. Yet what
I saw makes me regard as fairly adequate the current praises of him
emanating from those wealthy enthusiasts who were reckoned the best judges
of such matters. By the reports I heard they said that Palus never cut a
throat, he merely nicked it, but the tiny nick invariably and accurately
severed the carotid artery, jugular vein or windpipe.

I can testify, from my own observation, to his having displayed comparable
skill in an equally effective stab in a different part of his adversary's
body. As is well known, a deep slash of the midthigh, inside, causes death
nearly as quickly as a cut throat; if the femoral artery is divided the
blood pours out of the victim almost as from an inverted pail, a horrible
cascade. Most of the acclaimed gladiators use often this deadly stroke
against the inside midthigh, slashing it to the bone, leaving a long,
deep, gaping wound. Palus never slashed an adversary's thigh; in killing
by a thigh wound he always delivered a lunge which left a small puncture,
but invariably also left the femoral artery completely severed, so that
the life-blood gushed out in a jet astonishingly violent, the victim
collapsing and dying very quickly. Such a parade requires altogether
transcendant powers of accuracy from eye and hand.

Besides fighting as a _secutor_ against a _retiarius_ Palus in the same
accoutrements fought with men similarly equipped, or accoutred as Greeks,
Gauls, Thracians, Samnites, or _murmillos;_ also he appeared in the
equipment of each of these sorts of gladiators against antagonists
equipped like himself or in any of t