s of their
last-seen bout, anticipating the next, longing for it: though I never had
rated myself as ardent over gladiatorial games, but rather as lukewarm
towards them, and considered myself much more interested in paintings,
statuary, reliefs, ornaments, bric-a-brac, furniture, fine fabrics and all
artistries and artisanries. Yet I confessed to myself that, from the time
I saw first a bout between them, anticipation of seeing them fence, or
enjoyment of it, came very high among my interests and my pleasures.

To some extent, I think, the long and unequaled vogue of their popularity
was due to the great variety of their methods and almost complete absence
of monotony in their bouts.

Palus was left-handed, but for something like every third bout or a third
of each bout he fought right-handed, merely for bravado, as if to
advertise that he could do almost as well with the hand less convenient.
Murmex was right-handed, but he too fought often left-handed, perhaps one-
fifth of the time. So, in whatever equipment, one saw each of them fight
both ways. Therefore as _murmillos_ they fought both right-handed, both
left-handed, and each right-handed against the other fighting left-handed.
This gave a perpetually shifting effect of novelty, surprise and interest
to every bout between them. They similarly had four ways of appearing as
Greeks, Gauls, Samnites, Thracians, _secutors_ or _dimachaeri_.

Their bouts as _dimachaeri_ were breathlessly exciting, for it was
impossible, from moment to moment, to forecast with which saber either
would attack, with which he would guard; and, not infrequently, one
attacked and the other guarded with both. When they fought in this fashion
Galen, it always appeared to me, looked uneasy, keyed up and apprehensive.
Yet neither ever so much as nicked, flicked or scratched the other in
their more than sixty bouts with two sabers apiece.

More than a dozen times they appeared as Achilles and Hector, with the
old-fashioned, full-length, man-protecting shield, the short Argive sword
and the heavy lance, half-pike, half-javelin, of Trojan tradition. Murmex
threw a lance almost as far and true as Palus and the emotion of the
audience was unmistakably akin to horror when both, simultaneously, hurled
their deadly spears so swiftly and so true that it seemed as if neither
could avoid the flying death. Palus, true to his nickname, never visibly
dodged, though Murmex's aim was as accurate as his own; he e