in the circus or in the amphitheater, beheld Palus as charioteer or as
gladiator.

As a gladiator he was more than marvellous, he was miraculous. I was
present at all his public appearances from the time of my return from
Baiae. Also I had seen him closer, from the senatorial boxes in the
amphitheater, three several times during my impersonation of Salsonius
Salinator. Moreover I had seen him as a gladiator not a few times before
that, since Falco, soon after we came to Rome from Africa, because of his
affection for me and his tendency to indulge me in every imaginable way
and to arrange for me every conceivable pleasure, had contrived to use the
influence of some new-found friends to make possible my presence at shows
in the Colosseum, and that in as good a seat as was accessible to any
free-born Roman not a noble or senator.

The very first time I saw Palus in the arena I felt sure he was Commodus
in person, for he had to a marvel every one of his characteristics of
height, build, outline, agility, grace, quickness and deftness and all his
tricks of attitude and movement. The two were too identical to be anything
except the very same man.

It will occur to any reader of these memoirs that Palus was a left-handed
fighter, and that Commodus not only fought left-handed, but wrote, by
preference, with his left hand and with it more easily, rapidly and
legibly than with his right. But I do not lay much stress on this for
about one gladiator in fifty fights left-handed, so that the fact that
Palus was left-handed, while it accords with my views, does not, in my
opinion, help to prove them.

What, to my mind, much more tends to confirm my views, is the well-known
fact that Palus was always equipped with armor and weapons more
magnificent and more expensive than any ever seen on other gladiators.
Everything he used or wore was of gold or heavily gilt; even his spear
heads and sword blades were brilliantly gilded; so were his helmets,
shields, bucklers, corselets, breastplates, the scales of his kilt-straps
when he fought as a Greek, and his greaves, whether of Greek pattern or of
some other fashion. If he appeared in an armament calling for arm-rings,
leg-rings, or leg-wrappings, these were always also heavily gilt. So was
his footgear, whether he wore thigh-boots, full-boots, half-boots,
soldiers' brogues, half-sandals or sandals. His shoulder-guards (called
"wigs" in the slang of the prize-ring) were, apparently, of pu