Gladiator Cheated

This from LiveScience via Yahoo News: Just goes to show that referees on the take is nothing new and that history is constantly being modified.

Roman Gladiator's Gravestone Describes Fatal Foul

An enigmatic message on a Roman gladiator's 1,800-year-old tombstone has finally been decoded, telling a treacherous tale.

The epitaph and art on the tombstone suggest the gladiator, named Diodorus, lost the battle (and his life) due to a referee's error, according to Michael Carter, a professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada. Carter studies gladiator contests and other spectacles in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

He examined the stone, which was discovered a century ago in Turkey, trying to determine what the drawing and inscription meant. [Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead]

His results will be published in the most recently released issue of the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik(Journal for Papyrology and Ancient Epigraphics).

Tombstones talk

The tombstone was donated to the Musee du Cinquanternaire in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before World War I. It shows an image of a gladiator holding what appear to be two swords, standing above his opponent who is signalling his surrender. The inscription says that the stone marks the spot where a man named Diodorus is buried.

"After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately," reads the epitaph. "Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me."

The summa rudis is a referee, who may have had past experience as a gladiator.

The inscription also indicates Diodorus was born in and fought in Amisus, on the south coast of the Black Sea in Turkey.

Though Carter has examined hundreds of gladiator tombstones, this "epitaph is completely different from anything else; it's telling a story," he told LiveScience.

The final fight

The story the tombstone tells took place about 1,800 years ago when the empire was at its height, its borders stretching from Hadrian's Wall in England to the Euphrates River in Syria.

Gladiator games were popular spectacles, many of them pitting two men against each other. Although deaths from wounds were common, the battles were not the no-holds-barred fights to the death depicted by Hollywood, said Carter.

"I believe that there are a number of very detailed rules involved in regulating gladiatorial combat," Carter said.

Though the exact rules are not well understood, some information can be gleaned from references in surviving texts and art.

For starters, most, if not all, of the fights were overseen by the summa rudis.

Among the rules he enforced was one in which a defeated gladiator could request submission, and if submission was approved by the munerarius (the wealthy individual paying for the show), the contestant could leave the arena without further harm.

Another rule that appears to have been in place was that a gladiator who fell by accident (without the help of his opponent) would be allowed to get back up, pick up his equipment and resume combat.

Death of Diodorus

It's this last rule that appears to have done in Diodorus. Carter interprets the picture of the gladiator holding two swords to be a moment in his final fight, when Demetrius had been knocked down and Diodorus had grabbed a hold of his sword.

"Demetrius signals surrender, Diodorus doesn't kill him; he backs off expecting that he's going to win the fight," Carter said.

The battle appears to be over. However the summa rudis — perhaps interpreting Demetrius' fall as accidental, or perhaps with some ulterior motive — thought otherwise, Carter said.

"What the summa rudis has obviously done is stepped in, stopped the fight, allowed Demetrius to get back up again, take back his shield, take back his sword, and then resume the fight."

This time Diodorus was in trouble, and either he died in the arena or Demetrius inflicted a wound that led to his death shortly thereafter.

This event would have happened before a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a theater or in part of an athletic stadium converted into a sort of mini- Colosseum.

After Diodorus was dead, the people who created his tombstone (probably family or friends) were so upset, Carter suggests, that they decided to include some final words on the epitaph:

"Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me."

Danube Divide is Free

This week's free e-book read at MLR Press is Danube Divide, my homoRoman historical set in the Eastern Empire of 378 CE.

There's an epic battle between Goths and Romans, a mass migration of refugees crossing the Danube, a pretend crucifixion for purpose of mansex, a real crucif... WTH is wrong with me? IT'S FREE! No need to pester you with my sales pitch.

Get Danube Divide now until Sunday June 5th at the MLR PRESS SITE.

Look at top of MLR's page for a small picture of this big picture:

Right click on the little picture, save the file to your hard drive and it's yours forever.

Free for the Taking

Did you know I posted a free-to-read E-Book on the brand new site, 1RomanceEbooks? Of course you didn't, because I haven't told anybody until now.

As you can tell from the cover and title, it has to do with a gladiator. He's the after-dinner entertainment. His act? Hanging naked from a cross.

A feast for the eyes, and for the right price, a feast for the mouth and vagina, too, depending on how many cisterces husbands are willing to shell out so their wives can partake in the crucified hero's heavenly body.

Call it a fundraiser. Call it extra income for the gladiator's owners. Best of all, call it free to download and read by clicking HERE.

Jardonn's Interview with Boris Keressos

by Jardonn Smith

A quarter of the way into writing Danube Divide, my tale of Romans and Germanics and conflicts of civilizations, one of the characters who was to be a secondary player forced his way to the forefront. His name is Boris Keressos, or, if need be, Father Timothy, depending upon the company he keeps at any given time. Not only did he become the love interest for Gregoric, one of the lead Gothic characters, Boris made himself the axis of the entire story, taking the plot in directions I never could have imagined.

In this chronicled lifetime he's been an adorable street urchin thieving to survive, a young soldier of the Roman legions in the eastern provinces of the mid-300's AD, and a mature-man Christian priest ministering to Roman soldiers in the field or their garrisons. Boris is an alpha-male in every sense of the term, and since I suspect he put this interview idea into my head, I'll find out.

Jardonn: I assume, Boris, you asked me for this interview. Why?

Boris: To promote myself.

Jardonn: Like you did in my book?

Boris: Exactly. Aren't you glad I did?

J: Don't know yet. Book's only been out a few weeks.

B: Don't lie to me. If I hadn't jumped in, you'd still be sitting there poking along with your story. I had to do it. Watching you beat yourself up trying to write such boring drivel made me want to strangle you.

J: Could you strangle me?

B: Of course not. Spirits don't have hands.

J: So you cajoled me intead?

B: Spoke loud and clear.

J: Why?

B: I already told you. Your problem was you were writing about men you didn't know. All that mush. Talking about how they so loved one another. How the look in their lover's eyes make them giddy. What horseshit! Men don't talk about it. They just do it. When they speak, their words are of important subjects, not romance. When they romance, they express it with actions, not words.

J: I know, Boris. I was trying to write for an audience I don't understand.

B: Which is why you were getting nowhere. There's only one audience of importance, and that's you. Those who get it, those who want to read about manly men and not mealy-mouthed wussies will find you and follow.

J: When?

B: When they're supposed to. Don't worry about it. If you don't like what you're doing, find some other way to express yourself.

J: No. I enjoy it, as long as I have guys like you to keep my head in the right place.

B: Ok, I'm here. So why don't you cut to the chase and ask me about Gregoric?

J: You've taken over the interview, Boris. Ask yourself.

B: Right. After I got you to shit-can the chapter where I'm trying to woo Gregoric with words, I knew I'd have to take us back in time, off the Hadrianopolis battlefield in order to tell my story proper.

J: Your capture by Tervingi Goths north of the Danube?

B: Yes, and rather than sweet-talking Gregoric, something I would never do, I recognized his attraction to me during my torture.

J: How so?

B: Gregoric's thrashing upon my naked flesh was half-hearted at best. He was forced by his chieftain to participate, but his blows were nothing like those of his fellow tribesmen.

J: Had you singled him out before this event?

B: No. My mind was focused on preparing for the punishment I knew would come. Once I withstood the torture and made my escape up the tree, I knew Gregoric could be made my ally.

J: But they kept you as their prisoner.

B: True, more like a slave, really, which allowed me to win Gregoric by stimulating his youthful brain. Teaching him all things Roman -- the arts, engineering, philosophies and religions.

J: How did religion play a role in your seduction of Gregoric?

B: The cave. It's where I taught him about that illegal religion. The one banned by the Christians. It was our secret place where we made love, and believe me, the seduction was mutual. Gregoric and I loved one anothers's brains long before we ever found a safe way to express our admirations physically.

J: Once you did, nothing could keep you apart.

B: Mentally, no. If only that were true physically, but then there wouldn't be much drama in our tale. Would there?

J: Again, you are asking the questions when I am supposed to...

B: Let me ask you one more while I'm at it.

J: Can I stop you?

B: No. You tried to write something out of your element because you'd seen comments posted saying your books are not romantic. Here's a good comeback question for such nonsense. Gregoric allowed himself to be taken prisoner because he knew it was his only chance for rescuing me. Gregoric put his own life at risk for me. What could possibly be more romantic than that?

J: Nothing. Which is why I hope next time I try to write what others call romance, either you or one of your buddies will come along to save me from myself.

B: We always have and will.

J: Good. Now, Boris, I'm done with you. Go find Gregoric or somebody else who'll suck your dick. I would if I could.

B: You did me one better, Jardonn. You put me in your book.

Boris has left me for now, gone back to wherever he hangs out these days. One of his lives on earth is chronicled in my Danube Divide, and here's the link to my web site where you can read more about it.

http://www.jardonnserotictales.com/