Lord Byron.

Spartacus to the gladiators at Capua.

1.  Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm.  If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it.  If there be three of all your company dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on.

2.  And yet I was not always thus,—­a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men.  My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella.  My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd’s flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime.  We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.

3.  One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army.  I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars.

4.  That very night the Romans landed on our coast.  I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war horse—­the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling!  Today I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend!  He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—­the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph!

5.  I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes.  Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome’s fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay!  And the praetor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, “Let the carrion rot!  There are no noble men but Romans.”