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From Cadiz to the Palus Maeotis, there was no port that was not open to her thousand ships; she possessed in Italy, beyond the coastline of the canals and the ancient duchy of Venice, the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua; she owned the marches of Treviso, which comprehend the districts of Feltre, Belluno, Cadore, Polesella of Rovigo, and the principality of Ravenna; she also owned the Friuli, except Aquileia; Istria, except Trieste; she owned, on the east side of the Gulf, Zara, Spalatra, and the shore of Albania; in the Ionian Sea, the islands of Zante and Corfu; in Greece, Lepanto and Patras; in the Morea, Morone, Corone, Neapolis, and Argos; lastly, in the Archipelago, besides several little towns and stations on the coast, she owned Candia and the kingdom of Cyprus.
In this deadly game he felt no qualms, only certitude of easy victory. The controversies over the identity of Palus have produced a whole literature of pamphlets, some maintaining that he was Commodus, others professing to prove that he was not, of which some rehearse every possible theory of his relationship to Aurelius or Faustina.
Most of all the Colosseum audiences not only insisted on Palus appearing in each exhibition, not only longed for his entrance, not merely came to regard all the previous fights of the day as unwelcome postponements of the pleasure of watching Palus fence, but were manifestly impatient for the crowning delight of each day, the ecstacy of beholding a bout between Palus and Murmex Lucro, which contests were always bloodless.
They talked of the races we had seen, of Palus, of his driving; of the smash-ups, of Posilla, of Colgius and of everything and anything. They announced that they would accompany us to our ship and see us safe aboard. Both Agathemer and I more than suspected that they had associates in waiting to follow them and, at a signal, fall on us and seize us.
It was this illogical but unescapable sensation which kept the interest of the whole audience, of the whole of every audience, at a white heat over the bouts of Murmex and Palus. I myself experienced this condition of mind and became infected with the common ardor.
Palus lashed his four and they increased their speed as if they had been held in before and darted between the two Blues. As the twelve horses were nose to nose the outer Blue pulled sharply inward in a way which appeared certain to pocket Palus and wreck his team and chariot, but even more certain to wreck the swerving Blue.
Besides these colonies the Black Sea, the Palus Maeotis, the Propontis, the coasts of Lower Italy, the eastern and southern shores of Sicily , Syracuse, the mightiest of Grecian offspring, and the daughter of Corinth, the African Cyrene, not enumerating settlements more probably referable to a later date, attested the active spirit and extended navigation of early Greece.
To my mind Palus and Murmex were manifestly playing with each other, like fox-cubs or Molossian puppies or wolf-cubs; yet the sport so much resembled actual attack and defence, as with nearly grown wolf-cubs, that it gave less the impression of play between friends than that of deadly combat between envenomed foes.
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.
Customarily, while Palus flourished, each day began with beast-fights, the noon pause was filled in by exhibitions of athletes, acrobats, jugglers, trained animals and such like, and the surprise; then the gladiatorial shows lasted from early afternoon till an hour before sunset. Palus and Murmex appeared about mid-afternoon and were matched against the victors in the earlier fights.
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