He pivoted about between his
adversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attack
simultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even if
their thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval,
brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turn
on the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit my
own eyes. With my belief as to the identity of Palus I marvelled that a
man whose life was dominated by the dread of assassination, who feared
poison in his wine and food, who hedged himself about with guards and then
feared the guards themselves, who distrusted everybody, who dreaded every
outing, who was uneasy even inside his Palace, felt perfectly at ease and
serenely safe in the arena with no defence but two sabers, and he between
two hulking ruffians, as fond of life as any men, and knowing that they
must kill him or be killed by him. 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.
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