It is notorious that the spectators in the
Colosseum always have been and are, in general, impatient of any
noticeable prolongation of a fight. Only a very small minority of the
populace and a larger, but still small, minority of the gentry and
nobility, take delight in the fine points of swordsmanship for themselves.
Most spectators, while acclaiming skilled fence and expecting it, look
upon it merely as a means for adding interest to the preliminaries of what
they desire to behold. Even senators and nobles admit that the pleasure of
viewing gladiatorial shows comes from seeing men killed. Contests are
thrilling chiefly because of their suggestion of the approach of the
moment which brings the supreme thrill.
The populace, quite frankly, rate the fighting as a bore; they do not come
to watch skilled swordsmen fence; they want to see two men face each other
and one kill the other at once. It is the killing which they enjoy. The
upper tiers of spectators in the amphitheater seldom give the signal for
mercy when a defeated man is down and helpless, even though he be handsome
and graceful and has fought bravely, skillfully and gallantly. One seldom
sees an outstretched arm, with the hand extended, fingers close together
and thumb flat against them, raised anywhere from the back seats; their
occupants habitually, in such cases, wave their upraised arms with the
hands clenched and thumbs extended, waggling their thumbs by half rotating
their wrists, to make the thumb more conspicuous, yelling the while, so
that the amphitheater is full of their insistent roar and the upper tiers
aflash with flickering thumbs.
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