of Geta, the younger son of the Emperor, and in his honour there would
be games and a double ration of wine. But the iron discipline of the
Roman army required that under all circumstances certain duties should
be performed, and foremost among them that the camp should be made
secure. Laying down their arms in the order of their ranks, the
soldiers seized their spades and axes, and worked rapidly and joyously
until sloping vallum and gaping fossa girdled them round, and gave them
safe refuge against a night attack. Then in noisy, laughing,
gesticulating crowds they gathered in their thousands round the grassy
arena where the sports were to be held. A long green hillside sloped
down to a level plain, and on this gentle incline the army lay watching
the strife of the chosen athletes who contended before them. They
stretched themselves in the glare of the sunshine, their heavy tunics
thrown off, and their naked limbs sprawling, wine-cups an baskets of
fruit and cakes circling amongst them, enjoying rest and peace as only
those can to whom it comes so rarely.

The five-mile race was over, and had been won as usual by Decurion
Brennus, the crack long-distance champion of the Herculians. Amid the
yells of the Jovians, Capellus of the corps had carried off both the
long and the high jump. Big Brebix the Gaul had out-thrown the long
guardsman Serenus with the fifty pound stone. Now, as the sun sank
towards the western ridge, and turned the Harpessus to a riband of gold,
they had come to the final of the wrestling, where the pliant Greek,
whose name is lost in the nickname of "Python," was tried out against
the bull-necked Lictor of the military police, a hairy Hercules, whose
heavy hand had in the way of duty oppressed many of the spectators.

As the two men, stripped save for their loin-cloths, approached the
wrestling-ring, cheers and counter-cheers burst from their adherents,