Destitutus Ventis
Onlooker
In case it's not obvious, this is going to be very explicit and bloody pretty much right away and will get worse before it's over.
Be warned.
Reader suggestions on gender, age, appearance, and other characteristics that haven't been specified are welcome!
All historical, cultural, and even physiological reality in this fiction is determined solely by what happens to seem hot as it's written.
Feel free to correct me if and only if you think something that's more realistic is also hotter.
This is planned as a short, sketched-in series of 4-6 posts that can be wrapped up in a month or so, less ambitious than the extravagant Roman bloodbath contemplated in this thread. It's more a bit of world-building.
A "pre-ludus," if you will (and you probably shouldn't).
PROLOGUE: Final Exam
I of ?
Around the ludus, the incoming slaves are called "noxii" because slaves sent to a school for gladiators aren't expected to last more than a month, if that. Each of them is likely to get brutalized for a few days then chained together and taken to the arena to be slaughtered by trained fighters in pitched battles, torn by wild beasts, or dispatched in some other way. If they deserve any other status they have to win it.
Today's lot from the harbor district are especially unlucky; as they were chained in a line, those who knew Latin might have grasped that once sold to the ludus, they are all meant to die in the arena. The household slaves of the ludus, like the gladiators themselves, don't bother explaining anything to noxii. That's what chains are for. Ordinarily, new arrivals would be tossed into a morning workout for the fighters. Any that show spirit might end up sent into the arena with actual training or at least un-blunted weapons.
But at least one of the half dozen now shuffling up the hill to the ludus in chains will never get to the cells at the back where new arrivals can watch through the bars trainee gladiators wrestling and beating down the previous week's noxii and, if they are mastering the techniques and style the school drills into its fighters, being rewarded now and then with permission to tie up and use one or more of them into the night.
One of today's noxii at least will never be raped bloody by the three best wrestlers, or fight for life in the Colosseum with a wooden sword, or drown in the reenactment of some naval triumph.
Today one will die at your hands. Maybe more than one, if Fortuna requires it.
Fortuna has smiled on you. Should you pass this final test, you could win a household position and maybe someday die in a bed. Not bad for having arrived only months ago as a slave condemned, dead to Rome, and after earning through your desperate daily effort enough life to take a chance today to be the assistant to the city's new Lictor.
You have been trained in throwing the whip and the scourge, in restraining a desperate victim so the scene can go on, in humiliating captives by rape, in certain tortures and mutilations that can be employed for interrogation or bloody punishment. You have even assisted in the Colosseum itself, just a week ago, before the old Lictor's sudden death. There you took life for the first time, but without style; already raped and castrated by a gladiator of your school, the poor man might have suffered for a day if you hadn't slit his throat before the cheering crowd,
Impressing the new Lictor is important, so the master of the ludus has created today's test of proficiency in the ghastly practices and variations of crucifixion. You have supervised the other household slaves in laying out seven patibula from the back storeroom on the sand of the school's courtyard arena. To qualify for assisting the Lictor in carrying out the full range of his civic power to torture, maim, and kill for the edification and amusement of the Senate and People of Rome, you must devise a fate for one of these new condemned slaves and do the bloody work to prove your choice. Whatever sentence you are ordered to carry out, you must find a way. Rome keeps her promises.
There will be wagering on the outcome, as the ludus thrives on all competition, and you have been told that the honor and position of the ludus is at stake. That's why you have six victims to arrive, but seven beams piled up. In this test, there is only one alternative to winning: being immediately subjected to the same fate you have selected. The slaves of the ludus who have worked and eaten and slept beside you will not hesitate to grab you, strip you, and hang you up to die slowly beside your own victim. They know the only thing worse than death for the subservient is death for the disobedient.
Rome keeps her promises.
Introduction of the chained slaves and the rules of the test will be Friday.
Again, suggestions for characteristics of the victims are welcome.
Be warned.
Reader suggestions on gender, age, appearance, and other characteristics that haven't been specified are welcome!
All historical, cultural, and even physiological reality in this fiction is determined solely by what happens to seem hot as it's written.
Feel free to correct me if and only if you think something that's more realistic is also hotter.
This is planned as a short, sketched-in series of 4-6 posts that can be wrapped up in a month or so, less ambitious than the extravagant Roman bloodbath contemplated in this thread. It's more a bit of world-building.
A "pre-ludus," if you will (and you probably shouldn't).
PROLOGUE: Final Exam
I of ?
Around the ludus, the incoming slaves are called "noxii" because slaves sent to a school for gladiators aren't expected to last more than a month, if that. Each of them is likely to get brutalized for a few days then chained together and taken to the arena to be slaughtered by trained fighters in pitched battles, torn by wild beasts, or dispatched in some other way. If they deserve any other status they have to win it.
Today's lot from the harbor district are especially unlucky; as they were chained in a line, those who knew Latin might have grasped that once sold to the ludus, they are all meant to die in the arena. The household slaves of the ludus, like the gladiators themselves, don't bother explaining anything to noxii. That's what chains are for. Ordinarily, new arrivals would be tossed into a morning workout for the fighters. Any that show spirit might end up sent into the arena with actual training or at least un-blunted weapons.
But at least one of the half dozen now shuffling up the hill to the ludus in chains will never get to the cells at the back where new arrivals can watch through the bars trainee gladiators wrestling and beating down the previous week's noxii and, if they are mastering the techniques and style the school drills into its fighters, being rewarded now and then with permission to tie up and use one or more of them into the night.
One of today's noxii at least will never be raped bloody by the three best wrestlers, or fight for life in the Colosseum with a wooden sword, or drown in the reenactment of some naval triumph.
Today one will die at your hands. Maybe more than one, if Fortuna requires it.
Fortuna has smiled on you. Should you pass this final test, you could win a household position and maybe someday die in a bed. Not bad for having arrived only months ago as a slave condemned, dead to Rome, and after earning through your desperate daily effort enough life to take a chance today to be the assistant to the city's new Lictor.
You have been trained in throwing the whip and the scourge, in restraining a desperate victim so the scene can go on, in humiliating captives by rape, in certain tortures and mutilations that can be employed for interrogation or bloody punishment. You have even assisted in the Colosseum itself, just a week ago, before the old Lictor's sudden death. There you took life for the first time, but without style; already raped and castrated by a gladiator of your school, the poor man might have suffered for a day if you hadn't slit his throat before the cheering crowd,
Impressing the new Lictor is important, so the master of the ludus has created today's test of proficiency in the ghastly practices and variations of crucifixion. You have supervised the other household slaves in laying out seven patibula from the back storeroom on the sand of the school's courtyard arena. To qualify for assisting the Lictor in carrying out the full range of his civic power to torture, maim, and kill for the edification and amusement of the Senate and People of Rome, you must devise a fate for one of these new condemned slaves and do the bloody work to prove your choice. Whatever sentence you are ordered to carry out, you must find a way. Rome keeps her promises.
There will be wagering on the outcome, as the ludus thrives on all competition, and you have been told that the honor and position of the ludus is at stake. That's why you have six victims to arrive, but seven beams piled up. In this test, there is only one alternative to winning: being immediately subjected to the same fate you have selected. The slaves of the ludus who have worked and eaten and slept beside you will not hesitate to grab you, strip you, and hang you up to die slowly beside your own victim. They know the only thing worse than death for the subservient is death for the disobedient.
Rome keeps her promises.
Introduction of the chained slaves and the rules of the test will be Friday.
Again, suggestions for characteristics of the victims are welcome.