In ancient times, there was a certain type of gladiator called the ‘retarius.’ The retarius was either cursed or blessed, depending on a number of factors. They came equipped with a trident and net, so initially they could possibly hit or entangle with the net, whilst defending and attacking with the trident. The terror of the arena had to do with armor: it was divied out cruelly. A murmillo or thraex may only have received one leg guard, and one bracer/glove. It may have been made of steel, or of bronze. Hell, even copper, just to be twisted. There was no telling what quality of gear you would be assigned until you were going out into the sun, maybe for the last time. There was no telling what handedness your opponent was, and what stance you should use, and what limbs should get the armor, backwards or not. Against a retarius, the shield side leg should be forward, but depending on the length of the shield, the greave might be best strapped to sword side leg. A thraex received short shields, so they might opt for the less defensive stance anyway. It’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to, and as time passes, I find new and ever more colorful ways to paint the Roman Republic, less deserving of the capital case than any proper noun I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Of all of the poor bastards forced into the ‘games,’ the dimachareus was the poorest. Here was a man who had been condemned but just refused to lose, resisted death. He had been perhaps a murmillo for some time, faced the dreaded mis-matches, secutors, animals, missiles. Injuries were piling up and things couldn’t get much worse. Then, they were reassigned. Dimachareus now. Their shield was removed, and replaced with another sword. Useless. They were expected to die, and the arena was going to help them with that. Against a retarius, how would a dimachareus fare? Well, even the rear leg would be threatened by the polearm, without a shield in either hand. The legs could only be defended by movement. Dropping the swords low to parry the trident was certain to die. The net could come at any moment. You looked a mess and you knew it, even beating this crazy fisherman only meant delaying a meeting with a secutor, or who knew what else. A giant bourgeoisie with a deathwish, commonly. If you think these conditions sound too horrible for ‘society’ to sustain, you’re right. Literally three slave wars started as a result of lives like this, even though they knew they would probably be crucified at the end of it all.
So what’s the point of all this? The point is, that weapons and armor are all wrapped up in this sort of linguistic magic, they’re constitutive of it. The tongue and the sword, they’re the same thing etymologically, metaphorically, historically. They are the be all end all. And the tongue can tell lies, or it can tell *truth*. A sword can strike true, or it can strike false. The false, or backside, is very weak; this jutsu is avoided completely in the Japanese martial arts. If you’re a martial liar, you may as well pick up the trident or pitchfork instead. You now have a forked tongue, and just like a snake you strike at the ankles and legs. Your net is your warren, that the experienced know to avoid.
The terrible fate of crucifixion. It may bore some, but ever since I was a little child, I thought that it must be a very terrible world if anyone named God was to be crucified as a matter of prophecy. Truly bizzare at best, horrific to multiple extremes at its worst. Faith. That’s what Jesus is said to have retained even after being executed, as evidenced in his conversation with Mary. Which Mary it was is anyone’s guess, in my opinion. But it doesn’t really matter, much like the color of the death robe. The symbology of the crucifix is an understudied phenomenon, one that really deserves more attention than it gets, regardless of what walk of life you’re from, and here’s why: The cross is like a sword – swords have foibles and fortes, trues and falses, pommels and points, among other things. They have fullers and sometimes ricassos, hilts and guards. In the case of the condemned, the cross is bullshit. It’s this wooden *thing* being used to asphyxiate you. The word in Rome for ‘wooden sword’ was ‘rudius,’ but to call this rude was insulting. Even more insulting, because the rudius was a symbol given to freed gladiators. They were nailed to their freedom, killed by it. What’s more, the wooden sword is a symbol for lack of technological might. They may have gone out on their shields, but instead, they fell on their swords, suffocating. You could move your thumbs while crucified, that was about it. They are just about the only opposable thing you have left while crucified. “You live.” It was a cruel joke. Sickening.
The posture, what you experience while dying that way, those metaphors are of a different nature, however. The condemned is left to hang in a position like a charging bear, pouncing, striking, aggressive. In the case of Christ, the crown is sharp, dangerous, deadly like a headbutt. The feet and the hands are metal, in pain, like the shattered striking surfaces of a battered fighter. The lungs burn, fighting for breath until the muscles have no strength, even unconsciously. The victim of crucifixion is then themselves a symbol of incredible resistance, to the point of complete annihilation. Would this be a death of a loving father, or mother? Without weapons, yes I think this would resemble their defeat. And it is a defeat, because even if they saved their children in this life, in the next the child will cry for their abused parent. The parent will hurt for the child. At this point you can see that logic is utterly independent of the twisted patriarchal imperatives impressed on us by society, religious or not. And intelligence is completely devoid of meaning in the face of such hateful needs. The need to defend oneself against excessive abuse of power. The need to fear for the life of your child. The need to defend against the twisting of meanings, so that fearful society can’t tell your children that Jesus was afraid, and hateful, and angry at transexuals or gays, or prostitutes, or whatever. Intelligence is completely meaningless here. All we really have left, are swords, and pitchforks.
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