Liner Notes for New Names

Liner Notes For New Names

The original idea for this story had been a new gladiator arriving, getting to see what a training day was like, then tack on a confrontation. When I sat down to write it I realised that the place for describing a gladiator school and training would be in the liner notes, a future Neil problem. Oh well.

My model is Ancient Rome, modified by cool ideas I come across. The gladiator school is a compound, with high walls, in part to stop escapes but equally to stop people coming in without permission. The effectiveness of this can vary (see A Fixed Fight). On the inside of these surrounding walls are the buildings, the cells or rooms, the storehouses, kitchen, latrine, bathhouse and treatment rooms and the offices. Also here living quarters for staff, both servile (slaves – we’ll come back to that) and free. Including the manager, the lanista. Who may or may not be the owner.

As an organisation it’s self-contained, or at least that’s the theory. In the countryside it might well be, even having it’s own farm to raise the food, as well as leather, wool, even flax. In the city that’s not the case. And so it becomes part of the wider economy, buying in goods and sometimes even services. The smith is there to maintain metal objects, armour and weapons rather than make them, clothes are bought from a tailor, the food and drink bought at market.

I enjoyed writing Agonistes and I enjoyed reading it back. He’s not one with quiet confidence, he’s arrogant and boastful about it. The thing to recall is that he can back it up; he’s deadly in a fight. Maybe not so good at names.

Big Gloves; Eyes Of The Angel; Sister Obligation; Kingdom. Yes none of these make sense. The only thing that matters is that they’re memorable, and maybe it can be chanted in the arena. Agonistes sticking them with these, more than nicknames, use-names, work-names is genuinely an honour, or if not an honour at least an acceptance.

They’ve been caught up in the fall out from Agonistes and Vinculus turning the tables on the betting ring in the last story. That’s the fate of a follower or client, and more so for a servant. A slave is a slave and unfree of course, yet there have been many kinds and degrees in history. A gladiator is unfree, but also a gladiator is trained to arms, can become a hero. When Agonistes names them queens of the serviles, that’s true in a way. Certainly higher in rank than even skilled servants, those who scribe and count, or practice a craft. Yet without the rights of a free citizen, anything they might have is a privilege that can be removed.

As we’re seeing the drama outside the arena is at least as great as that within.