The Life of a Gladiator

PRISONERS
A Roman gladiator isn't necessarily a Roman, they can be a Gaul, but first a Roman has to catch one. The Roman's travel from Rome to Gallia and battle with the Gauls, then the Romans go back with prisoners who start a new life.

WHO'S WHAT?
Each prisoner will be sold to a owner who will decide if he'd be a quarry slave, a mine slave, a galley slave, a farm slave, or a gladiator. A Gaul would like to be a slave, but it's the owner's decision, not his.

SCHOOL DAYS
A new gladiator goes to school to train. He starts fights against a man of straw. He has to fight it, because everybody knows it can't fight back.

LUNCH TIME
A gladiator trainer can be bad tempered sometimes, especially in the kitchen. The cook will always make porridge, and ash for dessert, and for some strange reason, it's healthy food.

TROUBLE MAKER
Gladiators have punishments that aren't pretty sights at all. There are four different types of punishments: words get burned into a man's forehead, whipping on a man's back, locking a man in stocks, and putting a man in a cellar.

THE BIG DAY
After a gladiator's training is finished, he's a real gladiator. The crowd will be cheering, the band will be playing, the arena will be big, and most importantly, the emperor will be there.

THE BATTLERS
There's lots of different types of gladiators, there's: an Andabatus (has a helmet that covers his eyes), a Essedarius (a chariot rider), a Retarius (the only net fighter), a Myrmillo (has a dagger and a large shield), a Thracian (has a curved dagger), a Samnite (the only one with a visor helmet), a Dimachaerius (fights with two swords), Laquerius (the only lasso fighter), a Secutor (has a dagger and a medium shield), a Velitus (armed with a spear). Sometimes some of these gladiators are women. People can get killed in these games. If someone loses, they can die.

ACTION
Now the gladiators get into action as the games begin. The men (and women) get real weapons, putting down their practice wooden swords. The gladiators have to worry about three things; their opponent, their trainer who's watching them, and themselves. All the gladiators have to be careful, as they are fighting for their life.

NO MERCY
The winners of the battles will get victory, but the losers might die. If the fallen gladiator is still alive, he (or she) will have to raise one finger by the left hand and appeal to the Emperor will ask the crowd if he (or she) shall live or die. If the crowd hold their thumbs up the loser will live, if the crowd hold thumbs down, the defeated gladiator will die.

SHIP AHOY
There's lots of types of battles. The arena will be flooded with water in a sea battle, and galley slaves row the gladiators out to the arena to attack. The gladiators will be dressed as either Greek, or Persian soldiers.

ANIMAL ATTACK
Another type of a gladiator is a Bestiarius, who is a gladiator that hunts wild beasts such as lions, tigers, bears, and huge elephants. But the fierce, scary, hunting dogs don't fight the gladiators, they're on the gladiator's side. The Bestiarius gladiator has the most weapons out of all the gladiators. This battle is called a beast battle.

VICTORY
The winning gladiator of a fight will get silver dishes, palm branches and sestertii (Roman money) for prizes. As his, or her, opponent's body gets dragged away, the Emperor himself will be down in the arena to give out prizes. After heaps of victory, he or she, will get a wooden sword and become a trainer.

Fasinating Florida

Hello. It's me again and I'm in Florida. This apartment that I'm staying in has an extremely annoying elevator. If you press the up button on the outside, then when you're in the lift the speaker says 'going up'. If you press the down button on the outside, then the speaker says 'going down'. But actually you have to press another button, otherwise you aren't going anywhere!

Outside the apartment, there's a pool with a water slide that goes through a huge wooden pirate ship.

Our apartment only has windows that you can't open and there is no expel air over the oven. So there's no way to let out any black, smelly smoke. Lucky for me, there's a toaster in the kitchen that is like two toasters in one.

Looking out from our deck you can see heaps of trees. But far away in the background, there's some tall fat buildings. Whaea Hilary thinks they're sitting in the middle of nowhere, but I think there's a city back there.

The Blog of Blogs

Hey, you'll never guess where I am... You'll never know I'm in Paris. WHOOPS!! Well, umm, never mind.



Paris has a railroad underground called a metro, where the trains have both train wheels and tyres!!! Strange, isn't it? The first time we rode the metro, we were going to a science museum. In my opinion, science is incredibly awesome. There was a spiny thing that was getting blown up and around into the air. I bet you know what 3D means. I saw a 3D movie about dinos. The archaeopteryx looks like a great escaper, but this bird can't fly. Another movie was about planets. It wasn't 3D but the room was shaped like an enormous rocket nose. This was called the planetarium.



In a different section there was a human sized coffee table that was made out of glass and huge pieces of lego, isn't that cool? To me that was as neat as a rock star.



This blog isn't just about the museum - it's heaps of blogs in one. I also a boat trip where we saw some docked house boats. On one of the concrete bridges there were some hideous faces of the King's courtisans.



I bet you know a truckful about Romans, but you don't know much about Goths. We went to a Gothic church that was designed by an 'un-gothic man' who was a Goth history fan. The church was called Notre Dame. It had some shimmering treasure - it must have been worth a fortune. The church bells were strange. To ring the bells they pulled a rope, but now they can play a piano which will make hammers bonk the bells. The man who designed the church put statues of Jesus' friends and a statue of himself on it. What a self-care, boasting, show-off!



In Paris there is a place called the Lourve - AKA, the home of the Mona Lisa. I also saw some statues of some Greek and Rome gods like Zeus, Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, Mercury, and Juno. Dad and I stood infront of a frustrated looking statue head and made some cross faces. No one was allowed to touch the paintings. If someone did the humungus security doors will quickly shut with a thundering boom.



Usually when we get off the metro, we go to a place called Champs-Elysese. One time when we were there I got a ride on a towel slide. I wished that New Zealand had all of this as I admired the statue of the tall stone Egyptian obelisk.

By Zeus

Before the Romans and after the Celts, were the Greeks. The wealthy Greeks had magnificent houses made of marble. Today I'm going to tell you about a Greek palace.

Some of the floors were mosaic tiles. There were two heavy baths that each weighed a ton. There were also two weird showers with a whole heap of taps that each do a different type of water spray onto people.

On the first floor there was a relaxation bath as big as a spa tub. Actually, maybe it was a spa tub...

The palace was actually built by a French man who admired Greek history, about one hundred years ago. A neighbour of the palace back then, was the man who designed the Eiffel Tower. Speaking of the Eiffel Tower, I'm going to Paris tomorrow.

Waves in Water

Ahhhhh, 'fishies', lovely little... Oh! Hello. Sorry, just got carried away. Hey, wait a minute, you're here to read my blog, aren't you? Well, OK then, yesterday we went to an aquarium and saw some fish.

In the first tank there was a fish that looked like it had horns. In the same tank there was some sharks lurking about and a big turtle hanging motionless in the water. In another tank there was a huge eel with little fish moving quickly across it, eating parasites off it. So the eel gets rid of parasites and the fish gets a meal. This is called symbiosis.

Want to know what was in another tank? Well, there were some super dads. Super dads have some special body parts. Each one has: a head like a horse, a nose like an aardvark, eyes like a lizard, a tail like an armadillo and a pouch like a kangaroo. Another name for a super dad is a seahorse.

OK then, next tank. It was a weird sight to see some fish that looked like worms sticking out of the ground. One of them usually had to duck quickly into the sand because a fish was after him.

Jellyfish were in two other tanks. Some were sitting upside down, making the ground look like it had wigs!

Now the building wasn't just an aquarium. There was also a turtle sub (an old time war sub) in another part of the building. I got to sit in it.

A whale hunting boat was in the next room, on the boat as a gun that was used to kill whales at top speed. Beside the boat there was some baleen . This is the stuff whales use to sieve the water to get food. Hanging down from the roof there was a huge whale skeleton. Imagine the sound of a whales song echoing softly and then it does a death scream as a harpoon hits.

On the way out of the building I saw a picture of an eel with a shrimp cleaning it's teeth like a living toothbrush.

Do you think this holiday of mine is cool? It is to me, and now, back to day dreaming about lovely fishies...

Wild Life

Who ever is reading this blog should have seen this park of wild life! Want to hear about it? Let's start with the otter. He was so cute and playful and seemed to enjoy himself. The prairie dogs were as cute as the otter and fat, only they didn't have any pool, so they probably couldn't swim. Iguanas were in the park too. They looked really lazy because they were very slow. Something is fishy about these other creatures, because they are ... fish! There were a lot of fish, for example, a shark and some stingray were lurking slowly about. Ick. In the aquarium there were also some bugs. No! Loads of bugs, such as very hairy spiders that didn't move much and scorpions that moved quickly, trying to escape. Do you want to know what moved even slower than the iguanas? The tortoises did, and the turtles moved as slowly as slugs, or snails maybe, except when they were swimming. The park had an ENORMOUS frog which I crept inside, and slipped down it's tongue. Want to know why? Because it was a slide! Have you heard of a pyramid? One was at the park. Well, it wasn't a real Egyptian pyramid, but it was shaped like one. It was a hedge, and when the breeze blew on it, it leaves shimmered.

Une Baguette

I went to a 'House of Pain' where they torture people. They tortured me, they kicked me, they punched me, they clobbered me, and psych! Did I trick you? The 'House of Pain' doesn't torture people. It isn't a house. 'Pain' actually means bread in French. So I went into the store, asked if I could have some bread in French, and the man gave me a pie in the face! Nope, he gave me some bread, hot bread that tortured my hands, so I gave it to Mum.

All Aboard!

The day before yesterday we went on a train to Italy. We decided to go to the market there and I got a toy. Then we went to Monte Carlo and saw some fancy Ferrari's, a playground with a great view was in Monte Carlo as well, also, some French people were setting up rides. Whaea Hilary had a ride on... THE WINDMILL TWISTER (a spinney ride). Dad and I went on the dodgems; Bang!... Wham!... Bonk! Those were fun. Then Celine and I went in a Surprise House with a vibrating floor, a rolling squishier, a hamster wheel, and some air blasters. Sounds good, eh. I hope there's a next time...

Paul Cezanne's Biography

Paul Cezanne was an artist with fame, who lived from 1839 to 1906. He was famous because his work was the first to show cubism art.

Paul was born in Aix-en-Provence, France in 1839. His personality was emotional. His Dad wanted him to have a lawyer, but Paul convinced him to let him be an artist.

Cezanne went to Paris to paint, but he was not happy because people didn't like his art, so he went to work for his Dad as a banksman. Paul thought he had fixed his mistake, but actually he had made another mistake. While Paul worked as a banksman he started to hate it, so he gave painting another chance.

He moved back to Paris to be around other artists. Then he met a girl and fell inlove with her. They got together and had a son, but Paul and his girlfriend didn't marry until their son was 14. Paul didn't want his Dad to know about this, because it was not respectable back then and he feared his Dad would take Paul's allowance. Paul did tell his Dad eventually, but his Dad got over it.

When Paul was 47, a close childhood friend of his, Emile Zola, who was a famous writer, wrote a story about a failed artist, which sounded just like Paul. So Paul broke up with his friend.

Paul Cezanne passed away in 1906. Paul's art continued to be famous from then until now. It's studied and admired all around the world by artists.

Glanum

I know what you're thinking, you think that the Roman's built the village, don't you? WRONG!!! First it belonged to the Celts, (by the way, I don't know who the Celts are), then the Greeks took over the village, then the Roman's conquered it.

The village has a Triumphal Arch. They used the arch for telling the Gauls (their enemies), that the Romans were important - 'hump', show offs!
The three pools were like the baths. The temperatures were: tepdarium (normal), caldarium (hot), and frigidarium (cold).

The village has a special well where you walk down to the water on stone steps. The well was special because people thought that the water had healing powers.

There is also a building around a courtyard, called a Forum. This is the place where they had meetings to make decisions about the town.

The houses were different. If you were rich you'd have a rain tank, cooking stuff, and an inside courtyard. If you were poor, your house would be rain 'tankless', cooking free, and there would be no courtyard.

One of the temples was built to worship Augustus' son-in-law.

If I lived in Glanum, I would want to be rich, because I would get a better life.

Roman Theatre

Have you heard of the fruit called orange? Well, Orange is also a place in France... we went to a Roman theatre there. (Of course you're getting bored of Romans - well, too bad). A Roman theatre is just like an arena but it's half a circle and without gladiators. What did they do? They did plays, music, dancing etc. instead.

The stage wall was important. Behind it were rooms called grottoes... urghhh... that word gives me the CREEPS. Grottoes are the place where the actors got dressed... or was it a prison... (In later centuries, it was used as prison - Ed.) The stage wall also had the starue of Augustus. When the Roman's changed emperors, the statue's head could be taken off and a new one put on!

The stone seats could hold lots of people, 10,000 infact. The seats could be supported by either hill or wall. (Hills would be easier to build next to).

CASSIS

Yesterday we went to a place in France called Cassis. On the way there we saw a place called Marseille where there were big cruise liners. When we got to Cassis we went on a boat trip on the Mediterranean Sea. We saw big, big, big, big, cliffs (perhaps 300m high even), with rock climbers on them… we also saw kayakers in the sea. Then did we go home? Nope. We went to the beach… it was weird, as the sand was all rocky and shelly. I say, this holiday is ‘going good.’

DINO-I-SAW

Yesterday we went to a dinosaur park.

The largest of all meat eaters is the spinosaurus. The spine on the spinosaurus helps keep it warm.

The diplodocus has teeth like a comb for stripping leaves off plants... they swallow stones to mush up their food. A diplodocus' tail is as big as a bus.

Hey, remember that aquaduct I told you about? Well, they once found some dino-footprints near it. Dinosaurs must have drunk out of that river.

Eggs from dinosaurs have sand or leaves over them to protect them from predators and to keep them warm. Dinosaur eggs also have different shapes. If you're a meat eater your egg is oval and if you're a vegetarian your egg is round.

Here's a dinosaur joke:
Which dinosaurs were the best policemen?
The triceracops.

How Does a Battering Ram Work?

A battering ram was the strongest and best weapon in the Medieval Times. It was used to break down a gatehouse or even a castle wall. The battering ram is made out of three parts: a log with a sharp end, a roof-shaped penthouse, and six or four wheels.

The carpenters shaped a sharp end on a log, which is the part that the soldiers swung back and forth on the gatehouse or wall. The log was attached to rope on hooks, connecting it to the penthouse.

The penthouse helped protect the soldiers from flaming arrows. The flaming arrows were put out by wet animal skins which covered the penthouse.

Last of all are the wheels. Like all wheels, these help the battering ram move. Because it’s heavy and it moves slowly, the battering ram is nick-named the tortoise. It needs up to 100 men to push it.

By Robbie Murray

France is a Wonderful Place

France is a wonderful place. Yesterday we left the motel in the Loire and we are in our own France house. The house has a big place (playroom - and where I practice my spells). In France there are shutters outside the house instead of curtains inside the window. The shutters are made of wood because wood is stronger than glass and it keeps the place secure. Our shutters are coloured green. This morning I went around and opened them all. Along the way from the motel to the house there are rest areas with cafes, playgrounds and lots of other stuff. You can tell if it’s a rest spot because there has to be a sign that says aire. The signs are blue. Here’s a little tune about our house ‘it’s a lovely house, diddly dum, (this is from a Winnie the Pooh book I read ages ago). We have a marvellous pool, but I think it’s too cold to swim in. The thermometer for the water is in the shape of a duck. There are a lot of interesting places in France. There are some interesting castles. One that we went to was Langeais. It had some great rooms with lots of chests for the old moveable furniture. One room had a scene of a young queen's wedding. The castle had a real drawbridge! At the castle there was this enormous tree house (which I didn’t climb to the top), and it was built like a fortress. Mum and dad took lots of photos. We went to a restaurant last night where our teacher Hilary ate some FROGS LEGS! The first motel was great as well. We stayed in the attic. There was a triangle shaped roof like most attics. Did I mention, we slept in the attic! How has your holiday been so far? I hope it’s been good. Please write back soon.
Bye!
Robbie

Nimes

We went to another Roman arena, which is in the shape of a round football field with sand in the middle. The part that is not sand is the amphitheatre, which is the seats. In the arena, they had gladiator fights, where gladiators fought other gladiators. Otherwise they fought lions and tigers. Sometimes they threw criminals and traitors in with the lions. They also did chariot racing in there. The Romans built the arena about 2,000 years ago. About 300 years ago, they put houses in the arena, so people could be safe from the sieges. The houses aren’t there now, and these days they use the arena for matador fights.

When we’d finished looking at the arena, we saw a 3D movie, which showed what happened years ago in Nimes. The 3D movie was a movie where lots of things look like they’re actually coming towards you when you where these special glasses. I felt like the spears were going right towards me.

We also went to this place where people did wedding marches. There was music around them. At that place we went up a tower, where Celine counted 139 steps. The Magne tower was in a park.

On the way home, we saw an aquaduct, that carried water over a river or a gorge. It was built by the Romans 2,000 years ago. It was called Le Pont du Gard.

Arles

Yesterday we saw a Roman arena in Arles. That’s where they did a lot of Roman games like, gladiators showing off their strength and lion fighting. Mostly people who they thought had done something wrong, and people who were Christians, got thrown into the lions. The arena was like a football field only it was a circle. If you were rich you’d sit in the front seats, close up, and if you were poor you were put way up, far away – so you weren’t very lucky if you were poor back then. The arena was about 2,000 years old. Now they use it for matadors.

We didn’t just see the arena in Arles; we also saw the Roman baths. They were very, very big and they were made of stone. They looked kind of like swimming pools, with fires underneath them, because I don’t think they had any electric heaters. The Romans, when they were having baths, wore nothing at all and the women and men didn’t bath together.

Van Gogh Trail

Today we went on a walk to find out things about Vincent Van Gogh. We learned that Vincent was an artist who died when he was 37. He painted a lot of his pictures in Saint Remy de Provence, which is where we are staying in France. This was because he lived there at the hospital for quite a while because he was a little bit sick. He painted a lot of pictures that were made to look 3 dimensional. A lot of his paintings were about nature. When he was alive he was very sad because his life wasn’t always the best. He even cut off his own ear! Vincent was born in Holland. He always signed his pictures with just ‘Vincent’ at the bottom of his paintings. Some of his paintings had people with blank faces; he didn’t draw on eyes, noses or mouths. The way he drew his pictures was with lots of little curvy lines in different colours.

Villandry Castle

We looked inside this palace. It had a library which had lots and lots of old, old, old books. There was also a cage infront of the books so Celine couldn't read them. In the garden there was a maze. It was easy, with all it's short cuts through it's hedges. In the middle of the maze there was a little look out. The gardens were humongus and they had patterns in them. They grew fruit and vegetables in the gardens. In the moat there were little fish with gapping mouths, looking for food. (I have been searching for hot chips throughout France, like a gapping fish - but I'm not turning into one).

Langeais Castle

We have seen a few castles. We saw a royal garden with a fountain, flower pots, a great big tree house and an old fashioned water pump. Inside the castle there was a wedding room with a fireplace (almost all the rooms had fireplaces). In the wedding room there was a show about the duchess Anne getting married, she was 14 years old. She was married in secret. In the dining room they had these shelves for the royal tasters, to make sure that the king didn't get killed by poison (or to check if the food was too salty!!!) There were big chandeliers (at the top) not powered by electric power (because there was no electricity in that time). They had fold up furniture. They carried their stuff in chests and moved to other castles (aka holiday homes). The Lord's bedroom had a fireplace. They tied knots on the canopy of their bed if you were invited in, otherwise if there's no knots you're not allowed in. There was also this room where they use to have a dead guy in a box (now they just have a box). And they have a praying place, where they ask God for information and help.