Tuesday, December 9, 2008

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.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

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.