A/N: I wrote this at about one in the morning, fun. ;) Anyway, I obviously don't own the movie Gladiator/anyone or anything associated with it. Love the movie, though. :) Um... anything else? I dunno. Naw.
As I sit against the unyielding stone wall, I stare at images in my mind, images that no one else can see. I see embers burning into the trampled ground, fields covered by sweeping ashes, blackness, and above all, destruction. I can hear screams and lies that have been swallowed whole. I can sense the endlessness, the futility, the hate, and the despair.
At the same time, I feel despair of my own. What I had has been taken away from me. Anything I ever wanted is now beyond me, snatched ruthlessly out of my grasp. In the end, all that I want is my family. Now... Now I cannot even have my family. I cannot be with those whom I love, for they have been taken from me.
I sit in silence, watching the others walk through the halls, their eyes wide. They wonder at this, I can see it in their eyes. They understand that this is futile, that we have no chance, no choice of our own. We have been given a fate, and we are to die within the ensnaring forces of that trap.
What does it matter, though? Now everything is lost, gone forever. Recently life was fine, life was all right. I was a commander, I had loyalty, I had respect, and I had the promise of a chance to go home, to do what I truly wanted. It was my chance to regain my time with my family, to follow a true ambition of mine; farming. I was going to go home and farm.
Some of the others had scoffed at my dream, but they had supported it all the same. I had believed that I would be given my chance, that I would finally have my peace. Away from battle at last... I knew it could have been wonderful. I still know that it could have. I can feel it in my soul. What could have been wounds me deeply.
I was to find out that I could not be given what I so desired, however. There were two men who wanted me to stay from the farm, to travel instead to Rome. I found myself compelled to listen to both.
The first, the son of the emperor. The one whom I have never trusted, the one with the knowing, conniving glint in his eyes. He spoke to me of the Senate, of making Rome great, of needing assistance in his quest. It was after the battle, after I had seen a seemingly endless line of deaths, yet he took me aside and told me of the need for my help easily enough. I felt that there was something wrong with what he wanted to do. He did not seem to notice or care. He attempted to appear calm but could not and did not succeed. His voice, his eyes, everything about him seemed fanatical, bent on a purpose that was not entirely noble.
I could not trust him, nor have I ever have trusted him. I believed that he was hiding something, harboring some species of hate for his father, perhaps for myself. I believed at one point that he as waiting for his father to die. Now I know that he did more than wait.
His father had been a man for whom I had felt enormous respect. Even as I think of him now, I bow my head at the memory of the venerable emperor. His purposes were noble. He worked for the good of Rome as a whole, worked for the people of Rome. It had been his dream to conquer, to spread the influence of Rome, and in the end he had told me that he felt that it mean nothing. He told me that Rome needed to rise, to become glorious, to be proud. He called me to him and told me this, revealed to me his doubts and what he hoped would come. Where the purpose of his son's proposal had been for ill intent, the emperor's was for good, at least as far as I could tell.
It was then that he disclosed to me the information for which, I am certain, he was murdered. The emperor had been growing weaker, and most of the nation knew it. Though he seemed to have some time left in his hands, it was said that he would announce his son as his heir the following day. That night, however, he told me that this would not be so, that he was hoping to declare another as his heir. Myself.
Why? Why did he say that? I did not understand then, but perhaps I do now. He said I knew what the people wanted, that I always have. When I explained that I had never been involved in politics, he said it was for he better, that it was one of the reasons for which I should become emperor.
Yes, I believe that I can understand what he meant. I have seen the work of politics on the emperor himself. He was betrayed, all for politics. Politics, the evil, the source of the rotting of the Senate.
Even so, I could not understand at the time. I needed to think. Changing my plans was easier said than done, especially since the plans involved my family. I had to decide quickly, but I had to think it through before making a rash decision.
By the time had had made my decision, it was too late. I was summoned to see the emperor, only to find an imposter, his son, in his place. The claims that the emperor's death had been natural, that it had simply been his time, could not do anything to me other than strengthen what my initial impression had been.
The emperor had been murdered by his own son. A need for power, a deep vain of suppressed anger or jealously perhaps, had cause the man to slay his father. I could see it in his eyes. To me, he seemed to be practically crying out that he was guilty. He was tainted, though he tried not to show it. I understood what he had done, however. I understood completely.
I could not find the words to express myself. The sadness, the anger, the despair, and the helplessness all seemed to fall together into a mass of emotion. I could only stare at the lifeless body of the emperor in disbelief, realizing that everything had fallen apart.
And then... Then the betrayer asked for that which I could not stand to give. He wanted my loyalty. My loyalty or my life.
I chose to walk out on him. How could I stand to become loyal to him, when I had served under the man who life he had ended with such strong dedication? He had killed the emperor because he had discovered that he was not bound to become the emperor. Now that his father had died without announcing the decision, his son was to reign. He had killed his father in cold blood, and he wanted my loyalty? It was inconceivable, it was ridiculous. How could he have expected a positive response?
I hardly believed it, but he had expected me to pledge my loyalty. He sent guards for me, to kill me. Even now this seems unreal. These were men whom I had known and worked with, and they were going to murder me. I could not bring myself to believe it fully, though I could come to accept that I had to escape.
My body, my mind has always been that of a soldier. I saved myself by killing those whom I had once been in allegiance with... Had only recently been with, in fact. There was no other way to survive, but I felt the pain all the same. I realized what it meant.
All of my plans were dead, were nothing. I was no longer a soldier, no longer on the same side I had been. I could no longer hold true to the emperor, for the new emperor was an imposter and could not be trusted to lead the people. Everything was changed, everything was backward. I had been a general, and I had become a fugitive.
I headed toward home as swiftly as I could, though the journey often seemed impossibly difficult. There were times at which I wanted to stop, times I wanted to give all of it up. Emotional pain, turmoil... It was everywhere, clouding my mind.
Through the veil of the pain, however, I could see my family. The image of the family, of my wife and son, pushed me ever onward. All I had to travel for, to live for, were the two of them. I had to reach them, forced myself to go on through whatever it was that I felt, no matter what. I needed them, and they needed me.
No good, though. I can feel my throat clenching as I remember this, as I remember the image of the smoke curling up from the grounds around my farm. I close my eyes as I remember the thoughts that entered my mind. As I saw the smoke, I realized that I was too late. The soldiers, the soldiers of an army I had been a part of, had already finished their job at the house.
I did not want to believe it. I wanted to believe that my family had somehow escaped, been missed, or perhaps been spared. Would it have been too much to hope for? I had asked them to care for my family. Was it possible that they had done so? Was it possible that they had shown the least bit of mercy?
Upon reaching the front of the house, I realized that it was not. I shudder as I reply the scene as I walked around to the front of the house, as my son and wife came into my view. I had walked around the house slowly, reluctant to see something I did not want, and then... Then I had seen it.
The pair of them, my wife and my son, had been burned and crucified. There they were, nailed to the very house they had lived in, burned by the very men they had trusted, slain on the very lands they had lived on.
I cried for them. I still cry for them. It need not have happened... After all, they were innocent. Why attack them? Why do that? I cannot think clearly at the moment. My mind is clouded by darks shadows, by veils of hazy fog. I may be crying... I cannot tell. It hurts, though. The memory, the mere memory hurts. I cannot say any more of it.
Suffice it to say that I found that I could not go on. Now that my family was gone, I had nothing. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. My paths had been closed off and, anyway, there seemed to be no point to anything. All meaning seemed to have departed with my family.
I passed out at some point, though I do not remember when. Not that it matters. Time ceased to exist for me, as everything else did, for some time after I returned to find my home in ruins, to find that the two I had cared for most had been taken.
Upon awakening, I found myself in the company of those I am abiding with currently. I was picked up by a slave trader and sold as a slave to another man. From general to slave... I still laugh inside at the thought. It really is not very funny. I simply have no other way of taking it.
Now I am a slave, an article. They call me simply the Spaniard. I refuse to speak to them. I see no point in it. The others around me, those I see walking about, are slaves as well. We are all doomed to die, for we are slaves of an unlucky sort. Or perhaps lucky, depending on the point of view. I suppose there are worse ways of life. Or of death... Perhaps.
We shall be made to fight. For us, there are two choices, fight or die. Or, perhaps, three. Fight and live, fight and die, or die, though the chance to fight and win is not our own. If we can hold our own, we shall survive, only to fight again. Endless fighting. Battling over and over and over, all to enter yet another match. Always with the crowd screaming at you, always with the constant threat of death in an arena. We shall tolerate it, however. We shall fight or die, because we are gladiators.
I sit against this wall, wondering. Is there any point? Is there any reason? My family is waiting for me in the after life. I yearn to see them, and there seems to be nothing here, yet...
Yet I remember what I was told by the true emperor. I remember that he had a dream, that he knew that Rome could be great again. I remember believing that it is possible and, at times, I wonder if it still is.
Even as I think this, I begin to scrape the insignia off of my arm. SPQR. I watch, feeling no pain, as the blood drips down from the raw skin, as the letters disappear under the blade. There will be no mark of the army, no mark of the false emperor. Simply a scar, one that will remain with me forever.
Perhaps there is hope for Rome. The true Rome, the glorious Rome. I do not know how to come about it, but I can remember that there is hope, and maybe, maybe some day...
I, Maximus, will remember what I am, who I am, and will fight for what I believe.