"Ah, Bacchus!
It is indeed a pleasure to see you again, my friend!
And what have you brought with you to entertain us with this day?"
"A pair of female slaves, Marcus!"
"And a most admirable pair they appear to be, Bacchus!"
"For such praise I give thee thanks, my good fellow!"
"What prize do you offer that tempts the women to fight one another?"
"Freedom, Marcus!
An Amazon values her freedom even more than life itself!"
"Does any one of them ever attained the goal and gained her release, Bacchus?"
"Oh, yes! As a matter of fact, it happens quite often!"
"Does it? When was the last Amazon released?"
"Well, now! Let me see! It must have been ... Seven? Eight? No ... Nine!"
"Nine years since the last warrior was released?"
"Regretably ... Yes! I said it occurred quite frequently, did I not?"
"Whatever became of her?"
"I understand that she was taken down by those who lay in ambush one dark night!"
"It was said at the time that she was disposed of as a precautionary measure
by those who felt that it was simply too dangerous to have her loosed upon society!"
"These two ladies are giving us quite a show in their own right! Are they not?"
"It pleases me that you should say so, my friend!"
"What prevents either one of them from cutting the tie that binds them together?"
"Nothing whatever as a matter of fact!"
"But these women have their own code of ethics, you see!"
"And running from a fight is simply not something that any one of them has ever shown any inclination to do ..."
"And besides which ...
My archers would leave each of them bristling with arrows before they got clear of the arena!"
"Which provides each of them no small incentive to attend to the business at hand, I'm sure!"
"Ah!
At last!
Now watch this!
She's well positioned for a clean thrust to the belly!"
"I was wondering what purpose could hope to be served by those small cuts each applied to the other?"
"Well, my friend!
One must always bear in mind that these are not the days of Rome in her former glory!"
"Need you remind me, Bacchus?"
"Sadly, It would seem that I must!"
"For the Glory that was Rome did much to provide a simple man of business such as myself with the hundreds ..."
"Hundreds - if not thousands of slaves such as these two we see before us ..."
"Oh! What a body!
Did you take heed of that thrust, Bacchus?"
"But of course, Marcus!
I am pleased to say that little gets by me ...
Even though I of course have seen much the same sort of thing many hundreds of times now
over the course of my long and no-doubt illustrious career!"
"But as I was saying, Marcus ...
Do you not pine for those long ago days of yore when the crowds at my circus would slaver over the spectacle ..."
"Of dozens - if indeed not hundreds of females all slaughtering one another at one time!"
"Why ... The very street around the coliseum literally ran with blood!"
"Do you want my honest opinion, Bacchus?"
"Of course, Marcus! Why else would I ask?"
"Well frankly, Bacchus ...
I prefer the more ...
how should I say?
Intimate affairs that you have provided for us here!"
"It is kind of you to say so, Marcus! Most kind!"
"It is but the truth, nonetheless!"
"But how can this be?
I mean ...
After the sight of the simultaneous slaughter of hundreds ..."
"Isn't this that I am able to provide these days something of a letdown?"
"Perhaps there are some who might consider it so, Bacchus ..."
"But I for one have come to prefer it thus ..."
"You do, Marcus? How so?"
"Because of the intimacy of the affair!"
"Here because there are but two opponents I am less likely to miss the reactions that come with each thrust of a blade!"
"Every cry of alarm -
every painful grunt -
"Otherwise, such individual details are lost to the spectator in a veritable welter of struggling bodies ..."
"Because he dare not concentrate too closely upon any one contest
for fear of missing another that was taking place in another part of the arena!"
"Well said, Marcus!
For which I must most humbly thank you!"
"Of course that being said,
I must confess - as you may have noticed yourself -
that the crowds in the theater are not of the magnitude that they were in happier times ..."
"Ah, yes! Of course!
And so too neither is the revenue quite what it once was I would suppose ..."
"But then ,,,
Killing in a controlled environment is not quite the novelty that is once was is it, Bacchus?"
"A Novelty?
Perhaps not ...
I prefer to think of it as a necessity!"
"A necessity ...
Now there is a thought ..."
"Do you mean as in one who has taken to drink - or perhaps to narcotics?"
"Perhaps not quite to that extent, Marcus ..."
"But after all - "fans" are but an abridgement of "fanatics", are they not?"
"Afficionado or Devotee are terms that I would prefer to use in reference to myself, my friend!"
"So tell me, Bacchus!
Now that the battle is over and the contestants are basking in their never-ending afterglow of death ..."
"This was now fight at all in the true sense of the word!"
"It was not?"
"Certainly not!
It more closely resembled a demonstration of 'I'll stab yours - and you stab mine!'
It was no true contest at all!"
"Are you complaining, Marcus?"
"No ... Not really ..."
"But I would wonder at the motives behind it that is all ..."
"Well, Marcus! In truth, the women are given certain options ..."
"They are the ones that will be doing the dying, after all ..."
"So if they should choose to stand there and thrust knives into one another ..."
"Are there any among the audience who have any complaint?"
"Bare Breasts and Blood is what they paid to see ..."
"And a full measure of each is what they have received!"
