CHAPTER I
ARLES, FRANCE
THE TUNNEL UNDER THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATER in Arles, France, is dark and cool. The shade is a welcome relief from the blazing Mediterranean sun beating down on the amphitheater’s sand-strewn arena and stone bleachers.
The gladiator helmet I’ve just put on, though, is stifling. A replica of the head protection worn by a Roman gladiator almost 2,000 years ago, the dented, scratched helmet weighs more than 13 pounds—three times as heavy as a football helmet, and far less comfortable. It has a tangy metallic smell, as though I’ve put my head inside a sweaty penny.
Through the bronze grate covering my eyes, I can make out a pair of men in loincloths warming up for a fight. Metal armguards jingle as one bounces on the balls of his feet, his stubby, hooked sword clutched in a leather-gloved hand. As I shift uncomfortably, his partner lifts his sword and offers to hit me in the head, just to demonstrate how solid the helmet is.
I shrug. Anything for a story, right? Then their trainer, a deeply tanned, wiry Frenchman named Brice Lopez, intervenes. “He’s not trained for it,” Lopez says sharply. “He doesn’t have the muscles. You’d snap his neck.”
A former French police officer and combat trainer with a black belt in jujitsu, Lopez knows what a real fight looks like. Twenty-seven years ago he took a detour into ancient fighting styles. After commissioning working replicas of gladiator weapons and armor, he spent years thinking about how they’d be used in a fight to the death like the ones portrayed in countless movies and books about gladiators.
Denne historien er fra June 2021-utgaven av National Geographic Magazine India.
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Denne historien er fra June 2021-utgaven av National Geographic Magazine India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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