Although it was long before midmorning, the students had been out for hours upon the sands, learning and practicing the high art and science of killing other men. The sand burned up through the soles of their sandals, and greedily sucked in the sweat that dripped from their taut faces. Some of the students lifted and manipulated weights designed by Quintus Gaius himself to develop the particular arm and shoulder muscles necessary for sword fighting. Pairs of wrestlers strove against each other, grunting and panting in the tense struggle. Runners sped around die track that encircled the arena and leaped over hurdles. New students, those eventually to be designated as tirones, who had yet to fight their first duel in earnest, practiced with wooden swords. The tirones themselves, those who had passed beyond the fundamental wooden sword stage, used blunt, lead-weighted swords twice as heavy as the regulation type to practice cuts and parries against thick wooden poles set upright in the sand.
