Something feels different for Spiculus as he awakens in the cold dark cells beneath the Great Circus. The harsh oppression of being a slave fighter feels the same. The people around him feel the same. Yet something is inexplicably different as he gets prepared for another fight as an arena combatant.
He has beaten countless foes in the blood-soaked sand, even triumphed over some well-known names, yet it is all he can do just to stay alive down here.
Perhaps today will be the day he finds himself, earns his penance, or finally begins to understand these strange powers he cannot control. Whatever the outcome, he knows one thing for certain: death awaits someone in the pits tonight.
Something feels different for Spiculus as he awakens in the cold dark cells beneath the Great Circus. The harsh oppression of being a slave fighter feels the same. The people around him feel the same. Yet something is inexplicably different as he gets prepared for another fight as an arena combatant.
He has beaten countless foes in the blood-soaked sand, even triumphed over some well-known names, yet it is all he can do just to stay alive down here.
Perhaps today will be the day he finds himself, earns his penance, or finally begins to understand these strange powers he cannot control. Whatever the outcome, he knows one thing for certain: death awaits someone in the pits tonight.
This time was different. Even as those haunting green eyes faded away into fuzzy memory and the familiar sight of stirring bodies came into focus, Spiculus knew something was different.
People awoke all around him at the beckoning call of a guard banging on the crude iron bars. Some men got up quickly, while others took their time as the morning haze wore off.
It wasn’t uncommon for some to get no sleep the night before an event; it was less common to get a full night’s sleep. One or two even remained sleeping while unconsciously fighting their own invisible nightmares. Most arose, though, their sullen faces dimly lit in the dark underground cells.
Spiculus tried his best to recapture that memory before it truly faded away. He knew it was special, maybe even important, but the only thing that lingered in his mind was the sight of those eyes.
An arm gently tapped him from behind—Blaesus’s silent way of alerting him that he was leaving their back-to-back sleeping position. Spiculus knew the guards weren’t patient and would often throw small stones at anyone who slept through the morning.
The quiet murmur of different languages slowly filled the room as groups of people clumped together. Spiculus watched as some of them stretched out their tired, sore backs, and others grabbed their modest clothes, which had been used as pillows, off the floor and put them back on.
As was the unspoken rule down here, Spiculus made sure not to let his wandering eyes linger on any one person for too long. He found it surprisingly easy when it came to Aula, the only female in the cells, because she made it a point never to be caught undressed in the crowded room. They met eyes for only a moment before quickly disengaging again.
The anxiety in the room gingerly rose like an invisible cloud that exuded different tones and accents. The stone walls thrummed with energy at the prospect of the coming hours.
People coped differently with the fear: some acted nervously, while others grew silent. Some jittered about while others could barely stop vomiting up their nearly empty stomachs. Spiculus was a jitterer.
His hands shook with anticipation of what was to come. The undeniable reality of his immediate future brought with it a unique mixture of panic and excitement. Horrid sights beyond true description or the bleak threat of nothingness awaited everyone in a little while, but Spiculus thought he was the only one who felt a hint of excitement.
As he braced his hand against the cold dirt floor to rise, he found a separate hand awaiting him in the air. He seized Comulous’s large forearm and allowed it to yank him to his feet.
Comulous was a giant man, easily one of the largest in the room, with short black hair and a large, crooked nose. His flat face affirmed Spiculus’s assumption that nobody else harbored any excitement in this grim place.
“Them interest,” he said in his usual broken Latin, pointing up to the wooden ceiling.
Indeed, as he mentioned it, the quiet reverberation of feet and yelling shook through the air. A feeling one could almost miss after spending enough time around it.
“Them interest,” Spiculus confirmed warmly after patting the man on the arm. He appreciated the chance to speak Latin with him or anyone down in these pits, and the man’s awkward Latin was slowly becoming passable from all their brief conversations.
Comulous was one of the few people down here with no group close enough that he would trust. Spiculus had inadvertently managed to earn the respect or ire of everyone down here, which somehow also made him comfortable to the odd folks out.
From behind him came the gentle tap of Blaesus to notify him that something was happening. He glanced to see Aula exiting her crouched wall position as she calmly walked over to join their group. Her short blond hair was stuck in a cowlick from the uncomfortable way she’d elected to sleep during the night.
“Niqiit,” she mumbled in her thick Germanic accent. Her Latin was so terrible that she couldn’t communicate meaningfully. The four of them could only manage to convey ideas through gestures rather than words. “Niqiit,” he believed, was her word for “hello.”
It struck Spiculus that the only thing the four of them had in common was how little they had in common. Each had short hair, which was simply a by-product of being sent down here. All heads were shaved when they first arrived, and few had had the chance to grow it back out. As it stood, Spiculus had the longest hair in the room.
Against the far wall, a newer man finally succumbed to nerves and retched what little food remained in his stomach onto the floor and his tattered clothes. The smell was barely noticeable against the overwhelming putridity of the cells, but the act itself started a chain reaction from anyone who had been barely resisting the urge.
The two guards placed on the outside of the forged iron bars simply turned their backs to the tortured group. This was nothing new to them or anyone inside the cell. Nerves and fear did different things to people. Some broke while others hardened.
It wasn’t long before the guards opened the cell door, however. A sign that everyone was meant to walk down toward the preparation room.
Calmly, everyone slowly started funneling in through the curved hallway made of aged wood. Slits in the wood planks of the ceiling barely lit the way. Small holes near the top of the room on the outer walls showed curious children peering down and the bustling feet of a crowd walking by. The noise remained barely noticeable against the drum of footsteps overhead.
The hallway eventually opened into a harsh square room coated with sand and years upon years of dried blood. Strewn across the floor were loose collections of body armor. Each had a hint of what must have been coloring, though worn away over years of heavy use. The different armor pieces were all decorated slightly to reflect a character or nationality.
Appius Claudius Pulcher stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by his armed guards. The stark contrast between their polished, unused armor and weapons and the tattered equipment littered across the room added an extra layer of oppression and superiority.
Appius wasn’t an evil man, but he was unequivocally the law here. His black beard remained neatly trimmed at all times, and while his toga wasn’t opulent, nor was it plain. He stood with an air of confidence, as though nobody in the room could possibly pose a danger to him, as though nobody could ever try.
He never spoke to the group directly; there wasn’t much of a point, given the lack of proper spoken Latin among everyone. Instead, he would simply lean over and tell his guards who wore what, and they would carry the instructions out. In this, Spiculus was a rarity.
“Spiculus, you and Aula are to be murmillo, Blaesus is a retiarius, and Comulous a secutor. You’re up first, so get dressed fast,” Appius barked out with an impassive smile. He wasn’t an evil man, but he was here for a single reason, and so were they.
Everyone else started gathering their assigned armor types and grouping together while the four of them pushed their way to the front.
A few unlit torches adorned the center columns while hundreds of wooden cracks exposed the outside sunlight. The room had another door made of wood and iron, heavier than the last. The room’s only aperture had heavy rusted iron bars with closed wooden shutters on the outside.
Each of them gathered the sparse, old, worn armor that belonged to the character they would be playing. This would be the third time fighting together, and it was amazing how quickly the four of them had fallen into a rhythm. Each strapped on whatever hardened leather vambraces or pauldron they could reach alone before helping the others with the lacings on their chest armor.
The guards spoke a little amongst themselves while they waited. Some made bets while others made quick snapping comments at anyone who took too long getting armored up.
Small individual groups of people spoke in a variety of hushed unique dialects that made understanding them impossible for anyone else. Above all was the shuffling of leather on fabric and metallic clinks.
Even among those who shared a common language, conversation was short—Latin being among the rarest.
Spiculus had stopped trying to learn faces or names; there was no point. The only three people he bothered to remember stood next to him, and even that was likely to end sooner rather than later. It was a harsh reality but an earned one.
Soon enough, the two guards who stood sentry near the heavier door opened it to allow the four of them to pass on alone. The room beyond widened rapidly toward a forty-foot gate with two large wooden swinging doors.
The din of shouting and cheering grew loudest here.
This room had the heaviest consignment of guards. Eight heavily armored men stood near both sets of doors with swords drawn and shields ready. Along the walls were racks and stands adorned with old dented, rusted-looking weapons. Tridents with bent forks and swords with gouges so deep that a thumb could be cradled safely inside. The fighters were trusted to hold a weapon in this room, but only under careful guard.
Spiculus watched as his three companions approached the wall to retrieve the weapons assigned to their armored costumes. Aula with a buckle shield and gladius, Comulous with a large tower shield and larger gladius, and Blaesus with a trident and net.
In this instance, Spiculus was once again allowed special treatment. A large armored guard carefully extended a curved-looking sword-and-battle-ax combination. A weapon so foreign and strange that only a fool would use it.
He still remembered the first time they’d led him into this room. The swell of fifteen other bodies moving about to grab a weapon fast. The panic he felt after grabbing the first sword he could find and realizing it was unfamiliar. The laughter from the guards as they released him, certain he was never to return. Their surprise when he did, and the strange murmurs that surrounded him from then on.
That same weapon now clung to his hand, saved for him at the request of Appius. It wasn’t a perfect weapon; it had dents and rust, but it had somehow become iconic to him. He had survived so much with it. This khopesh had kept him alive even when so many others had fallen.
The buckler shield was no different than Aula’s, but it had somehow been adopted into the same ritual as the sword. They were familiar to him, and his jittering nerves almost started to relax when he held them.
A horn blew in the not-too-far-off distance, signaling for the guards near the large wooden gates to swing them open.
As that blinding light streaked through the opening, time seemed to stop for only a moment. The smell of blood, the shouts of people, the pounding of blood in his ears, and even the taste of bile all slipped away for just a breath.
That breath came crashing back down hard when Comulous let out a primal roar. He was a powerful and imposing figure in that armor. Without pause, he ran through the gate and toward the opposite side of the arena.
It was an honor to be the opening fight, and the crowd reciprocated it. The stands might thin out over time, and even the emperor might grow bored and abscond with his large entourage. Yet the first fight was one people remembered.
Some fights were modeled after battles, where one side was destined to win. Some fights were glorified executions of prisoners. Some fights were battles with beasts. The first fight, however, the opening fight, was a simple fight. It was a fight between two of the best teams—a fight to the death.
Spiculus stood there waiting. Each moment in time stretched out as he waited to see what would happen—the deep, rapid shouts of Comulous. His own blood beating in his ears, drowning out the crowd. The warm rush pounding in his head.
His hands started shaking before another slower rush began. A colder rush. A beating that had always been there, but one he only became aware of when it began to pick up. The cold rhythmic pounding of a second heart.
Title: Condemned
Author: Brette Wolfe
Format: Advanced Reader Copy (E-book)
Start Date: 03/05/2025
Finish Date: 18/05/2025
Summary: Day in and day out, Spiculus fights in the Great Circus. All he’s allowed is worn armour and a rusted weapon, yet he always feels the deaths. Why he has this power, he doesn’t know. Perhaps today is the day he finally understands it?
Review: Wolfe’s Condemned is like Nero’s Rome novelized and combined with Darksiders: The Abomination Vault in the subtleness of its magics. Spiculus is a simple man who finds himself unexpectedly thrust from the depths of the slave pit to the heights of the Imperial palace. Spiculus has to figure out a whole new way of life; he has the trust of the Emperor and more Denarri then he can ever spend.
Locusta of Gaul is a noble of Nero’s court, and a teacher of alchemy to all who wish to learn. Spiculus and Locusta regularly butt heads and become friends despite their different opinions about Nero. I find their friendship wonderful and a nice change of pace where others would have made it a romance. I do wish there would’ve been more interactions between Nero and Pythagoras.
Also, how Spiculus and Nero influence Rome’s politics together is as smooth as could be and fits seamlessly into Rome’s real history. Here and there are a few minor spelling errors but they’re easy to forgive with the nuances of Wolfe’s prose. The only criticism to level would be that while the ending fits, I feel that it could have used fleshing out to not seem as abrupt.
Recommendation: I fully recommend Wolfe’s Condemned if you’re a fan of in-depth historical fiction. I love the simpleness of Spiculus’ family’s home and the contrasting opulence of Nero’s palace. The tiny detail of Roman nobles eating dolphin is a nice inclusion, although I admit I hadn’t heard of dolphin meatballs before this. If you want to live in Ancient Rome for a day, I encourage you to pick this up as soon as possible.