Roman Fest in Trier: Part II

Did you catch what I did there?  That’s right, used Roman numerals.  I’m cool like that.  ;)

Anyhoo, let’s see what went on at the gladiator show, shall we?  After the teaser photos yesterday, I’m sure you do.  The show had a storyline about 7 scrolls that foretold the fate of Rome, but somehow ended up in Trier in the hands of the slave Antigones and how other Romans were trying to get them from him.  The story was of course all in German, so I didn’t get the jokes, but I understood enough to follow the story.  Or most of it anyway.  Antigones had to fight in the gladiator battles and ended up victorious. 

At first we figured all this was scripted and would look just as phony as wrestling (BTW, if you haven’t seen The Wrestler, you should.  It is fan-freaking-tastic), but these guys were getting seriously banged up.  There were paramedics on standby just off to our left (we were at the far end of the stands) and they were patching these guys up left and right.  Bloodied noses, gashes, black eyes, you name it.  Holy cow!

This is how I’d like to travel; in a sedan chair carried by 4 nubile young men.  Think of how little it would impact the environment.

This is where the original seats would have been, built into the hillside, but our stands were directly in the arena.  Isn’t it lovely?

The heck with scenery.  Let’s get back to the fighting! 

After some more story and preliminary battles to get the crowd warmed up, the empress reappeared (again with the awesome mode of transport) and the maid gladiators. 

Oh, you know they got sand in places!

 

 

After these battles, our intrepid hero, Antigones, is brought in to fight the hottie I showed you yesterday.  Remember him?  Want a refresher anyway?  Sure you do.  He’s the “bad guy".”

                         

He and Antigones fight. With FIRE! 

Somehow Antigones wins. I’m not buying it.  Did you look at that guy?  Have another peek (you want to, don’t deny it):

After this, the storyline gets weird and murky and I had a hard time following it.  Probably because the words were not common words I would use in German.  It involved Poseidon, and Jupiter, and a weird bird man and a fire wheel.  And we never quite figured out what happened to the scrolls.  They got burned (that was fairly simple to figure out) but the reason behind that was unclear.  It was an awesome show though (2 and a half hours!) and we enjoyed every minute of it.  I can totally understand how the Romans got into it as a blood sport.  I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it had there been actual blood (other than the cuts and scrapes they were getting by beating up on each other), but I have a sneaking suspicion that I might.  Scary to admit, but there you have it.

M told me he was not going to let this show be ruined by a comment that I made a while back while he was watching ultimate fighting or something stupid like that.  I told him it was incredibly homo-erotic, what with 2 almost naked, sweaty men grabbing all over each other.   He hasn’t been able to watch it sense (pity, that). 

Oh, and after the show, the actors were down in the arena signing autographs and taking photos.  Of course Indy had to have his photo taken with them.  Here are a few:

He was so excited!  After this we walked back towards town, had a gellato (heaven) and I snapped some photos of the city in the twilight and we piled back into our cars (kid free for the ladies again!) and headed home.

I hope you enjoyed traveling with us!