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hands. See with what despairing courage he offers his painted 
body to his well-armed foe; see him at length, amid the yells of 
the spectators, stretched bleeding on the turf, “butchered to make 
a Roman holiday,’—on that very sward where now romp our 
‘young barbarians all at play.” ‘Truly, if ghosts ever walk, the 
peaceful slopes of that field should witness some gruesome sights, 
and the householders of Camp Road, looking from their windows 
on some moonlight night, might hear horrid sounds, and see 
strange spectres, as the wraithes of captives and gladiators haunt 
the field where they last struggled in death. ‘There is nothing 
new under the sun. What has been shall be again, when the 
wheel of time and fortune has revolved. Who shall say that the 
past never returns when English sailors are at exercise on the 
very slopes that were trodden by the legions of Rome, when our 
coastguard still watch the shores once held by Spanish and 
Dalmatian auxiliaries, when the cannon of Victoria sound over the 
Solway from the ramparts of a fortress of Agricola? More than 
that, on the very spot where the youth of bygone Glanoventa raced 
and wrestled and fought, the children of modern Maryport play 
cricket and football—and sometimes fight! Even the perilous 
sports of the gladiators there are paralleled by the dangers of the 
gymnasium and giant-stride. One thing further is still wanting : 
but perhaps before long our local bands may discourse sweet music 
to a peaceful people from that historic mound where Agrippa 
or Constantius once stood beneath the Roman eagles, to watch 
the sports and direct the drill of the legions that garrisoned 
Glanoventa. 
