The first gladiator indeed went down with a pierced neck, but the next instant Falto was beside him, atoning for his stupid folly, the whole side of his head cleft away by a stroke from a Gallic long-sword.
"One rush and we have the old man surrounded," exhorted Dumnorix, when only Pausanias barred the way.
There was a growl and a bound, and straight at the foremost attacker flew Argos, Mamercus's great British mastiff, who had silently slipped on to the scene.

The assailant fell with the dog's fangs in his throat.

Again the gladiators recoiled, and before they could return to the charge, back into the peristylium rushed Drusus, escaped from Cappadox, with that worthy and Mago and Agias, just released, at his heels.
"Here's your man!" cried Gabinius, who still kept discreetly in the rear.
"Freedom and ten _sestertia_[117] to the one who strikes Drusus down," called Dumnorix, feeling that at last the game was in his hands.
[117] About $400.
But Mamercus had made of his young patron an apt pupil.

All the fighting blood of the great Livian house, of the consulars and triumphators, was mantling in Drusus's veins, and he threw himself into the struggle with the deliberate courage of an experienced warrior.

His short-sword, too, found its victims; and across Falto's body soon were piled more.