The Winner

The Winner

Although Macrus was shocked and furious, he had neither the ability to stop the people in the stands from blindly egging things on nor the courage to step forward and interfere with Commodus's decision. All he could do was sit in the stands, glaring furiously.

All he could do now was hope Commodus would be fair and take his losses into consideration. After all, he still owned Zhang Heng. He had merely loaned one of his gladiators to the Flavian Amphitheatre for a performance. Although the organizer of a gladiatorial show had the right to decide whether a gladiator lived or died, and whether to grant a gladiator freedom, compensation had to be paid to the gladiator's school afterward.

The question was, how should Zhang Heng be priced now?

In Macrus's eyes, Zhang Heng was priceless. After Sisnatas—no, in all of Roman history—he was the strongest gladiator. How much was someone like that worth?

But that was only Macrus's own view. Normally, compensation was determined by the price paid when the gladiator was purchased, with the length of his career taken into account as well. Unfortunately, Zhang Heng had very little in both respects.

According to Gabi, buying Zhang Heng had only cost an average price, and that was because he was an Easterner. His career length was even worse. Zhang Heng had risen too quickly, going from an unknown nobody to a household name almost overnight. By that standard, even if Commodus was generous and freed Zhang Heng, he would only need to compensate Macrus a few thousand Sestertii.

But that would leave Macrus suffering a catastrophic loss. Even conservatively speaking, Zhang Heng could bring the arena more than thirty thousand gold coins in revenue each year. Even if he only fought for three years, that would