The Danger at Midday: Death Threats in the Apocalypse 13 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life (3,10). The text makes a combination of suffering, imprisonment, 10 days of hardship, death threat and crowning. It is a cluster of successive happenings which is to be understood from what happens at the midday intermission at the munera: namely the public execution of convicts of low social status who had been condemned ad bestias, ad flammas (or ad gladium). For this to be understood, I have first to go still more extensively into what we know of what happens during this midday break. 4. The meridiani a) Description I would like to begin with the expressive description of it which is to be found in Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 7: By chance I attended a mid-day exhibition, expecting some fun, wit, and relaxation, — an exhibition at which men’s eyes have respite from the slaughter of their fellow-men. But it was quite the reverse. The previous combats were the essence of compassion; but now all trifling is put aside and it is pure murder. The men have no defensive armour. They are exposed to blows at all points, and no one ever strikes in vain. Many persons prefer this programme to the usual pairs and to the bouts “by requests”. Of course they do; there is no helmet or shield to deflect the weapon. What is the need of defensive armour, or of skill? All these mean delaying death. In the morning they throw men to the lions and the bears; at noon, they throw them to the spectators. The spectators demand that the slayer shall face the man who is to slay him in his turn; and they always reserve the latest conqueror for another butchering. The outcome of every fight is death, and the means are fire and sword. This sort of things goes on while the arena is empty. You may retort: “But he was a highway robber; he killed a man!” And what of it… In the morning they cried ‘Kill him! Lash him! Burn him…and when the games stop for the intermission, they announce: ‘A little throat-cutting in the meantime, so that there may still be something going on!’(40) The description of Seneca is not quite typical. What it is about here is pretty well a man-to-man fight in which the condemned, because he is unarmed, does not have the ghost of a chance. From mosaics and a (40) See especially BARTON, The Gladiator and the Monster, 16-25.