The Duellists

My father and I were due to face each other in yet another conflict. It would be a different kind of battle. His will. His intention. My ‘derriere’ (my backside).

There was a time in history, and I do not doubt that various versions of it still occur today, where a person whose honour was slighted or disrespected, would elect to challenge another. To challenge one, who had affronted, insulted, abused or caused embarrassment to that person to a duel. A form of formal combat, usually with choice of weapons, between two people, in front of witnesses, to settle a quarrel, or point of honour. In history it has been written that such duels often occurred between great warriors and famous persons.

There was a time, when two armies would face each other in battle readiness. Prepared to fight and die (not all of them I am quite sure), on the agreed battlefield.  Even that, is a sign of the way battles used to differ, from battles which are fought today. In ancient times it appears, a battlefield could be chosen in agreement (by those at the top of the food chain as it were, who probably wouldn’t actually be at the battle?), usually ahead of time.  The two armies would gather and move to the agreed location. Then often, prior to the main conflict, two ‘champions’ would face off against each other as representing their individual armies. It may have been a fight to the death or, to submission. This may on occasion, have decided the outcome and prevented a full battle, but in ancient times, more often, it would likely be seen as a sign or display of the ‘Gods’ favour, towards one side or the other. Though this would be more for the morale of the soldiers, than any actual proof I’m sure.

Significant single battles have become ‘the stuff of legends. Recall the famous Sunday school lesson, of the battle between David of the Israelites army, and Goliath of the Philistine army (The basis for one of my mothers favourite phrases, ‘You bunch of Philistines’), in the Valley of Elah. And we all know how that one ended, after a forty-day wait between the two armies (Strange how often the bible uses forty days as a waiting period for things? Wandering in deserts, the rain falling for the Ark, the wait on the Mount Sinai to receive the commandments. Could someone have done the translations incorrectly? Or did they just pick a convenient time period?). Another famous duel from the period was that of Achilles’ clashes with both Ajax and Hector in Homer’s Iliad .

This continued through the early Roman periods, and the famous ‘Gladitorial’ schools of the empire, where representatives fought for the ‘honour of the ludos’ or against a champion of an opposing town or province, in the spectacle of the ‘games’. Where public opinion could support a single fighter, or scream for his destruction. (Not quite as honourable?)

  (Continued tomorrow)