Gladiator

Chapter 12 Home, At Last 
The games had ended. 
The Colosseum was empty and silent as Juba walked across the 
sand. Juba, now dressed in his African clothes, was a free man
again. And soon he was going home. 
He still heard one voice in the arena, though. He heard
Maximus, the great fighter, asking about his home in Africa and 
talking to him about his own home in Spain. 
Juba moved to the center of the arena and found the exact
place he was looking for: a small area of blood on the sand. He 
dropped to his knees and made a little hole in the ground. He
took something from his pocket—the small wooden figures of 
Maximus’s wife and son. 
He carefully put them in the hole and covered them with the
earth that carried their loved one’s blood. Now it would be easier
for them to find each other in the next world. 
“Now
 
we are free,” he said loudly, looking around at the
empty, silent arena. “This place will become dust, but I will not
forget you.” 
He stood above the place where Maximus had died. “I will see
you again,” he said to his friend. He smiled the wide smile that he
had smiled for Maximus in life and would soon smile for his own
wife and daughters. “But not yet.” 
He walked slowly out of the arena, looking back just once at
the place, as the wind blew red flowers across the killing ground. 

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ACTIVITIES 
Chapters 1-3
Before you read
1
Find the word empire in your dictionary. Was your country once