When I reached the outlaws' camp I was careful to let them do most of the talking and to wait for the talk to come round to the subject of the beast-caravans. I had not long to wait, and, when I expressed my amazement and curiosity, they showed no reluctance about informing me. Bulla himself explained that Commodus had become so interested in beast-fighting, had developed such transcendent skill at fighting beasts and had grown so infatuated with the sport that he spent most of his time in the arena, displaying his dexterity to invited audiences composed of senators, nobles, notabilities and their wives and even children; in which exhibitions he had killed so many creatures that he had not only depleted but had almost exhausted the normal reserves constantly kept at Rome, Ostia and the other Tiber ports. When the procurators in charge of the supplies of beasts for the arena realized that the Emperor was killing his victims faster than they normally were brought in, even lavishly as they had always been provided, they sent out orders urging greatly increased efforts at hunting, capturing, caring for and rapidly transporting all sorts of creatures destined for the Colosseum. The Emperor's killing capacity and love of enjoying and exhibiting his knack so outran their measures that, by the time the increased supply began to come in, the royal sportsman's unerrancy and swiftness outran their best results, so that hasty messages had to be sent to Marseilles, Aquileia, Byzantium, Antioch and Alexandria ordering the instant despatch to Rome, with the utmost speed, regardless of expense, not only of all newly captured beasts as they came in, in contravention of the long-established regulations by which Rome and the provincial capitals shared each variety of animal, but also the concurrent despatch of the local reserves, even the emptying of the beast despositories attached to each amphitheatre. As the voyage from Aquileia to Rome was of variable duration, owing to the uncertainty and shiftiness of the winds, orders had been given to forward all its reserves and supplies, at once, overland. Hence the spectacle which had so excited the countryside and so amazed me. As Commodus was still slaughtering all sorts of beasts daily not only with arrows and spears, to show off his accuracy as a marksman but, even with sword or club, to display his incredible swiftness of movement and unerrancy in directing and timing a blow, he was taxing the capacities of his procurators and their gigantic organization of transports, teams, detention-pens, and hunters merely to stave off the apparently inevitable day when, whatever might run wild in the deserts, forests and mountains, there would be, at Rome, far too few beasts to maintain the autocrat's daily sport. When I expressed my astonishment at the certainty with which these explanations were uttered and my wonder as to how they came to be so sure, Bulla said: