Ships were accordingly built, and an immense number of men were designated and set apart for fighting the battle. These men consisted of convicts and prisoners of war--men whom it was, in those days, considered perfectly just and right to employ in killing one another for the amusement of the emperor and his guests. A sort of bulwark was built all around the shore, and the emperor's guards were stationed upon it, to prevent the escape of the combatants, and to turn them back to their duty if any of them should attempt, when pressed hard in the battle, to escape to the land. The fleet of galleys was divided into two antagonistic portions, and the men in each were armed completely, as in a case of actual war. At the appointed time, hundreds of thousands of people assembled from all the surrounding country to see the sight. They lined the shores on every side, and crowned all the neighboring heights. The contest, of course, might be waged with all the fury and fatal effect of a real battle without endangering the spectators at all, as there were in those days no flying bullets, or other swift-winged missiles, like those which in modern times take so wide a range beyond the limits of the battle. The deadly effect of all that was done in an ancient combat was confined of course to those immediately engaged. Then there was, besides, nothing to intercept the vision. No smoke was raised to obscure the view, but the atmosphere above and around the combatants remained as pure and transparent at the end of the combat as at the beginning. A real battle was accordingly regarded by the Romans as the most sublime and imposing of spectacles, and hundreds of thousands of spectators flocked to witness the one which Claudius arranged for them on the Fucine lake. He himself presided, dressed in a coat of mail; and Agrippina sat by his side, clothed in a magnificent robe, which the historian states was woven from threads of gold, without the admixture of any other material. The signal was given, and the battle was commenced. There was some difficulty experienced, as usual in such cases, in getting the men to engage, but they became sufficiently ferocious at last to satisfy all the spectators, and thousands were slain. At length the emperor gave orders that the battle should cease, and the survivors were informed that their lives were spared. It was fortunate, on the whole, for Claudius, that he did not rely wholly on the simple drawing off of the water from the lake for the amusement of the immense assemblage that he had convened, for it was found, when, after the close of the battle, the canal was opened, that the water would not run. The engineers had made some mistake in their measurements or their calculations, and had left the bed of the canal in some part of its course too high, so that the water, when the sluices were opened, instead of flowing off into the river to which the canal was intended to conduct it, remained quietly in the lake as before.