Why are some people almost instantly forgotten when they have gone, while others cling on, embedding themselves so deeply into our culture that we’re still studying them, psychoanalysing them, writing about their life, death and achievements, even depicting them in films, millennia after they’re gone? The emperor Nero was particularly enamoured with him when he sensed that his own murder was imminent, he requested that Spiculus do the honours instead. Or how about the celebrity gladiator Spiculus, who roamed the amphitheatres of ancient Rome. The verses were so enchanting, one Athenian lawmaker said he felt that once he’d heard them, he could die. There’s the Greek poet Sappho, whose steamy verses titillated audiences for much of antiquity. The steady march of time has left many other similar casualties in its wake – people who have risen to dizzying heights of fame only to be largely forgotten. He’s still well known to history buffs and boxing obsessives – but to the rest of us, he needs an introduction.
One hundred and fifty two years on, his reputation has turned to dust. The cemetery descended into chaos as people climbed trees and trampled tombstones, hoping for a better view. When he died a few years later, the funeral procession stretched for two miles and included some 100,000 people. Even the Prime Minister of the day, Lord Palmerston attended Parliament shortened its hours especially and Queen Victoria asked to be informed of the result. Special trains were chartered to transport the spectators, who included fellow Victorian superstars like the novelists Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. His final match, which he fought largely one-handed in a Hampshire field, was watched by thousands. This was England’s first bare-knuckle fighting champion. It was the winter of 1865 and Sayers, who began his career as an illiterate bricklayer, had risen to become the most celebrated sportsman of the Victorian age.
We shake our heads blankly.Īt the time of his death the situation was very different. Our guide asks the group if anyone has heard of this man. An inscription reads “Erected to the memory of Thomas Sayers”. The stone is mottled and tendrils of strangling ivy are creeping up its base. It’s long and box-like, with a life-sized sculpture of a dog slumped at its foot. I’m in the secluded western corner of London’s Highgate cemetery, looking at a large marble tomb.
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