One day long ago, a group of gladiators were getting ready to enter the arena to fight each other to the death until just one remained. He, the winner, would be rewarded by the Emperor with a laurel crown followed by a good dinner. Although each of the gladiators believed that he was sure to be the winner and looked forward to the fame it would bring and to that dinner, each, of course, also shared a little fear that he would not win but would die that day.
One of them, the oldest, wisest and among the weakest of them, realizing his chances of surviving were pretty thin, spoke up. “Wait a minute, this is all pretty silly, here we are getting ready to go out into the arena and fight to the death until only one of us is left standing. All this so that the winner gets to wear some weeds and eat a good meal. And what is really sad about that is that whichever one of us is the winner, tomorrow he will be out of a job because all the rest of us are dead. That’s pretty stupid if you ask me”.
The others thought about what he had said and after a while agreed that it was not very sensible. “But what can we do about it,” they asked?
“Well,” said the thoughtful gladiator, “we can all agree amongst ourselves to fight just as hard as we can in the arena, but when one of us goes down, the victor will make it look like he dealt a fatal stroke to the loser and then the loser will put on a good show and act as though he actually is dying and this will go on until only one of us is left standing and he will get the laurel crown and eat the meal and we all will get to do it again tomorrow and who knows, maybe a different one of us will win that day. And maybe each of us will learn over time how to fight a little bit better and how to die a little more realistically and the Emperor may be so entertained that he will give something more than some damned shrub and a ham bone.”
All the gladiators saw the right in what the thoughtful gladiator said and they all agreed to what he proposed and they all prospered.
Papa Joe's Tales, Fables and Parables 