Brennus noted immediately that his opponent seemed not to notice his stare, but neither did he meet it. This suggested to the Iceni that Florian was probably a coward, and that this fight would be brief and uninteresting. He began to feel this was ever more likely the case when they reached a comfortable fighting distance and his foe left himself exposed and presented his sword in a particularly unthreatening way. Should Brennus have been granted the use of a shield, he would have simply bum-rushed and battered the man to the ground before beating him with the wooden sword, but such was not to be the case.

Instead, Brennus launched a fairly simple attack, stepping forward on his right foot to grant himself extra reach as he lifted his weapon slightly and pushed down with his forward hand, with the effect of delivering a speedy vertical cut towards Florian’s left shoulder, compensating for the fact that he seemed to be leaning forward slightly and would probably yank himself back when the attack came.

The beauty of Brennus’ simple assault was that it was incredibly low risk, such a cut could be blocked, but countering it was unlikely.