Only Max Maximus would have the nerve to call his small touring carnival the Circus Maximus, after Julius Caesar's favorite entertainment center which seated 150,000 spectators. But then Max was a pretty nervy fellow, and grasping, and a bully and downright indifferent to anyone's safety if it meant squeezing an extra dollar into his pocket, so it's not surprising that today's story begins at a matinee performance under the big top...