Ekphrasis in the Capitoline Museums - Gladiatore Di Monnot

The Gladiator is perched as if lying over a fallen victim, his hand raised in the air, clutching his sword as if ready to deliver the final blow.  Yet there is nothing below him but the ground and the sheath to his sword, and his face betrays the rest of his actions.  His head is positioned upwards, looking at his arm that holds the blade.  His face has a subtle expression, mouth slightly in a frown and eyebrows that look a touch furrowed.  Unlike the typical gladiator, he is wearing nothing besides a shield on his left arm, which is propped up against a small stump of a tree.  His sword sheath looks discarded and almost broken, lying on what appears to be a relatively barren surface, spare two plants (one which his knee rests on and another on the edge of the base) and the tree stump.  His shield has no engravings on the outside, and a basic rim of patterns on the inside.  He appears young and muscular, and the entire statue is made of white marble, giving him a feeling of power, of something majestic.  Yet everything about him seems to contradict himself.  His body looks as though ready to go in for the kill, yet there is no one beneath him and his face looks conflicted.  He is youthful, but rests on a tree stump, as if his shield is too heavy for him alone.  He is a gladiator, except he wears no armor.  Nothing about him seems to make sense.

I wonder what it is he is thinking.

(His sword, which was whole at the time of his creation, has been broken sometime in the course of history, and is now missing.  Perhaps that is why he looks forlorn.)