How Gladiators Came to be
In the Roman empire, one could end up a slave via, er, multiple channels – those defeated in war, unlucky victims of piracy, inability to repay debts, and by being found guilty of certain crimes. In theory, one could come out of slavery by buying one’s freedom or if one’s master was willing to release the individual. In practice, while such things did happen, they were very rare. As you can imagine, slavery was “functional” – it existed to serve a need, cruel though it was. This was true not just in Rome but all ancient civilizations, from Egypt to Greece. Rome though was the first empire that also used slavery for entertainment. That trend started off due to the Roman practice of re-enacting the acts of a military figure who had died – bit by bit, it extended to include athletic events, even chariot races, and eventually opened up to everyone around, not just relatives of the deceased! Like Indian weddings nowadays, it soon became a competition of sorts – who coul...