The utter demoralization of the Roman people, and the facility with which the tyranny of the emperors was established, unquestionably was owing, in a great degree to the pernicious prevalence of these scandalous exhibitions.
5.

To supply the people with gladiators, schools were, established in various parts of Italy, each under the controul of a _lanis'ta_, or fencing-master, who instructed them in martial exercises.

The victims were either prisoners of war, or refractory slaves, sold by their masters; but in the degenerate ages of the empire, freemen, and even senators, ventured their lives on the stage along with the regular gladiators.

Under the mild and merciful influence of Christianity these combats were abolished, and human blood was no longer shed to gratify a cruel and sanguinary populace.
6.

So numerous were the gladiators, that Spar'tacus, one of their number, having escaped from a school, raised an army of his fellow-sufferers, amounting to seventy thousand men; he was finally subdued by Cras'sus, the colleague of Pompey.