[jeroenhd]

I don't see how Roman gladiatorial combat is so different from modern sports. The only major difference is the fact that nearly all gladiators were slaves, but otherwise I see no difference between gladiators and UFC fighting tournaments (or for that matter, American football).

I just don't see the peak decadence point.

[coldtea]

>I don't see how Roman gladiatorial combat is so different from modern sports. The only major difference is the fact that nearly all gladiators were slaves

How about modern sports aren't "to death"?

[tk75x]

Only a small fraction of gladiatorial combat was to the death. Gladiators were expensive to acquire, train, and maintain so their masters didn't prefer them to be killed.

[notahacker]

Whatever you think about the risks and violence of modern combat sport, they don't use the certainty of somne of the combatants dying and/or the involvement of the crowd in determining whether they had fought well enough to be permitted to live after defeat as marketing strategies...

[Nasrudith]

Well let me know when sports stars sack a city and lead to massive damages and people still decide to keep on doing it that way. (Third Servile war - although slavery was involved.)

Although often well paid gladiators often were slaves which brings up the next big difference - consent!

[balfirevic]

> I don't see how Roman gladiatorial combat is so different from modern sports.

If someone were to properly incentivize you (say, by offering to give you $10000 or whatever) I bet you would be able to come up with few more very important differences.

[Dylan16807]

"You'd change your opinion on a trivial matter if I paid you a giant pile of money" is a very strange way to argue a point...