In social studies we created a journal on every day life as a gladiator and learned aboute the colosseum.

I am becoming more adept at the weapons they are training me with.  My favorite weapon is the sword.  I am ambidextrous, which means that I have the advantage of using both my Dear Diary,

 

               I am now known as a Gladiator. I look back at my life, and it seems like yesterday that I was peacefully living as a tribesman among my Gaul people.  Then in the blink of an eye, I was captured by the Roman Empire and trekked many miles back to Rome.  The trip was horrendous.  I thought I would die before I made it to the city of Rome.  Many of my countrymen died on the trip and my heart breaks for their families that have no idea what ever became of them.  As for my family, they don’t know where I went or what has become of me either.  However, I am hoping one day to return to the people I love and survive this great challenge that is set before me.

Dear Diary,

               The process of me becoming a Gladiator was awful and humiliating.  I was first sold into slavery at an auction.  People actually bid on me, and I was forced to disrobe and people made fun of my body and how “strong” I looked.  I was so embarrassed as the slave seller bid me like a common animal, that I cringed as finally, a wealthy man bid on me, and dragged me home in shackles, threw me into a slave pit, and left me for dead.   I never thought I would survive that first night of humiliation and loneliness.

Dear Diary,

               Today was my first day of training.  I survived the “night from hell” which consisted of rats, a flea infested bed of straw, and a watered down supper of “leftovers” from my new “Master.”  Now that I am “officially” his “Gladiator slave” I am now privy to meals of high protein, as long as I “perform” for him.  I met my trainer today, as he is a brutal task master.  He pokes us in the back sharply if we do not do exactly as he instructs.  I have never had experience with the weapons he is making us use and worst of all we have to fight each other; the other “gladiator slaves” in our compound that the Master owns.  I feel so guilty hurting these other men, or may I say “boys” as we are barely of age.  We learned archery, sword fighting, and other means of hurting and maiming one another permanently.   If we don’t “make the grade” and “succeed as strong, impervious to pain and mayhem gladiators, then we are eliminated, permanently, this means DEATH.  I am so scared, I can barely breathe, but I have to press on, and not give up, or my life is over, and there will never be any chance of seeing my family again.  This is what gives me the strength every day to train and fight.  Not for the Roman Empire, but for my people and the improbable but not impossible chance of reunification with my people once again.

Dear Diary,

               Combat is intense.  I am being trained by “supposedly” the best Gladiator trainer in the land.  This means that hopefully, I won’t be killed on my first attempt at being a Gladiator at the world famous Colosseum.  My first manner of business, was declaring an “Oath to my “Gladiator trainer” which I later found out from my gladiator friends, which I basically agreed to be his slave.  This was not what I expected.