This snippet about ancient Rome is from my twin brother, aka the Commissioner of our pick 'em football league, who opened this week's picks with a Latin saying. When someone asked if he was reading Gibbon, he wrote back:

...mostly I get it all from Gladiator.  In fact almost the only thing I remember from any book I’ve ever read about Rome is this passage, which is near the end of a pocket history of the Roman Empire that I picked up at a used bookstore:

Those who died in the arena died for the established social order.  It was not just entertainment to keep people quiet … it was a terrifying demonstration of what could happen to those who failed to please their masters, who failed to conform:  slaves, criminals, Christians, and not these alone.  A spectator who was witty at Domitian’s expense was dragged and thrown to the dogs in the arena.

Commodus walked towards the senators’ seats holding in one hand the head of an ostrich and in the other the sacrificial knife. The threat was blatant. Dio records how he himself chewed on a laurel leaf to stop himself giggling, presumably from sheer terror.

The Roman order was based partly on consent, partly on custom, partly on institutionalized terror. There was a ruthless logic about it. When Sejanus fell, his children were to die as well, partly to add to the terror of his fall, partly to stop them from growing up to avenge him. One was a little girl. Custom forbade the execution of a little girl. So the executioner [killed her in a different way]...

The Christian accounts of martyrdom reveal a casual and familiar acquaintance with torture and routine brutality which reminds one of Nazi concentration camps. The implements of torture are mentioned – “the claws,” “the iron seat” – with no explanation. Christian readers needed none.

I excluded the detail on how Sejanus's children were executed, just because it was so beastly.