This from A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, begins with my favorite word:

The Romans were devotees of what the Germans call Schadenfreude, taking exquisite pleasure in the misfortune of someone else.  They loved to surround themselves with midgets, and handicapped and deformed people, who were made to perform sexually or caberet-style at the parties.  Caligula used to have gladiators get right up on the dinner table to fight, splashing the diners with blood and gore. Not all Romans were sadists, but numbers of the wealthy class and many of the emperors were, and they could own, torture, maltreat, or murder their slaves as much as they wished.  At least one high-society Roman is recorded to have fattened his eels on the flesh of his slaves.  Small wonder Christianity arose as a slave-class movement, emphasizing self-denial, restraint, the poor inheriting the earth, a rich and free life after death, and the ultimate punishment of the luxury-loving rich in the eternal tortures of hell.