To become a Gladiator you usually had to be a slave or prisoner of war. This group of people would have to go to a ludus, [school in Latin]. But if you were a free man you could become one as well. Retired Gladiators taught the new students how to fight, which type of Gladiator they would most probably be, strategies, and above all how to survive. The Gladiators were taught to fight with wooden weapons first off, as they weren’t fully experienced yet. Later on in their time they would start to use real weapons on straw dummies and then progress onto real opponents. The aim of a Gladiator was to make his trainer and himself proud. All Gladiators had to swear an oath. The Gladiators had to swear on the lines of this: "to endure branding, chains, flogging or death by the sword". If you were a Gladiator, you were lucky. Other jobs that slaves might get include: mining rock at the local mines, quarrying the rock coming from the mines, rowing for the Roman Army in their galleys, and farming crops for the Romans. That’s why if you got the job of a Gladiator, you were considered “lucky”. A Gladiator had a contract of five years; if they behaved then they would be let free. That is if they hadn’t been killed! Slaves were found in places like Gallia, [Gaul] and other places near to Rome. When you first arrived at Gladiator School, you were handed to your new owner. These men were very fit people and would try to drive the life out of you to make you a Gladiator, [a bit like the French]. In training, you would get fit by lifting weights, running, javelin, discus, and possibly even swimming if there was a pool nearby. By the end of your courier as a Gladiator, you’d either be dead or you’d be alive.