https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.programmer...
https://books.google.nl/books?id=1wEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT115&lpg=P...
>If somebody entered a tournament and won, they got money and gifts from the sponsors. If they lost, centurions would march them off at spear point and confine them to the slave pit to be auctioned to the audience or fed to the lions. There were two live lions at the party, but only one actually escaped during the event.
(I witnessed the event. The lions were real, and Microsoft was handing out as much free Silly String to drunken developers as they could carry. The article accurately goes on to describe the Roman orgy, slave girls in brightly colored robes and slave men in loin cloths and sandals, and slaves hand feeding grapes to the party's corporate sponsors wearing robes, and fanning them with palms, and the slave auction. But I digress...)
https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/21/11479710/alex-st-johns-dau...