1. The conditions were terrible. They would be living in cells with ten other people and wouldn't even have bathrooms or anything similar or would barely even have food and they would sit down in chains and get beaten by soldiers or would easily get killed or would spread diseases due to the lack of hygiene or even worse.
2. You would often get mutilated. According to many Roman laws, you would often have to pay the price in flesh fort things that you do. For example, if you're a thief or similar you could get your hand cut off or you could get your eyes poked out or similar things. This also included torture which could even result in death.
3. You could become a gladiator. Gladiators were forced to fight other people for the entertainment of people and politicians in giant arenas. You would win or you would die, and even if you won you could get killed for not being entertaining enough. Sometimes you would have to fight wild and starving animals such as lions or tigers.
4. Any type of insurrection would result in your death. If you even tried to appeal or have the sentence changed or removed or anything similar you could get killed as punishment or severely beaten and mauled. If you tried to get other prisoners to fight together for better conditions you would all get killed.
