Considering you would be from a conquered/raided territory odds are you would be enslaved, and that is the assumption I will work with for the following simple scenarios - and keep in mind that the "best case" would still leave you as a slave, so not exactly an enviable position (please note these are just a few options. It really depends on when and where you end up, and what kind of person ends up owning you)

But, let's go with the ladies first

• in the "good" scenario, what you could expect would be menial work house work. You would cook, serve food and drinks, entertain, etc. Since this is the "good" case, the family who bought you will not mistreat you excessively (but I doubt you could avoid abuse of one kind or another entirely). You keep your head down and the family grows to trust you as a dutiful slave. Once the current pater familias (head of the house) dies, he will include in his testament that you should be freed. Congratulations, you have earned your freedom - but since you have almost nothing to your name you will still be bound to the family that used to own you, with them acting as your patron. What this practically means is that you would still work for them in some way, you would just be paid something, so you're almost only free in name.

• the bad scenario would be to be bought by a family that would mistreat you, for as a slave you would only be seen as a possession, and you would have to endure violence and abuse (including sexual). In this scenario you would fail to adapt to your circumstances and/or simply never win the favour of your owners. Your fate would most likely be to slave away till the day you die or be killed for one reason or another (although the chance of just being killed arbitrarily would not be high)

For the men

• the best case scenario would potentially be to be bought as gladiators. Contrary to what popular media would have you believe, gladiatorial games were not these super violent fights to the death all the time. Was it violent, sure, they were fighting with actual weapons, but the vast majority of fights were to first blood or yielding. On the positive side, gladiator sports were big business and if the fighter was competent he could live the life of a sports star (just without the freedom to change club or drop out). The really good gladiators could also buy or win their freedom and still live a pretty comfortable life

• worst case scenario would be to end up as a state slave. They would be worked hard and treated like absolute trash. Their jobs would be hard labour in mines, quarries etc. The state would have very little interest in freeing them, as it always had something to throw people at

On another note, we do have cases of highly respected slaves, who enjoyed quite a lot of freedom and quality of life, and who could in some cases almost be treated as members of the family. Examples of this could be seen with Greek teachers, who were sometimes bought to tutor the children of aristocratic families; you could have scribes who were important and valuable for the running of business, so they tended to be treated with a certain degree of leniency; and later, once we get to the period of the principate, we see a class of freedmen from the Imperial house, which suggests that slaves with a beurocratic function could look forward to a chance of a, for slaves, relatively bright future.

If you are interested in a Roman tale of slavery, albeit very satirical, you could look up a book called "cena Trimalchionis" ( dinner with Trimalchio ). You can also look up the article on Roman society on ancient.eu (which also links to further reading), if you want a layman's general overview. Hope this helps