Hostage

A person held prisoner to guarantee that certain terms or promises are fulfilled. The taking of hostages can be traced to antiquity. An early example was the ancient Roman practice of requiring that the sons of subject monarchs reside in the capital to guarantee the continued good behavior of their fathers. However, the lot of such hostages was relatively easy when compared with their unfortunate counterparts in later centuries. In the twentieth century, hostages largely assumed the role of pawns in brutal campaigns of international terrorism. Sub-national and state-sponsored terrorists...

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