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Slavery
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institution whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services,
found among both primitive and advanced peoples.
At the beginning of the Roman Empire slavery was not so current but later on as more and more
provinces were occupied enemies were taken and sold as slaves.Though slavery was a prevailing feature
of all Mediterranean countries in antiquity, the Romans had more slaves and depended more on them
than any other people. These ranged from Greeks to some barbarians. These barbarians were used as
labor in this empire. Greeks on the other hand were educated and so were used to teach the Roman
people. From this we can see how important the slave was at the time. Although it was very convenient
and added its part to Romans prosperity, in the long run it was one of the factors that caused their fall.
Slaves were a surplus to such an extent that even slaves could own slaves of their own. The difference
was that the qualities of the slaves were not equal.For example a rich man could buy a slave that would
be able to rule his
home and educate his children. The slave could then also own a slave but this time for its own use. This
became a common practice after the third century BC (Source: "Everyday life in Ancient Rome" by F.R.
Cowell. It is located in chapter IV on slavery). This was due to the fact that the Romans had a huge army
consolidating the
Roman Empire and gaining submission from the defeated countries. These people were then taken as
slaves and so this is what caused the great influx of them to the empire. Important question is what was
the cost of a slave and how it varied? The cost could vary according to the qualifications of the slave. If a
slave was weak and could not do much work then he could fetch very little or if it was a very capable
slave
that could do a lot then the cost was high. Some people bought young untrained slaves, which they
trained to increase their value. A slave could be bought from a price of 500 denarii to something about a
million. This is a demonstration of the difference in wealth between slave owners (Form slaves to rich
masters). As I said earlier slaves could buy slaves and sell them to their owners or keep them to help
them in the labor. Tariffs for
slaves could be the following: a nurse and two children could be sold for 1,800 denarii. The Romans
admired beauty such that a pretty girl could reach from 2000 to 6000 denarii. A music girl cost 4000
denarii. Later on in the empire people were prepared to spend vast amounts on just a slave boy. It is
impossible, however, to put an accurate figure on the number of slaves owned by the Romans at any
given period: for the early Empire conditions varied from time to time and from place to place. Yet, some
estimates for Rome, Italy and the Empire can be attempted. The largest numbers were of course in Italy
and especially in the capital itself. In Rome there were great numbers in the imperial household and in the
civil service - the normal staff on the aqueducts alone numbered 700. Certain rich private individuals too
had large numbers - as much for ostentation as for work. Pedanius Secundus, City Prefect in AD 61, kept
400 slaves, while some owners had so many that a nomenclator had to be used to identify them .
However, there is evidence to suggest that these cases were not typical - even for great houses.
Sepulchral
inscriptions for the rich nobles the Statilii list a total of approximately 428 slaves and
freed persons from 40 BC to AD 65. When these figures are analyzed, the number of slaves and freed
persons definitely owned by individual members of the nobility is small, It is difficult to give total figure for
slaves in the city of Rome, the most accurate number we can take is about 300,000-350,000 out of a
population of about 900,000-950,000 at the time of Augustus. The same kind of difficulty we have in
attempting to arrive at a figure for slaves in Italy. I didn’t manage to find any exact numbers. And what
of the Empire as a whole? It is impossible to give any kind of accurate figure. We have neither
statistics for the total area nor for the provinces separately. And of course the number of slaves in each
province depended on the particular circumstances prevailing there. Some provincial locations had a high
number of slaves and in some areas it dropped to as low as 2%. And in other regions, particularly
perhaps in the more backward provinces of the West, slaves may never have comprised a significant
segment of the
work force at all. What then might we assume as an approximate number of slaves in the entire empire in
this period? The attractive hypothesis is ten million, i.e. 16.6%-20% of the estimated entire population of
the Empire in the first century AD, i.e. one in every five or six persons would have been a slave. This is a
computation only not conjecture.Whence came these slaves? The most important sources were war and
piracy.
And of course there was a natural source, there is a Latin saying for that:servi aut nascuntur, aut fiunt
['slaves are either born or made']. So Romans had constant source of free labor. What work did they do in
the provinces? On farms the slaves had to take care of the fields and also the houses of the owners.
Some farms were family farms and so didn't have many slaves as because they could most of the work
themselves. Rich
farmers on the other hand were able to get a lot of slaves, which were qualified to take care of other
problems The rich farmer was a manager which had slaves to be the workers. Sometimes qualified slaves
were used as administrators since they had previous experience or the owner thought they could be
trusted. Other slaves were government owned. Some ended up becoming gladiators while others had to
do road works and other manual labor. Slaves had to work in the warm Mediterranean climate, which was
very harsh for hard work. They had to carry the blocks of marble and other materials themselves on carts
and other transport methods. Most of the slaves
died very quickly in these conditions. Average lifetime of a slave was 20-30 years. Such broad use of free
labor had major impact on the other workers – free people of the empire. Slaves were cheap
replaceable and in large numbers. The average worker cannot sustain himself because he had to be
paid. And for employers the choice was obvious. In the effect the most of them became unemployed and
went into poverty. Later that became big problem for the city of Rome.Slaves could earn their freedom. It
was not common, but it was possible. There were few ways depending on their role as a slave. Some of
them could get
freedom relatively easy compared to others. For example a qualified slave such as a Greek serving in a
rich man's house was treated with respect and was spared from manual labor. Some other slaves on the
other hand were forced to do a lot of work on farms and in provincial work. They might have been
mistreated and beaten and etc.
They could get beaten and it would not be considered wrong for the owner to do so. In farm work the
farmer was said to have free tools with which to work the land, which were the following: The chariot for
transport, the inarticulate things such as the oxen and those with voice such as the slaves. This tells us a
little about the situation which the slaves were in. The main distinction in the law of persons," said the
2nd-century jurist Gaius, "is that all men are either free or slaves." The slave was, in principle, a human
chattel who could be owned and dealt with like any other piece of property. As such, he was not only at
the mercy of his owner but rightless and (apart from criminal law) dutiless. Even though the slave was in
law a thing, he was in fact a man, and this modified the principle. A slave could not be a party to a
contract nor own property, but he could be given to the other owner.Combatant slaves such as gladiators
or chariot racers had to win their freedom in a much harsher way. The gladiator had to confront vicious
animals such as lions and other animals in an arena so that the Roman citizens could entertain
themselves. Gladiators were in a difficult position to get out of, as they had to fight valiantly and avoid to
be killed and after a number of years without been killed they earned the status of freedman. Chariot
racers had a very dangerous job as they had to race horses on chariots, which were frail and so
disintegrated easily. They had to tie the reigns of the horses around their chest so that they were attached
to the horses. In case of a crash they had to cut themselves loose fast or they would be dragged along
the floor and so die. They therefore carried a knife on them in case of this eventuality. In both gladiator
fights and chariot races the slaves could earn a lot of money from bets on them. Slaves also had the
possibility to buy their freedom from their masters. Conclusively people were not born into slavery but
instead were forced into it for a number of years after which they could be freedmen with land and slaves
of there own. There was one other way to be free. Slave revolt. The most famous and vicious one was a
revolt led by a former gladiator Spartacus. It lasted from 73-71 BC. A
Thracian by birth, Spartacus served in the Roman army, perhaps deserted, led bandit raids, and was
caught and sold as a slave. With about 70 fellow gladiators he escaped a gladiatorial training school at
Capua in 73 and took refuge on Mount Vesuvius, where other runaway slaves joined the band. After
defeating two Roman forces in succession, the rebels overran most of southern Italy. Ultimately their
numbers grew to at least
90,000. Spartacus defeated the two consuls for the year 72 and fought his way north toward the Alps,
hoping to be able to disperse his soldiers to their homelands once they were outside Italy. When his men
refused to leave Italy, he returned to Lucania and sought to cross his forces over to Sicily but was
thwarted by the new Roman commander sent against him, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Hemmed in by
Crassus' eight legions, Spartacus' army divided; the Gauls and Germans were defeated first, and
Spartacus himself ultimately fell fighting in pitched battle. Pompey's army intercepted and killed many
slaves who were escaping northward, and 6,000 prisoners
were crucified by Crassus along the Appian Way. Spartacus was apparently both competent and humane
although the revolt he led inspired terror throughout Italy. It was “a wake up― call for Romans that
slaves were not only their tools of every day ife.The roman dependence on slaves for everyday tasks and
work. It was something that caused roman people to give up their creativity. There was no need to
improve things, because everything was made by slaves. Once dynamic society evolving and expanding
became decadent and lazy. They were supported by luxuries from the entire world. They were blinded by
their own greatness. Massive use of slaves was only one of the things that added to their fall. When time
came to depend on themselves, Romans used to having their work done for them failed. World is
constantly going forward if one wants to stay alive one has to change or bent otherwise they brake.If the
Empire learned to depend more on itself than on outside sources it could survive
much longer. Although some support never hurts, this wasn’t only “some― support.Result was
that the Romans loosed their innovative spirit that helped them achieve their conquest. Without they
couldn’t hold it when entire world around them was changing and new people were coming to take
place of an old stiffen culture.
Writing my paper I used following sources:
Books:
"Everyday life in Ancient Rome" by F.R. Cowell.
“Common History― by Krystyna Szelagowska, Warsaw, 1996
“Roman Empire― the greatest achievement of the past― by Tadeusz Brzorzowski, Warsaw,
1982
Articles:
Slavery numbers and origins by J. Maden University Galway
Movies:
“Spartakus―
Internet:
Articles at:
http://www.geocities.com/
and at:
internet polish resources www.onet.pl
and
Britannica on-line using our library’s database
"Spartacus" Britannica Online.
"The Evolution of Modern Western Legal Systems: The Western legal heritage: ROMAN LAW: Categories
of Roman law." Britannica Online.
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