How slaves were kept in ancient Rome. Roman slaves

slavery rome stratification antique

Slave stratification

Consider the life of artisan slaves. Apparently, the labor of slave artisans, their own or hired, was used not so much in the house or estate of the owner, but in specially organized ones, was used not so much in the house or estate of the holyam na, but in specially organized workshops belonging to large owners who conducted the business through proxies, or to free artisans who worked together with their slaves.

Already in the last days of the republic, slave owners understood the need to attract economic interest to slave artisans, at least the most qualified ones. This is partly explained by the fact that the rich owners who owned the workshops did not want or were unable to manage them themselves and had to entrust this work to experienced and knowledgeable slaves, whose loyalty had to be ensured by appropriate conditions. Unlike relations in agriculture, a significant part of the slaves had to be interested. A slave-craftsman, who had a certain qualification, certainly had to make efforts to create those high-quality, and often highly artistic, things that the increasingly sophisticated taste of buyers demanded. It was impossible to force him to show all these qualities under pressure. Brute coercion managed to drive a slave into the field, into the mines, into the mill, but with threats of beatings and stocks it was impossible to force him to carve an elegant gem, paint a vessel, embroider a cloak with gold, or forge the finest surgical instruments. In order to instill in him a love for work, it was necessary to open up prospects that the rural worker did not have, to give him hope for freedom and prosperity, and to ensure greater independence.

Probably, slave artisans who had their own workshops and wealth were a minority, and most of them were completely dependent on the master or the owner of the workshop for whom the slaves worked for hire. But still, the stratification that emerged among the artisan slaves put them in a different position than the one in which the rural slaves found themselves.

Their living conditions were also different. A city slave, who worked in a workshop under certain conditions, could not be isolated either from other slaves, or from free hired workers, or in general from the free plebeians, most of whom consisted of the same artisans, small traders, and day laborers. Rural slaves did not participate in social and religious life. Urban slaves were members of various colleges, either including only slaves and freedmen, or of a mixed composition. (19;21)

Apparently, the rural and urban plebs had different attitudes towards slaves. For the rural plebs, slaves seemed to be an alien and even hostile element. On the contrary, the urban plebs did not disdain slaves and willingly accepted them into their organizations. This difference can be explained by a number of reasons. In rural areas, the spread of slavery deprived the free not only of land, but also of income: farm laborers were gradually replaced by slaves, and they did not want to hire free shepherds at all. The slave administration of the villas that supervised them could also cause discontent among the free workers. Finally, a certain psychological factor should be taken into account. Even the poorest peasant was proud of his status as a freeborn citizen and clung to those illusory rights (family name and tribal membership) that distinguished him from a slave. In rural areas, the number of libertines (freedmen) who joined the ranks of the peasants was small, which contributed to the preservation of the lines that separated free farmers and slaves. In the cities, conditions were different. Of course, here too there could have been competition between the labor of free and unfree artisans, but it was unlikely to be more intense than competition between free ones. In any case, it was not reflected in the sources. The urban plebs were constantly and very significantly replenished by libertines, which in itself moderated the difference between freeborn and unfreeborn citizens. Finally, the ruling classes, by their attitude towards artisans, themselves pushed them towards rapprochement with slaves. If in the previous century they treated wage earners with contempt, then in the last century of the republic they looked upon everyone engaged in handicraft work with disdain, as “rabble.” The following example is interesting: according to Seneca, Posidonius taught that the sages ruled in the Golden Age and that they invented the arts and crafts necessary in everyday life: agriculture, construction, weaving, metallurgy, grain grinding, bread baking. Seneca attacks Posidonius' theory with unusual vehemence. According to him, he degrades wisdom who ascribes to it an interest in low and unworthy activities. It was impossible, exclaims Opeka, for anyone with a great and exalted soul to invent a hammer, pincers and other iron tools, and in general one should look for it by bending the body and looking at the ground. And in our time, he says, something is constantly being invented: mirrors, shiny tiles embedded in the walls of baths, pipes that heat them, light and elegant supports for porticos, a way to blow the finest glass products, shorthand and much more, but all these are inventions the most despicable slaves, and there is no doubt that they made such discoveries in ancient times.

The attitude towards the craft of Posidonius and Seneca is sharply different. For the latter, craft is the lot of a slave, and therefore unworthy of a sage. If, he says, Democritus made the inventions attributed to him, it was not as a sage, but in spite of the fact that he was a sage. (17;84)

Seneca wrote at the time of the highest flowering of Italian crafts, when the labor of slaves and freedmen in this branch of production far left behind the labor of the free. But Cicero, a younger contemporary and student of Posidonius, is more likely to side with Seneca on this issue, although he is less categorical. He recognizes agriculture as a noble and worthy occupation for a free person. He considers the position of wage earners to be the lowest. But he also classifies the professions of all artisans as low, because a noble person may have nothing in common with the workshop. Only medicine or architecture can be considered respectable by those who are suited to their class. Cicero's reasoning, which occupies a certain middle position between the views of Posidonius and Seneca, shows that contempt for artisans and craft labor as the lot of slaves in his time had already taken shape, although it had not yet reached its culmination point. When Cicero speaks about artisans not in theoretical, but in practical terms, he treats them as restless, dangerous, close to slaves, the scum of the city.

With the development of crafts, conditioned by the growth of commodity-money relations, and the increase in the proportion of slave labor among slave artisans, a rather intensive differentiation begins. There is a layer of slaves who became owners of the means of production, and slaves-vicars (labor). Over time, many of them became wealthy freedmen, but even while they were still slaves, their position was closer to the free owners of craft workshops based on the labor of slaves than to ordinary slaves. (13;54)

The situation of slaves who worked in the mines was completely different. The bulk of the miners were concentrated in the provinces, primarily in Spain, but a certain number of slaves were also employed in Italy. According to Pliny the Elder, an ancient Senate decree forbade the development of the mines of Italy, despite their wealth; the Censorial Law on the gold mines in the land of Vercellus forbade the publicans to employ more than five thousand people. Most likely, we can assume that the government was afraid of concentrating large masses of slaves in one place in Italy, especially slave miners, whose fate was the most terrible, and therefore the readiness to rebel was greatest. According to Diodorus, the workers of the mines bring incredible profits to their masters, but are quickly exhausted and die due to the exceptional difficulties they experience working underground under the blows of their overseers. According to Strabo, slaves sold by their masters as punishment were usually used to work in the mines. Free plebeians were exiled to the mines for serious crimes. Apparently, prisoners who deserved the special disfavor of the winner also ended up there.

The intelligentsia slaves, who were classified as "urban families" and served the personal needs of their masters, did not constitute a special group in terms of their place in production. But still, they should be singled out in a special category, since from a social point of view, household servants, which formed the main core of “urban families” during the period of the last republic, as well as the early empire, played a very large role, especially in the homes of persons of any kind prominent by origin, wealth, position in the state.

According to Roman authors, the "ancestors", renowned for their modesty and simple life, were content with a small number of servants. Pliny the Elder's reasoning about the happy life of the ancients, who each had one Marznpora or Lucipora, is known. According to him, before the war with Perseus (171 - 167 BC), the Romans did not have bakeries or cooks among their slaves, who were hired in the market when necessary. Cato the Elder went to Spain with only three slaves. These figures to some extent reflect the fact that back in the 2nd century. BC. the number of servants was relatively small. However, even then they were already in a special position. Slave servants allow themselves various entertainments: they visit barbers, where, as is known, the Romans exchanged holy news and gossip, participate in the ball game beloved by young men, go to the theater and taverns.

It is possible that in the rich houses of that time there were not as few servants as later panegyrists of the “morals of the ancestors” tried to imagine. In a comedy that lived in the 3rd century. BC. The singing of the poor man, who serves himself at meals, is contrasted with someone whose table is surrounded by numerous slaves during the meal. Polybius mentions a large number of male and female slaves who accompanied the wife of Scipio Africanus during the festivities. Already at that time, the fashion for expensive house slaves began to penetrate into everyday life, as can be seen from Catonan’s complaints of wasteful people who paid according to their talent for a beautiful slave. The luxury tax he introduced during his censorship provided, in particular, for payments for slaves under 20 years of age purchased for more than 10 thousand asses (1000 denarii), and this tax affected many and significantly replenished the treasury. According to Livy, the troops returning from the East after the war with Ligiochos began to use luxurious clothes, utensils, and meals, and then “cooks, who were considered by the ancients to be the lowest of slaves both in cost and in use, began to be highly valued, and then "What used to be reserved for servants has become art."

Slave servants, just like artisans, had a peculium. In both Plautus and Terence, slaves complain about masters who extort gifts from them for any reason: on the occasion of a birthday, the birth of children, the coming of age of a son, etc. Consequently, the master did not take away the peculium from the slave, although he had every right to do so, but only, under various pretexts, demanded that the slave give him part of his modest property. In Plautus, every “efficient”, “good” house slave boasts that he has a peculium, his most important difference from a “worthless” slave. (2;18)

The rapid growth in the number of "city surnames" mainly falls at the end of the 2nd and 1st centuries. BC, when luxury takes on catastrophic proportions. In Cicero's time, a large and well-chosen "surname" was considered a necessary sign of a "decent" house.

Exposing the vices of Piso, Cicero, among other things, says: “He has nothing elegant, nothing refined... he is served by unkempt slaves, some of them even old men; he has the same slave as both a cook and a gatekeeper, there is no baker in the house , there is no cellar, his bread and wine come from a petty merchant and innkeeper." We do not know what the number of Yurod families of wealthy people was.

Urban families included another category of slave-educated people, the slave intelligentsia. She appeared quite early. From time immemorial actors have been slaves. Slaves of actors and musicians even in the 2nd century. BC. not only noble Romans had, but also ordinary residents of Italian cities. The custom of having slave teachers also began early. Cato had an educated slave teacher. Mari did not want to study Greek literature, citing the fact that it was taught by slaves.

In the 1st century BC. educated slaves became an indispensable part of the family. Cicero's friend and publisher Atticus had numerous scribes, readers, and librarians. Cicero mentions his slaves Gilarius, the accountant, reader and biliotskarian Dionysius, Atzollonius - the former slave of Crassus, “a learned man, devoted to the sciences from childhood.”

Among the slaves were stenographers, for example the famous Tyrone, a slave, then a freedman of Cicero, and doctors. Some of these educated slaves, later freedmen, became famous writers, scientists, and rhetoricians. (11;109)

In the last centuries of the Roman Republic, the intelligentsia, born from slaves, was very numerous, and its contribution to the creation of Roman culture was enormous. The slave origins of such famous comedians as Terence and Caecilius Statius are well known. The slave was one of the most popular mimographers, Publilius Sir, who left far behind other mime authors at the games organized by Caesar for the people. Pliny the Elder mentions the freedman Pompey Lipaeus, the first in Rome to write a work on the beneficial properties of plants, Manilius Antiochus, the founder of Roman astrology, brought to Rome and sold at the same time as the grammarian who became the teacher of Brutus and Cassius. Almost all the grammarians and some of the rhetoricians whose biographies Suetonius gives came from slaves. According to him, the study of grammar in Rome began after the third Punic War. It developed quickly, and soon 20 famous schools arose in Rome. The first person to achieve fame by teaching grammar was the freedman Sepius Niknor Pot. He also wrote grammatical comments. JI. Ataeus Philologus, a freedman of one of the jurists, was in close friendship with Sallust, and then with Asinius Pollio. Suetonius reports that when both of them decided to write historical works, the Philologist taught Sallust how to choose the most necessary from Roman acts, and Asinius Pollio the basics of the art of writing, and he himself also wrote on historical topics. The famous grammarian Verrius Flaccus, who wrote a number of books on various topics, was also a freedman. He became so famous for his teaching method that Augustus appointed him teacher to his grandchildren. The famous Julius Hyginus, the author of various works on grammar, geography, history, etc., was a slave of Caesar, who was then freed by Augustus, who made him caretaker of the Palatine Library. Hyginus was friends with Ovid. Orator L. Voltacilius Pilut, being a slave, sat chained at the entrance to his master's house. Then, for his talents and knowledge of literature, he was released into the field and helped his patron, who acted as a prosecutor in court. He taught rhetoric to Pompey and described the deeds of his father in many books.

Educated slaves, as a rule, occupied a special position in the family. Judging by Cicero, the masters made a sharp distinction between simple and educated slaves. The owners encouraged capable slaves in every possible way, trying to give them an education, were proud of them and looked for strong patrons for them. This is probably explained not so much by humanity as by vanity, mainly by the rapidly growing need for mental workers generated by the development of culture and the complexity of the economy, a need that could not yet be satisfied at the expense of the free. Under the empire, when a sufficiently large intelligentsia is created from free-born Romans and Romanized provincials, the role of the intelligentsia who came from a slave environment declines. (8;248)

Rural slaves occupied the lowest place among the slave population. Already in Plautus, there is usually a contrast between the rude hard worker, the rural slave, and the clever, crafty city slave, the slacker, who has picked up all sorts of information and some polish.

The futility of the position of an ordinary rural rowan and, accordingly, his disinterest in the results of labor, determined the crude and naked system of forcing him to work, as well as the desire of the masters to completely suppress such a slave as a person, to deprive him of the opportunity and ability to think about anything other than food and sleep.

The 15 rural estates excavated near Pompeii invariably contain rooms for slaves. They are small (6-8-9 m). It’s easy to find them in a complex of buildings: bare walls, a simple brick floor, usually not even filled with mortar that would make it even and smooth. On a wall, roughly plastered, or even without plaster at all, sometimes a well-plastered square 1 m in size is a kind of notebook on which the slave scratches out some of his notes with a nail. The utensils in these closets, judging by the remains found, are poor: shards of cheap dishes, pieces of a wooden trestle bed. Judging by the inventory of the olive store compiled by Cato, eleven slaves had at their disposal 4 beds with belt nets and 3 simple trestle beds.

The common room intended for the entire “rural family” (as the slaves of the estate were called) was the “village kitchen”, where the slaves could warm up and relax; This is where food was prepared, and this is also where the slaves dined. On long winter evenings and in the mornings until dawn, they work right away: they twist ropes, weave baskets, and trim stakes. Almost all the estates found near Pompeii have such kitchens with an oven for baking bread and a hearth. The owner was interested in ensuring that the slave did not spend the entire winter night sleeping, and arranged this only warm room for the slave half. (5;170) During the Republic, many rich and noble people formed gladiatorial troops from their slaves. Future gladiators were trained in special “gladiator schools.” Capua was a favorite location for these schools. This is where the school was located, from which in 74 BC. 200 slaves fled with Spartacus as their leader. You could sell your gladiators or rent them out to someone who organized the games. Atticus, a friend of Cicero, a businessman who unmistakably sensed where he could make money, once bought a well-trained detachment. Cicero wrote to him that if he hired out these gladiators, he would get his money back after just two performances. In addition, gladiators were a good personal ocher during the terrible time of the end of the republic. Those who aspired to power kept them precisely for this purpose: Sulla, Caesar, and Catiline had them.

In addition to these people who stood high on the social ladder, there was a whole category of people for whom buying, resale, and sometimes training gladiators was their profession. They were called lapists (the name comes from the same root as lanius - butcher). Atticus and the people of his circle did not disgrace commercial transactions with gladiators, but the lanista was considered a tainted person, and his occupation was vile. By the very nature of his activity, he had to deal not only with official slave traders, but also with pirates and robbers who grabbed travelers along the roads and sold them as their slaves. In this dark world, the lanista was his own man, which further increased the disgust for him and her activities.

Lanists were of two categories: sedentary and wandering. The first acquired premises and set up an office for selling and hiring gladiators. Wandering lanistas moved with their gladiators from city to city, arranging games wherever and whenever necessary, and if luck smiled on them, they gradually amassed capital with the expectation of moving to the position of a settled lanista. (18;130) The gladiator's craft was despicable. A free person who voluntarily became a gladiator found himself in the position of almost a slave. Juvenal considers the gladiatorial school the last stage of human decline. A free man who became a gladiator forever lost his civic dignity, falling into the category of “dishonored.” Whatever wealth later befalls him, he will never enter the class of horsemen, he will never become a municipal magistrate. He cannot act as a defense attorney or witness in court. He is not always given a decent burial. But these outcasts are spoken of with admiration in the humble workshops of artisans and in the mansions of senators. Horace and Maecenas discuss the merits of their two opponents. Poets write poems about gladiators, artists and craftsmen immortalize episodes from their lives in their creations, women of the aristocratic circle fall in love with them, sons of noble fathers take fencing lessons from them. It is enough to look at volumes of inscriptions from Pompeii alone to be convinced of the lively interest these people arouse in themselves: they know their names, their careers, their fights are painted on the walls.

Gladiatorial fights were usually combined with baiting of animals. The first "lion and panther hunt" was organized in 186 BC. In 58 BC. one of the aediles “brought out” 150 “African animals”, i.e. panthers and leopards. At the same time, the Romans saw hippos and crocodiles for the first time; 5 of them were delivered and a pool was dug especially for them. Augustus, among those of his deeds that he considered necessary to immortalize in a long inscription, mentions that he organized animal persecution 26 times and 3,500 animals were killed. The end to animal persecution came only in the 6th century AD.

In addition to overseas animals, for hunting in amphitheaters he acquired European animals and his own, Italian bears, wild boars, and bulls. Sometimes the hunter's task was only to kill the angry animal. But already under Caesar, the “Thessalian hunt” entered the customs of the amphitheater: the hunter rode on a horse next to the bull, grabbed it by the horn and twisted its neck. This required both dexterity and exorbitant strength. Under Claudius, another method came into fashion: riders drove bulls around the arena until they were exhausted; then the rider jumped onto the bull, grabbed him by the horns and, leaning his whole body on his head, threw him to the ground. (20;52)

The hunter is sometimes required to perform acrobatic tricks. He goes out with a pole in his hands one on one against the beast, and at that moment when he, having crouched to the ground, is ready to rush at the man, with the help of the pole he makes a huge leap, flying over the beast, gets to his feet and runs away. Sometimes a kind of turntable was placed in the arena: four wide doors with strong bars inserted into them were hung on a pole. The doors revolved around a pillar, and the hunter, having teased the beast, hid behind the door, looking through the bars, pushed a pinwheel in front of him, ran out of one door and hid behind another, “fluttering,” as an eyewitness put it, “between lion claws and teeth.”

A slave who has gained legal freedom continues to be dependent on his patron in many respects.

Once upon a time, writes the lawyer Guy, a freedman was allowed to circumvent his patron in his will with impunity. Then this “injustice” was corrected: patrons were excluded from inheritance only if the freedman had children of his own and bequeathed his property to them. But in all other cases, even if the freedman was beaten by such legal heirs as his wife, adopted children, or daughter-in-law, the patron inherited. The property of the deceased freedwoman, who was considered to be in the patron's care, passed entirely to him; She could not have any other heirs. The patrons made some claims to the property of the Libertines during their lifetime. But we don’t know what these claims were.

In a number of cases, a freed slave swore an oath to work for a certain number of days in favor of the patron. The demands of the patrons gradually increased so much that the praetors were forced to intervene, taking upon themselves the judgment of the labor due from the freedmen. (9;193)

What were the libertines of the Republican era? From the point of view of their contemporaries, they were a special class. This is what Cicero called them, although in later comments on the Verrines there is doubt whether, when speaking about libertines, it is possible to use a term that applies only to noble people. This doubt, apparently, arose only at a later time. Tacitus, like Cicero, calls freedmen a class. Approaching the issue with the criteria familiar to us, they can be considered an estate only very conditionally, since one of the important signs of an estate is hereditary affiliation, while the children of freedmen were already considered freeborn citizens. On the other hand, some signs of class, i.e. a legally defined set of rights and restrictions on rights were inherent in the category of libertines. They were considered Roman citizens with the right to vote, first in those tribes to which their patron was assigned and to which they were assigned, and subsequently only in four city tribes. They were deprived of the right to hold elective government positions and serve in the army, except in cases where extreme need for soldiers forced this rule to be violated. Finally, the freedmen remained dependent on their patrons and were obliged to perform a number of duties. These are the common features that unite all libertines. But in its composition this class was very variegated, perhaps more variegated than any other class group in Roman society. To a large extent, the position of a freedman was determined by his position in slavery.

From literary and epigraphic sources we can learn little about the simple slaves who were freed. They were for the most part too poor to leave inscriptions, and the authors were not very interested in them. Such slaves could receive freedom as a reward for some merits to the master, a motive common in comedies, where freedom is the cherished dream of every slave. (1:27) However, the slave, who received freedom and did not possess the peculium, which the master left him when he was released, was forced to think about his future fate. One of Plavtov’s slaves tells his owner that he is not so eager for freedom, since while he is a slave, he is under the responsibility of the master, and when he is free, he will have to live at his own peril and risk. This joke contains a grain of truth.

As Epictetus later wrote, the slave prays for freedom and thinks that, having received it, he will become happy. Then he is released and, in order not to die of hunger, he must either become someone’s hanger-on, or get hired and endure slavery even more severe than the previous one. According to the commentator Terence, the patron's duty was not to abandon, but to feed the freedmen who became his clients. It is unlikely, however, that the number of freedmen who lived solely at the expense of the patron’s favors was large.

At the turn of the 3rd millennium BC. e. Rome turns into a powerful slave-holding power. The economy of the state flourished due to the productive force in the form of slaves, thus slavery in Ancient Rome was a common occurrence in everyday life.

Sources of slavery

Slaves in Ancient Rome were deprived of their own names; the nicknames given to them spoke about their nationality, or the country from which they were taken. A slave was an inanimate object, a thing that could be bought or sold. The main sources of slavery in Ancient Rome were:

Captivity . Rome's ongoing wars of conquest brought a gigantic flow of slaves to the slave markets of the Roman state.
Sea robbery or piracy . Pirates actively traded in live goods starting from the middle of the 1st century BC. e.
Slavery for unpaid debt . A creditor could turn into a slave a person who could not pay him back.
Hereditary slavery . The child of a slave could only be a slave.
Convicted of murder and other serious crimes .

Rice. 1. Slave market in Ancient Rome.

Systematization of the slave system in Ancient Rome

Already at the very beginning of its foundation, the Roman city-state was flooded with slaves. In the 1st century BC. e. the owner did not have the unlimited right to dispose of the slave’s life as he wished, and the word “slave” itself had a vague meaning. In the II-I centuries. BC e. slaves were mainly bought at the market, since it was much more profitable than raising him himself. Subsequently, the attitude changed: the owner tried to ensure that the slaves created their own families. After all, a child born a slave learned from childhood to be obedient and acquired skills in a certain task.

In the 1st century BC. e. The Roman slave system was limited by a set of laws: the owner had to take care of his slave, feed him on time, and provide him with a roof over his head. The owner had no right to inflict bodily harm on his slaves, much less kill them.

Classification of slaves in ancient Rome

Not every slave was a former prisoner of war or the son of a slave; there were people who voluntarily gave themselves into slavery, unable to feed themselves. Their ears were pierced with a hot awl and a rope was threaded through it.

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Rice. 2. Roman slaves carry their master.

On large estates, overseers - decurii - were responsible for the slaves. Under their command were artisans who looked after the slaves and kept records on the farm.
Slaves performed a variety of functions, everything depended on their skills and abilities. The owner himself could teach the slave any art, for example, playing a musical instrument, or some profession, for example, the craft of a barber or cook.
In addition to private slaves, there were public slaves belonging to the city or military unit. They were engaged in the construction of water pipelines or the construction of fortifications for the Roman legionaries.
Exclusive rights were granted to the personal slaves of the emperor during the era of the Roman Empire. The emperor could appoint his personal slave to any high position.

Slavery during the Roman Republic

Describing briefly the changed life of slaves during the Early Roman Republic, we can say that it was during this period that slavery in Ancient Rome reached an unprecedented scale.

With the growth of wars between the Roman Republic and neighboring countries, the flow of prisoners of war, who were immediately sold into slavery, also increased.
The strongest, bravest and most merciless prisoners of war were sent to gladiator schools, where they were made into fighters for the amusement of the public.
Prisoners with any profession or talent were in particular demand. They later became tanners, artisans, etc.
As a result of Rome's military victories in a number of wars, there was an unprecedented influx of slaves from the Mediterranean countries, Africa, Syria and Gaul. All this could not but affect the attitude of the owners towards their slaves in Ancient Rome. Now the owner could kill his slave at his whim or, if the slave fell ill, throw him out into the street as a useless thing.

Rice. 3. A master beats his slave with a whip in Ancient Rome.

The gradual disintegration of the slave system was largely facilitated by slave uprisings, the largest of which was the uprising of Spartacus in 74 BC. e., as well as the beginning of the transformation of the Roman Republic into an Empire.

Slavery during the Roman Empire

During the era of Imperial Rome, the nature of the slave system changed. Slave labor gave rise to many small private farms on the land - latifundia. Slaves actively worked for them.

Free peasant farms went bankrupt because they could not withstand competition from the latifundia: the products produced by slaves from the latifundia were sold at lower prices, without being inferior in quality. Free peasants went bankrupt, joining the ranks of the poor, or the ranks of slaves enslaved for debt.
During the period of the Late Roman Empire, the military victories of the Romans were replaced by defeats. The main source of supply for slave markets began to dry up. The shortage of slaves affected the development of crafts, agriculture, and the economy of Rome as a whole.
Roman large landowners were forced to set their slaves free, and split their farms into small plots in order to avoid ruin and attach free column slaves to them. The columns paid for their plots with part of the harvest, or by working on the plot of the former owner.
The appearance of freewheeling column slaves was a harbinger of the emergence of feudal relations and serfs.
The decomposition of the slave system was greatly facilitated by the intensification of the class struggle. Often, ruined artisans and impoverished urban plebs joined the slave uprising. Attacks on the slave system from within alternated with attacks by barbarians on the Roman Empire from without, which contributed to the death of the state system.

In the 4th century BC. e. The Romans passed a law that prohibited turning their fellow citizens into slaves. According to the same law, any free woman who entered into a relationship with a slave, accordingly, became a slave.

What have we learned?

From the article on the topic “Slavery in Ancient Rome” we learned about the heyday of slavery in Ancient Rome and the era of its decay as a social and economic system. The slavery of Ancient Rome is a relic of the dark, distant and controversial times of the Ancient World. The article material can be used to create a report or message in a history lesson (grade 5).

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From a modern perspective, slavery is one of the most controversial institutions of the past. Today people consider slavery to be an inhuman and immoral activity. For ancient peoples, slavery was part of everyday life, a fully recognized social institution that was integrated into the overall social structure. Our review contains little-known and most striking facts about slavery in ancient Rome.

1. Slave population

Among the population of ancient Roman society there was a very high proportion of slaves. Some historians have estimated that 90 percent of the free population living in Italy by the end of the first century BC had slave ancestors. The proportion of slaves was so significant that some Romans left written evidence of the dangers of this situation.

A proposal was put forward in the Senate that slaves should be distinguished from free people by their clothing, but it was rejected due to the danger that “then the slaves could count us” (Seneca, “On Mercy”: 1.24).

2. Slave revolts

There were quite a few documented slave revolts in Roman history. A Syrian slave named Eunus was the leader of one of these revolts in Sicily during the period 135-132 BC. It was generally believed that Eunus presented himself as a prophet and claimed to have a number of mystical visions. According to Diodorus Siculus ["Library": 35.2], Eunus managed to convince his followers with the help of a trick during which he spewed sparks and flames from his mouth.

The Romans defeated Eunus's slave army and suppressed the revolt, but this example inspired another slave revolt in Sicily in 104-103. BC. The most famous slave revolt in Ancient Rome is the one led by Spartacus. The Roman army fought the army of Spartacus for two years (73-71 BC) before it was able to suppress the revolt.

3. Life in shackles

The living conditions and expectations of slaves in Ancient Rome were the same and closely related to their occupation. Slaves involved in backbreaking work such as farming and mining had no prospects in life. Mining was known as the hardest work.

Pliny (Natural History 33.70) talks about the difficult conditions of this activity: "Long tunnels were dug in the mountains by torchlight. The miners worked in several shifts and did not see daylight for several months. Landslides were constant. This work was so dangerous that it was less risky to dive into the depths of the sea for pearls and purple shellfish. We did land is much more dangerous compared to the ocean."

House slaves, on the other hand, could expect to be treated more or less humanely, and in some cases, they were able to have their own money and property. Ultimately, if a slave managed to accumulate enough wealth, he could try to buy his own freedom and become a "freedman" - a social class considered somewhere between slaves and freemen.

4. Man as property

Owning slaves was a widespread practice among Roman citizens, regardless of their social status. Even the poorest Roman citizens could own a slave or two. In Roman Egypt, it is likely that each artisan had 2-3 slaves. Wealthy people could own many more slaves.

For example, Nero had 400 slaves who worked in his city residence. According to surviving records, a wealthy Roman named Gaius Caecilius Isidore owned 4,166 slaves at the time of his death.

5. Demand for slaves

The demand for slaves in Rome was very high, for a number of reasons. With one exception (government jobs), slaves were employed in almost every industry. There was a consistently high demand for slaves in the mines, agriculture, and households.

In his treatise known as Agriculture, Marcus Terentius Varro recommends the use of free workers in the most dangerous places, since “unlike the death of free farmers, the death of slaves has negative financial consequences.”

6. Man as an object for sale

Slaves were acquired in four main ways: as war prisoners, as victims of pirate raids and robbery, as a result of trade, or through selection. During different stages of Roman history, different methods were more relevant. For example, at the beginning of the expansion of the Roman Empire, a significant number of prisoners of war were turned into slaves. Pirates from Cilicia (modern southern Turkey) were famous suppliers of slaves and the Romans often traded with them.

Cilician pirates usually brought their slaves to the island of Delos (Aegean Sea), which was considered an international center for the slave trade. According to surviving records, in one day alone, at least 10,000 people were sold into slavery and sent to Italy.

7. Unshakable postulate

Today people consider slavery immoral and inhumane. However, there is no evidence that this was even considered in Roman society. All the major economic, social and legal forces in ancient Rome worked together to ensure that the system of slavery continued indefinitely.

Slaves were considered a necessary social counterweight to free people. Civil liberty and slavery were two sides of the same coin. Even when more humane laws were introduced that improved the living conditions of slaves, this did not in any way imply that the number of slaves should be reduced.

8. Fugitive slaves

Slaves running away from their masters was a common problem among slave owners. The main way to deal with this was to hire professional catchers, known as "fugitivarii", who would track, capture and return slaves to their owners. Naturally, this all happened for a fee.

Sometimes slave owners offered rewards for the return of fugitives, and in other cases they tried to find the fugitives themselves. Another way to deal with runaway slaves was to put special collars on them with instructions on where to return the slave if he was caught.

9. Free for slaves

In Roman society, a slave owner had the opportunity to grant freedom to his slave. This process, which was known as "manumission", could be achieved in various ways: the owner could give the manumission as a reward for loyalty and impeccable service, the manumission could be bought by the slave from the owner, and sometimes it was more expedient to free the slave.

An example of this latter case was merchants who needed someone who could sign contracts and carry out various transactions on their behalf and had the legal right to do so. Legally speaking, slaves had no right to represent their masters. In some cases, the slave was given his freedom in exchange for providing some services to his former master. Former slaves even had the opportunity to become Roman citizens, and sometimes, they (ironically) became slave owners.

10. The most famous Roman slave

Spartacus was a Roman slave of Thracian origin and perhaps the most famous Roman slave of all time. He escaped from a gladiator training camp located in the city of Capua in 73 BC, taking with him about 78 other slaves. As a result, Spartacus attracted thousands of other slaves and poor Romans to his side, challenging the huge empire for two whole years. Sextus Julius Frontinus (Stratagems: 1.5.22) reported that Spartacus' army used corpses attached to poles driven into the ground.

At the same time, weapons were given to the corpses. From a distance, this gave the impression that the army was much larger and better organized than it actually was. The revolt was finally suppressed by the Roman general Crassus. After Spartacus's army was defeated, more than 6,000 slaves who had taken part in the revolt were crucified along the Appian Way between Rome and Capua.

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Slavery existed already at the dawn of Roman history. Among the oldest Roman slaves there were many farmers who did not pay their debt to the moneylender and were obliged to work it off. The position of these indentured slaves was not much different from the position of foreigners captured and turned into slaves. During the long struggle of the plebeians against the patricians, indentured servitude was abolished for Roman citizens. A Roman who failed to pay off his debt lost his property, but not his freedom. But those who had Roman citizenship were still turned into slaves for failure to pay debts or taxes.

Prisoners of war also became slaves.

The mass sale of captives into slavery was often a punishment for rebellion against Roman rule. But, of course, tens of thousands of captives were sold not only to intimidate the conquered peoples. Owning slaves was profitable. Slaves saved the Romans from exhausting labor in the mines and fields. The exploitation of slave labor brought large profits to slave owners.

At the same time, slave labor was characterized by extremely low productivity. The slave worked under pressure and was not interested in the results of his work. He did not receive any benefit from the fact that he worked better, and therefore, as soon as supervision over him ceased, he quit work, damaged tools, and mutilated livestock. This explains the extremely slow development of technology during the period of slavery. Some technical inventions were used only in military affairs and construction. Slaves were given only the crudest tools that were difficult to damage.

A society based on slavery was fraught with irreconcilable contradictions that led to its destruction. The exploitation of slaves in the ancient world knows no limits. It leads to the physical extermination of a huge mass of people engaged in productive labor necessary for society. From this it is clear that for the existence of such a society a constant influx of slaves is necessary.

The heyday of the slave system in Rome was the 3rd century. BC e. - II century n. and, this is a time of endless wars that ensured the supply of masses of slaves to the markets. The burden of wars was borne on their shoulders by free peasants and artisans who served in the army or gave their sons as soldiers. The dominance of slave labor in agriculture and crafts leads to the ruin of the free population of the empire engaged in production. At the same time, the Roman army fell into decay. Victories are replaced by defeats, wars of conquest are replaced by defensive ones. The source of constant replenishment of slaves has dried up. The inherent negative aspects of slave labor are becoming more and more apparent. There is a general decline in production. Cities fall into disrepair, trade is disrupted.
Slave owners begin to set slaves free, as their labor becomes unprofitable. The number of freedmen is growing. A new layer of workers appears, occupying an intermediate position between free and slaves - the colons, formerly free small farmers who became dependent on large landowners and were obliged to bear a number of duties in their favor.
Thus arose the historical need to replace the slave system with another, more advanced social system. However, the slave-owning class stubbornly defended its rights and advantages! The slave state remained, guarding the interests of the ruling class. To destroy the slave-owning system it was necessary to break the resistance of the slave-owners and destroy the slave-owning state. This was done by the masses who rose up to fight against the oppressors. Blows from the inside were combined with blows from the outside. The “barbarians” invaded the empire and, together with the colonists and slaves, destroyed the slave state. All obstacles to a new, more advanced social system have disappeared.

Slave population

Slave revolts

Life in shackles

Pliny (Natural History 33.70) talks about the difficult conditions of this activity: “Long tunnels were dug into the mountains by torchlight. The miners worked in several shifts and did not see daylight for several months. Landslides were constant. This work was so dangerous that it was less risky to dive into the depths of the sea for pearls and purple clams. We've made land much more dangerous than the ocean."

House slaves, on the other hand, could expect to be treated more or less humanely, and in some cases, they were able to have their own money and property. Ultimately, if a slave managed to accumulate enough wealth, he could try to buy his own freedom and become a “freedman,” a social class considered somewhere between slaves and freemen.

Man as property

For example, Nero had 400 slaves who worked in his city residence. According to surviving records, a wealthy Roman named Gaius Caecilius Isidore owned 4,166 slaves at the time of his death.