The Role Of Slaves In Ancient Rome

The large population of slaves and their abuse in the late Roman Republic at the hands of patricians caused significant resistance to the power of the patricians, and was a significant factor in the transition of Rome from a republic to empire. An important role in society and economy in Ancient Rome was filled out by slaves. Slaves would perform many different types of labour, such as manual and domestic services. Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves. Unskilled slaves or those sentenced to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills. The living condition for slaves was brutal and their lives would be short. Under Roman law slaves were considered property and they had no legal personhood. Slaves would be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, torture and summary execution, unlike Roman citizens. Unless a slave was tortured their testimony could not

be accepted in court.

Over time, however, slaves gained an increased legal protection, which included the right to file complaints against their masters.
The Romans didn't really have hourly wage work, or salaried work, as today' society does now, men and women who didn't own their own land and didn't own businesses of their own often found themselves enslaved. Some rich individuals are said to have had several thousands. Slaves were not esteemed as persons, but as things, and might be transferred from one owner to another, like any other effects. They could not appear in a court of justice as witnesses, nor make a will, or inherit anything, or serve as soldiers, unless first made free. The lash was the common punishment; but for certain crimes they were to be branded in the forehead, and sometimes were forced to carry a piece of wood round their necks, wherever they went, which

was called furca; and whoever had been subjected to the punishment was ever afterwards called furcifer. With the growth in the empire, the number of slaves in Rome grew rapidly. Roman generals in their campaigns abroad sent back thousands of captured soldiers to be sold as slaves. In the campaign against the Gauls (59 to 51 BC) it is reported that Julius Caesar and his army over a million people were captured as slaves. Slaves were people who were frequently captured in battle and sent back to Rome to be sold. If children were abandoned or their parents had passed they could also be brought up as slaves. Fathers would sell their older children as slaves if they were in need of money or if they were in debt. There were also many cases of poor people selling their children as slaves to richer neighbours. Slaves could be made slaves by way of punishment or if they were born in a state of servitude. Some became slaves because they could not pay back the money they had borrowed. The government would also take people into slavery if they could not pay their taxes.
Slave labour was used in all areas of Roman life except public office. In addition, slaves were often mixed with free labour as employers used whatever human resources were available and necessary to get a job done. If one could not find enough slaves or skills were needed which only paid labour could provide, then labourers and slaves would work together. In the agricultural sector such a mix of labour was particularly common as the work was seasonal so that at harvest time paid labour was brought in to supplement the slave staff because to maintain such an extend work force year-round was not economically viable. Slaves, then, were employed by private individuals or the state and used in agriculture (especially the grain, vine and olive sectors), in mines (especially for gold and silver), manufacturing industries, transportation, education (where they brought their specialist knowledge of such topics as philosophy and medicine to the Roman world). Women slaves would be used as hairdressers, dressmakers, cooks and servants for rich women. Other slaves worked in small workshops making leather or silver goods or pots and pans. Some slaves were called public slaves; they worked for Rome. Their job was to build roads and other buildings and to repair the aqueducts that supplied Rome with fresh water. Other public slaves worked as clerks and tax collectors for the city. A Day in the Life of a Slave varied according to the work he had been allocated. And this depended on the skills that he possessed. Roman slaves were acquired from the unfortunate people who had become Prisoners of War, Criminals who received the punishment of slavery and those who were born into slavery.
There was, at least for a small minority, the possibility of a slave achieving freedom to become a freedman or woman, and this incentive was fully exploited by slave owners. Freedom could be granted by the owner but in most cases was actually bought by the slaves themselves, allowing the owner to replenish his workforce. Freedom could be absolute or might be limited and include certain obligations to the former owner such as inheritance rights or the payment of a portion of their earned assets (peculium). Once freed, former slaves could work in the same jobs as plebeians – as craftsmen, midwives or traders. Some even became wealthy. Many slaves were very fortunate to be freed after about thirty years of service. A person who was once a slave was called a 'freedman' or 'freewoman'. A slave could only get their freedom if they were given it by their master or if they bought their freedom.