Slaves in Rome

Have you ever wondered in ancient Rome what slaves did?
Many people think of the term slave as a person who was only used in heavy labor.

Instead you have to imagine that there were various roles for those who were slaves in Rome.

First, who became a slave?

For the Romans there were four conditions under which a person could be in a state of slavery.

One was a slave by birth, because of unpaid debts, or because they were a prisoner of war, and even by personal choice because by being sold by a slave trader, one could have a portion of the money gained from their sale for themselves.

Once you were classified as slaves could be employed as public servants, that is, property of the state, as the auctioneers, called praecones, were responsible for various activities such as auctions on the occasion of communicating in the streets the date, the place where the sale would take place, or announce funerals of people of a certain level or invite people to participate in the games and where they occupied proclaimed the winners.

Then there were the state messengers (viatores) who were in the employ of various magistrates and priests. and communicated to the senators the convocation of the senate, executed judicial summonses, seizures and arrests, etc..

Then there were also the custodians of the temples called aeditui who were responsible for keeping the fires burning and cleaning the sacred buildings.

Then there were the domestic slaves who were often received with a ceremony and they practiced a “purification” by pouring water over their heads.

Some worked in the “domus”, with different tasks such as cooking and cleaning in the villas or slaves who worked in the countryside.

The slave could thus be a farmer, animal breeder, carpenter, gardener, domestic servant, mason, but many slaves were instead mimes and singers, craftsmen, architects, athletes, accountants, intellectuals, philosophers, poets and historians.

In fact, a particularly educated slave was often employed as a language teacher, most often Greek, or, in the case of very calm and trustworthy people, as a tutor for children.

Often then the slaves were made to study to learn to write and to keep accounts, which was useful to the master.

But to do all this how many slaves were there in Rome?

During the imperial period alone, a lot.

A million Gauls from Caesar’s wars in 58-50 B.C., hundreds of thousands of Asians from Pontus, Syria and Palestine from Pompey’s wars in 66-62 B.C., Vespasian and Titus in 70 A.D. brought tens of thousands of slaves from Jerusalem to Rome.

The last great slave trade took place with Trajan, who reigned from 98 to 117 when he occupied Dacia and Armenia, bringing to Rome about 50 thousand slaves.

The slaves, real “instruments of production”, when old age, hardship, disease made them unproductive, since the owner was unlikely to find a buyer, were abandoned to themselves and left to die slowly.

Unless they were able to redeem themselves by becoming freedmen.
But I’ll tell you about that next time.