FROM THEMATIC UNIT: DAILY LIFE IN ROME

This short reading attempts to contextualize the practice of slavery in the Roman empire for our students. I worked to use language appropriate for 5th to 8th grade levels. I worked to humanize the enslaved people as much as possible. There are many resources available to dive deeper into this topic. This reading is only a short summary of slavery in the Roman empire and does not pretend to even cover all aspects of it.

As always, if there is a glaring error or omission please reach out to me so that I may correct this.

Best Wishes from your Resource Coordinator,

Andrew Carroll [email protected]

Excellence Through Classics The American Classical League 860 NW Washington Blvd, Suite A, Hamilton, OH 45013 (513) 529-7741 Fax (513) 529-7742 [email protected] www.aclclassics.org ​ ​ www.etclassics.org ROMAN SLAVERY The economy in the Ancient Mediterranean world was one based on the capture and enslavement of other people who were then forced to work in a wide range of tasks for their enslavers. The Romans relied on the system of slavery to keep newly conquered areas from revolting and to encourage soldiers to fight harder in the hopes of earning more money from the sale of prisoners of war. The Romans moved whole populations of people across the empire to be sold as enslaved people. At its height, the island of Delos could handle the buying and selling of 10,000 enslaved people a day.

The three Punic Wars and the wars in Greece and Asia Minor during the 200s and 100s B.C.E supercharged the trade of enslaved humans. Enslaved people were expected to work as miners or farm hands, scribes or cooks, hairdressers or door guards, gladiators or tutors. Many well-off Roman families had a few enslaved people to help shop, cook or clean. Enslaved people were not seen as humans but were treated as objects to be bought and sold. The enslaver had full control over the enslaved persons and could treat them however the enslaver wanted. Some enslaved people were owned privately while other enslaved people were owned by the government. Enslaved people who ran away were treated cruelly and branded with the letters FUG for fugitivus. The system of slavery was a harsh one. ​ ​

There were three rebellions of enslaved people, called the Servile Wars. During these wars, the enslaved killed their enslavers and freed themselves. The Third Servile War was the rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus.

It is hard to hear the voices of enslaved people since they often did not write about their lives. We are given a comic view of the system of slavery through the playwright Plautus, but this is biased and cannot be used to show how enslaved people lived throughout the Mediterranean basin. One way we hear the voices of the enslaved people is through their tombstones. We can learn whom they married, if they were freed, and what they did after they were given their freedom. Several of the stories in this module use freedpersons’ tombstones to create an idea of how these formerly enslaved people might have lived.

The Roman system of slavery had a process for enslavers to give their enslaved people freedom, called manumissio (or manumission). An enslaver could free an enslaved person by performing a ​ ​ ceremony in front of a public official or at home in front of other free witnesses. Once freed, an enslaved person became a libertus or a liberta. They could marry, own a business and vote. Their children would ​ ​ ​ ​ be full free citizens. There were some special religious offices for a libertus during the period of the ​ ​ Empire such as the Augustales. A libertus/liberta,however, was still not a full citizen; they could not run ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ for political office or be a high ranking member of the army. They were also required to become a cliens ​ of their former enslaver and to work for them one day a year.