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TEACHERS<br />
N OTE<br />
Roman Slaves<br />
The Roman writer, Seneca, commenting about the harsh treatment of slaves, said ‘The smallest<br />
noise is beaten back with a stick; the slaves are even beaten for letting slip a cough or a sneeze or a<br />
hiccup. If a slave killed his master as revenge for cruel treatment, all slaves in the household were<br />
executed’.<br />
It was difficult for slaves to escape as some large country estates had small prison buildings where they were<br />
locked away at night. Untrustworthy slaves worked with a chain around their ankles and one has been excavated<br />
still holding the fossilised remains of a slave’s foot.<br />
Well-educated slaves, many of them Greek, often ran businesses or shops for their masters and, if successful,<br />
could earn their freedom. Slaves granted their freedom were often rich but had no voting rights. They were<br />
called ‘freed’ men or women, but not freemen/women, who may have been poor but had voting rights. A slave<br />
could save up money gifts (peculia) given by a master pleased with the slave’s work. This money could then be<br />
used to buy his freedom at a special ceremony. By the fall of the western part of the Empire in the 5th century AD<br />
most slaves had achieved the status of freemen/women.<br />
A temple on an island in the River Tiber was used to house slaves too sick or old to work, for the Emperor<br />
Claudius (AD 41–54) had decreed that such slaves could not be abandoned or executed. They were now free and<br />
in later years the temple became one of the world’s first public hospitals.<br />
Viewing Sample<br />
Activity Suggestion<br />
The children could debate the proposition ‘That the ancient Romans were justified in using the people of<br />
conquered nations as slaves’.<br />
– 22 – <strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Rome</strong> Prim-Ed Publishing www.prim-ed.com