PR-2237IRE Ancient Rome

It would be difficult to imagine life in ancient Rome
without slaves, for they were used in every area of daily
life in the city of Rome and throughout the Empire. As
their empire and the number of nations they conquered
increased, the Romans had an enormous supply of cheap
slave labour. Julius Caesar alone brought back over one
million captive men, women and children after the
conquest of Gaul (France). Apart from prisoners of war,
many criminals became slaves and were just another piece
of property to be bought or sold in slave markets by their
wealthy masters or by the State. Romans were often judged
by the number of slaves they possessed and some rich
families owned hundreds! Slaves could be given away as
gifts or left to someone else when the owner died and if a
female slave had children the babies were born into slavery.
Slaves worked in households as cooks and cleaners, did
the hard work on farm estates and worked even harder in
factories making woollen cloth or in quarries and mines
Activity Box
Roman Slaves
around the Empire.
The officials who ran
Roman cities used
slaves as builders’
labourers, road
sweepers and rubbish
collectors. Strong men
were often used as
oarsmen on Roman
warships, as charioteers
in races to entertain the
people, or were trained
A slave tag (or possibly a dog tag)
unearthed by archaeologists. The
translation says:
‘Hold me lest I flee and return me to my
master Viventius on the estate of Callistus’.
to be gladiators, as their lives were cheap. When they were
too old to fight, the gladiator slaves were often thrown to the
lions unless they had pleased their masters by their victories
in the arena. Even in households many slaves were brutally
treated, though in some homes they were treated as part of
the family.
Viewing Sample
Write a couple of sentences about each of the following. Tell how you would feel if you were a slave
and your master told you that:
(a) You were going to be trained as a gladiator to fight wild beasts in the arena.
(b) You were going to be sold to a new master who was known to be cruel.
(c) You were going to be granted your freedom as you had given excellent service.
Prim-Ed Publishing www.prim-ed.com Ancient Rome – 23 –