How Did Slaves Affect Roman Economy
How did slaves affect the daily Roman economy?
As Romans won wars and conquered lands, the population of these towns would in most cases become slaves. Some records indicate that Julius Caesar once sold a whole town in his Gallic campaign, for which the dealers gave him a receipt for 53,000 men, women, and children. “Census records from Roman Egypt during the first few centuries CE, some 13 percent of adequately documented households owned slaves” (Scheidel, 2010). It is also said that in the first century AD, probably one in three of the population of Rome was a slave (Wilson, 1994). Taking these factors in consideration, there are number of reasons why slaves were so important for Roman economy:
Slaves were everywhere, and so their responsibilities ranged from the most basic to more complex ones. This makes their participation in economy very crucial, taking in account that they were the “estate managers, field hands, shepherds, …show more content…
Although, the mass influx of slaves during conquests of Carthage, Macedonia and Greece in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, was a sign of great wealth and power. Farms that were originally run by small business families throughout Italy, started being replaced by cheap slave labor, bringing the unemployed to city in devastating proportions. (United Nations of Roma Victrix, 2018)
In the end,”slaves are estimated to have constituted around 20% of the Roman Empire's population at this time and 40% in the city of Rome” (crystalinks.com, n.d.), meaning that the economy was very much dependent on slave labor for both skilled and unskilled work. Nonetheless, while slavery made the Roman Republic look wealthy and powerful. It equally increased the already fragile Roman social system of inequality between the rich and the poor. Finally, it added to the turmoils of that time period having a direct role in the demise of the
As Romans won wars and conquered lands, the population of these towns would in most cases become slaves. Some records indicate that Julius Caesar once sold a whole town in his Gallic campaign, for which the dealers gave him a receipt for 53,000 men, women, and children. “Census records from Roman Egypt during the first few centuries CE, some 13 percent of adequately documented households owned slaves” (Scheidel, 2010). It is also said that in the first century AD, probably one in three of the population of Rome was a slave (Wilson, 1994). Taking these factors in consideration, there are number of reasons why slaves were so important for Roman economy:
Slaves were everywhere, and so their responsibilities ranged from the most basic to more complex ones. This makes their participation in economy very crucial, taking in account that they were the “estate managers, field hands, shepherds, …show more content…
Although, the mass influx of slaves during conquests of Carthage, Macedonia and Greece in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, was a sign of great wealth and power. Farms that were originally run by small business families throughout Italy, started being replaced by cheap slave labor, bringing the unemployed to city in devastating proportions. (United Nations of Roma Victrix, 2018)
In the end,”slaves are estimated to have constituted around 20% of the Roman Empire's population at this time and 40% in the city of Rome” (crystalinks.com, n.d.), meaning that the economy was very much dependent on slave labor for both skilled and unskilled work. Nonetheless, while slavery made the Roman Republic look wealthy and powerful. It equally increased the already fragile Roman social system of inequality between the rich and the poor. Finally, it added to the turmoils of that time period having a direct role in the demise of the