Enslavement and the Lives of the Enslaved
The Road to Enslavement
People became enslaved in the Roman world in several different ways. Some were captured as prisoners of war, others were seized and sold by pirates, and some were born into slavery because their mother was already enslaved. A person might also become enslaved as punishment for a crime, to pay off a debt, or after being abandoned as a baby and taken in by someone else. Rome had two dedicated slave markets — one beside the Temple of Castor in the Forum, and another in the Campus Martius.
Enslaved people entered slavery through several routes: capture in war, seizure by pirates, birth to an enslaved mother, punishment for crime or debt, and abandonment as an infant. Rome had two slave markets, one in the Forum and one in the Campus Martius.
Prisoners of War and Pirates
Warfare produced enslaved people on a huge scale. The geographer Strabo records that the Roman general Aemilius Paullus “captured seventy cities in Epirus” and enslaved a hundred and fifty thousand people during his campaign in Greece. The historian Diodorus Siculus describes a similar fate for another captured city, where “thirteen thousand in number were sold by the Romans as spoils of war”. Individual stories survive too: the tombstone of Gaius Julius Mygdonius, a freeborn man from Parthia, records that he “was captured in his youth and sent as a slave into Roman territory”.
Piracy was another major source of enslaved people. Strabo explains that the island of Delos became a huge slave market because it “was a large and very rich market, with the capacity to receive and export thousands of slaves in a single day”. Pirates realised that capturing and selling people was easy and profitable, especially once Rome’s growing wealth created demand for large numbers of enslaved workers.
Born into Slavery
Children born to an enslaved mother were automatically enslaved themselves. These children, called vernae, belonged to the legal owner of their mother, not to the mother herself. An owner could sell a mother separately from her child, splitting up families for profit.
This cruelty eventually drew legal attention. The emperor Theodosius later ruled against the practice, asking “who can tolerate that children should be separated from parents, sisters from brothers, wives from husbands?” and ordering that any enslaved family that had been split up should be reunited under a single owner. Roman law could also protect free-born infants who had been abandoned and raised as enslaved: replying to a query from the governor Pliny, the emperor Trajan ruled that anyone who could prove free birth should be able to claim it, and “they should not have to buy their freedom by paying back the cost of their upbringing”.
A small number of people chose slavery over freedom. Suetonius tells the story of Gaius Melissus, a freeborn boy abandoned by his parents, who was educated and given work as a secretary to the wealthy Maecenas. Even after his mother tried to claim his freedom for him, Melissus refused to leave, because “he preferred his present status to that of his birth” — life as a trusted, comfortable slave seemed better than an uncertain freedom.
The price of an enslaved person varied enormously. An unskilled worker might cost around two thousand sesterces, but a skilled slave was worth far more. Columella describes “a high-priced vinedresser of first importance” costing six to eight thousand sesterces, and the poet Horace imagines a dealer boasting that his slave is “trained in Greek letters, adaptable to any task” to justify a high price.
Roman officials called the aediles supervised slave sales to check buyers were told the truth. Aulus Gellius states that a bill of sale had to reveal “which one is a runaway or a wanderer, or not innocent of any offence”, so that buyers were not cheated.
Urban Slaves: Life in the Household
Enslaved people in a Roman house carried out constant, exhausting service. Seneca’s account of a banquet describes one slave who “mops up the disgorged food” and another who “crouches beneath the table and gathers up the left-overs of the tipsy guests”. He also describes a boy kept beardless to serve wine, forced to switch roles from waiter to companion: “in the chamber he must be a man, at the feast a boy”.
Female slaves who served as personal maids risked violent punishment. Juvenal’s satire describes “unlucky Psecas, the slave girl” being beaten while doing her mistress’s hair, even though the fault lay elsewhere: “how can it be the slave girl’s fault if your own nose displeases you?” Other urban slaves worked as scribes, childminders and general household staff, as shown in surviving reliefs and mosaics.
Rural Slaves: Life in the Countryside
On a farm, day-to-day management fell to the vilicus. Columella explains that the vilicus organised tools and clothing for the workforce and “should be first out of bed in the morning, as it is most important that the slaves begin work at the crack of dawn”.
Food rations for rural slaves were carefully measured out. Cato’s instructions set out “four pounds of bread in winter, five when they begin to work the vines” for the labouring chain-gang. Columella also warned owners against choosing a soft, city-loving slave as foreman, insisting “do not appoint a foreman from that type of slave who is physically attractive” and used to easy urban pleasures.
Conditions were harshest of all in the mines. Diodorus Siculus reports that enslaved miners worked without rest under the whip, so that many died and some “often pray more for death than for life because of the extent of their suffering”.
Servi publici belonged to the Roman Senate or to a local council rather than to a private household. In Rome they usually worked as attendants to priests and magistrates, or as guards for temples and public buildings; a special team of two hundred and forty public slaves, the familia publica aquaria — the public household of the water supply — maintained the aqueducts under the early emperors.
Frontinus describes crews of state and imperial slaves working together at reservoirs and baths so that “an abundant supply of water can be transferred from several regions of the city to the one where the need exists”. Public slaves could also expect a better chance of freedom: Livy notes that at New Carthage Scipio declared the roughly two thousand captured artisans to be public slaves of the Roman people, “with the not distant hope of freedom if they should actively exert themselves in providing the equipment for war”.
Gladiators, Charioteers and Actors
Roman citizens were discouraged from performing in public, so gladiators, actors, dancers and probably charioteers were usually enslaved, freed or foreign. These performers carried the legal stain of infamia, even though audiences adored them. Tacitus complains about “the mania for actors, and the passion for gladiatorial shows and horse-racing” that gripped Rome from birth.
Despite their low legal status, star performers could become famous and rich. An inscription for the charioteer Marcus Aurelius Polynices, a home-born slave, records that “he won 739 races, receiving the palm of victory” across four racing teams.