In the city, it's certainly the case that a wide range of different sorts of jobs are being done by slaves. This is going hand in hand with the really dramatic expansion of rome and of other cities out in the countryside. There is a sort of complex process which we could describe as displacement. The old story used to be that peasants were being driven off the land to make way for slave estates, which were o profit orientated and benefiting the benefiting the free people. But this new story is that, to some extent, the peasants are moving of their own accord. They are migrating towards the cities, perhaps because they see better opportunities there. Perhaps also, as alrica mentioned,
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of slavery in the Roman world, from its early conquests to the fall of the Western Empire.
The system became so entrenched that no-one appeared to question it, following Aristotle's view that slavery was a natural state. Whole populations could be marched into slavery after military conquests, and the freedom that Roman citizens prized for themselves, even in poverty, was partly defined by how it contrasted with enslavement. Slaves could be killed or tortured with impunity, yet they could be given great responsibility and, once freed, use their contacts to earn fortunes. The relationship between slave and master informed early Christian ideas of how the faithful related to God, informing debate for centuries.
With
Neville Morley
Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
Ulrike Roth
Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh
And
Myles Lavan
Senior lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson.