Slavery in Rome

Emperors in Rome all had one thing in common: slaves.  Anyone could be a slave in Rome: men, women, and even children.  The lower-middle class people would be the ones that would be forced to work under the power of the ruler of their time.  “Though slavery was a prevailing feature of all Mediterranean countries in antiquity, the Romans had more slaves and depended more on them than any other people” (Madden). If it was not for slaves, Rome would not have risen to so much power.

            Although Romans leaders were very dependent on their slaves, “It is impossible, however, to put an accurate figure on the number of slaves owned by the Romans at any given period: for the early Empire with which we are concerned conditions varied from time to time and from place to place” (Madden).  It is said that the most slaves were used in Italy and the capital itself because there were an incredible amount of aqueducts that had already required 700 people to work at them, not including slaves.  The wealthy citizens and emperors of Rome would use slaves in their houses to do the work that they did not want to do, or did not have time for.  Emperors were very busy being pampered and ruling an empire to have to deal with little jobs that they could have someone else do for them.  If the emperors did everything for themselves, they would not have enough time to rule the other people, and rise to power.

            Slaves in the Roman Empire were treated horribly by their masters.  The slave-owners would refer to them as if they were not even people.  For example, a man named Baillo treated his slaves like they were trash and sometimes beat them.  “Now, unless you're all attention, unless you get that sloth and drowsiness out of your breasts and eyes, I'll have your sides so thoroughly marked with thongs that you'll outvie those Campanian coverlets in color, or a regular Alexandrian tapestry, purple-broidered all over with beasts” (The Conduct and Treatment of Slaves).  It was said that a “faithful” slave should by taking care of all of his owner’s business with great care, give him food when he needs it, do not make any mistakes, and treat your owner as if he was the greatest person on the planet.  The demands of the slaves, their behavior, and the manner of the owners were all factors that made the owner feel powerful.  Rome produced many powerful beings; part of their feeling of power came from slaves.
            Slaves were forced to work and obey their owners to the best of their abilities.  They did not have a choice of what they wanted to do; this caused the slaves to become bitter and unhappy, which resulted in the fear of most rulers: revolt.  A slave revolt would take place when their master was preparing for a battle.  There was so much going on, and it was the perfect time for the slaves to try to escape their lives of hell.