What was living like for roman slaves?

Answer 1

I did a history assessment on Slavery and i have just copied and pasted a little bit of it. I hope it will come in handy. :)

In Rome slavery affected many people. Mostly people that were captured during wars when the Romans took over their countries. Some slaves were also criminals. Others were children who had been left to die by their families. Parents also sold their children if they could not afford to feed them. Once the system of slavery had begun, large numbers of people were born into it.

All ancient and medieval cultures had slaves, though some had more slaves than others. Slaves were mostly owned by wealthy Romans who might have had between 400 and 500. Even the poor may have had one.

The people that benefited most from slavery where the people that actually owned them because they got cheap labour and all work was done for them by their slaves. As well as these people, the ones that sold the slaves at the markets for a lot of money made a very big profit for themselves.

If you were a slave you could be sold to somebody else, or forced to work without being paid. The law did not protect slaves so the master could work them as hard as he wanted. The slaves would have done many different jobs from cleaning the dishes to working underground in the mines, getting gold, silver, copper, iron or tin for the Roman Government. The Roman Government also owned many men who rowed ships as slaves. They were often chained to the oars.

Some slaves would have also worked in factories or craft shops. They might be weavers, or dyers or potters.

Whatever job they did, if they did not do it well enough they were severally punished, by being whipped, given iron burns or even death.

Slaves where set free for good service or if their master gave them permission. Slaves could also buy their freedom but this was a virtually impossible task, as they did not earn money.

Answer 2

Although life for many Roman slaves was very difficult, they were arguably better off than their Greek counterparts.

There are many examples of slaves being bought to tutor students, to act in plays, etc. - and slaves with useful skills in general had an easier life. There was also a greater frequency of freeing slaves, and the children of Freedmen could become citizens (this would have been unthinkable in Ancient Greece).

Answer 3

Slaves were often considered inferior and they could suffer abuse. However, the conditions of household slaves were the best ones among the slaves. Slaves who worked in the fields had harder conditions and those who worked in the mines worked very hard and were unsafe; mortality rates were very high. Household slaves were better housed, better fed and did less heavy jobs. At times their conditions could be better than those of poor Romans. Moreover, the Romans were in the habit of freeing their slaves very often.

Answer 4

they hated it very much and got to have food whenever they wanted and take breakd whenever they wanted it