Condition of slaves in Roman society

[guy]

Hopefully, some of the other members will comment on this factoid. I don’t recognize the authors cited, but that is not important. I’m not sure, however, how they came up with those numbers.

[caldrail]

I find this statement difficult to believe.

Roman manumission served a number of purposes. It allowed the slave some hope and motives for good service beyond simple discipline and punishment, and allowed the owner to demonstrate his humane character (however fake that might have been), especially in the terms of a will which had a social purpose as a legacy describing the character of the deceased . It is worth noting that under the client/patron system the former slave might well be obliged to remain under the patronage of the former owner or even be reliant upon him for prosperity. In fact Augustus enabled legislation to limit the number of slaves that could be manumitted as some patricians almost competed for displays of generosity.

[Novosedoff]

Well, apart from making comparison with the living conditions of slaves in the US, on above screenshot Movchan also presents some estimates, which may seem arguable.

Movchan is a non-professional historian, here is his profile: https://carnegie.ru/experts/1057

For instance, his estimate of the population of Rome of up to 1.5 mln in the 1st century AD is apparently way above what Rodney Stark has assigned to Rome circa 100 (see attached page).

The other issue is how much slaves comprised in the total Roman population. Katasonov (another Russian not quite historian) provides an estimate of the maximum of 8% for the empire in 1st century AD and says that for Italy peninsula alone the maximum share of slaves had probably reached 25% (screenshot in Russian is attached). But this estimate still collides with Movchan's estimate of up to 40% slaves in Rome and 20% for the empire.

Finally, J.P.Toner in his "Popular culture in ancient Rome" confirms the estimate of 15-25% slaves for Italy (screenshot attached)

[Novosedoff]

My apologies. Movchan's estimate of Rome's own population in 1st century AD as 1.5 mln people was on the other page.. (see attached). The estimate is supplemented by multiple references to sources in English.

I think, the lowest estimate I've seen so far in the literature for the population of Rome in 1st century AD was 400,000 people. The fourfold variance in estimates seems bizarre 🙂

Edited June 23, 2021 by Novosedoff

[James Lawrie]

I think the simple question "What was the social institution of slavery like under Roman rule and what would life have been like as a slave? Were there any redeeming features that made slavery less morally reprehensible than we assume it be today?" runs into the Historians' Maxim: Everything Changes With Time And Space. 

This makes it almost impossible to answer.  Rome existed over an immense time and immense area and it varied so wildly across that area. Some areas evolved different traditions from others and some areas the concept of slavery was considerably out of step with urban Rome. Even then the lot of a mining slave, widely considered to be the worst job a slave could have, varied on exactly what job they did in the mining enterprise, where it was and when it was.