Ancient Rome
Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become Rome citizens. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom (libertas), including the right to vote, though he could not run for public office. During the Republic, Roman military expansion was a major source of slaves. Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions. Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves. Greek slaves in particular might be highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those condemned to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills.
Read more about this topic: Slavery In Antiquity
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or rome:
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Nights Plutonian shore!
Quoth the raven, Nevermore.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (18091849)
“Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)