Slavery in Antiquity - Ancient Rome

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:

    I think a Person who is thus terrifyed [sic] with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.
    Joseph Addison (1672–1719)

    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 (1564–1616)