Annotated Bibliography: Feeding Ancient Rome

References

Kamm, A. (2009). The Romans: Life: Slavery. The Classics Pages website. Retrieved on October 24, 2015 from http://www.classicspage.com/

Morley, N. (2005). Feeding Ancient Rome. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution website. Retreived on October 26, 2015 from http://www.brlsi.org/events-proceedings/proceedings/25021

Scheidel, W. (2010). Slavery in the Roman economy (version 1.0). Princeton University website. Retrieved on October 24, 2015 from https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/091003.pdf

UNRV History. (n.d.). Roman slavery. United Nations of Roma Victrix History website. Retrieved on October 24, 2015 from http://www.unrv.com/culture/roman-slavery.php

\The Roman Slave Economy

Slavery had an immense impact on the

I had assumed slaves served in household, agricultural, and mining capacities, and as gladiators and soldiers, but was surprised to learn that slaves were also secretaries, accountants, entertainers and doctors, as well as government clerks, some in what might be called white-collared jobs today. I was not aware that slaves could be autonomous, some in charge with their own sub-slaves, known as servi vicarii (Kamm, 2009; Scheidel, 2010; UNRV History n.d.).

It was not unusual for domestic slaves to become, as Scheidel puts it, “quasi-familial” family members. Pliny the Elder is said to have invited, “…the better-educated members of his staff to join him after dinner for conversation…” (Kamm, 2009, para 7). I see slaves in Rome filling a wide gamut of positions, many related to government functions and the delivery of public services. As a workforce segment, slaves had become an integral part of Rome’s daily workings. They were doctors helping the sick, midwives delivering babies and teachers of Rome’s aristocratic youth.

Slavery’s impact on the

While Italy relied heavily on imports of wheat, olive oil, and luxury goods for the rich, its consumer spending base was not aligned. A third of the population were slaves, while some earned an income, overall slaves were not putting as much money back into the economy, as would have free citizens. Added to this was the mass unemployment of free citizens, to whom the city government provided the corn dole, creating more consumers without strong spending power. Neville Morley writes that the city of Rome itself would have required at least one hundred and fifty thousand tons of grain each year, and goes on to describe ancient Rome as being a “consumer city” (2005).

Conclusion

As a laymen to history, I see ancient Rome caught in a Catch-22. Slaves provided inexpensive labor and were a sign of wealth and power. However, using slave labor created mass unemployment, which in turn weakened the economy and caused social discontent (UNRV History, n.d.).

What I found most interesting about slavery in ancient Rome, was manumission, the ability for a slave to buy their freedom. Scheidel (2010) describes this as a “Reward-incentive system” which provided slaves with hope and hopefully (for the owners) better worker performance. How twisted! An individual works in servitude and afterwards has the “luxury” of paying for their freedom, assuming the owner was willing to sell, which was not always the