Slavery dates back to the beginning of civilization, and it used to be part of everyday life in the ancient world. Many of us view slavery as unnatural and it causes mixed feelings from the heart of each human being. Slavery caused lot of harm by destroying lives of the people who could have been happy back in the day. The main topic of this paper will be on runaway slaves in Rome who escaped from their owners because they yearned for freedom from slavery. Running away was one of the many ways of resistance by slaves. However, before getting into the phenomenon of runaway slaves, it is necessary to provide background information on the topic. In the following sections, I will summarize Documents 13 and 14 from “Spartacus and the Slave Wars’. Lastly, I will discuss the importance of this topic. To begin, we must note that Ancient Rome was a slave society. Hopkins was the first to state that Rome was one of the only five slave societies recorded in the history. Slaves in Rome were obtained through its wars of conquest and through trade …show more content…
According to PBS, slavery played an important role in the Roman Society. Most slaves during the Roman Empire were foreigners and, unlike in modern times, Roman slavery was not based on race (“The Roman Empire in the First Century: Slaves & Freemen”). The life of a slave was quiet harsh. They were often whipped, branded or maltreated. Their masters could easily kill them for any reason, and would not get punished for it (“The Roman Empire in the First Century: Slaves & Freemen”). Therefore, slaves resisted their position as slaves and it shows that slaves did not want to be victims of slavery who accepted their situation. They fought for their freedom in every way they found. Many abused slaves reacted against their masters by running away. Fugitive slaves were very popular back in the day (“The Roman Empire in the First Century: Slaves &