Role Of Slaves In Roman Economy

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How did slaves affect the daily Roman economy? The Roman economy was essentially powered and affected by slaves in various ways. First and foremost, the population of slaves in the ancient Roman society was one in three of the population. Therefore, slaves were useful to the development of the Roman economy as the wealthy Roman upper-classes were only interested in law and politics as a profession (Kamm, 1970). It is important to know that slaves in the ancient Roman society were classified into two distinct group; domestic slaves and industrial slaves. Domestic slaves were often kept in the homes of the wealthy upper-class Roman while industrial slaves were those used to implement labors such as farming and ranching. From this perspective, it is relatively easy to notice how slaves affected the daily Roman economy. The more slaves a wealthy Roman had, the wealthier he becomes because twelve slaves were assigned to 150 acres of land devoted to the production of olive oil and sheep rearing (Kamm, 1970). Through the implementation and production of this vast land, the economy received a huge benefit and slaves were the main human resources that implement these tasks. Furthermore, while slaves were used in agricultural estates, slave …show more content…

Slaves were essentially the labor force of the Roman industry. The building of Domus, government buildings, and public work maintenance was effectively done by slaves. In my candid perspective, therefore, the importance of slaves in the Roman economy cannot be undermined because without their effort (of course they had no option), the wealthy Roman and the entire Roman economy would not have had the success it had during that period. The Roman society depended on slaves to accomplish most, if not all domestic

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