Adam PowerJuly 27, 2014HIS 101-OL1

Living without slavery is a fairly new lifestyle if one were to look back at history. Often times, we look as slavery only being a historical issue in the 19th century, but that is far from the truth. Slavery has existed for thousands of years and has evolved and changed to what most people know slavery as in the Civil War Era. The nature of Roman slavery was much different within itself as well as how it slavery is interpreted today. Rome is not the first thing one would think when someone says slavery. Most of the time when we think of slavery, we tend to lean more toward 1860 and somewhere in the Southern United States. The nature of Roman was much different than that of racial slavery. Although slavery is generally looked upon as wrong there many positives. Roman slaves were treated with a great deal of respect. There were given special privileges were treated better than most people think. In this book, Life As A Roman Slave, Don Nardo states some masters treated their slaves with care and affection as their own children"(25). He continues later on the page by saying As historian L.P.Wilkinson also stated, 'normal masters could hardly fail, even if half-ashamedly, to have a soft spot for characters they had seen toddling and growing up about the place, these slaves in return ate and dressed better than poor free Romans. They were even safer and secure (Nardo 25).This is something that wasnt typical of the slaves in as we know them. Most slaves are envisioned of wearing rags and not being very clean. These slaves were treated as if they were a family member. In the first chapter of the Roman Blood novel, there is a description of a slave who is acting as a messenger. It says, The slave stood at my door on this particular morning, however, was very clean and meticulously groomed (Saylor 3). This goes to show that slaves were treated regular human beings in Rome.There were two main groups of slaves in Rome: urban rural. The urban slaves were often sold to the city or owned by wealthy families and worked and were employed as gardeners, hairdressers, nurses etc. They were just everyday working people. The only difference was they were someone elses property. If they were sold to the city they were more than likely going to be janitors or laborer of some aspect. Some urban slaves were also sold for entertainment purposes such as gladiators or prostitutes (Shelton 1988).Rural slaves differ greatly from the urban slaves. Rural slaves are the slaves that we think of when someone mentions slavery. These are the guys who out of the farm doing manual labor from sunup until sundown. These slaves were treated very harshly. The beatings they received from their masters resulted in an eventual death. It was virtually impossible for any slave to gain freedom. In order to gain freedom, the slaves had to either be given freedom or bought by someone else. They could also buy their freedom by raising the same amount of money that their owners paid for them which was almost impossible. If a married woman had children, her children would automatically become salves. Young children were sometimes killed by their parents to prevent them from becoming slaves. Most slaves were not educated but those who were educated worked as teachers, accountants or musician, along with a variety of other jobs. Although they still had no human rights, and had to follow the same Roman laws, they were given clothes to wear to fit their job. Uneducated slaves worked the most grueling jobs such as farm hands, working the galleys or working in the mines. These slaves received a tunic every year and new shoes every other year.Slavery in Rome is very similar to slavery in America in many aspects although located on entirely opposite sides of the world. Both were large to domestic and agricultural growth. Slaves in America would work long hours in the fields to produce cotton. Roman slaves worked long hours to produce wheat. In both societies, owning a multitude of slaves showed one's social status, for if one owned numerous slaves, then they were considered wealthy. Additionally, the lower class looked down upon the slaves as lower individuals than themselves, treating them like animals through their constant beatings and tiresome work. This work that the slaves had to endure was similar in both societies, for they similarly had to work in the fields for long hours. A child born of a slave woman was a slave (the legal status of his father being irrelevant) and the property of the slave woman's owner. With those similarities there is one major difference that stands out. Roman slavery was not racially based like American slavery. Roman slaves were all European and white. Most of them were prisoners captured during war(s) in order for their country to pay off the debt. They sold their citizens to pay war debts. American slavery was a little more brutal. White colonists went to Africa and took the men and women in order to have them to work. The African countries didnt sell them to pay war debt, Americans basically stole them. Roman and America slaves were very similar, yet very different. Urban and rural slaves lived very different but similar lives in Rome. Urban slaves were the working class, everyday people and the rural slaves were the stereotypical slave that worked on the farm. It was extremely hard to gain or buy your freedom in Rome. If you were a Roman slave you really wanted to be educated because you would be treated with more respect than an uneducated slave. Finally, Roman slavery was much different than what slavery is seen as today. Roman slaves were treated poorly, but there was a level of respect, because they were not a different color than their masters. The nature of Roman slavery was much different within itself as well as how it slavery is interpreted today.

Works CitedNardo, Don. Life of a Roman Slave. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 1998. Print.Shelton, Jo-Ann. As the Romans Did: A Source Book in Roman Social History. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.