Slavery was deeply entrenched in the Roman Empire, as in the broader ancient world, and was not significantly challenged even by Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century. During the Republican period, slaves were numerous, with 3 million in Italy (out of 7.5 million) under Augustus, but their role diminished in the empire as a whole. Slaves were costly investments, requiring year-round maintenance, unlike wage laborers who could be hired as needed. Roman agricultural writers advised against overusing slaves in labor-intensive tasks like harvests or unhealthy environments due to economic calculations, not humanitarian concerns, as noted by one writer’s caution against health risks like malaria.
As warfare decreased in the first century, reducing the supply of captured slaves, employers turned to slave breeding (encouraging slaves to have children, who became slaves) or wage labor, which was cheaper and more flexible. Free labor was extensively used for public works in Rome, where maintaining slaves year-round was uneconomical. Freedmen (freed slaves) and slaves often served as business managers, entrusted with capital to run enterprises, reflecting their value in skilled roles requiring fewer workers.
Labor control was rigorous. Columella, a first-century writer from Spain, recommended maintaining a reserve stock of tools to avoid downtime, as lost slave labor time was costlier than equipment. He also advocated squads of ten workers for easier supervision, ensuring productivity. Pliny the Elder criticized slave gangs, often chained together, as inefficient due to their restrictive conditions. In Alexandria’s frankincense factories, extreme measures like sealed aprons, masks, and strip searches prevented theft, as described by Pliny. A third-century edict noted Egyptian peasants fleeing villages to avoid agricultural labor, indicating its grueling nature. Legal measures included branding workers (per a 398 CE law) to identify runaways and debt contracts, which bound free workers by framing employment as debt repayment. Augustine documented parents selling children into servitude for 25 years, highlighting widespread debt bondage among the poor. The Jewish revolt of 66 CE saw revolutionaries destroy moneylenders’ bonds to gain support, underscoring rural indebtedness.
Despite these coercive methods, not all labor was forced. The emperor Anastasius built the city of Dara in three weeks by offering high wages, attracting free workers from across the East. Papyri from the sixth century indicate wage labor’s prevalence in the eastern Mediterranean, suggesting a shift toward more voluntary labor in some contexts. The text emphasizes that while control was strict, particularly for slaves and indebted workers, economic incentives also played a role in labor organization, reflecting the complexity of Roman labor systems.