Roman slavery was crucial for Roman society, and slaves had multiple roles and functions. Even if they were at the bottom of the social ladder, their everyday lives were not homogenous. When we think about Roman slaves, we imagine work-worn prisoners and chained captives, ripped away from their homeland and forced to live submissively under the Romans. But that was not always the case. Slaves who were cherished by their masters had a higher quality of life than some of the free Romans who surrounded them. But who were these individuals? What were their lives like?
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Roman slaves, servi, were war captives and survivors from conquered tribes. Prisoners and products of piracy, they could be purchased on the market like any other product. Slaves were goods that could be bought, sold, tortured, or killed. Roman law considered them as res mancipi (Gaius Inst. 1.119–120), they belonged to the category of valuable goods, like land and large animals. In Res Rustica, a book that discusses agriculture in the form of an academic dialogue, Varro defined slaves as instrumentum vocale or “talking tools.”
The Roman custom of mass enslavement came with conquest and the expansion of territory. In the late Roman Republic, continuous wars, foreign and civil, provided a supply of slaves that circulated the markets of the Mediterranean. At that time, women and children were not used as slaves, but after the end of the Republic, the diversity of slaves began to grow. Together with so-called slave-breeding, by the second century, Roman slavery played a much larger role and numbers grew rapidly. For example, in the three wars against Carthage, more than 75,000 captives were imprisoned and sold into Roman slavery.
The enormous influx of slaves from different tribes, cultures, and backgrounds led to tension that resulted in three slave rebellions. The Servile Wars were repressed and they were the only occasions in which major slave revolts shook the institution of Roman slavery. We cannot neglect the numerous, but forever unknown, lionhearted escape attempts that were made by individual slaves, led by their desire for freedom.
Some slaves, because of their skills, hard work, or good looks, could climb up the hierarchical ladder of slaves in the family. They could become those who controlled other slaves, or they could be manumitted — freed — quicker. Some could gain true affection or start a relationship with their masters.