Has the proportion of slaves in the Roman Empire varied over its history? Has it always been constant?

Question

Has the proportion of slaves in the Roman Empire varied over its history? Has it always been constant?

Answer 1

It definately varied

http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soci...

lots of info on link

Answer 2

The slave population of Rome grew as they conquered more civilisations , but at the later part of the Roman empire laws were passed that gave slaves some rights and recognition as people and they could not truly be classed as slaves anymore , more poor Romans

Answer 3

A census of citizens and slaves has not survived, so all population guesses are a bit dodgy.

However, slaves are like industrial machinery; in fact that's what a lot of them were. When the economy is booming people invest; in a slump, they sell, or at least stop buying. Again, slaves come from two sources: born at home, or acquired (warfare or trading) abroad. It follows that slaves would be plentiful and cheap following a major war of acquisition.

This suggests that the slave population would follow the economic cycle and the recurrent wars on the frontier expanding the empire. If you can find an economic history of Rome and correlate it with the history of Roman warfare, you should be able to work out, roughly, the ups and downs of the slave population.

Remember that in general the number of slaves is likely to have risen as the empire rolled on simply because of the increased need for labour - so irrespective of short-term events, the general trend would be upwards for a long time.

But I'd be surprised to learn that anyone has solid information on this.

Contributions, anyone? Any ancient historians out there?

Answer 4

The number of slaves grew and grew until the empire began to decline... then the number of serfs rose dramatically...

Answer 5

Populations have grown and we are all slaves to our governments so i would say it has grown.

Answer 6

Hi PF.

Interesting but rather difficult question to answer as one would need statistics to support ones argument.

Therefore may I submit the following in hope that it may answer if only in a basic way your question.

During the 1st century A.D., as the Roman Empire began with the reign of Augustus, the slave population of Rome was approximately 35% of the total population.  A good estimate would be 300,000 to 350,000 slaves out of a population of about 900,000 to 950,000.  Throughout Italy, there were about two million slaves out of a population of six million.  Goreann cannot even compare with these percentages, having an average of less than a 2% slave population.  A couple Gorean cities are exception to this average such as Tharna and Ar.  Tharna, after its revolution, has a slave population of close to 50% of its population as nearly all of its women have been enslaved.  Ar contains about 250,000 slaves, but that is less than 10% of its population.

By most definitions, Gor would not be considered an actual "slave society."  It would only be considered a slave owning society.  There have only been five societies in history that most scholars agree were true slave societies.  These include Athens, Roman Italy, Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States.  The latter three were those societies that existed during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.  Different scholars have their own ways of defining a "slave society" though there are three primary definitions.  First, a slave society is one in which slaves play a significant role in production and also form a significant portion of the population.  Such a portion must usually be at least 20%.  Second, is a more qualitative approach, ascertaining whether slaves play a significant role within a society's economy and production.  Third, relies upon the second definition as well but expands the definition of "slave" to include other forms of dependent labor.

Though the statistics are not fully accurate, it seems most likely that the vast majority of Roman slaves were male.  Males were obviously in the majority in the laborious tasks such as construction, mining, agriculture, and loading/unloading.  But, even domestic staff, within Roman households, were predominantly male.  The evidence suggests that from 65% to 80% of these domestic slaves were males.  This is a major difference from the Gorean slave population where 90% of all slaves are female.

I hope this helps.

Good luck my friend.

CATHORIO.