Slavery and paid employment - Printable Version

Slavery and paid employment - Printable Version

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Slavery and paid employment - Anonymous - 01-18-2004

If slave labour was heavily relied upon, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas about what sort of employment oppurtunities the poor, unskilled citizens of Rome would have had? 
 
I was also wondering about remuneration of slaves. I've often come across the comment that a slave could save up to buy his freedom. Was it customary for slaves to recieve some sort of payment for their labour or would this have been an occasional gratuity on the whim of a master?

Re: Slavery and paid employment - richsc - 01-18-2004

I think that a lot of the poor in Rome ended up going into the army after Marius' reforms. Then, the grain dole kept the rest quiet? That that happened at the time of the end of the Republic is probably no coincidence. Legio XX 
Caupona Asellinae

re:Slavery and paid employment - Anonymous - 01-20-2004

Hi rich, 
I didn't think about the grain dole. That no doubt helped prevent outright starvation but that still leaves the question of accomodation, clothing, and other basic necessities that needed to be paid for. It's difficult to envisage how people survived on only handouts of grain and oil. Though of course there was always the begging, thieving etc option. 
Regarding the army-wasn't there a steep decline in Italian recruits by the end of the 1st century A.D? I think in Britain distinctly Italian names start to disappear from the epigraphic record by the early 2nd century.

Re: re:Slavery and paid employment - Carlton Bach - 11-21-2004

Well, in a city the size of Rome there would always be a lot of heavy lifting work to do - unloading boats and carts, delivering stuff, building and maintenance work at all kinds of public projects... Vespasian is said to have refused to use a labour-saving device for erecting columns with the argument "How shall I feed my people?" I think a lot of the imperial building projects can be seen at least in part as makework. 
 
Agriculture, at least in Central Italy, also relied on seasonal casual labour in addition to slaves. I envision rural (and some urban) poor during harvest seasons to adopt a migratory existence looking for work in the chora. Evidence from later, better documented times abound. 
 
Then there is the matter of clientage. Certainly not as important as it was during the Republic, but Martialis and Juvenal both still talk of morning visits and sportulae as normal occurrences. I guess there might be something to the tales of 'paid cheerleaders' in court, too. Finally, there's prostitution and petty crime. 
 
But at the end of the day, the casual job market in Rome probably sucked. Far too many people competing for too few jobs, creating a downward wage spiral... tell me something new.