The Roman Scoop

The transcription is about slavery in ancient Rome. It explains that slavery was a common practice in Rome, with slaves making up a significant portion of the population. Slaves had various roles and responsibilities, including caring for children, doing household chores, working on farms, and building roads. Slavery was not based on color, as anyone could be enslaved for various reasons. However, slaves had the possibility of becoming free through a process called manumission. Freed slaves could achieve their freedom through purchasing it, good behavior, or through marriage or adoption by their enslavers. Being freed could also benefit both the slave and the enslaver in terms of social and political advantages. The transcription concludes by encouraging viewers to like, follow, and subscribe for more information on ancient Rome. Hello, my Classics lovers, Alyssa Columbrida here with your weekly dose of the Roman scoop. This week's lesson will be about slavery in ancient Rome, who they were, what they had to do, and most importantly, how they managed to escape alive. Before we get started, we would love to thank our generous sponsor, Battling Blades. Battling Blades designs and sells high-quality swords, axes, matches, and knives. We strive to design and create products with the highest quality metals, bone, wood, and leather. We pride ourselves on craftsmanship and have special interest in customer service. We are a family-owned and operated business and take great pride in the quality of our work. Thank you, Battling Blades, for that amazing pitch on your company. Everyone be sure to check it out at BattlingBlades.com. Now, on to the juicy stuff. Slavery has been around for hundreds of years, clearly even dating back to the Roman times. A slave was even technically part of the broad Latin term familia, meaning anyone who interacted with the family. The paterfamilias, however, were the ones who really held the greatest power. They were the men of the family, the head of the household that held absolute power over everyone in the family. They even had power over life and death. This included making decisions regarding slaves, and let's just say, slaves were everywhere in Rome. I mean, come on, they made up 15-40% of the Roman population. They were tasked with caring for children, washing clothes, cooking meals, making deliveries, building roads, and especially working on farms. And I bet all of you out there are picturing Roman slavery with a white man as the enslaver and a black slave doing the labor. However, that was not the case in Rome. Slavery was not based on color just yet, so anyone could be enslaved. Whether they were prisoners of war, slaves by birth, which is called verna, rescued as an exposed baby, treated into slavery, or many other methods, they were considered slaves. Now, some might think once a slave is deemed a slave, they are stuck in this role for a lifetime. However, that is not entirely true. There was a term called manumission, meaning the method in which a slave could become freed. These were more common than one might think. For example, a slave might use whatever allowance or peculium they earned during their time in slavery to pay for their freedom. Another option is that a master could free a slave for good behavior, almost like a criminal in jail being let out for good behavior, except the slave did nothing wrong to deserve this life in the first place. In addition, letting a slave go could be seen as a status symbol for the enslaver. This is because the enslaver would have to pay a 5% tax on the market value of the slave in order to let them go. And if they did this, it would show that they had the money to pay this tax, and it wouldn't affect their livelihood or their families. Another option for manumission is marriage or adoption. An enslaver could tell the slave that they would grant them their freedom if they agreed to marry them, after they were free, of course. It had to be done like this, because freed people could not marry enslaved ones. Lastly, a slave can be freed for legal or business reasons. A freed slave could become a client to a former enslaver, which would put the slave at an advantage in the social and political world, as well as help the enslaver with their political campaigns. Dang, what a load of information. My brain is spinning with all of these facts about slavery. If I was living in this time period, I wouldn't be able to keep up with all the rules. But hey, interesting info, right? If you liked this week's topic of slavery during ancient Rome, like, follow, and subscribe down below for more. And don't forget to comment what other topics you would like to hear for next week's episode of The Roman Scoop. Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you next week.