Slavery and Manumission in Ancient cultures

In many ancient cultures, slavery was unfortunately a key factor in the development of their respective economies. On our trip we specifically learned about the use of slavery in early Greek and Roman history. The article 'Slavery, Incentives and Manumission: a theoretical model' by Robert Findlay outlines a comparison of a slave workforce vs the free market model we more commonly operate with today.

Findlay utilizes a carrot and stick example to explain the two ways slaves are 'motivated' to complete their tasks. In the Roman example, it was not uncommon for slaves to receive some amount of payment for completing work. This would be carrot style motivation - in the free market a carrot would be the opportunity for promotion or a wage increase. On the opposing side, the stick in the slave workforce would be the threat of violence or the use of violence to coerce the slaves. In the free market an example of stick motivation may be threat of dismissal or cutting hours. The use of stick motivation in the slave market is cheaper - however it also runs the risk of injuring the slaves, incentivizing the slave owners to utilize the carrot method. Many slaves were also skilled craftsmen or linguists, meaning that it would be more profitable in the long run to ensure they were sufficiently provided for.

Less common than in more contemporary examples of slavery, Roman slaves had the opportunity to purchase their freedom from their owners. Findlay utilizes an edited Cobb-Douglas function to give us an idea of how slave owners may have came up with the price for freedom. The owner would consider how long the slaves working life would be, how much product the slave would have produced, the cost to maintaining any incentives (i.e. 'carrot' payments), and interest on the cost of the slave originally. The benefit to the owner comes from the ability to repurchase younger slaves after 'freeing' an older individual. Often highly skilled slaves would be unable to free themselves due to their own perceived value - so their savings may go to freeing a wife, children or some family member. In a way, Roman slavery was a brutal form of indentured servitude.

We see this style of slavery that allowed the individual to buy their freedom more often in low capital economies. For example, Brazilian slavery often involved intense labor and physical work on the part of the slave. This means that the slaves working life was often shorter than that of an individual who worked as a translator. Because of this, owners were more incentivized to pay their slaves and then regain their earnings to purchase replacements.

Of course, there are more factors that go into this culture than just profits. In American history, slavery was racially motivated and created different social institutions that prevented slaves from ever reaching real freedom. There are many examples of American slavers allowing slaves to purchase freedom - however it was also common that these slaves would then be recaptured and enslaved again. Additionally, many owners would allow slaves to save up money to buy their freedom, but then just take the funds and cheat the individual.

The truth is, much of Ancient Rome's wonders are the result of slavery. The Colosseum being one example. 40% of Pompeii's population was made up of slaves by some estimates. Historically, slavery has always been profitable and a powerful industrial tool utilized by the wealthy, at the cost of innocent lives.

Metals, Salts, and Slaves

For our last day in Rome our class go to go check out the Vatican City. This was one of my favorite places we went because of all the historical artifacts and beautiful architecture. Here's a few of my favorite things I got to see.

However, one thing dawned on me while I was taking in all the beautiful pieces of art. None of what we see today would have been able to be built if not for the use of slaves. Slavery is a horrible time in history, but is important to study for better knowledge of how society was structured.

Someone could have become a slave one of two ways. The first was you could be sold into slavery by your family if they were impoverished. The second way is to get kidnapped and taken to a different territory to work. Often times crews of men from Italy's west coast area would sail to Egypt to plunder random farms. They would kill all the men and capture the women and children and sell them into slavery. Sometimes merchant ships would get over taken by pirates and the captured crew would be sold into slavery.

Pirates were a big problem for many traders throughout the Mediterranean. This caused quite an economic crisis for these costal regions because they were never able to receive their trade shipments. What these coastal villages had to do was to get all the pirates to stop raiding ships in their area so the trade ships could get through. These raiders were convinced to comply with these rules because whenever they go into a port they were treated with great hospitality and given many gifts. The raiders were even sometimes given slaves as assurance that they would leave the traders alone.

Some of the important items that were heavily traded in this area were metals, salts, and even slaves. The metals were mostly used for military purposes, crafting weapons and armor. The salt was used for food preservation and to create coloring for textiles. Textiles became a huge industry during this time and usually the women were the ones in charge of sewing all the fabric. However, the workload became too great and slaves were very sought after to keep production steady.