The Roman Empire ran on enslaved people, not on its legions
Rome's administration, its army, its domestic work, its workshops and its mines ran almost entirely on enslaved people; after Carthage fell in 146 BC slavery became the engine of the economy, and once Augustus stopped expanding, that population reproduced itself by birth.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
Take slavery out of Rome and the whole stool falls over
Emma answers the title head-on: the Roman Empire simply could not have existed without slavery. From the bureaucracy to paying the army, almost everyone who handled the paperwork was enslaved or freed; hauling stone, building roads and keeping cities running all depended on enslaved labour. Her image for it: pulling slavery out of Rome as a whole is like pulling one leg off a three-legged stool — the whole thing cannot stand. She then stresses that the experience of enslaved people was deliberately fragmented. People at different ranks under the same roof competed with each other rather than combining, and that was an order the rulers maintained on purpose.
— Emma SouthernA freedman's freedom could be taken back at any time
Rome wrote slavery into law very early. The Twelve Tables already contain clauses on the sale of people and on manumission. The freed were called freedmen: legally neither free persons nor slaves, but a stratum wedged between the two, barred from holding public office, unable to enter into certain contracts, with the restrictions reaching their children as well. Crueller still, being ‘insufficiently grateful’ could be grounds for re-enslavement. Emma stresses that this design was not an accident but an extension of Rome's bureaucratic character: a human being is a special kind of property, but property all the same.
— Emma SouthernSaying ‘slave’ finishes the Romans' work of turning people into things
Emma argues that the word ‘slave’ is itself an instrument of dehumanisation, converting a person into an abstraction. She advocates ‘enslaved person’, which forces the speaker to pause for half a second and remember that the other party was a living human being. Her example is the gravestone of a three-year-old boy who died in an aristocratic household, paid for by his parents, who describe themselves as husband and wife — something legally impossible for them. From the stone you can work backwards to the mother's pregnancy, her work, her labour and delivery, even though none of it was ever written down. Archaeological material gives you fragments only; the rest has to be completed by imagination.
— Emma SouthernOnly after Carthage was destroyed did Rome become a slave economy
Emma dates the change in the character of Roman slavery to the fall of Carthage. Before it, Rome won and lost against the Samnites and the Etruscans in turn, citizens on the losing side could themselves be enslaved, and people flowed back and forth between wars. Once Carthage was destroyed, Rome swept the Mediterranean with no rival left and the number of war captives exploded; a few great estates were worked by whole blocks of enslaved labour, and Rome formally became a ‘slave economy’ — one that could not have held up for two hundred years without enslaved labour. Empire is extraction at bottom: alongside gold and silver, people were a resource being extracted.
— Emma SouthernBreeding kept the slave economy going for another 800 years
After Augustus proclaimed the Pax Romana and closed the Temple of Janus, Rome stopped waging large-scale wars of expansion, and the supply of captive slaves fell sharply. But the slavery Rome practised was hereditary: a child born to an enslaved woman was born a slave. By then the enslaved population was already large enough to sustain itself by reproduction. Emma also points to an explicit incentive: an enslaved woman who bore three sons could obtain her freedom; daughters did not count. This self-reproduction extended the slave economy by roughly another 800 years.
— Emma SouthernThe worst position of all was being enslaved with no master
Not all enslaved people were foreigners. A Roman citizen could be sentenced to become a gladiator or sent to the mines or the quarries, which counted as a form of the death penalty. Emma calls them servus poenae, slaves of punishment: they had no particular owner, so there was nobody who could grant them favour and never any possibility of improving their situation. Beyond that, only two categories of enslaved people were protected in law: first, the stewards and outward-facing representatives of prominent families or the emperor's household; second, the publicly owned civic slaves of a city, for whom the city guaranteed housing, food and a small wage.
— Emma SouthernBuying your way to freedom was a road open only to men
Emma points out that older scholarship overstated how common manumission was: the claim that ‘every slave was freed before thirty’ comes mainly from the experience of male bureaucrats and household slaves. In practice there were four routes: a gift from the owner, release by will, release after promotion through service, and saving up to buy yourself. Augustus restricted release by will: the individuals had to be named, and there was a ceiling on the proportion freed. But buying freedom was open almost exclusively to men. Emma says she cannot think of a single example of a woman purchasing her own freedom; an enslaved woman was usually freed by marrying her former owner, and in the same move was locked into a marriage that was very hard to leave.
— Emma SouthernA ‘good master’'s favour could be withdrawn at the last moment
Emma closes with the case of Pedanius, a senator under Nero who was murdered by an enslaved member of his own household. By law every enslaved person in his house was to be put to death as collective punishment, and on that occasion 400 people were crucified. One motive Tacitus records is that Pedanius had first agreed to let his killer buy his freedom, then went back on it at the last moment. Emma uses this to show how fragile the Roman moral imagination of the ‘good master’ really was: favour at the very top could be revoked at any time, and the price of resistance for enslaved people was dozens or hundreds of lives.
— Emma SouthernIn their own words · checked verbatim
the Roman Empire doesn't exist without slavery
Emma Southern2:27
if they're fighting one another, they're not fighting you
Emma Southern5:58
children born to enslaved women are born enslaved
Emma Southern26:37
There is no abolitionist movement, as far as we can tell
Emma Southern43:54
I just think that we should maybe not treat them as horrifically as we do on a daily basis
Emma Southern44:56
Figures
| Fall of Carthage (turning point for Roman slavery) | 146 BC | 19:59 |
| How long the slave economy lasted in Rome | about 800 years | 27:42 |
| People collectively punished after the senator's murder | 400 crucified | 1:05:54 |
| Age by which older scholarship said slaves were freed | before 30 | 1:00:16 |
| Threshold for the childbearing incentive | 3 sons buys freedom | 27:42 |
Glossary
- manumission
- The procedure by which an enslaved person obtained freedom, used more often in Rome than elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean; the freed still sat between slave and free.
- verna
- A person born into slavery in the household, regarded as more reliable and often occupying one of the higher positions in the house.
- servus poenae
- Someone condemned to slavery as a punishment, with no specific owner, so nobody could grant them favour and there was never a way back.
- dispensator
- The enslaved steward in charge of finances and household management in a prominent Roman family; very high in status, and could even own slaves of his own.
- freedmen
- A legal stratum sitting between free persons and slaves, barred from public office and from entering into certain contracts.
- Pax Romana
- The long period of stability opened by Augustus, in which wars of expansion declined and the source of slaves shifted from war captives to birth within the household.
How to listen
Readers interested in Roman history, ancient economies, or in how systems run on labour that is kept invisible; especially useful for writers and museum curators.