Are they and welcome to Emperor's of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr.

Rianna Evans, senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at Latrobe

University.

This is episode C. I. V. Slavery. Slaves were an integral part of the Roman society,

responsible for much of the domestic duties and manual labor for any self-respecting and

vaguely wealthy Roman citizen. Life as a slave was harsh.

You were treated as property, the best you could hope for is freedom, and the worst being worked

to death. But on the upside, upside question mark is that without slaves

Rome wouldn't be the clothed in marble city we know it as today he's Rianna Evans

slaves were central to Roman power the Roman economy and the Roman Empire.

They were a free source of labor and they made Rome into a very powerful society, a slave society like many other ancient

Mediterranean economies. But of course the Romans had access to a lot more slaves

because they conquered so many more peoples.

So give me a bit more detail about that.

What was the main source of Roman slaves?

Well, originally they were all conquered in warfare.

So in very early times, sort of mid-republic, Romans probably enslaved other Italians

because they were conquering the peninsula of Italy.

But very quickly it becomes people from outside of Italy, but very quickly it becomes people from outside of Italy, around the Mediterranean

places that Rome conquers. One of the things they do in Morrifar is that they tend not to just kill everybody they conquer. They will maybe

kill adult males. It depends on the situation, depends how they feel if they

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