HermanowskiDailylife-Slaves

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**__Roman Slaves__**
 * A Roman Slave's life was totally dependent on how their owner treated them. They depended on them for everything, food, money and shelter. Sometimes the slaves had very good homes like a villa by the countryside or a domus in town. This depended on where their master lived. Sometimes they lived in a Domus and slept outside the master’s bedroom. Other slaves were not as fortunate and they lived in shacks or poorly kept bunkhouses or even in their master's cellar without any lights. Often they didn’t even have blankets! Slaves once in awhile even got enough money to pay their owners to set them free but then they would still have the reputation of being a slave and they could only be of the middle class. They couldn’t become a senator or part of the government and it was very hard for them to get good well paying jobs. Also what the slaves had to eat was dependant on their owners too. Sometimes they were considered a respected member of the family and got to eat at the table with the other family members .If the family were really wealthy they would eat food like: fish, breads, beef and pork, some greens, and wine occasionally. Other times they usually drank water for breakfast and sometimes ate a piece of bread and for dinner also ate bread. Slaves were a very important part of Roman lifestyle, slaves might be prisoners of war, captured sailors, or people from foreign places. Slave traders even followed the army to gather slaves. The slaves that worked in farms performed especially hard backbreaking work, slaves that worked in gold, silver, lead, and tin mines had very hard lives and they often wouldn’t be able to see sunlight for months at a time. Next some slaves had very good lives, like the ones that worked as tutors for the children of wealthy families. Slaves were punished by beating, but sometimes they were forced to wear a heavy log around their shoulders. Slaves that were very expensive were treated well and kept healthy but slaves that were cheap and uneducated had a very bad life. Cheap slave labor replaced the jobs of common men and that led to unemployment and dissatisfaction. That was beginning of the problems in the Roman empire. Most times the slave’s population was equal to the free population. There were 350,000 slaves out of a total of 900,000 people in 1 AD. Rome would not be Rome without the slaves. Also the idea of slaves came from the Romans. America wouldn't have had slaves if the Romans wouldn't have given us the idea **.