Question: Slavery in Ancient Rome

[caldrail]

The figures for egypt are somewhat biased because of the different social mix that existed there, and although the amount of information is significantly better than other areas, on what basis do you make the claim that a social statistical picture is reasonable? Statistics can be used to prove anything and crunching numbers alone isn't a reliable means to reach conclusions.

 

Peasants are normally at the mercy of the landlords anyway, we see that in all periods of history. Its interesting to note that the concept of serfdom (non-slaves bound to an area) was introduced into roman society in the late empire. Its also unwise to generalise about peasanty because their actual situation might vary considerably. Real slave societies existed everywhere in the ancient world, it wasn't a roman phenomenon at all.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Statistics can be used to prove anything...

Edited December 2, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[caldrail]

Thats just political repartee. Any statistical approach has to be linked to other evidence or its presents a purely mathematical model of history that won't agree with findings from other sources. So who's right? Statisticians, scholars, or archaeologisits? None of them, because without applying their findings to information from the other sources you're ignoring evidence that may or may not agree. The 'truth' is that numbers are much easier to manipulate, which is why politicians like statistics. And yes, they do know how to.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Thanks to hundreds of papyri, Egypt is virtually the sole Roman province from which a reasonably complete social statistical picture is possible; modern estimations put the slave population proportion around 7% in Roman Egypt.

Edited December 2, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES

[caldrail]

Thats interesting, but how sugnificant are these figures? Well, firstly, as you rightly state it represents the returns for a certain period of time in a certain region, one we know was not representative of the roman empire as a whole in view of the much higher proportion of free peasant labour available. So to follow my 'coffee' analogy, what it does is taste the cup and gauge the proportions of the various ingredients from that one sip. It doesn't tell you everything about that cup, nor anything at all about the others.

 

If you want to discuss slavery in Egypt - thats different - its relevant, although drawing conclusions from these figures alone I would say is fundamentally risky. What it does it present information, evidence, but not answers.