Roman slavery

Roman slavery was a system in which people were legally treated as property and compelled to labor. Enslaved people could be bought, sold, inherited, punished, and sometimes freed.

Roman law: The legal system of ancient Rome, built from statutes, juristic writings, and customary practice. It defined enslaved people as property and regulated owners’ powers and manumission.
Roman conquest: The expansion of Roman control over peoples and territories through military campaigns. Conquest brought captives into Roman systems of sale and forced labor.
Spartacus: A Thracian gladiator who led a major revolt against the Roman Republic from 73 to 71 BCE. His revolt exposed the scale and military danger of mass enslavement.
Servile Wars: A series of major slave revolts against Roman rule, including uprisings in Sicily and Italy. These wars show how widespread coercion could become collective armed resistance.
Debt bondage: A condition in which a person pledges labor or service to repay a debt. Debt bondage could constrain labor without always making the debtor legally saleable property.
Roman slave trade: The buying and selling of enslaved people across Roman territories and markets. Conquest, piracy, birth, and commerce supplied people to Roman owners.
Punic Wars: A series of wars between Rome and Carthage from 264 to 146 BCE. Roman victories transformed Mediterranean power and contributed to flows of captives.
Bulla Felix: A bandit leader in early third-century CE Italy, described in Roman historical accounts as evading capture. The stories associated with him show how Roman sources imagined resistance by fugitives.
Spartacus's revolt: A large uprising of enslaved people and gladiators in Italy from 73 to 71 BCE. It became the best-known challenge to Roman control by enslaved rebels.
Serfdom: A system binding agricultural laborers to land and obligations under a lord. Serfs faced coercive restrictions but were not generally treated as movable property.

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