# Ancient Romans and slaves with specialized job skills. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395 "2009-06-20T14:39:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/1 "2009-06-20T14:39:26Z")
Not all Roman slaves were of the Jack of all trades kind, only good for hard labor or serving. Many land owners had educated slaves that had special job skills like accounting, wine making, cooking, keeping bees, etc. I suppose that not all of these skills were something the slave learnt while growing up. Did a Roman slave owner send a promising slave off to learn some trade or skill, as a investment? Or were there slave markets with deparments not only for “gladiators” “galley slaves” “hot slave girls”, but also “good accountants” “good farmers”? Could you go to a slave market and say: “I need a slave to do my taxes?” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/2 "2009-06-20T15:58:28Z")
Yes. Obviously it would have been limited to what they had and someone else might outbid you, but yeah, you could get accountants, artists, teachers for your kids, etc. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/3 "2009-06-20T17:34:53Z")
This is far from my area of expertise, but my recollection from history classes is that the third wave into a newly conquered territory (after the military and the administrators) were the exploiters — and prominent among those would be the slavetraders. They would be looking for trained individuals as well as brute force, because such commanded a higher price on the market. So there was a supply of ready-made skills. (This applied more to the late Empire than to the Republic or early Empire, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/4 "2009-06-20T23:27:16Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > This is far from my area of expertise, but my recollection from history classes is that the third wave into a newly conquered territory (after the military and the administrators) were the exploiters IIRC the slave traders were usually right behind the army. The capture and selling of slaves was one incentive for their wars. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/5 "2009-06-21T00:51:27Z")
Many Roman slaves were taken as conquests of war, so one might assume they had lives where they had developed such skills before becoming slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/6 "2009-06-21T00:55:57Z")
If I recall correctly, Greek slaves were highly sought after as tutors, as they tended to be educated. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/7 "2009-06-21T06:24:33Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > IIRC the slave traders were usually right behind the army. The capture and selling of slaves was one incentive for their wars. Chilling, when you think about it, isn’t it? Anyway, my image of such pillaging is a roman soldier capturing “able bodied gauls and fertile women under twenty years old”. I can hardly imagine a roman soldier entering a conquered village in Gaul, brandishing his sword, and shouting to the village elders: “Who are your best weavers and tradesmen?!” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/8 "2009-06-21T07:24:28Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Anyway, my image of such pillaging is a roman soldier capturing “able bodied gauls and fertile women under twenty years old”. I can hardly imagine a roman soldier entering a conquered village in Gaul, brandishing his sword, and shouting to the village elders: “Who are your best weavers and tradesmen?!” Wouldn’t happen that way. When a village was conquered and the inhabitants made slaves, everybody in the village was usually sold to the slave traders. But that wasn’t the only way that Romans would get slaves, and during times of relative peace, it wasn’t the primary way. The Romans also enslaved criminals and debtors, and buy slaves from neighboring peoples, and sometimes people would sell themselves into slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/9 "2009-06-21T07:26:38Z")
You might want to check out William Westerman’s “The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity”. It’s an older book, 1955, but it’s a good overview. ---
**Author:** ![Septima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Septima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Septima)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/10 "2009-06-21T19:04:23Z")
Many people trained their own slaves. A craftsman might have a slave or two as trained assistants, and he might well have trained these himself from childhood or adolesence. A young healthy boy was a very valuable slave who could fetch a high price, precisely for this reason - he could be trained in valuable skills, and he could be raised with the mans own family (for loyalty). I think the age of five or six was ideal - past the risk for infant mortality, old enough to be somewhat useful, and young enough to shape however you wanted. If a man did not have his own sons, it was not uncommon for him to raise a slave child into his own trade, and later free and adopt him. There is atleast one example of such a slave being first raised by a free man, who freed him and made him his buissiness-partner, who later inherited his former masters buissiness, and even married his widow. In a rich household with many hundreds of slaves (a rich patricians villa, or a large farming operation or mine) could indeed go and buy “an accountant” or “a skilled musician”. In many cases they probably also trained their own. If you already had a skilled widget-maker, you made sure he trained replacements, either among his own children, or the children of your other slaves. Slave children were more or less considered “profit”, much like the offspring of any other livestock. Slaves were often encouraged to breed, since it was cheaper to breed slaves than to buy new ones (unlike american plantation slaves, who were cheaper to buy then to breed IIRC). ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/11 "2009-06-21T21:11:30Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > …The Romans also enslaved criminals and debtors, and buy slaves from neighboring peoples, and sometimes people would sell themselves into slavery. A Roman father could sell his own children (or wife) into slavery (or have them enslaved for his debts). ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/12 "2009-06-21T21:13:10Z")
But all this meant that a salve owner or slave trader needed a modern Human Resources" eye for the possibilities of a young slave, no? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/13 "2009-06-21T21:16:26Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Chilling, when you think about it, isn’t it? Anyway, my image of such pillaging is a roman soldier capturing “able bodied gauls and fertile women under twenty years old”. I can hardly imagine a roman soldier entering a conquered village in Gaul, brandishing his sword, and shouting to the village elders: “Who are your best weavers and tradesmen?!” More like: “Everybody in this village is now a slave. We’re marching south to the seaport tomorrow morning, anyone who falls behind will be killed. Skilled slaves are in high demand so when you go up on the block make sure to explain to the prospective buyers how hard you will work and what you can do. Slaves left unpurchased after the auction will be sold in bulk to the copper mines.” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/14 "2009-06-21T21:30:36Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > More like: “Everybody in this village is now a slave. We’re marching south to the seaport tomorrow morning, anyone who falls behind will be killed. Skilled slaves are in high demand so when you go up on the block make sure to explain to the prospective buyers how hard you will work and what you can do. Slaves left unpurchased after the auction will be sold in bulk to the copper mines.” The slaves themselves probably had a few other motives to say what they could do. Skilled labor will probably have better working conditions, and people would probably would rather practice their craft than sit around with a giant leaf fanning some fat chick all day. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/15 "2009-06-21T22:40:05Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > A Roman father could sell his own children (or wife) into slavery (or have them enslaved for his debts). In some periods of Roman history, a Roman head of household could do whatever he wanted to his wife, his children (even his adult children), his son’s wives, his son’s children, his slaves, his brothers without a household, and his unmarried sisters. He could sell them into slavery, he could refuse them permission to marry, he could take their property, he could kill them. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/16 "2009-06-22T02:17:03Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Chilling, when you think about it, isn’t it? Anyway, my image of such pillaging is a roman soldier capturing “able bodied gauls and fertile women under twenty years old”. I can hardly imagine a roman soldier entering a conquered village in Gaul, brandishing his sword, and shouting to the village elders: “Who are your best weavers and tradesmen?!” I would think someone who was already a slave would volunteer that information. I have to believe a person skilled in a trade could look forward to better treatment than a ditch digger. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/17 "2009-06-22T04:27:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The slaves themselves probably had a few other motives to say what they could do. Skilled labor will probably have better working conditions, and people would probably would rather practice their craft than sit around with a giant leaf fanning some fat chick all day. Sure, but would they have had the HR knowledge to actually say of themselves (Or wold the slave trader have seen): “I don’t have experience in craft X, but I’m just the type of person who could get \*really \*good at it if you trained me?” How do you know what talents a person has if he doesn’t get the opportunity to get experienced and trained? It’s a catch 22, and unless you enslave craftsmen established in their profession, all you end up with is ditch diggers and fat chick fanners. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-romans-and-slaves-with-specialized-job-skills/500395/18 "2009-06-22T08:23:58Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Sure, but would they have had the HR knowledge to actually say of themselves (Or wold the slave trader have seen): “I don’t have experience in craft X, but I’m just the type of person who could get \*really \*good at it if you trained me?” How do you know what talents a person has if he doesn’t get the opportunity to get experienced and trained? It’s a catch 22, and unless you enslave craftsmen established in their profession, all you end up with is ditch diggers and fat chick fanners. I don’t think people really had the concept of changing or starting professions. You were raised to do something, and whatever that was is what you are. If you were still a young child, they’d choose a profession for you. If you were already older than that, you’d have already started apprenticing as _something_ and that’s what you are. You never chose your job at any point. (Obviously, I’m sure there’s any number of instances where this isn’t accurate–but it’s probably generally the way of things.)