History of Western Civilisation - Wednesday 5th Period: Discussion 5: The Roman Republic

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

Greetings, class. Today, we're going to discuss the Roman Republic.

For your homework, I'd like you to write one hundred words on what you think it would be like to be either a patrician, a plebian, or a slave in the Roman Republic. Due next Tuesday but to be turned in here.

[[OOC: Hold for OCD threads Threads up, go ahead.]]

Comments

QUESTION 2: Slavery in the Roman Republic

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

Another side effect of the near-constant state of war that the Republic was in was that there was a near-constant influx of captured populations to be tapped for slave labor. This lead to, among other things, Rome's lack of technological development. They were brilliant engineers, capable of, for instance, building an aquaduct that sloped almost imperceptibly for miles to bring water to Rome. But they did not develop the technology to build a machine that would have constructed that aquaduct, because they had sufficent slave labor.

In addition, the vast amounts of slave labor rendered human labor cheap, and lead to the wealthy minority owning huge tracts of land in the countryside and hundreds of slaves to work that land, and driving the people who used to work that land as freeholders into the cities.

Because I haven't thought up a clever sum-up question, I'll simply say: Discuss.

Re: QUESTION 2: Slavery in the Roman Republic

[janet_fraiser]

"Gosh, those in positions of near-absolute power took advantage of their social inferiors," said Janet. "I'm shocked."

Re: QUESTION 2: Slavery in the Roman Republic

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"Except for when the 'social inferiors' rise up and rebel. There was a somewhat famous movie made about that. Sparticus, I believe. Rome had a certain paranoia about using slaves, because the slaves tended to be quite numerous. Intelligently, there were legal methods for a slave to become free, as people are far less likely to violently rebel if a peaceful -- and easier -- option is available to them."