![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjaerwinIt is still unclear just how many people were enslaved in the Roman Republic. Walter Scheidel estimates 1.2 million people, about 20% of the low-count estimated total population, at any given time, in mainland Italia in the late Republic and early Empire.
I get the impression that slavery was associated with cash crops, in the food industry, and with wool, in the clothing industry. Diodorus certainly emphasizes the fact that the Romans in Sicilia used slaves as shepherds, and the slave-plantation manuals emphasize wine and olive oil.
I can't be sure how much of the economy these accounted for. Going by Jonathon Roth's recunstruction of Roman military rations, the olive oil and wine account for about 27% of the food costs, although it would seem the army subsidized food costs. In Italia, wool and wool-working probably account for more than 50% of the clothing costs. In Aegyptus, with the better records, linen accounted for more, and soldiers often paid more than the standard 181 1/2 sestertii on clothing including shoes and socks.
On the whole, I think that the 'traditional' interpretation that slaves accounted for somewhere around 33% of the Italian population seems more plausible than the newer estimates that they accounted for around 20% of the Italian population.
I admit this is a very tentative estimate.
I get the impression that slavery was associated with cash crops, in the food industry, and with wool, in the clothing industry. Diodorus certainly emphasizes the fact that the Romans in Sicilia used slaves as shepherds, and the slave-plantation manuals emphasize wine and olive oil.
I can't be sure how much of the economy these accounted for. Going by Jonathon Roth's recunstruction of Roman military rations, the olive oil and wine account for about 27% of the food costs, although it would seem the army subsidized food costs. In Italia, wool and wool-working probably account for more than 50% of the clothing costs. In Aegyptus, with the better records, linen accounted for more, and soldiers often paid more than the standard 181 1/2 sestertii on clothing including shoes and socks.
On the whole, I think that the 'traditional' interpretation that slaves accounted for somewhere around 33% of the Italian population seems more plausible than the newer estimates that they accounted for around 20% of the Italian population.
I admit this is a very tentative estimate.
