[lbo-talk] Ancient Slavery (was: Democracy and Constitutional Rights)

[John Kozak]

andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote: 
> My impression is that there was a sort of division between something
> like house slaves and field slaves. "House" slaves were often not
> only better educated but sometimes even richer than some masters,
> could own slaves themselves (right?) and even be paid; and those
> were the ones where educated Romans would say, There but for the
> grace of the Gods go I. Then there were the disposible field slaves
> whose lives were used up in the latifundia, galleys, and mines --
> and they were viewed as naturally subordinate. Not necessarily
> because of anything Aristotle said, of course.  


>From memory, there were several different systems of property in
ancient Rome: slaves and sons could have "peculium" which was theirs
to use, subject to some constraints, without actually "belonging" to
them - such transactions were, in law, underwritten by the master.

But the anecdotal evidence does make ancient Rome seem quite mobile -
has anyone computed a Gini index for it?

John