What was the median price for a slave child in the Augustan Rome?
score:15
There are a couple books that I found that offer at least a partial explanation but more importantly offer some important caveats.
William Linn Westermann's book The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity gives the following caution:
The prices which were paid for slaves during the first three centuries varied, as before, according to the age, condition, training ,physical attractiveness, etc. of each slave. The asking prices differed within each country according to the conditions prevailing in the various localities. An attempt to compare the prices prevalent in different parts of the Empire is therefore precarious, at best, in its results.
He illustrates this point by giving the prices of slaves in different locations in the same time period and prices in subsequent years:
At Rome in the period of Augustus 500 drachmas appears in Horace as a price applicable to a cheap and worthless slave. A clever home-born slave, qualified as a reader through knowledge of Greek, might be obtained for 2000 denarii. In Egypt somewhat later a male slave cost 1000 silver drachmas. Another price paid in 5 B.C. was 1200 drachmas. For the second half of the first century A.D. three moderate prices paid for slaves are available which may be accepted as approximate indications of the custormary price level prevailing at Rome: a boy, good at imitation, purchased for 300 denarii, a slave girl of bad moral repute quoted at 600 denarii as a low price; and a male bought for 1200 denarii. In comparision with these prices stand the following from Egypt for the same period: a girl of about 8 years bought for 640 silver drachmas; sale in A.D. 85-86 of an oikogenes, presumably a very young child, at 10 talents, 3000 drachmas copper (==140 silver drachmas)...
He goes on for another two pages but I think you get the point. This is as callous as it sounds but people viewed slaves as hetereogenous goods and thus they differed in price due geographic location, place of origin, looks, etc.
In order to give some context Frank Richard Cowell's book Life in Ancient Rome provides the following figures:
...To get some idea of what these figures mean they must be compared with other costs. Cicero spend 25,000 denarii a year to have his son educated in good style in Athens. For his fine town house, because it had been built for the millionaire Crassus, Cicero paid 875,000 danarii. Many poor Romans had less to spend on buying their small house than rich people would be ready to pay for a slave; while some rich folk spent more on a single large fish for a dinner party than the price of a poor slave.
Yann Le Bohec gives the following figures that might put things into perspective (it should be noted that figures like this and the ones above are often hotely contested among historians. Often there is only one or two documants that have survived and historians have to make extrapolations from these sources; this is not say that any one source is "wrong" but you might get different answers from different authors):
The garrison at Rome is best documented for the end of Augustus' reign. A Praetorian's salary may well have been 375 denarii per year in A.D. 6, rising to 450, then to 750 in 14. When Augustus died the salary of the urbaniciani was probably 360 or 375 denarii, while that of the vigiles(firefighters) was only 150. Under Tiberius their pay caught up with, and then passed, that of the legionaries.
I hope that helps answer your question.
More post
- 📝 Was touching your nose a greeting in second millenium Mesopotamia?
- 📝 Were there ever any libraries in medieval villages?
- 📝 Why did nationalism in all of Europe surge in the 19th century?
- 📝 What religion did Mustafa Kemal Atatürk self-identify as following?
- 📝 Ancient origins of women's day?
- 📝 How was planning done before computers?
- 📝 Was throwing hammers as weapons common during European medieval combat?
- 📝 How common are the following activities historically?
- 📝 Eastern and Southern Europe in the medieval time period?
- 📝 Were covered wagons used on the Federal Road in North GA in the early 1830's?
- 📝 Elevated walkway in background at 1980s Potsdamer Platz seen in Wim Wenders' film “Der Himmel über Berlin”
- 📝 Were iconic structures intentionally destroyed in 20th century wars?
- 📝 What percentage of the British Empire's economy was profits from the opium trade?
- 📝 Study of causal structures and dynamics in history?
- 📝 Are the Carolingian and Frankish Empire the same?
- 📝 What made the Russian Navy suspect Japanese torpedo boats were in North Sea in 1904?
- 📝 Could medieval soldiers be organized into a Roman style legion order of battle?
- 📝 Why did classical works re-emerge during the Renaissance?
- 📝 Around 1750, How many Native Americans (if any) spent the winter in the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan?
- 📝 Did the Soviets have an alternate source of oil in Iran during World War II?
- 📝 Has anybody ever tried to use sea animals to pull a ship?
- 📝 Did Albert Einstein really receive this rejection letter from the University of Bern?
- 📝 When did "skipping" grades become common and when did it stop in USA?
- 📝 When did the <input> tag come about, and in what web browser?
- 📝 Was there an assassination attempt against Xerxes in the battle of Thermopylae?
- 📝 Why wasn't Monaco unified with France?
- 📝 What was it like for a coastal village to experience a Viking raid in around the tenth century?
- 📝 Why did wagons in the frontier era travel at night?
- 📝 What was the ratio women to men after World War 2 in the Soviet Union
- 📝 What were the casualties and ship damage on each side of the Battle of Plum Point Bend, Tennessee?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the median price for a slave child in the Augustan Rome?
- 📝 What was the impetus for some African nations to participate in the slave trade?
- 📝 Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 What was the economic basis for West Berlin?
- 📝 What is the evidence to claim that political order in ancient Rome was sufficiently different under "kingdom", "republic" and "empire"?
- 📝 What was the planned line of succession for the Nazi Party in the event that Hitler died?
- 📝 What was the 1970s name for skinny jeans?
- 📝 What was it like for a coastal village to experience a Viking raid in around the tenth century?
- 📝 What was the original process for becoming a US citizen?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of an ancient Roman child and adult?
- 📝 What was the motivation for the Gregorian Calendar?
- 📝 From 1936-45 what was the prescribed punishment in Nazi Germany for failing to join or participate in the Hitler Youth?
- 📝 What was the reason for the Ottoman empire to adopt the crescent moon as its flag/coat of arms?
- 📝 What was the basis for valuating large territorial purchases by USA?
- 📝 What was the actual cause of the disaster for the Royal Navy’s battlecruisers in the Battle of Jutland?
- 📝 What was the penalty for disobeying flu safety regulations in the 1918 epidemic?
- 📝 What was the primary motivation for a historical figure like Xenophon to create an extensive collection of written material?
- 📝 What was the congressional level of support for Emancipation Proclamation?
- 📝 What was the timetable for Germany's Invasion of the Low Countries (Fall Gelb) in WW2?
- 📝 What was the reason for inflation in Britain after the Black Death?
- 📝 What was the argument for the Japanese pursuing the Northern Expansion Doctrine during WWII?
- 📝 What was the ancient Egyptian word for "soldier"?
- 📝 What was the price of going from England to New England as a passenger in the 1600s?
- 📝 What was the first recorded instance of sex or violence being inappropriate for children to see?
- 📝 What was the purpose for Kaiser Wilhelm's visit to Jerusalem?
- 📝 What kind of wood was the standard decking for aircraft carriers in World War 2?
- 📝 What was the typical range of travel of a Pennsylvanian resident for everyday life in the late 18th early 19th Century Pennsylvania?