Graecostadium

At the height of the Roman Empire, slaves were a quarter of Italy’s six million population; in Rome every third person was a slave. The slave trade was essential to Roman society as human muscle power did everything from quarrying and mining to farming and building. Slavery was a huge business and criminals, POWs and those simply abducted from their homelands were sold for their labour. Once enslaved, the unlucky individual had no rights under Roman law. The biggest market was the Graecostadium in Rome, originally specialising in the trade of Greek prisoners. Domestic servants, field hands, quarrymen, gladiators and harlots were all traded flesh from as far afield as Britain, Parthia, Carthage and Egypt. In fact, such exotic origins meant a premium price!