The lower classes of city and country were not suited to the
work wanted, either by capacity or inclination. It was not for a free
Roman to be at the beck and call of an employer, like the clerks and
underlings of to-day, or to act as servant in a great household; and
for a great part of the necessary work he was not sufficiently well
educated. Far less was it possible for him to work on the great
cattle-runs. And the State wanted the best years of his life for
service in the army, which, as has been well remarked, was the real
industry of the Roman freeman. But luckily in one sense, and in
another unluckily, for Rome, there was an endless supply of labour
to be had, of every quality and capacity, for the very same abnormal
circumstances which had created the demand also provided the supply.
The great wars and the wealth accruing from them in various ways had
produced a capitalist class in need of labour, and also created a
slave-market on a scale such as the world has never known before or
since.
Ever since the time of Alexander and the wars of his successors with
each other and their neighbours, it is probable that the supply of
captives sold as slaves had been increasing; and in the second century
B.
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