AHC Rome abolishes slavery

[Derek Jackson]

What it says on the tin.

If Rome survives longer extra points

[Mathalamus]

Originally Posted by Derek Jackson

What it says on the tin.

If Rome survives longer extra points

i imagine there might be some opposition. and some economic trouble.

[Henriksson]

Rome doesn't become a Mediterranean-spanning behemoth in the first place, and eventually follows the steps of her Hellenistic neighbours in gradually becoming less dependent on slavery.

[wolf_brother]

Originally Posted by Henriksson

Rome doesn't become a Mediterranean-spanning behemoth in the first place, and eventually follows the steps of her Hellenistic neighbours in gradually becoming less dependent on slavery.

Say what? Ptolemaic Egypt, Antipatrid (and later Antigonid) Macedon, Seleucid Persia, Epirus, Thrace, etc. were all equally Hellenistic states and they all were quite dependent on slavery.

[Esopo]

rome actually slowly began doing it, turning slavery in serfdom.

[Henriksson]

Originally Posted by wolf_brother

Say what? Ptolemaic Egypt, Antipatrid (and later Antigonid) Macedon, Seleucid Persia, Epirus, Thrace, etc. were all equally Hellenistic states and they all were quite dependent on slavery.

Less like Rome would later become. There was a trend towards less dependence on slavery, and I don't think that trend would decrease.

[machine3589]

Rome surviving longer is actually something that could cause it to abolish slavery. Augustus even had to create a set of new laws to keep Roman citizens from freeing their slaves too often (obviousely this wasn`t done by said Romans out of the kindness of their hearts but for certain benefits I won`t go into now).

During its last centuries, Rome was becoming more and more feudal in nature, so keeping it alive might see the eventual abolishment of slavery, even though I think it would take centuries for the Roman Empire to fully stop using slavery.

[CandyDragon]

Originally Posted by Derek Jackson

What it says on the tin.

If Rome survives longer extra points

Well, before the gradual feudalization of the Empire, abolishing slavery would kill the Empire's economy. The Empire survived on slavery, without it, it would likely crumble. Rome wasn't as dependent on slavery as societies like Sparta, but slaves did form much of the economic base of the Empire.

[carlton_bach]

The economic impact may well be much less than we imagine, simply because the slave latifundia that the Roman writers depict as typical for agriculture in general were largely a phenomenon of Italy, and of the mid-second century BC to probably second century AD. It is likely the extreme model that Cato describes was already untenable by the early first century AD, though we do not know trhat with any certainty. A larger problem is that the lifestyle and income of the empire's traditional ruling class, the senatorial order, is designed around exactly this mode of agriculture, which may well be what sustained it way beyond its economic usefulness.

The big issue, though, is seeing why Rome might want to do that. It's not that the Romans were invested in slavery per se, or that they had any powerful ideology involved with it, quite the contrary. Very few Romans bought into the Aristotelian concept. Rather, they tended to view slavery as a personal fate, a case of being unlucky. By the second century AD, we see laws and precedent in favour of a more humane treatment of slaves, a movement that has longh roots in Roman Stoicism. But we never see the principle of the thing questioned. Even when Quintilian quotes the jurisconsult Caius in his Institutions sayiong that slavery is contrary to natural law, he merely says that every human being in the natural state is born free. There is no natural law is-ought fallacy in Roman legal philosophy. Almost no Roman ever argues that slavery is good (it is quite possible those in literature that do are satirical characters). But there are also practically none that say it is evil, in the sense the abilitionists do. There is no polarisation. A worlds on this trajectory could see slavery falling into disuse (like early modern northern Europe did), but it is unlikely it would ever muster the energy to change the law so fundamentally. Why? It's not like people would stop being unlucky.

[Superwes]

Could worse than OTL slave rebellions make a difference?

[CandyDragon]

Originally Posted by Superwes

Could worse than OTL slave rebellions make a difference?

I think that would force the Romans into making slavery harsher, not getting rid of it. The Spartan slave revolts didn't make the Spartans leave THEM alone...

[MerryPrankster]

IIRC what happened was that many small farmers went into the army during the Punic Wars and their families were forced to sell out to larger landowners,
who created huge estates worked by slaves.

Options: Shorter Punic Wars lead to a stronger Roman smallholder class so the Empire does not become as dependent on slavery. If you want something later, perhaps the Gracchi succeed in their land reforms?

There'd be less need for slaves in either scenario, so we might have the "slavery falls into disuse" scenario described earlier.

[MAlexMatt]

Originally Posted by MerryPrankster

Options: Shorter Punic Wars lead to a stronger Roman smallholder class so the Empire does not become as dependent on slavery. If you want something later, perhaps the Gracchi succeed in their land reforms?

I've learned relatively recently that the land-reforms happened anyway, after the Gracchi were murdered. It was both their abuse of the Tribunate and some of the other reforms they tried to push (trying to break the Senatorial monopoly on the judiciary, fr.ex.) that got the Senators mad enough to commit political murder.