During the cycle
of Roman civilization unnumbered millions of captives
were seized in the course of military operations and reduced
to slavery. By the end of the Roman cycle the
work-load of agriculture, commerce, industry, mining,
transport, and the domestic life of the well-to-do was
carried by slaves. Basically, therefore, the Roman world
was divided first into Romans and non-Romans and second
into masters and slaves, with a third category which consisted
of an immense bureaucracy (including the military),
a professional and technological group and a heavy burden
of persistent parasitism.
4. Growth of the abyss that separated wealth and the
wealthy from mass poverty in the cities and the countryside.
The abyss was widened and deepened by the presence
of slavery. More extensive and more frequent foreign
conquests added to the volume of slave labor in a market
already glutted and reduced the price of slaves. Against
this super-abundant cheap slave labor, free labor could
compete only by reducing its standard of living and thus
deepening the abyss of poverty. At the other end of the
social arc, the rich were able to surround themselves with
multitudes of slaves who provided the energy needed to
carry on the complex life of Roman civilization. As the
Roman world expanded, the abyss widened, deepened
and became all but impassable.
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