Roman Mining

Irish author and Latin scholar Emma Southon has a new, very disturbing, book on the Romans, titled ‘Not Built in a Day – How Slavery made the Roman Empire’. I would caution people about the book. The descriptions of violence, punishment and torture are graphic and Emma takes liberties in the use of vernacular words in her narratives, that would make many readers cringe or blush. I have read the book, but slowly, as many of the descriptions jolt and shock me.

I always knew that the Romans used primarily slave labor in their mines, but did not realize how badly the slaves were treated. Apparently, the mines were the worst of the occupations that a slave could have. Many were maimed before they were sent there, they were treated horribly and nobody ever got out. After the first century AD, it was a preferred punishment for Christians and considered a punishment worse than death or being thrown to the lions.

In medievel and earlier times, mining was always an occupation which used primarily slaves in many cultures. Artisan mining, as we know it, only really developed in the middle ages in Northern Europe and especially Saxony. So the Romans were not historical outliers in this regard. However, their use of maiming, chaining and no release, appears to be the worst of any of the regimes I have read about.