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The Ancients — How Slavery Built the Roman Empire
Scout ratingSCOUT· 66%1h 07m·2026-08-16·History

How Slavery Built the Roman Empire

The Ancients · 694

Was the Roman Empire really made by conquest? Or was it powered by something much darker? For centuries, millions of enslaved people sacrificed their lives and their labour on the altar of Roman progress, an integral cog in the grinding imperial machine. And so today on The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr…

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What people are saying

No Rome without enslaved people? How about, no _United States of America_ without enslaved people?

@5amH45lam · YouTube comment

Slavery was absolutely normal in the classical age, the romans didn’t accept slavery, they took it for granted. Organised Slavery is also ubiquitous in virtually every single civilisation in the entire planet for all history except very mod…

@OutlawedSpank · YouTube comment

Slavery started long before there was a Rome.

@Pancito49 · YouTube comment

Interesting how to be in the military you had to be a land owner. I like that land owners actually fought to defend their land

@uselessdonut · YouTube comment

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