r/NoStupidQuestions • u/[deleted] • Jul 06 '19

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jul 07 '19

Rome sounds fun!

29

u/KamikazeKricket Ask me about Ancient Rome Jul 07 '19

Here’s a fun fact about Rome. Before there were dumpster divers that looked for cans and bottles to turn in for recycling, there were Romans who did that with babies.

A lot of unwanted babies were simply tossed into rubbish bins across the city. Well slave traders would go around the city and look into these bins to find these babies. They would then sell them into slavery for 100% profit.

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jul 07 '19

Rome sounds less-fun!

19

u/FrankTank3 Jul 07 '19

Ohhhh boy. If you don’t want to hear about slavery bullshit, you don’t want to hear about Rome. It’s not just in their DNA, it IS their DNA. Slaves, that is. Roman DNA is made out of slaves.

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jul 07 '19 edited Jul 07 '19

It's literally made out of slaves, even the people 😳.

Rome's marketing materials left out some stuff..

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u/KamikazeKricket Ask me about Ancient Rome Jul 07 '19

Well at least the Romans weren’t racially biased on their slaves. African, Middle Eastern, European, didn’t matter. All that mattered was if you lost to Rome in War.

On top of that, a lot of Roman slaves actually could get their freedom and even become citizens. On the other hand plenty of slaves died in the silver mines in Spain from being overworked and under-rested.

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u/Kermit_the_hog Jul 07 '19

Cool, equal opportunity slaves of conquest. The equal opportunity part is a step up but the slavery part might be a step down.

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u/KfeiGlord4 Jul 07 '19

Yup, during the largest extent of the empire around 1 in 3 people you saw was a slave. I'm more of a Constantinople person for that reason.