Slave Prices in Late Antiquity and in TH

SLAVE PRICES IN LATE ANTIQUITY
(AND IN THE VERY LONG TERM)*
Introduction: Problems and Prospects
In 1958 Conrad and Meyer published a paper in the Journal of Political Economy that
cleared a path for the cliometric revolution and forever changed the way historians and
economists studied the institution of modern slavery.1 If some of the their conclusions
have been modified, and much of their data replaced by subsequent archival work, their
method has stood the test of time. Slave labor can be studied with the quantitative tools
of economics. They showed, against the prevailing wisdom, that not only was slave labor
profitable, but slave prices effectively reflected the revenue streams generated by the
marginal product of slave labor. This claim represented a paradigm shift, overturning
the received views of the influential historian U. B. Phillips, who believed that slave
labor was inefficient and could only succeed where there were no alternatives, cheap
slaves, and simple tasks conducive to gang labor, or where masters, hungry for honor,
would overcapitalize in slaves in the pursuit of conspicuous consumption.2 The insights
of Conrad and Meyer were refined and expanded by Fogel and Engerman in their 1974
book, Time on the Cross, and over the last generation the economic analysis of modern
slavery has become an industry unto itself.3
The influence of the cliometric revolution on the study of ancient slavery has been
limited and uncertain. The ancient historian is more likely to hear echoes of Phillips
than Conrad and Meyer in the scholarly literature on antiquity. The idea that slavery
was intrinsically inefficient and could only be sustained by low prices or conspicuous
consumption has been enduring.4 To be fair, the delusion that slave labor is cheap labor
* I would like to thank Gilles Bransbourg, Walter Scheidel, and Peter Temin for their insightful com-
ments on this paper, as well as William Harris for organizing the Economics Workshop for Ancient
Historians at Columbia, where the ideas presented here were greatly refined. I am also grateful to
Kai Brodersen for his exceptional editorial efficiency and to the anonymous readers for their help-
ful reports. In a paper like this one, I must particularly emphasize that all remaining errors are mine
alone.
1 A. Conrad, J. Meyer, “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South”, Journal of Political
Economy 66 (1958) 95–130.
2 U. B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston 1929); U. B. Phillips, American Negro
Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the
Plantation Régime (New York 1918).
3 R. Fogel, S. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston
1974); G. Wright, Slavery and American Economic Development (Baton Rouge 2006) is a succinct
overview of the field (and an incisive critique of Fogel and Engerman).
4 The “inefficiency” of ancient slavery was a longstanding dogma among orthodox Marxist accounts,
see esp. E. Ciccotti, Il tramonto della schiavitù nel mondo antico (Turin 1899). See too N. Brock-
meyer, Antike Sklaverei (Darmstadt 1979) 45. It gained broader diffusion via M. Weber (see below,
Historia, Band 59/2 (2010)

© Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart
Slave Prices in Late Antiquity 207
has been a persistent and universally appealing error.5 Among ancient historians, this
assumption has often been coupled with an exclusive emphasis on supply as the driv-
ing force behind slave prices: lots of slaves equals low prices, few slaves equals high
prices.6 This supply dynamic is embedded in the long-term trajectory of the Roman
slave system posited by the “conquest model” of Roman history.7 After the Augustan
settlement, expansion ended, the slave supply withered, prices rose, and the use of slave
labor was gradually phased out. Virtually every step in this logical chain is contestable,
empirically and conceptually. Finley, perceiving the weakness of the data and the logic,
elected to forego the “numbers game” and opted instead to pursue a rigorously qualita-
tive approach to ancient slavery.8 Most ancient historians have followed his lead.
There is an obvious reason why the cliometric revolution can only make limited
inroads into the ancient world: the paucity of data. The historian of U.S. slavery has
over 100,000 slave prices; the historian of the Roman empire has a few dozen data
points.9 Nevertheless, we do not have to agree with Finley’s insinuation that any at-
tempt to extract meaningful information from ancient slave prices is condemned to be
a “game.” It is important to make the best critical use of what we do have. There have
been a handful of noteworthy advances in this direction, notably by Hopkins, Scheidel,
Jongman, and Ruffing and Drexhage.10 This paper hopes to contribute to this project
of using limited and imperfect data in a conceptually defensible manner. It begins by
offering an overview of what slave prices mean, considering along the way some of the
uses to which slave prices have been put by Roman historians. Then the evidence for
note 7). See the insightful comments of E. Lo Cascio, Crescita e declino: Studi di storia dell’economia
romana (Rome 2009) 310: noting that in Weber’s influential model, “l’azienda schiavistica può
risultare economicamente profittevole solo là dove il prezzo degli schiavi non è elevato.”
5 See the critical remarks of Wright, Slavery (as in n. 3) 71.
6 A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey,
3 vols. (Oxford 1964) 794. See a refined statement of the same position in Lo Cascio, Crescita e
declino (as in n. 4) 61, 130.
7 The clearest statement of this influential narrative is M. Weber, “Die sozialen Gründe des Untergangs
der antiken Kultur”, Die Wahrheit 6 (1896) 57–77; W. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek
and Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia 1955) 57–63. For the pervasive influence of the conquest model,
see K. Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman Empire: An Economic, Social, and Institutional Study
(forthcoming) Introduction.
8 M. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (2nd ed., Princeton 1998) 197–198, rightly critical
of Jones’s haphazard use of the price data and recognizing that prices are a reflection of both supply
and demand.
9 For modern data, see G. Hall, Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy,
1699–1860 (Baton Rouge 2000); for collections of ancient slave prices, see esp. K. Ruffing, H.-J. Drex-
hage, “Antike Sklavenpreise”, in P. Mauritsch, et. al (eds.), Antike Lebenswelten; Konstanz, Wandel,
Wirkungsmacht: Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden 2008) 321–351.
10 K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge 1978) 133–171; W. Scheidel, “The Comparative
Economics of Slavery in the Greco-Roman World”, in E. Dal Lago, C. Katsari (eds.), Slave Systems:
Ancient and Modern (Cambridge 2008) 105–126; Idem, “Real Slave Prices and the Relative Cost
of Slave Labor in the Greco-Roman World”, Ancient Society 35 (2005) 1–17; W. Jongman, “The
Early Roman Empire: Consumption”, in W. Scheidel, I. Morris, R. Saller (eds.), The Cambridge
Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge 2007) 592–618; Ruffing and Drexhage,
“Antike Sklavenpreise” (as in n. 9).
208 KYLE HARPER
slave prices in the later Roman empire is gathered, a data set which has not heretofore
been fully exploited. Finally, this data set is interpreted. If we emphasize the limits of
the data, there are insights to be gained from the evidence. The largest gains, as is so
often the case, are to be made by clarifying the terms of the discussion and delineating
the various interpretive possibilities.
What Does a Price Mean?
In a competitive market, slave prices represent the point of equilibrium between supply
and demand, the point where the supply curve and demand curve intersect. The supply
curve represents the number of slaves which will be made available at a given price; it
slopes upward, because at higher prices slave merchants will go to greater lengths to
procure slaves for sale. The demand curve represents the number of slaves which will be
purchased at a given price; it slopes downward, because at lower prices more consumers
will be willing and able to buy slaves. The point where these two curves intersect is the
price at which supply and demand are in equilibrium (P1 and Q1 on figure 1).
Figure 1
It is fundamentally important to recognize that the price reflects both supply and demand
and that both of these components are dynamic. Because supply is a more intuitive
force, it has tended to influence the way that ancient historians think about the price
of slaves. So A. H. M. Jones argued that rising prices reflected a diminishing supply.11
This may be the underlying cause for a rise in prices, but the more appropriate way to
11 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 794–795.

make this claim is to argue that the supply curve shifted inwards, so that fewer slaves
were provided and at higher prices. A rise in prices could equally reflect a rise in de-
mand. If the demand curve shifted outwards but the supply curve remained constant,
then more slaves were provided and at higher prices. To take an example, slave prices
trended upward across the 19th-century U.S., and increased rapidly in the 1850s, even
as the slave population (the supply) trebled; demand for cotton largely drove up demand
for slaves, increasing their market value.12 So the observation of a rise in prices per se
does not indicate whether supply or demand was changing, much less whether or not
slavery was in decline.
The basic shape of the supply curve is relatively straightforward. The number of
slaves available on the market will be zero at or below some price, because it will sim-
ply not be worth anyone’s trouble to become a slave dealer. The curve will then slope
upwards: as the price rises, more slaves will be put on the market. As the price continues
to rise, slave-dealers will take greater risks, search further afield, and transport bodies
longer distances, because the price is worth their costs. Ultimately the curve will bend
upward, as the market cannot endlessly supply slaves – there are only so many enemies
to capture, slave women to breed, children to kidnap, etc. It is important to understand
that the supply curve itself can move, sliding inward and outward as conditions change.
After an enormous victory, for instance, the supply curve may shift (rapidly, temporar-
ily) outward because of the haul of captives – more slaves will be made available at
lower prices. Or perhaps transportation technology improves, bringing into range new
sources at lower costs (on Figure 2, line S2 represents an outward shift in the supply
curve). Likewise, the supply curve can shift inwards: maybe there are fewer and fewer
enemies to be conquered, or something acts to depress the fertility of slave women. In
this case, fewer slaves will be supplied for any given price (Figure 2, line S3).
The demand curve is more interesting and complex. It reflects the number of slaves
which purchasers will buy at a given price. If prices are exceedingly high, perhaps a
few especially rich members of society will still buy slaves. As the price goes down,
more purchasers will be willing and able to buy a slave. Like the supply curve, the
demand curve can shift inwards or outwards, as the conditions underlying the behavior
of purchasers change. This is, analytically, the most interesting part of the equation. So
long as the slave is purchased for economic reasons (an important qualification, to be
discussed below), the price of the slave should be related to the profitability of buying
slaves. The profitability of slavery, in turn, is a function of the difference between the
marginal value of the slave’s labor and the total costs of employing the slave (the cost
of the slave on the market, plus the value of the capital used by the slave and the nec-
essary supervision and maintenance costs).13 The marginal value of the slave’s labor
is a function of the price of the commodities produced by slaves and the productivity
of slave labor. The profitability of a female slave is even more complicated, since the
12 R. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York 1989)
70–71.
13 Conrad and Meyer, “Economics of Slavery” (as in n. 1) 97–98; Fogel and Engerman, Time on the
Cross (as in n. 3) 67–70.
210 KYLE HARPER
Figure 2
value of her reproductive potential (minus its costs) must also be figured.14 Finally, for
both males and females, the probable duration of this revenue stream (marginal value
of labor minus costs) will be determined by average mortality schedules.
Although the determinants of the demand curve are more numerous, they are, indi-
vidually, quite intuitive. A rise in the demand for commodities means that the demand
curve for slaves will shift outward, because purchasers will buy more slaves at any
given price; a technological improvement that makes slave labor more productive will
likewise shift it outward (Figure 3, line D2). By contrast, lower prices for commodities,
higher supervision costs, higher maintenance costs, or a rise in servile mortality rates
will move the demand curve inwards, reducing the amount that purchasers are willing
to invest in slaves (Figure 3, line D3). Historically, the market demand for commodi-
ties has been a driving influence, responsible for explaining the long-term rhythms of
slavery’s expansion and decline in the New World. The voracious demand for sugar in
the 18th century, for instance, increased the demand for slave labor, while the demand
for cotton emanating from the textile mills of the 19th century was behind the increasing
market price for slave labor and the vitality of antebellum slavery in general.
It was the major breakthrough of Conrad and Meyer to demonstrate that the price of
American slaves reflected the value of the investment in the slave’s labor. Slave prices, in
other words, were not kept at artificially high levels simply because slave-owners insisted
on possessing slaves; the South’s level of capitalization in slave labor was economically
rational. It is perfectly reasonable to object that conditions in antiquity may have been
different, and that ancient slave-owners did buy slaves for the sake of owning slaves, not
14 Conrad and Meyer, “Economics of Slavery” (as in n. 1) 106; Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross
(as in n. 3) 68–69.
Figure 3
for the earnings generated from slave labor.15 Most pre-modern slave systems were not
like Atlantic slave systems, which were based squarely on the production of commodi-
ties for the market. In most pre-modern societies, slaves, principally female domestics,
were owned by only the wealthiest families, and they were a conspicuous sign of the
elite household’s honor.16 But it is precisely one of the distinguishing characteristics
of Roman slavery that it stands among the few pre-modern slave systems centered on
agricultural production over a long span of time. Therefore, conscious of the fact that the
consumption habits of those with market power may have distorted the price of slaves,
we can for now hypothesize that the value of Roman slaves strongly reflected the value
of their labor, in turn a function of the price of the commodities they produced.17
15 On the debates over the economic “rationality” of ancient landowners, see J.-M. Carrié, “Une ra-
tionalité quand même”, in Topoi orient-occident 12.3 (2005) 293–303; D. Rathbone, “Economic
Rationalism and the Heroninos Archive”, in Topoi Orient-Occident 12.3 (2005) 261–269; J. Andreu,
J. Maucourant, “À propos de la ‘rationalité économique’ dans l’antiquité gréco-romaine”, Topoi
Orient-Occident 9 (1999) 48–102; D. Kehoe, Investment, Profit, and Tenancy: The Jurists and the
Roman Agrarian Economy (Ann Arbor 1997); D. Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society
in Third-century A. D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate (New York 1991).
16 J. Goody, “Slavery in Time and Space”, in J. Watson (ed.), Asian and African Systems of Slavery
(Oxford 1980) 16–42; G. Campbell, S. Miers, J. Miller, “Women in Western Systems of Slavery:
Introduction”, Slavery & Abolition 26 (2005) 161–179; G. Campbell, S. Miers, J. Miller, “Children
in European Systems of Slavery: Introduction”, Slavery & Abolition 27 (2006) 163–182. See further
(n. 88).
17 See the debate between A. Carandini, “Columella’s Vineyard and the Rationality of the Roman
Economy”, Opus 2 (1983) 177–204; R. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quan-
titative Studies (2nd ed., Cambridge 1982) 33–59. More generally, D. Rathbone, “The Slave Mode
of Production in Italy: Review of Società romana e produzione schiavistica, by A. Giardina, A.
Schiavone”, JRS 73 (1983) 160–168; P. W. De Neeve, Peasants in Peril: Location and Economy in
Italy in the Second Century B. C. (Amsterdam 1984); M. Spurr, Arable Cultivation in Roman Italy,
212 KYLE HARPER
So far we have been speaking of the price of slaves as an undifferentiated category

and have only gestured at the differential value of male and female slaves. Sex is only
one of many attributes that affect the market value of an individual slave, albeit a par-
ticularly important one. Kotlikoff’s standard study of slave prices in the U.S. identifies
34 different attributes which affected the price of an individual slave.18 It is disconcert-
ing for the ancient historian that the number of significant variables is greater than the
number of data points at our disposal. But four attributes are of particular significance
for the price of a slave: sex, age, skills, and location. Slaves, generally, increase rapidly
in value into young adulthood and then decline again in old age.19 Skilled slaves fetch
higher prices on the market, a reflection of their human capital.20 Location, too, mat-
ters. A slave on the coast of Africa sold for less than he or she would in New Orleans; a
slave in interior Phrygia sold for less than he or she would in Ostia. What makes these
variables such an acute worry for the ancient historian is that we often lack the relevant
information about the slave’s sex, age, skills, location, etc. Given that the data are already
limited, this makes it even more difficult to track change over time.
The demand curve, and thus the price of slave labor, was also influenced by another
consideration: the cost of free labor. Slaves and free workers could act as substitutes.
To the extent that slaves and free workers occupied the same market, wages, rents, and
slave prices were in competition.21 Thus the price of slaves could have been subject
to Malthusian pressures: if population increase drove down wages or rents, the value
of slave labor would decline because its substitutes were cheaper. Conversely, if the
free population declined, driving up wages or rents (in the aftermath of a plague, for
instance), then the price of a slave would have risen in response.22 Finley argued that
the military mobilization of the Italian peasantry in the late republic created a “scarcity
of labor,” and, in a more articulate version of the argument, Scheidel has claimed that
c. 200 B. C. – c. A. D. 100 (London 1986); A. Tchernia, Le vin de l’Italie romaine (Rome 1986);
N. Morley, Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy 200 B. C.–A. D.
200 (Cambridge 1996) 122–129. See B. Frier, D. Kehoe, “Law and Economic Institutions”, in W.
Scheidel, I. Morris, R. Saller (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
(Cambridge 2007) 113–143, at 138: “the investment that landowners made in slaves… presumably
provided landowners with an adequate level of profit.”
18 L. Kotlikoff, “Quantitative Description of the New Orleans Slave Market, 1804–1862”, in R. Fogel,
S. Engerman (eds.), Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Negro Slavery
(Markets and Production: Technical Papers, vol. 1) (New York 1992) 31–53, at 38.
19 Fogel, Without Consent or Contract (as in n. 12) 68: “age had by far the greatest influence on prices.”
20 For skill premiums in late antiquity, see below. For the concept of human capital in the Roman con-
text, see R. Saller, “Human Capital and the Growth of the Roman Economy”, Princeton/Stanford
Working Papers, Classics Paper No. 060809, 2008.
21 See P. Temin, “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
34 (2004) 513–538.
22 It is central to Lo Cascio’s interpretation of the imperial economy that the free population soared
while the slave population was stable or in decline, leading to the substitution of slave labor by
free labor: Lo Cascio, Crescita e declino (as in n. 4) 189. For the effects of plague on wages, see R.
Findlay, M. Lundahl, “Demographic Shocks and the Factor Proportions Model: From the Plague of
Justinian to the Black Death”, in R. Findlay, et al. (eds.), Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and
Economic History (Cambridge 2006) 157–198.
conscription drove up wages, encouraging employers to turn to slave labor.23 A rise in

wages would represent a shift outward of the demand curve for slaves, while a decline
in wages would move it inward.
It is important to recognize, though, that slave labor and free labor are not neces-
sarily exact substitutes. This is a feature of slave labor that has largely been missing in
recent discussions of the economics of Roman slavery. Slavery gave the owner a set of
long-term property rights in the slave; wage labor was a type of contract, of variable
duration, between the employer and the laborer for the labor itself.24 Slavery and free
labor were institutionally different forms of labor. This fact had significant consequences.
Slaves might be worked in different ways (e. g. by the lash, in gangs); slavery might
override cultural norms (allowing exploitation of females, or domestic service); slav-
ery might reduce transaction costs (the cost of finding, hiring, and training laborers);
slavery might be an effective way of developing human capital.25 Historically, such
institutional differences have been of primary importance in the economics of slave
labor.26 Moreover, these institutional distinctions had different effects in different sec-
tors. High transaction costs or cultural stigmas (e. g. attached to domestic service) may
have prevented slavery and free labor from competing in some sectors.27 By contrast,
in other niches – especially urban-based crafts – slavery and free labor may have been
near perfect substitutes, so that the price of slaves was particularly sensitive to the wage
level. Empirically this has been the case.28
It is an open question, and one which has not been posed often or explicitly enough,
to what extent slave and free labor acted as substitutes in the Roman economy. This
will ultimately depend on a number of sub-questions, which we can do no more than
signal: (1) to what extent were slaves employed in urban crafts, (2) to what extent did
honor and shame prevent a free market in domestic service, (3) to what extent were
landowners able to employ wage labor in the countryside, (4) what was the overall oc-
cupational structure of the Roman slave system? Temin, in an important discussion of
the Roman labor market, emphasizes the competition between slave and free labor; his
account, though, is focused on the urban, skilled element in the Roman slave system,
23 Finley, Ancient Slavery (as in n. 8) 135–160; Scheidel, “Comparative Economics” (as in n. 10)
115–126.
24 Tenancy is yet a third category of labor, with its own institutional dynamics. The discussion of sub-
stitutes is somewhat simplified here, and we bracket the question of tenancy (which entails lower
risk, more secure returns, but also potentially lower returns, less control over production, allocation,
capital investment, etc.). For a holistic model of competition between rents, wages, and slave labor,
see Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 4. On the dynamics of tenancy, see esp. D. Kehoe, Law and
the Rural Economy in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 2007).
25 Gang labor efficient (for effort-intensive work): S. Fenoaltea, “Slavery and Supervision in Compara-
tive Perspective: A Model”, Journal of Economic History 44 (1984) 635–668. Gender: J. T. Toman,
“The Gang System and Comparative Advantage”, Explorations in Economic History 42 (2005)
310–323. Transaction costs: C. Hanes, “Turnover Cost and the Distribution of Slave Labor in Anglo-
America”, Journal of Economic History 56 (1996) 307–329; Scheidel, “Comparative Economics”
(as in n. 10) 107–115.
26 Wright, Slavery (as in n. 3) is a compelling brief of this view.
27 Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 3.
28 See, e. g., C. Goldin, Urban Slavery in the American South, 1820–1860 (Chicago 1976).
214 KYLE HARPER
which may not be representative of the system as a whole.29 One important signal that
slave labor has infiltrated sectors of the economy which can be performed by free labor
is manumission; in sectors like business management or craft production, masters will
be forced to use positive incentives, chiefly manumission, to motivate slaves.30 Consist-
ent with his view of Roman slavery, Temin takes a maximalist view of the incidence of
manumission.31 Clearly many slaves were freed in Roman society, but unfortunately
there is virtually no evidence for the frequency of manumission; what little evidence
there is suggests that manumission was not the fate of most slaves.32
In considering the price of slaves, it is also necessary to consider whether various
price observations all come from integrated markets. This is especially important in the
context of the ancient Mediterranean world, where the level of economic integration, even
in the high empire, remains a matter of debate.33 Two markets were integrated insofar as
changes of supply and demand at one market affected prices at the other. Prices need not
be equal in the two markets for them to be integrated, but their equilibria must move in
tandem. Slaves, as relatively portable and high value items, are the type of commodity
most susceptible to market integration, even given highly differential demand in various
parts of the empire.34 The extent of integration, moreover, changed over time. In his
important study of the Delphic manumission inscriptions, Hopkins observed a rise in
the amount that slaves paid for their freedom (a probable reflection of rising prices) in
the second century BC.35 He attributed this phenomenon not to a reduction in the slave
supply, nor to an increase in local demand, but rather to the progressive integration of
eastern and western markets. As trade intensified between east and west, the price of
slaves in Greece was affected by the demand for slaves in Italy. We can probably watch
this process in reverse during the post-Roman period: the relatively delimited band of
slave prices in late antiquity, compared to the different regional plateaus so evident
29 Temin, “Labor Market” (as in n. 21).

30 Fenoaltea, “Slavery and Supervision” (as in n. 25) 658–659.
31 Temin, “Labor Market” (as in n. 21) 523. For high estimates: G. Alföldy, “Die Freilassung von
Sklaven und die Struktur der Sklaverei in der römischen Kaiserzeit”, Rivista storica dell‘antichità
2 (1972) 97–129. More realistic: T. Wiedemann, “The Regularity of Manumission at Rome”, CQ
n.s. 35 (1985) 162–175.
32 See Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapters 2 and 5, for arguments against the use of the Egyptian cen-
sus data as a representative sample for male manumission – as used by, e. g., Scheidel, “Real Slave
Prices” (as in n. 10) 4. See the graph of slave prices by age in Roman Egypt offered by Scheidel,
“Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 3: if slaves were generally freed around 30, it is hard to explain why
the value of slaves continues to increase into their late 20s. We should also note that the frequency of
manumission may change over the long term, and it is possible that the late republic was a dynamic
period in which slaves entered certain sectors of the economy that could be worked by free labor,
only to move into other sectors (with lower rates of manumission) under the empire.
33 P. Temin, “A Market Economy in the Early Roman Empire”, JRS 91 (2001) 169–181, emphasizes
integration. P. Bang, The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of Trade and Markets in a Tributary
Empire (Cambridge 2008) 131–201, argues against large-scale integration of markets in the Roman
empire.
34 W. V. Harris, “Demography, Geography, and the Sources of Roman Slaves”, JRS 89 (1999) 62–75,
at 75; Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 9.
35 Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (as in n. 10) 162–163.
in the early middle ages, would seem to reflect the relative integration of the coastal
markets in the late Roman empire vis-à-vis those of the early medieval Mediterranean
(see Figure 9 below).
The most successful attempt to analyze the long-term movement of slave prices in
antiquity is a recent article of Scheidel, comparing data from Greece and Rome.36 He
is able to construct a long range series by converting the nominal price of slaves into
real prices, expressed in wheat; this conversion allows comparison across currencies
and deflates nominal prices by using a measure of purchasing power in units of the most
basic commodity. Scheidel’s analysis yields the important result that in Athens slaves
were cheap relative to the real cost of wage labor, whereas in the Roman empire slaves
were dear. Scheidel recognizes that the high cost of Roman slaves is not to be explained
in terms of an insufficient or failing supply. Rather, the Roman slave system – by the
high empire – had achieved a sort of high equilibrium, in which slaves were employed
in roles that justified their higher cost. In Athens, by contrast, slaves were frequently
used in crafts and roles that could be fulfilled by free workers.37 Although the data are
few, Scheidel suggests that perhaps the late Roman republic was the ‘missing link,’ a
period when slaves were cheap and wages were high (due to military commitments).38
In support of this he signals some impressionistic evidence that slaves were cheap in
the late republic. But not only is the evidence too exiguous to make any strong claims,
the demand for slaves probably exhibited short-term inelasticity, so that a sudden jump
in the supply could temporarily send prices spiraling downward (Figure 4, line S2).39
Caution is in order for the late republic.
Scheidel notes an apparent paradox in the data: wages and slave prices did not come
into equilibrium, either in Athens or Rome. If wages are high and slaves are cheap, pur-
chasers should buy more slaves (even to hire them out) until their prices rise and wages
fall. This did not occur. In the case of Athens, Scheidel suggests that the small scope of
the slave market and the limited demand for slaves “stabilized slave prices at relatively
low levels.”40 The case of the Roman empire is more puzzling. Imperfect markets are
a possible explanation, but the inability of slave and free labor to act as substitutes is
another possibility. The Roman slave system was a more stable and mature system,
in which slaves were deployed in roles for which they presented an institutional fit. A
strong case can be made that slaves were especially suited for domestic labor, textile
36 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10).

37 On Greek slavery generally, Y. Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece (rev. and exp. ed., Ithaca 1988).
P. Cartledge, “Rebels and Sambos in Classical Greece: A Comparative View”, in P. A. Cartledge, F.
D. Harvey (eds.), Crux: Essays Presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix on His 75th Birthday (London
1985) 16–46; P. Cartledge, “The Political Economy of Greek Slavery”, in P. Cartledge, E. Cohen, L.
Foxhall (eds.), Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece (London
2001) 156–166.
38 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 15.
39 Elasticity is reflected in the slope of the demand curve. An inelastic demand curve means that the
quantity demanded is not responsive to a change in price. There are no documentary slave prices
from the late republic: see Ruffing and Drexhage, “Antike Sklavenpreise” (as in n. 9) 327–328, and
336 for sudden collapses of price after battles.
40 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 15–16.
216 KYLE HARPER
Figure 4
work, business management, the culture industry (e. g. as pedagogues and scribes), and,
most importantly, tightly-controlled forms of commercialized agriculture.41 Scheidel has
persuasively argued that the transaction costs of hiring rural wage labor was a major fac-
tor in the demand for slave labor; in densely populated regions like Egypt, where wage
labor was cheaply and dependably available, slavery did not infiltrate agriculture.42 In
other regions, especially the west, the long-term nature of slavery offered advantages.
There is reason, then, to remain skeptical that slave labor and free labor were perfect
substitutes in most relevant occupations. Slave prices could still reflect basically rational
expectations about the marginal value of slave labor, but there should be ample caution
in making the assumption that wages and slave prices were closely related.
There is another possible explanation for a rise in slave prices in the Roman empire:
economic growth. In the Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Jong-
man argues that the rising cost of manumission reflected in the Delphic inscriptions of
the last two centuries B. C. is evidence for economic growth.43 Again, the substitutability
of wage labor and slave labor is built into his model. His argument is that increasing
slave prices should mirror increasing wages, which (assuming population stability or
growth and no change in basic distributional patterns) reflect per capita wealth. The
logic is sound, but the data are too scarce to be probative. And Hopkins already noted
that the rising prices in the Delphic inscriptions reflect the ever-greater integration of
41 Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 3 (slaves as agents, managers, educators/scribes, and textile
workers) and Chapter 4 (farming). On slaves as scribes, see H. C. Teitler, Notarii and Exceptores:
An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Notarii and Exceptores in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical
Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to circa 450 A. D.) (Utrecht 1985)
27–37.
42 Scheidel, “Comparative Economics” (as in n. 10) 111.
43 Jongman, “Early Roman Empire” (as in n. 10) 601–602.
eastern and western markets.44 Moreover, it is critically important to ask which slaves’
prices are reflected in a data set. To infer economic growth from slave prices, it must
be clear that the prices do not reflect the value of skill premiums.45 Records of manu-
mission are easily contaminated by this effect because skilled slaves are most likely to
be freed. Slave values, then, are a very uncertain and complex indicator of per capita
economic growth.
Such is the state of the question on ancient slave prices, and such are the problems
of evidence and method in interpreting price observations. In the following section we
gather a series of slave prices from late antiquity (ca. A. D. 300–600), as usual of mixed
quality. This data set can at least be entered into discussion with the evidence of classical
Greece and imperial Rome. We discuss possible interpretations of this data, in particular
the importance of the relative prices of male and female slaves as a signal about the
nature of the slave system. In conclusion we suggest some thoughts for periodizing the
history of slave prices in the pre-modern world over the very long term.
Price Observations from Late Antiquity
This section represents an attempt to collect a comprehensive catalogue of observations

of slave prices in late antiquity.46 The timespan covered (A. D. 300–600) may represent a
unified period in the historical scholarship, but an increasing body of archaeological and
documentary evidence suggests major secular change across and within this period, dur-
ing which the unified Mediterranean empire, and market, of the Romans was irreversibly
fragmented.47 The aim here is to collect the evidence for prices comprehensively, at first
with utter disregard for its quality. Some transaction prices survive, while at other times
we can at least infer proper orders of magnitude from administrative prices, punitive
measurements, tolls, etc. In each case, we have tried to ascertain, besides the nominal
price (in gold), real price (in tons of wheat) and the date, several key determinants of
slave prices. Some of these are straightforward: age, sex, skills, and location of sale.
Other categories need explanation.
44 Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (as in n. 10) 162–163. Notice too that the ratio of the price of males
to the price of females consistently grew over time, a pattern consistent with the inference that the
Delphic inscriptions reflect progressively greater integration with the Roman market.
45 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 9.
46 Existing collections (all incomplete) can be found in Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 852; E.
Patlagean, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale à Byzance, 4e–7e siècles (Paris 1977) 390–392;
Y. Rotman, Les esclaves et l‘esclavage: de la Méditerranée antique à la Méditerranée médiévale,
VIe–XIe siècles (Paris 2004) App. 1; Ruffing and Drexhage, Antike Sklavenpreise (as in n. 9) 334–336.
47 From an immense bibliography, S. T. Loseby, “The Ceramic Data and the Transformation of the
Roman World”, in M. Bonifay, J.-C. Tréglia (eds.), LRCW 2: Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking
Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry (Oxford 2007) 1–14;
C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford
2005); M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce A. D.
300–900 (Cambridge 2001).
218 KYLE HARPER
• Each location is assigned one of two codes: p (peripheral) or c (coastal). Places

within 20 km of the Mediterranean coast are considered coastal. This reflects the
assumption that prices were higher as well as more effectively integrated in the
coastal regions than in frontier, inland, or peripheral regions.48
• Each datum is also assigned a yes or no for “shock.” A yes value for shock is given
to any datum which (according to the primary source) reflects circumstances of
suddenly greater supply, for instance after a large battle or when a large-scale slave-
owner decided to sell slaves en masse.
• Each nominal price is converted into metric tons of wheat. The idea of an “average”
price of wheat may be slightly misleading, since variation was constant. But, for
the purposes of this investigation, it is best to use what has become the canonical
standard price of wheat in late antiquity, 1 solidus = 10 artabae = 300 kilograms.49
There are exceptions, though. The prices in Diocletian’s Edict have been converted
using the maximum wheat prices in the same document. Wheat prices between AD
300 and 350 have been converted at the rate of 1 solidus = 8 artabae, since this seems
to have been the prevailing price until mid-century.50 Nominal prices in silver cur-
rency (all from a handful of early 4C papyri) have been converted to wheat directly
from the nearest attested market price of wheat in silver currency. Wheat prices in
the west from 500 onward have been given as a range, since there is some indica-
tion that the cost of wheat declined in the post-Roman west. The range reflects the
conversion into the standard late antique price (1 sol. = 300 kg) and into a cheaper
price reported for Italy in the reign of Theoderic (1 sol. = 408 kg).51
• Each datum is assigned a quality code of 1, 2, 3, or 4. This unfortunately entails quali-
tative judgment, and the assignments might well be contested. We have tried to be
as objective as possible in following these criteria. 1 = poor. The price is inferential
or highly exceptional. 2 = highly imperfect. The price is an administrative price of
uncertain purpose, or the price is exceptional, or the conversion rates involved are
uncertain. 3 = good. The price is an administrative price but we have some sense of
the purpose, or the price is reported in a literary source but seems to reflect normal
prices. 4 = very good. A documented transaction price relatively closely dated.
• Each price is assigned a geographic quadrant: NW, SW, NE, SE, or univ(ersal), as
for instance when an administrative price is apparently to apply across the Roman
empire. Imperfect as these coordinates are, in combination with the coastal/periph-
eral coding, they allow us to test for geographical differences and trends.
48 Harris, “Demography” (as in n. 34) at 75; Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 9.
49 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 445–446; R. Bagnall, Currency and Inflation in Fourth-
Century Egypt (Chico 1985) 6; J.-M. Carrié, “L’arithmétique sociale de l’économie agraire: prix
de la terre, rente foncière et prix des céréales dans l’Égypte romano-byzantine”, in J. Andreau, P.
Briant, R. Descat (eds.), Économie antique: Prix et formation des prix dans les économies antiques
(St-Bertrand-de-Comminges 1997) 121–146, at 124; D. Rathbone, “Earnings and Costs: Living
Standards and the Roman Economy (First to Third Centuries AD)”, in A. Bowman, A. Wilson,
Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems (Oxford 2009) 299–326.
50 Bagnall, Currency and Inflation (as in n. 49) 6; Carrié, “L’arithmétique sociale” (as in n. 49) 124.
51 Anon. Valesianus, 12.73: sexaginta modios tritici in solidum ipsius tempore emerunt. Rathbone,
“Earnings and Costs” (as in n. 49) 305.
We defer to the next section all attempts to interpret the data in aggregate. The price
observations are individually labeled P1, P2, P3, and so on. The order of presentation
is roughly chronological.
P1 Edict on Maximum Prices 10–30K denarii AD 301
Sex: both Age: varied Skilled: double Location: coastal (c)
Shock: no Wheat: 1.02–3.06 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: univ
In AD 301 the emperor Diocletian attempted to curb inflation by enforcing maximum
prices for various goods and services.52 The schedule of slave prices presented in the
Edict offers a precious yet complicated set of observations. The schedule is precious
because it represents one of the most systematic sources of data, with slave prices coded
for age, sex, and specialization. Complicated, because it represents administrative, not
market, prices. There has been extensive discussion about how realistic the prices set in
the Edict were. The answer differs for various commodities, and in general the Edict has
been characterized as a mix of careful observation and bureaucratic will.53 Ultimately,
the most valuable information to be drawn from the Edict concerns relative prices – the
relative cost of different subsets of slaves (by age, sex, and skill), and the price of slaves
in terms of wheat or gold.
Scheidel demonstrated from comparative data that the schedule of slave prices,
with its different prices by age and sex, possesses basic plausibility. The most dubious
pattern lies in the price of older slaves: the age curve of the Edict probably overvalues
slaves above 60 years old. In this part of the schedule, “over-schematizing divorced
the provisions of the price scale from reality.”54 But both comparative data and attested
transaction prices from late antiquity suggest that the Edict also overvalues the youngest
slaves, too: in other words, the Edict’s age-price curve is not steep enough in the young-
est and oldest brackets.55 The relative values of male and female slaves, by contrast, are
both plausible and interesting. Males were more expensive than females, except in the
age bracket 8–16 years old, where their prices were equal. This pattern could certainly
argue that there was a reproductive premium for adolescent female slaves.56 Perhaps the
52 The Edict is the earliest relevant price in our time frame. PSI XX Congr. 14 is manifestly 3C and
probably before the spiral of the 270s. PSI XX Congr. 15, dated 3/4C, lists the price of 1400 denarii
for a 14-year old male slave. This price would appear to be 3C and is also likely to precede the 270s.
On the Price Edict, see S. Corcoran, The Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and
Government, AD 284–324 (rev. ed., Oxford 2000) 205–233.
53 See W. Scheidel, “Reflections on the Differential Valuation of Slaves in Diocletian’s Price Edict and
in the United States”, MBAH 15 (1996) 67–79; P. Arnaud, “Diocletian’s Price Edict: The Prices of
Seaborne Transport and the Average Duration of Maritime Travel”, JRA 20 (2007) 321–336; Rath-
bone, “Earnings and Costs” (as in n. 49) 317–321.
54 Scheidel, “Reflections” (as in n. 53) 76.
55 See Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 4; M. Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters,
Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (Madison 1989) 287. Cf. the more realistic and steeper age-
price curve in Fogel, Without Consent (as in n. 12) 69.
56 Scheidel, “Reflections” (as in n. 53) 74. Also R. Saller, “Women, Slaves, and the Economy of the
Roman Household”, in D. Balch, C. Osiek (eds.), Early Christian Families in Context (Grand Rapids
2003) 185–204. Scheidel’s model of a largely naturally-reproducing system is entirely persuasive: W.
220 KYLE HARPER
most important pattern, though, has not received enough stress: male slaves remained
more valuable than female slaves.57 This will be discussed in more detail below, when
the data are interpreted, but it is in fact the historically aberrant pattern. The Price Edict
also explicitly states that a skilled slave could be sold for twice the maximum value of
an ordinary slave.58 This may suggest a rather high, but not implausible, premium on
skilled labor (or rather, maximum premium).59
The table below collates the prices for unskilled male and female slaves in the various
age brackets. Three figures are given in each case, the first representing the maximum
price in denarii, the second the converted price into gold solidi (at 72 per pound) ac-
cording to the rate mandated in the Edict, and the third the price of the slave converted
into wheat at the Edict’s price, expressed in metric tons of wheat.60 The individual prices
are assigned a sub-label within P1. In sum, we could assert that the Price Edict offers
a realistic schedule of slave prices, overvaluing both very young and very old slaves;
the equivalent of slave prices in wheat are close to realistic, while the prices in gold are
probably too high (because the Edict undervalues gold).
Table 1.1: Slave Prices in the Price Edict

Age Male (denarii, solidi, wheat) Female (den., solidi, wheat)
0–8 years 15,000; 15; 1.53 P1a 10,000; 10; 1.02 P1f
8–16 years 20,000; 20; 2.04 P1b 20,000; 20; 2.04 P1g
16–40 years 30,000; 30; 3.06 P1c 25,000; 25; 2.55 P1h
40–60 years 25,000; 25; 2.55 P1d 20,000; 20; 2.04 P1i
60+ years 15,000; 15; 1.53 P1e 10,000; 10; 1.02 P1j
Scheidel, “Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire”, JRS 87 (1997) 156–169.
It receives empirical verification (for late antiquity) in K. Harper, “The Greek Census Inscriptions
of Late Antiquity”, JRS 98 (2008) 83–119.
57 Noted by Scheidel, “Reflections” (as in n. 53) 72, but generally ignored or taken for granted by
historians of the late empire.
58 Ed. Diocl. 29.8. M. H. Crawford, J. Reynolds, “The Aezani Copy of the Prices Edict”, ZPE 34 (1979)
163–210, at 177.
59 This at least cautions against the conclusion made by Jongman, “Early Roman Empire” (as in n. 10)
602, that slaves were cheaper in the Edict than in the high empire. The percentage of slaves with
skills may have been quite significant in the Roman slave system. Even in the U.S. South, something
like 25 % of slaves had some skills or worked in a managerial capacity: Fogel and Engerman, Time
on the Cross (as in n. 3) 40.
60 Thus the gold equivalents used here reflect the Constantinian solidus, which did not yet exist, but
would be minted at 72 per pound. This otherwise awkward method of conversion is justified because
it allows us to compare the slave prices of the Edict with later prices in gold. Moreover, we should
note that slaves, gold, and wheat may not have been priced according to the same principles in the
Edict: see Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 8. This adds a level of uncertainty to these data,
of course. See R. Bagnall, “Fourth-century Prices: New Evidence and Further Thoughts”, ZPE 76
(1989) 69–76, at 70, who argues that the Edict holds gold at artificially low rates, wheat at roughly
accurate rates. The maximum prices for slaves support Bagnall’s argument. See too E. Lo Cascio,
“Prezzo dell’oro e prezzi delle merci”, in L. Camilli (ed.), L’“Inflazione” nel quarto secolo d.C.:
atti dell‘incontro di studio (Rome 1993) 155–188.
P2 CJ 6.1.4 20 solidi AD 317

Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Thessalonica (c)
Shock: no Wheat: 4.8 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: NE
In this imperial constitution, Constantine decreed a penalty for harboring a fugitive
slave. The guilty party was to restore the slave to its rightful owner, plus another slave
of equal value or twenty solidi. This represents not only an administrative price, but also
possibly a punitive one, or at least one that is unlikely to understate the value of a slave.
P3 P.Neph. 30, 33.61 500 talents AD 329
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Heracleopolite (p)
Quadrant: SE
During the fourth century, Roman society was in the throes of a transition to the use of
gold currency as the primary unit of value, and the purchasing power of silver currency,
in nominal terms, declined precipitously.62 There are five slave sales in drachmae from
the first half of the fourth century. Price observations after AD 350 are in gold, so the
challenge for the price observations in silver is to convert them into the market rate of
gold. This is possible, with some added degree of error, for we have numerous indications
of the market rates of conversion, collected and analyzed by Bagnall. Silver currency
in the late 320s traded at 2,400–2,700 talents per pound of gold.63 At this rate, the male
slave in this papyrus sold for the equivalent of 13.3 to 15 solidi. A papyrus of AD 327
(PSI IV 309) shows an artaba of wheat at the cost of 2 talents, 5,333 drachmae; at this
rate, a slave costing 500 talents cost the equivalent of 5.192 tons of wheat.64
P4 P. Lond. III 977 250 myr. denarii AD 330
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Antinoopolis (p)
Quadrant: SE
This figure expressed in myriads of denarii is the equivalent of 416 and 2/3 talents of
silver. Around 330, there was a major shift downward in the value of silver currency
(from ca. 2500–2700 talents per pound of gold to 7200–7700 talents per pound of
gold).65 So the sale price of this slave was something like 11.5 solidi or 4 solidi, de-
pending on whether it belongs on the lower or higher plateau. Both of these provide
inherently plausible orders of magnitude (as we will see, the former price would more
61 For the papyri sales, see J. Straus, L‘achat et la vente des esclaves dans l’Égypte romaine: contribu-
tion papyrologique à l’étude de l’esclavage dans une province orientale de l’Empire (Munich 2004)
298–299.
62 In general, M. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450 (Cambridge 1985);
Bagnall, Currency and Inflation (as in n. 49); and the essays in L. Camilli (ed.), L’“Inflazione” nel
quarto secolo d.C.: atti dell‘incontro di studio (Rome 1993).
63 Bagnall, Currency and Inflation (as in n. 49) 61.
222 KYLE HARPER
likely suggest an adolescent or adult, the latter a child). A papyrus of 335 (P.Lond. VI
1914) shows wheat at 14 talents per artaba, at which rate this slave cost the equivalent
of 3.571 tons of wheat.66
P5 P. Koln V 232 500 talents AD 330–337
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Terenouthis (p)
Quadrant: SE
The price of silver currency in the 330s seems to have traded around 7,200–7680 tal-
ents per pound of gold, so that 500 talents was the equivalent of 4.7–5 solidi.67 Using
the same price of wheat as in the previous observation, this slave cost the equivalent
of 1.071 tons.
P6 SB V 8007 913 tal., 2000 dr. AD 330–350?
Sex: female Age: ca. 20 Skilled: ? Location: Hermopolis (p)
Shock: no Wheat: .913–1.957 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: SE
The value of silver currency changed drastically over the time-span of possibility for
this observation. If it dates to AD 330, the figure translates into ca. 9.13 solidi and 1.957
tons of wheat. If AD 340, ca. 5 solidi and .913 tons of wheat. If at or just after AD 350,
ca. .1 solidi and .548 tons of wheat.68 Given the slave-girl’s age, the papyrus is almost
sure to date to the 330s or 340s, and the ranges used above reflect that inference.69
P7 P. Abinn. 64 1200 talents AD 337–350?
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: ?
Quadrant: SE
In this sale 2400 talents were paid for two slaves. This observation suffers from the same
problems as P6. If it is from the early end of the time range, the slave cost the equivalent
of 10 solidi or 1.5 tons of wheat; if the late end of the range, .72 tons of wheat; gold
prices from the 340s are lacking.70
P8 Palladius, Hist. Laus., 37 20 solidi mid-fourth century
Sex: male Age: adult Skilled: no Location: city in Egypt (p)
Shock: no Wheat: 6 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: SE
Serapion the Sindonite was a fourth-century ascetic who sold himself into slavery to a
family of stage actors in a town in Egypt. He was sold for twenty solidi. The fifth-century
Lausiac History may, of course, just be reporting a conventional price.

67 Bagnall, “Fourth-century Prices” (as in n. 60) 74.
69 Bagnall, “Fourth-century Prices” (as in n. 60) 74.
70 Bagnall, Currency and Inflation (as in n. 49) 64, for the wheat prices; Bagnall, “Fourth-century
Prices” (as in n. 60) 74.
P9 BGU 1 316 18 solidi AD 359

Sex: male Age: 14 Skilled: ? Location: Ascalon (c)
Quadrant: SE
This papyrus is the first documentary evidence for the sale of a slave recorded in solidi.71
P10 P. Kellis G. I.8 2 solidi AD 362
Sex: female Age: child Skilled: no Location: Kellis (p)
Shock: no Wheat: .6 Quality of data: 4
Quadrant: SE
In this papyrus a female child was sold from its owner, who had nourished the infant
herself, to the village carpenter at the price of two solidi.
P11 Julian, Or. 9.15 ? ca. AD 362
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: ?
Shock: no Wheat: ? Quality of data: 1
Quadrant: univ
In a highly rhetorical context of a speech about the “true” nature of slavery, Julian in-
sists that slavery and freedom are internal, philosophical, and that the real slave is not
one who is bought and sold, for “so and so many drachmae, or two mina, or ten staters
of gold.” Mina and staters were of course classical units fallen into desuetude, and the
passage appears to have no evidentiary value.
P12 Amm. Marc., 24.4.26 3 solidi AD 363
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Persia (p)
Shock: yes Wheat: .9 Quality of data: 2
Quadrant: SE
After a victorious siege deep inside Persian territory, the booty was divided up amongst
the Roman army. The emperor Julian was content to take only a mute slave skilled in
sign language. The use of puer says nothing about the slave’s age. The forbearance of the
emperor in taking merely this one slave of low value is apparently meant to demonstrate
the emperor’s equity and philosophical indifference to material wealth.
P13 Symmachus, Ep. 2.78 ? AD 394
Sex: male Age: prime Skilled: ? Location: frontier (p)
Shock: no Wheat: ? Quality of data: 1
Quadrant: NW
In 394 Symmachus wrote a letter to his brother, presumably near the frontier, asking
him to procure 20 slaves to be given as a gift to the chariot teams of Rome. Symmachus
asked that twenty strong young men be chosen, not for their appearance but their age and
health. Most interestingly, Symmachus claimed that it would be easier to find the slaves
71 See J.-M. Carrié, “Solidus et crédit: Qu’est-ce que l’or a pu changer?”, in E. Lo Cascio (ed.), Credito
e moneta nel mondo romano (Bari 2003) 265–279, at 267, who notes that this is just when the solidus
begins to appear much more regularly as a price currency in transactions.
224 KYLE HARPER
along the frontier and that “the price is more tolerable.”72 This is explicit testimony that
prices were higher in the interior regions of the empire than in the peripheral areas. Un-
fortunately the number of solidi he was willing to pay is missing from the manuscript.
P14 CT 7.13.13 >25 solidi AD 397
Sex: male Age: prime Skilled: ? Location: (c)
Shock: no Wheat: > 7.5 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: NW
Senators were ordered to furnish recruits for the army or to pay a commutation rate of 25
solidi per man (see also Symm., Ep. 6.64). They apparently preferred the commutation
rate. As Jones noted, this has real significance for the market value of labor. Although
it cannot be said to reflect a market price (and owners should have placed a premium
on slaves already in their possession and knowledgeable of their assigned labor), this
is one of the rare references to the value of labor in the fourth-century west.73
P15 Augustine <20 solidi? AD 393–6
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Hippo (c)
Shock: no Wheat: < 6 Quality of data: 2
Quadrant: SW
In this tract (Sermo domini in monte, 1.19.59) Augustine claimed that a slave was a
different sort of possession from a horse or silver. He noted that it often happened that
a horse costs more than a slave, while gold or silver goods might cost much more than
slaves. A horse in North Africa cost something like 20 solidi, so Augustine’s order of
magnitude is certainly plausible.74
P16 Orosius, Adv. pag., 7.37 1 solidus AD 406
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Northern Italy (p)
Quadrant: NW
After the defeat of Radagaisus and his invading army in AD 406, the defeated Goths
were sold for one solidus apiece, like cheap cattle. This figure is not necessarily to be
believed. It is reported second-hand by Orosius (“it was said that…”), who also esti-
mated that the invading force numbered 200,000 men.75 In fact it was closer to 20,000,
according to Heather.76 Orosius was trying to emphasize the size of the defeated force
by the low price charged for the captives. If the values are incredible, the underlying
logic of the observation – that a sudden shift upward in supply would send prices rapidly
lower – is eminently plausible.
72 Symmachus, Ep., 2.78: per limitem facilis inventio et pretium solet esse tolerabile.
73 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 852.
74 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 625–626.
75 Orosius, Adv. paganos, 7.37: tanta vero multitudo captivorum Gothorum fuisse fertur, ut vilissimorum
pecudum modo singulis aureis passim greges hominum venderentur.
76 P. Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of the Barbarians (Oxford 2006) 198.
P17 Palladius, Laus. Hist., 61 3 solidi ca. AD 408

Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Italy (c)
Quadrant: NW
Melania the Younger and her husband Pinian were wealthy members of the Roman sen-
ate. When they converted to the ascetic lifestyle, they decided to liquidate their massive
property.77 Other branches of the family opposed their desire to dissipate the patrimony,
and the brother of Pinian was even accused of fomenting a slave rebellion. The emperor
Honorius was forced to intervene and seems to have crafted a compromise. According
to Palladius, Melania freed 8,000 slaves and transferred the rest to Pinian’s brother at 3
solidi each. This seems to be a compromise forged by the emperor by which the brother
kept some of the patrimony at a favorable price; it does not represent the prevailing
market value of slaves.
P18 Priscus of Panium, Fr. 9.3 12 solidi AD 440’s
Sex? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Danube region (p)
Quadrant: NE
A treaty negotiated with Attila stipulated a standard price of 12 solidi for prisoners of war
to be returned home. We have generally omitted ransom prices from our data (because
these reflect the extortion of family, friends, and patrons rather than the market value of
slaves), but the base rate established by a treaty is more likely to reflect market condi-
tions, so we have cautiously included this data but do not consider it to be of high quality.
P19 Nov. Val. 33 5–10 solidi AD 451
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Italy (c)
Shock: no Wheat: 1.5–3 Quality of data: 1
Quadrant: NW
A famine had ravaged Italy, forcing freeborn citizens to sell their children or elderly
parents into slavery. In classical Roman law, this was strictly illegal, but the late antique
state took a more pragmatic view of such messy social realities. Valentinian III decreed
that the sale would not prejudice the status of those who had been sold, but that the
purchaser was entitled to recover the purchase price plus twenty percent, so that five
solidi should be repaid with six, ten solidi with twelve, and so on. Those were the only
amounts he mentioned, but he perhaps envisioned that higher prices might have been paid.
P20 Albertini Tablets, 2.26 3 solidi AD 494
Sex: male Age: 6 yrs Skilled: ? Location: Tbessa, Algeria (p)
Quadrant: SW
77 A. Giardina, “Carità eversiva”, in Studi storici 29 (1988) 127–142; F. De Martino, “Il colonato fra
economia e diritto”, in A. Schiavone (ed.), Storia di Roma, 3.1: L’età tardoantica. Crisi e trasfor-
mazione (Turin 1993) 789– 822.
226 KYLE HARPER
The Albertini Tablets record the sale of a young boy for 1 solidus and 700 folles. At this
period the sum was equivalent to 3 solidi.78 This evidence is important documentary
testimony for prices in non-coastal regions of the western empire.
P21 P. Vind. G 39671 + 39708 8 solidi ca. AD 500
Sex: male Age: 12 yrs Skilled: no Location: Hermopolis (p)
Quadrant: SE
This papyrus records the sale of a 12 year-old black male slave, Nepheros, at Her-
mopolis, sometime during the reign of Anastasius: see F. Hoogendijk, “Byzantinischer
Sklavenkauf”, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 42 (1996) 225–34.
P22 Will of Remigius 14 solidi early 6C
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Rheims (p)
Quadrant: NW
In his will (MGH SRM, 3.339), Remigius, who died in 533, claimed that he had bought
Friaredus for 14 solidi, to prevent him from being killed. Possibly this was a high price
(hence the details of the circumstances are included in the will?) because it was extorted
as ransom.
P23 Lex Rom. Burg. 2.6 30–100 solidi? ca. AD 516
Sex: male Age: adult Skilled: yes Loc.: Burgundian Kingdom (p)
Shock: no Wheat: 9–12.24 to 30–40.8 Quality of data: 2
Quadrant: NW
The law prescribes monetary penalties for the homicide of slaves, according to their
value. The penalties were as follows:
Penalties for murder in the Lex Romana Burgundiorum

Type of Slave Penalty
Manager (actor) 100 solidi P23a
Goldsmith 100 solidi P23b
Agent (ministerialis) 60 solidi P23c
Blacksmith 50 solidi P23d
Carpenter 40 solidi P23e
Ploughman, Swineherd 30 solidi P23f
As Jones noted, there may well be a penal element to these figures, although the schedule
by its very nature implies that there was some attempt to reimburse the owner for value
lost in terms of some proportion.79 The high skill premiums are noteworthy.
78 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 852; P. Grierson, “The Tablettes Albertini and the Value of
the Solidus in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries A. D.”, JRS 49 (1959) 73–80, at 76.
P24 Gregory of Tours, HF 3.15 12 solidi ca. AD 530

Sex: male Age: adult Skilled: ? Location: Trier (p)
Quadrant: NW
As part of a ruse to free a slave in the household of a Frank at Trier, a man (in fact al-
ready a slave) arranged to have himself sold to the Frankish master. He was bought for
12 solidi. The man was trained as a cook, but this should probably not count as a skill
that would fetch a large premium, and according to the story the buyer only learned the
man was a cook after he was purchased.
P25 I. Cilicia no. 108 12.5–25 solidi mid-5C to mid-6C
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: Anazarbus (p)
Quadrant: NE
A municipal toll of Anazarbus in Cilicia lists the fee levied for each item of merchandise
brought into the city. Slaves were charged an impost of 9 keratia, or 9/24 of a solidus.
The editors note that not all items appear to be taxed at the same rate ad valorem, and
they also suggest that slaves may be overvalued.80 But most of the charges seem to fall
in the range of 1.5–3 %, so that a slave would presumably be worth 12.5–25 solidi.
P26 Cassiodorus, Var., 5.16 2–3 solidi ? AD 525–6
Sex: male Age: adult Skilled: ? Location: Italy (c)
Quadrant: NW
In AD 525–6 Theoderic decided to raise a navy. Sailors were to be recruited regardless
of their status. Free men who joined received 5 solidi as a donative plus rations, while
even slaves were to receive a reward, according to their quality. They were to receive
2 or 3 solidi. The letter speaks of slaves pulled from their masters, and presumably this
compensation went to the masters rather than the slaves. It is impossible to ascertain
the relationship between these figures and the market price for slaves.
P27 CJ 7.7.1 10–70 solidi AD 530
Sex: ? Age: varied Skilled: varied Loc.: Constantinople (c)
Shock: no Wheat: 3–21 Quality of data: 3
Quadrant: NE
With this reform Justinian tried to end any confusion or conflict over the manumission
of jointly-owned slaves. Any part-owner could manumit a slave, but he was required
to reimburse the other owners their share. In order to minimize any tension while de-
termining the slave’s value, Justinian provided a number of statutory values that were
to be applied automatically.
80 G. Dagron, D. Feissel, (eds.), Inscriptions de Cilicie (Paris 1987) 182–185.

228 KYLE HARPER
Justinian’s Slave Values

Age Skill Value
10 years and up None 20 solidi P27a
9 years and under None 10 solidi P27b
9 years and under Eunuch 30 solidi P27c
10 years and up Skilled 30 solidi P27d
Any Scribe 50 solidi P27e
Any Doctor 60 solidi P27f
10 years and up Eunuchs, unskilled 50 solidi P27g
10 years and up Eunuch, skilled 70 solidi P27h
We have yet another administrative price schedule. Unlike Diocletian’s, the value scale
provided by Justinian was not intended to set maximum prices in the context of rapid
price increases. Rather, Justinian was trying to establish fair market values in the deli-
cate case when joint property was manumitted. The schedule is not as detailed as the
Diocletianic version, and there is no differentiation by sex – possibly a significant signal,
given the detail of the law. It is also noteworthy that in this schedule the skill premiums
are attached to domestic slaves like eunuchs, scribes, and doctors. Although perhaps
these were the sorts of slaves most likely to be owned jointly or to merit manumission,
it seems significant that vine-dressers, estate managers, etc. are not the sort of slaves
imagined by the emperor or his functionaries. Again, 20 solidi (= 6 tons of wheat) ap-
pears as a sort of conventional price.
P28 Malalas, Chronogr., 10.24 5 solidi AD 530s
Sex: female Age: young Skilled: no Loc.: Constantinople (c)
Quadrant: NE
Theodora gathered the procurers of the city and interrogated them under oath. They swore
that they had procured their young females for 5 solidi each. The empress reimbursed
them and released the girls.
P29 Procopius, De bell., 4.22.12 50 solidi ca. AD 545
Sex: male Age: ? Skilled: no Location: Laribus (p)
Quadrant: SW
The Vandal Solomon was captured by Moors; he told them he was a slave and that he
had a friend in the nearby town, Laribus, who would purchase him. The Moors sold him
for 50 solidi, after which Solomon taunted them by revealing his true identity. This is
somewhere between a ransom and a sale, and 50 solidi is probably meant to seem high
to the Moors, but low in relation to the high-ranking captive they had actually sold.
P30 Evagrius, Hist. eccl., 5.19 ? AD 578

Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Location: East (c)
Shock: yes Wheat: ? Quality of data: 1
Quadrant: NE
Maurice’s successful campaigns on the Persian frontiers around 578 yielded such a haul
of captives that he once again made slaves cheap. The islands and fields were again
populated. In the previous book (4.29), Evagrius had noted the devastating demographic
effects of recurring plague, including on his own family and slaves.
P31 John Moschus, 112 8 solidi AD 574–82
Sex: male Age: elderly Skilled: no Location: Cappadocia (p)
Quadrant: NE
This story tells of three elderly clerics taken captive by barbarians. One of them tells
his captors that the bishops will pay 24 solidi for the three men. The barbarians refuse
a lower price of 8 solidi in total, but are eventually convinced to accept 8 solidi and
another slave, an ascetic who offers himself as a substitute. The evidentiary value of
this story is of course relatively weak.
P32 Council of Mâcon 12 solidi AD 583
Sex: ? Age: ? Skilled: ? Loc.: Mâcon, France (p)
Quadrant: NW
The council (C. Matisc. 1, can. 16) decreed that Jews could not own Christian slaves but
that they should be compensated 12 solidi for good slaves. Jones suggests the amount
is “not likely to have been generous,” but it is difficult to say.81
P33 Life of John of Cyprus, 22 50 solidi ca. AD 600
Sex: male Age: adult Skilled: ? Location: Holy Land (c?)
Quadrant: SE
John the Eleemosynary sold himself into slavery and fetched 50 solidi on the market.
The figure appears intended to inflate the saint’s generosity.
P34 SB 18.13173 4 solidi 6 or 7C
Sex: female Age: 12 Skilled: ? Loc.: Hermopolis (p)
Quadrant: SE
This remarkable papyrus records the sale of a slave girl who had been bought from
slave-dealers of the Ethiopians.82 There is considerable evidence that the flow of slaves
from Nubia and east Africa towards the Mediterranean was already substantial in late

82 R. H. Pierce, “A Sale of an Alodian Slave Girl: Reexamination of Papyrus Strassburg Inv. 1404”,
Symbolae Osloenses 70 (1995) 148–165.
230 KYLE HARPER
antiquity, and this document is paralleled by numerous literary sources.83 Although this
and the following two observations could belong to the last decades of the sixth or the
first decades of the seventh century, they have been placed around 600.
P35 P. Nessana, 89 3 solidi late 6, early 7C
Sex: female Age: child Skilled: no Location: Nessana (p)
Quadrant: SE
The account book of an itinerant trader discovered among the papyri at Nessana recorded
the prices of two slaves, this young girl and the young boy in the next observation.
P36 P. Nessana, 89 6 solidi late 6, early 7C
Sex: male Age: child Skilled: no Location: Nessana (p)
Quadrant: SE
See the preceding price.
Interpreting the Data
The dataset is highly imperfect but can nevertheless form a basis for cautious, reasoned
speculation about the price of slaves in late antiquity. In the broadest terms, the data
tend to confirm the conclusions made long ago by Patlagean on the basis of far less
evidence, and reasserted recently by Ruffing and Drexhage, that slave children sold
in the range of 3–10 solidi while adults cost on the order of 10–20 solidi.84 Based on
the wheat conversions explained above, the normal price range for a prime male slave
would convert into 3–6 tons of wheat (Fig. 5).
Figure 6 uses only “high quality data” (= 3 or 4 on quality scale). The data in figure
6 have also been adjusted by age and sex using multipliers derived from the Diocletianic
Price Schedule. This adjustment allows us to include these data, but the Diocletianic
Price Schedule, as we have argued, overstates the value of young slaves, and thus our
multipliers under-correct their values, so that a number of the values (virtually all of the
values under 2 tons of wheat on Fig. 6) probably understate the actual value of slaves
in late antiquity. Moreover, many of the lowest prices in Fig. 6 come from non-coastal
areas of Egypt, Palestine, and North Africa. The resulting range of prices highly resem-
bles the scatter which Scheidel has demonstrated for the high empire.85 Slaves were
expensive. The stability in prices from the high empire to late antiquity and then across
late antiquity does not necessarily mean, however, that the supply and demand curves
83 Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 2.

84 Patlagean, Pauvreté (as in n. 46) 390–392; Ruffing and Drexhage, “Antike Sklavenpreise” (as in n.
9) 346–347.
85 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10) 10. See also Ruffing and Drexhage, “Antike Sklavenprei-
se” (as in n. 9) 329–330; S. Mrozek, Prix et rémunération dans l’Occident romain, 31 av. n.è.-250
de n.è. (Gdańsk 1975) 47–48; Duncan-Jones, Economy of the Roman Empire (as in n. 17) 348–350.
Figure 5: Slave Prices in Late Antiquity (All Data)
Figure 6: Price of Prime Unskilled Males in Late Antiquity (High Quality Data)
were the same; continuity of price means that the point of equilibrium was the same,
not necessarily that underlying supply and demand were static. We need to remember
that multiple interpretive possibilities exist for any trend in the price observations.
Our individual determinants of slave prices – age, sex, location, and supply shock
– all appear to have been significant variables in the price of a slave. None of the sale
documents indicate that the slave was skilled, so we cannot confirm the evidence of the
Price Edict, the Lex Romana Burgundionum, or Justinian’s law, all of which suggest a
large skill premium. The documented slave sales confirm that the value of a slave rose
into its teenage years. The evidence suggests in fact that the Price Edict may have slightly
overvalued young slaves. Unfortunately there is not enough documentary evidence to
know when a slave’s price began to decline. The data do offer strong confirmation of
Symmachus’ belief that slave prices were more tolerable outside the coastal regions
232 KYLE HARPER
of the Mediterranean. A slave sold for less in Tbessa, Karanis, Hermopolis, Rheims,
Anazarbus, or Nessana than in Constantinople, Ascalon, Hippo, Thessalonica, or Jeru-
salem. It would be interesting to know if the extent of divergence changed over time
(which would signal that outer and coastal markets were becoming less integrated) but
the data are too sparse.
One noteworthy pattern in the data is the effect of “supply shock” (see Fig. 5). After
a major battle, or when one of the empire’s largest slave-owners decided to liquidate her
property, low slave prices resulted. This makes intuitive sense, and it suggests that the
demand for slaves may have exhibited inelasticity, particularly in the short term. The
number of buyers was too limited, the ability of the market to redistribute slaves quickly
was too imperfect, the capacity for employers to switch from free to slave workers
rapidly was too inadequate to prevent prices from falling rapidly in the face of sudden
increases in supply. The ancient authors, such as Orosius and Evagrius, were aware of
this phenomenon. Of course the data are not of particularly high quality, but the ability
to compare literary evidence which suggests short-term inelasticity with documentary
evidence for normal slave prices is helpful; in the late republic, for instance, we only
have the former, so we are reminded that they cannot serve as an index of average slave
prices.
A breakdown of the data by geographic quadrant underscores the utter dominance of
eastern, particularly southeastern, sources in our data set (Figure 7). Sixteen of twenty-
two high quality data points come from the east, twelve from the southeast. The data
show that slaves drew higher prices on northern Mediterranean shores, an unsurpris-
ing fact, although we should note that the southern data, dominated by documentary
sources, is mostly non-coastal and often reflects female or younger slaves. There are
no significant regionalized trends in this data, unless the sale price for Melania’s slaves
(year 408) is excluded because of supply shock. This would yield a downward trend
for western prices, a plausible proposition but one which we should not, with only five
data points, emphasize. The regional breakdown simply reminds us of the eastern nature
of the good data.
The average price of a slave in late antiquity appears stable, but this stability may
not reflect continuity. Perhaps, for instance, the price of a slave in AD 100 or AD 300
principally reflected the value of the slave’s labor, while the price of a slave in AD
600 reflected the value of the honor which an owner received from having a slave. It
is distinctly possible that supply and demand were both high in the fourth century and
both lower by the end of the sixth century, so that market prices were steady even as the
slave system was in decline. Another possible influence is plague. Massive depopula-
tion events have complex effects on prices, including rising wages over the medium
term; wages apparently rose in the later sixth century, so it is possible that slave prices
followed, trending upwards.86 Moreover, we do not have sufficiently detailed series on
the market prices of commodities to judge whether slave labor in antiquity effectively
capitalized the revenue streams generated by the marginal product of slave labor. We
86 For wages, see W. Scheidel, “Real Wages in Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from
1800 BCE to 1300 CE”, JESHO forthcoming. Perhaps P33, despite its hagiographic context, is
credible?
Figure 7: Slave Prices by Geographic Quadrant (High Quality Data)
can reasonably infer from a large amount of data that agricultural slavery was excep-
tionally important in Roman society, but we will never be able to say whether slaves
cost significantly more than the marginal value of their labor because purchasers put a
premium on the honor they derived from owning slaves.
Perhaps the most important signal amidst all the noise is the relative price of male and
female slaves (see Fig. 8).87 Male slaves cost more than female slaves in late antiquity.
This is clear in the fourth century, where documentary evidence confirms the schedule
of the Price Edict. It is less clearly the case in the sixth century, but unfortunately the
data become too sparse to draw firm conclusions. It could be significant that Justinian,
unlike Diocletian, did not differentiate the price of male and female slaves (in what is
otherwise a detailed and plausible table of slave prices). The higher price of male slaves
is a most important pattern. In the vast majority of pre-Atlantic slave systems, female
slaves outnumber male slaves and command higher market prices.88 The evidence is
87 Several of the data can be assigned a sex but not an age. Four papyrological data points have been
placed at age = 12 (a roughly average age of sale and one largely consistent with the reported prices).
They are marked with a bar in Fig. 8.
88 McCormick, Origins (as in n. 47) 248, higher prices for female slaves in the medieval period. In
the early tenth century Raffelstetten Toll, female slaves were charged a higher premium: Inquisitio
de theloneis Raffelstettensis, no. 253.6, p. 251. Prominence of female slaves in middle ages: S. D.
Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the
Documents of the Cairo Genizah, vol. 1 (Berkeley–Los Angeles 1967) 147. Y. Ragib, Actes de vente
d’esclaves et d’animaux d’Égypte médievale, 2 vols. (Cairo 2002) vol. 2, 45–47, for medieval Egypt.
I. Origo, “The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries”, Speculum 30 (1955) 321–366, at 336, females ten times as numerous as males and more
expensive in 14–15C Tuscany. M. Balard, “Remarques sur les esclaves à Gênes dans la seconde
moitié du XIIIe siècle”, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 80 (1968) 627–680, at 649–650, females
63 % of slaves in 13C Genoa, and 659 for prices (females always higher). D. Gioffré, Il mercato
234 KYLE HARPER
extensive and compelling.89 The very fact that male slaves were more expensive than
female slaves in the Roman slave system is evidence that slave prices reflected the value
of labor and not just honor premiums.90 It is important that this pattern held true at least
throughout the fourth century. The slave system of the later Roman empire does not
yet exhibit the patterns of medieval slavery. It must remain an open question when the
“flip” occurred, and females became more valuable in the marketplace. Justinian’s table
of prices – which does not differentiate between males and females – may signal that it
was underway by the sixth century, and the fact that the “skilled” slaves he explicitly
listed included eunuchs, doctors, and scribes suggests that the older patterns of Roman
agricultural slavery were changing.91
Conclusions: Periodizing Slave Prices in the Very Long Term
More work on the long-term history of slave prices is a desideratum, for such data have
the potential to provide quantifiable insights into the trajectory of slavery throughout
history. We might look to three parameters to find patterns which reveal structural facts
about the slave system: the base level of average slave values, the relative price of male
degli schiavi a Genova nel secolo XV (Genoa 1971) 137, 15C Genoa. In the new world, the price of
prime-age female slaves was regularly in the range of 80–95 % of the price of a male slave, except
when urban slavery was predominant over rural slavery: see M. M. Fraginals, H. Klein, S. Enger-
man, “The Level and Structure of Slave Prices on Cuban Plantations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century:
Some Comparative Perspectives”, AHR 88 (1983) 1201–1218, esp. 1209–1213, where higher male
prices are associated with remunerative agricultural labor. C. Verlinden, L’esclavage dans l’Europe
médiévale, 2 vols. (Bruges 1955–1977) vol. 1, 800–801 and vol. 2, 29. P. Lovejoy, D. Richardson,
“Competing Markets for Male and Female Slaves: Prices in the Interior of West Africa, 1780–1850”,
International Journal of African Historical Studies 28 (1995) 261–293, for Africa. E. Brezis, H. Kim,
“Was the Korean Slave Market Efficient?”, AFC (Association Française de Cliométrie), Working
Papers, Nr. 8, 2009, p. 9, women consistently cost more than men in Korea.
89 Which is not to say there are not some exceptions. For instance, M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Baby-
lonia: from Nabopolassar to Alexander the Great (626–331 B. C.) (DeKalb 1984) 186–206 reports a
scatter of first millennium BC prices from Babylonia and concludes (at 204) that males cost slightly
more than females. This would be a most interesting pattern, but the majority of the sales he adduces
are sales of female slaves, and as M. Jursa, Neo- Babylonian Legal and Administrative Documents:
Typology, Contents, and Archives (Münster 2005) 55–56, notes, in most instances the age and skill
level is unknown, so it is difficult to control the data. It would be interesting to have a data series
from Iraq documenting the price of Zanj slaves.
90 There is no evidence, for instance, that male slaves brought greater honor to the owner than female
slaves. Nor is any of this discussion meant to imply that female slaves, especially in the Roman
empire, were unproductive. The fact that they surely were productive only underscores the relatively
high value of male labor. On female slaves in the Roman system, see esp. U. Roth, Thinking Tools:
Agricultural Slavery between Evidence and Models (London 2007) and Saller, “Women, Slaves,
and the Economy” (as in n. 56). The low level of productivity in Roman textile manufacture may
have made female slave labor especially adaptive to productive uses in the Roman slave system.
See Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 3.
91 Although there remained some agricultural slavery in Justinian’s empire, to be sure: see Rotman,
Les esclaves et l’esclavage (as in n. 46) 503.
Figure 8: Slave Prices by Age and Sex (High Quality Data)
and female slaves, and the geography of slave prices. To show briefly what such an
analysis might reveal, I will conclude by comparing slave prices in the Imperial, Late
Antique, and Early Medieval (700–1000) periods along these parameters.
The price of slaves varied greatly, but we can classify slave prices into three basic
levels: cheap, expensive, and luxury. It was rare (perhaps impossible) for slave prices to
remain cheap over a large space or a long term. Classical Athens is perhaps one case, but
the temporal and spatial boundaries were limited. Republican Rome is a more interesting
possibility, but the data are lacking to conclude that slaves were cheap for the last two
centuries of the republic. The Imperial era, from which we have reasonably good data,
shows that slaves were an expensive commodity but not just a luxury article; the same
holds true for the Late Antique period. In both cases slave prices hovered in the range
of 2–6 metric tons of wheat. This pattern is more interesting when it is compared with
the Early Medieval situation.
McCormick has gathered a large number of slave prices from the eighth and ninth
centuries that show a slave in the west cost in the range of 30–50 g of gold, while in
the Caliphate they typically cost 100–200 g of gold or more; this is the equivalent of
6.7–11 solidi in the west and 22.2–44.4 solidi in the east.92 In the west prices remained
low, presumably because demand was low and supply steady, while in the east slaves
were vastly more expensive than in the contemporary west. Slaves were much more
expensive than they had been in the Imperial or Late Antique period, too, in the part
of the medieval world generally considered the vortex of the slave trade (see Fig. 8).
Was this because the Caliphate was extremely rich? Or because the supply was highly
limited, and slaves were a high-priced luxury article?
92 For the early medieval data presented in Figure 9: McCormick, Origins (as in n. 47) 756–757.
236 KYLE HARPER
outlier omitted
(caliphate, 775, 637.5 g)
Figure 9: Slave Prices in the Late Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages
Secondly, the relative value of male and female slaves. Data from classical Greece sug-
gest that females were valued as highly as males.93 The evidence from the Imperial period
shows that males were worth more, as does the evidence from Late Antiquity. In the Early
Middle Ages (ca. 700–1000) females appear more expensive, but as we have already noted
it is not clear whether this flip belongs to the sixth century or later. Female slaves certainly
remained more expensive through the late middle ages, until the expansion of the planta-
tion complex and the rise of New World slavery.94 The long-term history of price ratios
between male and female slaves probably looks something like the following:
Figure 10: Price Ratio of Unskilled Male Slaves to Female Slaves
93 See the data of Ruffing and Drexhage, “Antike Sklavenpreise” (as in n. 9) 322–323. We must admit
that there are, so far as we know, no slave prices from the archaic Aegean, with the single striking
literary exception of Laertes’ slave woman Euryclea, who cost twenty oxen, so that the starting point
of this graph is based on assumptions (probably defensible) about the nature of archaic slavery before
the spread of coinage and the institutional changes covered by the “Solonic reforms.” Cf. Y. Garlan,
Slavery in Ancient Greece, rev. and exp. ed. (Ithaca 1988) 29–37.
94 See above, n. 88.
This graph is submitted as much as a challenge as a conclusion: a comprehensive

database of pre-modern slave prices is not inconceivable. Certainly, more work remains
to be done on adducing the comparative data and refining the points of inflection in this
graph, but the long-term patterns evident in the available data seem to validate the theory
that Roman slavery was structurally distinctive. At least as far as the relative price of
male and female slaves is indicative (and this should say something about the weight
of male labor in the overall complexion of the system), Roman slavery more closely
resembles New World slavery than archaic, classical, or medieval slavery, although we
must be cautious in making comparisons with the New World.95
Finally, geography. During the late republic, the slave trade flowed west, towards Italy.
It is even probable that the rising price of manumission at Delphi reflects the greater
integration of eastern and western markets. During the Roman empire, demand in the
coastal regions became progressively equalized, as did prices. By the Early Medieval
period, the direction of the slave trade had reversed course and headed east, towards
the Caliphate. One of the most important conclusions of McCormick’s analysis is that
the price of slaves in the early medieval east was consistently higher than in the west,
so that western Europe began to export slaves towards the richer markets in the Levant.
By the ninth century, this trade began to attach a new name to the human commodities
destined for the eastern Mediterranean – sclavus, slave.96 Where does late antiquity,
then, sit on this long-term trajectory?
There is impressionistic evidence that as early as the fifth century the slave trade
had begun to point east. In the mid-fifth century, a North African girl found her way to
Cyrrhus.97 Gothic slaves appear on a sixth-century estate in Egypt.98 And at the end of
the sixth century, the letters of Gregory the Great suddenly illuminate a slave trade run-
ning out of Gaul through Marseilles to Naples – bypassing Rome on its way eastwards to
richer markets.99 These are perilously scarce data points, but they gain credibility from
the ever accumulating archaeological evidence which shows the eastern Mediterranean
economy already outpacing the western economy by the fifth century.100 The wealth of
the east, so evident in a range of material, suggests it possessed the capital and demand
to draw the slave trade towards its markets. If no clear shifts in regional demand are
evident in the prices, this is partly because the data are so concentrated in the eastern
regions; perhaps the most important information we can extract is the stability of eastern
prices across late antiquity.
95 See the judicious comments of Roth, Thinking Tools (as in n. 90) 138–151. Further, Harper, Slavery
(as in n. 7) Chapter 1.
96 H. Kahane, R. Kahane, “Notes on the Linguistic History of Sclavus”, in Studi in onore di Ettore Lo
Gatto e Giovanni Maver (Florence 1962) 345–360; C. Verlinden, “L’origine de sclavus = esclave”,
Archivum latinitatis medii aevi 17 (1943) 97–128.
97 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ep. 70.
98 PSI 8.953 (6C).
99 McCormick, Origins (as in n. 47) 625. Gregory the Great, Epist., 6.10. Cf. Epist. 3.16; Epist. 6.29;
Epist., 9.105; Epist. 9.124.
100 From an utterly massive bibliography, B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
(New York 2005) 122, is concise and to the point. Loseby, “Ceramic Data” (as in n. 47) is a recent
and convincing synthesis.
238 KYLE HARPER
In general, the large gaps in our evidence in the fifth and then again the seventh
centuries (see Fig. 9) are not surprising, but they are disappointing, since these were
very plausibly two phases of large-scale recalibration and reorientation in the structure
of the slave trade. The price data we do have, though, at least help us to place the slave
system of late antiquity on the broader historical canvas of human enslavement. Slaves
in late antiquity were expensive but not an elusive luxury. The value of labor rather
than honor premiums likely determined the market price of slaves (if the relative value
of male and female slaves in fact demonstrates that prices reflected the value of labor
rather than honor). The coastal Mediterranean still seems to be largely integrated, at
least relative to the distinctly regional price plateaus of the early middle ages. Much
work remains to be done on the sources of the period, and only a thorough analysis of
the occupational structure, institutional environment, and so on will provide a more
complete picture of late Roman slavery. But prices, handled carefully, are an important,
quantitative complement which can reveal structural features of the slave system and
which can help us to understand the long-term history of slavery.
Department of Classics and Letters Kyle Harper

University of Oklahoma

Slave Prices in Late Antiquity and in TH

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SLAVE PRICES IN LATE ANTIQUITY

(AND IN THE VERY LONG TERM)*

Introduction: Problems and Prospects

Historia, Band 59/2 (2010)

What Does a Price Mean?

11 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 794–795.

So far we have been speaking of the price of slaves as an undifferentiated category

conscription drove up wages, encouraging employers to turn to slave labor.23 A rise in

29 Temin, “Labor Market” (as in n. 21).

36 Scheidel, “Real Slave Prices” (as in n. 10).

Price Observations from Late Antiquity

This section represents an attempt to collect a comprehensive catalogue of observations

• Each location is assigned one of two codes: p (peripheral) or c (coastal). Places

Table 1.1: Slave Prices in the Price Edict

P2 CJ 6.1.4 20 solidi AD 317

66 Bagnall, Currency and Inﬂation (as in n. 49) 64.

P9 BGU 1 316 18 solidi AD 359

P17 Palladius, Laus. Hist., 61 3 solidi ca. AD 408

Penalties for murder in the Lex Romana Burgundiorum

P24 Gregory of Tours, HF 3.15 12 solidi ca. AD 530

80 G. Dagron, D. Feissel, (eds.), Inscriptions de Cilicie (Paris 1987) 182–185.

Justinian’s Slave Values

P30 Evagrius, Hist. eccl., 5.19 ? AD 578

81 Jones, Later Roman Empire (as in n. 6) 852.

Interpreting the Data

83 Harper, Slavery (as in n. 7) Chapter 2.

Figure 5: Slave Prices in Late Antiquity (All Data)

Figure 7: Slave Prices by Geographic Quadrant (High Quality Data)

Conclusions: Periodizing Slave Prices in the Very Long Term

Figure 8: Slave Prices by Age and Sex (High Quality Data)

Figure 10: Price Ratio of Unskilled Male Slaves to Female Slaves

This graph is submitted as much as a challenge as a conclusion: a comprehensive

Department of Classics and Letters Kyle Harper

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