Price of slaves in Late Antiquity

[JesusA (imported)]

Historian Kyle Harper set about trying to discover the price of slaves during Late Antiquity (300 to 600 CE). There are a few records of individual slave sales, with information about the slave and the price. There were also two imperial edicts setting slave prices. These provided data that was reasonably consistent across the three centuries once the prices were adjusted uniformly. Harper decided that the best way to compare prices was to set them equivalent to a standard commodity that could be compared to slave prices at any point in time. In the case of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, he decided that the price of wheat could set the standard. Prices, as stated below, are in TONS OF WHEAT.

Emperor Diocletian in 301 CE set prices for categories of slave by sex and age:

Children 0 to 8 years of age:

Male: 1.5 tons

Female: 1 ton

8 to 16 years of age:

Male: 2 tons

Female: 2 tons

16 to 40 years of age (prime working years):

Male: 3 tons

Female: 2.5 tons

40 to 60 years:

Male: 2.5 tons

Female: 2 tons

60+ years

Male: 1.5 tons

Female: 1 ton

Two hundred thirty-three years later, Emperor Justinian in 534 CE set “fair market value” for legal cases involving slaves, by age and skill level, without regard to sex:

9 and under, no skills: 1 ton

9 and under, Eunuch: 3 tons

10 and up, no skills: 2 tons

10 and up, skilled in some craft: 3 tons

10 and up, Eunuch with no skills: 5 tons

10 and up Eunuch skilled in some craft: 7 tons

Any age, skilled as a scribe: 5 tons

Any age, skilled as a doctor: 6 tons

The “skill” of eunuchs was frequently that they were literate, sometimes very much so, and that they could be used as pedagogues, tutors for children. Eunuchs were generally seen as better caregivers and tutors for small children than were women and they were prized for that role all across Eurasia, from Rome to China.

Most Roman/Byzantine slaves in Late Antiquity (other than home sourced, born to slave mothers) came across the eastern frontier in West Asia or from the Black Sea basin. Slaves mostly moved east to west. After the rise of the Caliphate, the slave trade mostly switched directions to became west to east with slaves exported to the Caliphate selling for three to four times as much as in the west. Eunuchs became a much larger part of the west to east trade than they had been in the east to west trade.

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Harper, Kyle. (2010). Slave Prices in Late Antiquity (and in the Very Long Term). Historia, vol. 59, pp. 206-238.

[JessicaH (imported)]

Wheat is trading at about $270/metric ton today (2,200 lbs). Hard to say if it’s a useful metric considering the temporal work differential.