مهن و وظائف أطفال العبيد الرومان في ضوء النقوش الأثرية

Abstract EN

This paper studies the jobs and professions of children of Roman slaves towards the end of the Republican era and during the first and second centuries of the Empire in the light of the inscriptions which their fathers and owners made for them to commemorate their memory.

As the paper shows those inscriptions are important sources of information which include their names, their fathers, families and their ages at death.

It is divided mainly into two sections; the first, studies the importance of inscriptions, their context and the nature of their information; the second, concentrates on the jobs and professions of those children.

In all we have twenty funeral inscriptions commemorating twenty three children who practiced various jobs and professions; some of these jobs and professions were inside the houses of their owners while others belonged to the field of entertainment.

As is shown in the final conclusion, those children began their professional life at an early age and were mostly vernae, slaves born in the houses of their owners, compared to slaves bought and sold in the slave-market.

Moreover, they were mostly engaged in the same professions regardless of gender.

(Roman History,