Labor Market of Early Roman Empire,  Econ 215 takes on Rome.

After arriving to Rome the first ruin that we saw and toured was the Baths of Caracalla. An Empire funded and slave built club (for the lack of a better word that will do it justice). The Baths of Caracalla were well-constructed bathing houses, not hard to gather from the name. The size of it was unimaginable, the remaining walls from ancient times were higher than any club I've seen. While on the tour we were told of the intricate system of how the bathhouse was used including three separate pools with differing temperatures in each, in addition to the exercise areas. We were told that admission was free. The emperor was strategic here. With free admission the citizens had full access to the amenities. The over powering walls around the facility, that served so much of the community were purposefully created to give the feeling of being small. Smaller than the emperor, that is. This was a way in which the emperor created and maintained control and power over the civilians.

After seeing the picture above you can have an idea of how huge this ruins really is. But something we all were curious of was who built this. Okay I mentioned it earlier, the slaves worked and built the Baths of Caracalla but how could slaves do this? The article Labor Market of Early Roman Empire helped explain what the labor market looked liked back in Roman times.

First of all try not to let the pre-ingrained idea of what slave means coming from the United States slave trade, affect your impression of how the Roman’s used slaves. A huge difference between the slaves in the Civil War and the slaves during Roman times was the mentality of the job. Slaves in the US experienced punishment and were hardly educated. The Roman slaves were on a reward basis. This was in order to create incentives, which was a strategic way to insure quality work. Education was a huge tool used because the slaves in Rome could move up the system and build trust and create a reputation allowing them to have more responsibilities and have more skilled labor jobs. This was an important role for their job and how it was able to work so well. All this allows for the construction of such places including many other monuments, for example the Colosseum. As you can see strategy is a big part about getting what you want during the Roman times.