where would rome be without the slaves

The Roman Empire’s rise to power is one of the greatest in history the backbone of the society was the plebeians and slaves; would Rome be the great empire it was without them? In Rome there were two main social classes, Plebeians and the Patricians. The plebes were the common folk and at first did not have much power but ended up fighting for it in the struggle of orders. The patricians were the wealthy aristocratic Romans who owned land and had a stronger hand in politics until the struggle of Orders. The struggle of orders is when the plebeians held and uprising against the Patricians for more power. The slaves though did not exactly have a choice to have an uprising. The slaves did the dirty work that took place in Rome so that the Romans could put their minds into other things. Without slavery Rome wouldn’t risen to power because they would have no backbone in their society.
In Rome, like most places, slaves were not treated well at all. The Romans knew that what they were doing was cold-hearted even a Roman playwright wrote of how slaves were treated. (Platus). As Rome grew and became more powerful more slaves were needed thus causing their masters to become more impersonal with them. Even Cato the Elder did not treat his slaves with Dignity. He believed they should only get new clothes about every two years and the food they got would be used. He said when they got new clothes they clothes that were taken away would be turned into sacks which shows how bad the clothes were. (Cato the Elder). When the slaves revolted there was much turmoil in Rome which shows how important the slaves where. It took a lot of power from the Roman government to get them to calm down. The revolt of the slaves caused much fear as the stoic Romans were afraid that if they slaves took over all they would do was destroy everything. It seems that every time the slaves revolted the Romans could handle it but were still scared out of their wits by them.
The slaves tried many times to revolt, and as the Romans thought them dull minded they were quite clever. Sicily, which was under the power of the Romans, had been bringing in a lot of slaves. There is large problem with bringing in many slaves, there were more slaves than plebeians and patricians. During the Servile Orders two different slaves created two different groups to rampage against those in charge. Although the governors and such believed that the two different groups would end up killing each other the two groups joined forces. (Diodorus Siculus). There was a sicilian slave named Eunus who led one group, he was appointed king and after he and his slaves wiped out basically everyone except for those who could make them weapons. He and his “army” battled Roman generals and beat them very often. The slaves themselves were often used in war. The other slave who led the other group had the name of Cleon. As the war went on the slaves had almost 200,000, by far outnumbering the Romans. In the end the rebels ended up being caught and put under horrible circumstances such as eating their children.
The slaves were strong minded and the Romans learned slowly but surely to treat them with dignity because without the slaves they had much strife. If the Romans did not depend so dearly on their slaves they would not have had so much trouble, and without them they would still be great. (Joel Madden). The fact of the matter is the Romans depended entirely to much on the people that they treated horribly. They got ahead of themselves and did not realize just how many slaves there were.
Without the slaves Rome would not have gotten as much power as it did. If the Romans had to worry about their agriculture, and house duties, and keeping Rome clean, they would not have time to be out conquering more land. Many of the slaves were also soldiers and without all of the soldiers there is no possible way that Rome would have conquered so much land and become so powerful.
"Rome." Ancient History Sourcebook. Ed. Paul Hallsall. Fordham Edu. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. .