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Two thousand years ago a slave was merely a piece of machinery. Nowadays a rich man invests his money in factories. The rich people of Rome (senators, generals and war-profiteers) invested theirs in land and in slaves. The land they bought or took in the newly-acquired provinces. The slaves they bought in open market wherever they happened to be cheapest. During most of the third and second centuries before Christ there was a plentiful supply, and as a result the landowners worked their slaves until they dropped dead in their tracks, when they bought new ones at the nearest bargain-counter of Corinthian or Carthaginian captives.
在2000年前，一名奴隸僅僅是機器上的一個零件，正如現代的富人投資工廠一樣，而古羅馬的富人們（元老院成員、將軍、發戰爭財的商人）則將自己的財富用于購買土地和奴隸。土地來自于新征服的國家，通過購買或直接攫取。奴隸在各地的市場上公開出售，只需選一處價錢最便宜的地方買入就可以。在公元前3世紀和2世紀的大部分時間里，奴隸的供應一直相當充足。因此，莊園主們可以像牛馬一樣盡情驅使他們的奴隸，直到他們精疲力竭地倒在田地邊死去。而主人們可以去就近的奴隸市場討價還價，購人新到的柯林斯或迦太基戰俘，彌補勞力的損失。
And now behold the fate of the freeborn farmer!
現在，再讓我們來看一看普通羅馬農民的命運！
He had done his duty toward Rome and he had fought her battles without complaint. But when he came home after ten, fifteen or twenty years, his lands were covered with weeds and his family had been ruined. But he was a strong man and willing to begin life anew. He sowed and planted and waited for the harvest. He carried his grain to the market together with his cattle and his poultry, to find that the large landowners who worked their estates with slaves could underbid him all along the line. For a couple of years he tried to hold his own. Then he gave up in despair. He left the country and he went to the nearest city. In the city he was as hungry as he had been before on the land. But he shared his misery with thousands of other disinherited beings.
他盡心盡力為羅馬而戰，毫無怨言，因為這是他對祖國應盡的職責?？山涍^1o年、15年或20年的漫長兵役后，他回到家鄉，發現自家田地里荒草叢生，房屋也毀于戰火。他是一個夠堅強的男子漢。他想，好吧，這沒什么，我可以重新開始生活。于是他拔去雜草，翻耕土地，播種，勞作，耐心等待收成。終于盼到了收獲季節，他興沖沖將谷物、牲畜、家禽運到市場。此時他才發現，大莊園主用奴隸替他們耕種大片土地，其農產品的價格比他預想的低好多。他不得不賤價出售。如此苦苦支撐幾年，他終于絕望了，只好拋棄土地，離鄉背井，去城市謀生。可在城市，他依然混不飽肚子。不過，他至少可以與幾千名命運同樣悲慘的人們，分擔他的痛苦。
