sport, and the domestic life of the well-to-do was
carried by slaves. Basically, therefore, the Roman world
was divided first into Romans and non-Romans and second
into masters and slaves, with a third category which consisted
of an immense bureaucracy (including the military),
a professional and technological group and a heavy burden
of persistent parasitism.

4. Growth of the abyss that separated wealth and the
wealthy from mass poverty in the cities and the countryside.
The abyss was widened and deepened by the presence
of slavery. More extensive and more frequent foreign
conquests added to the volume of slave labor in a market
already glutted and reduced the price of slaves. Against
this super-abundant cheap slave labor, free labor could
compete only by reducing its standard of living and thus
deepening the abyss of poverty. At the other end of the
social arc, the rich were able to surround themselves with
multitudes of slaves who provided the energy needed to
carry on the complex life of Roman civilization. As the
Roman world expanded, the abyss widened, deepened
and became all but impassable. It was from such lower
depths that Spartacus and other leaders of rebellious slaves
drew sufficient manpower to challenge and for a time
even defeat the full military power of Rome.

5. Built into the structure of Roman civilization was the
potential of civil war. The contradictions of mass slavery
and poverty side by side with boundless leisure and
abundance was only one side of the picture. Each of the
more distant provinces became a possible base from which
ambitious governors or generals could wage wars of independent
conquest at the expense of Roman authority. Each
newly subjugated people, smarting under defeat and the
heavy hand which Rome laid on its dissidents and opponents,
became a potential center for disaffection, conspiracy
and rebellion against Roman authority.

6. Conflicts over power succession, in the provinces, and
more significantly in the mother city, added another
aspect to the many sided pressures. As there was no legal
means of determining the succession, the end of each
imperial reign offered the probability of military intervention.

7. Deification of emperors, during the era of the Caesars,
led to the denigration and degradation of the common
man. The fact that the co