Rome used different means of getting labour for different projects. In Rome, both public and private buildings were made using mix of hired specialists, hired or sometimes pressed freemen and slaves. mortality was varying depending on conditions, very high for modern standards. They usually did cared about the slaves to a degree you would expect (tools and slaves are expensive). For one of more infamous examples, When Tarquinius the Proud ordered building of the city sewers, the work condition were so bad that the free workers had to be pressed into work and allegedly the ones escaping were crucified (this is part of the republican propaganda where Tarquinius is portrayed as a tyrant though, in reality nobody knows if he really was that bad). There were also military projects, being build by soldiers (they needed something to do in times of peace), this actually can be treated as form slave labour too since soldiers were paid shitty and desertion even during peace was punishable by death. Mortality was probably pretty high too (lower than in war), but lowered because roman soldiers were pretty experienced since they actually were building much more than fighting.
One thing to remember about the horror stories of ancients buildings is that they are exaggerated. The stories about tens of thousands people dying in the building of pyramids were ultimately blown away by the discoveries of the builders cities which clearly point out not only on labour force 5 times less than previously thought, but also made entirely of free people, and the cities despite being officially temporal, existed for around 2 decades each and had very good amenities for that time. So the posterboy of that moved of course to the Great Wall of China where allegedly 400000 people died during the contruction. This probably wont be corrected any time soon in the west, since China bad, and articles about the issue i encountered look fishy as hell (and they are often illustrated by the Ming wall when speaking about earlier ones).
i especially like the myth that worker’s bones were used as the base of the wall… lol how much of an unhinged sinophobe you gotta be to even contemplate that
This one is actually debunked oficially, but still shows up a lot in the internet.
And it wasn’t entirely baseless btw, though that bone crap was obvious nonsense. In ancient times both in Europe, Asia and Africa, common practice was to offer a human sacrifice before something very important. Building important buildings counted in that, the sactifices bodies were often interred in the foundations so that their spirits guard the building or something like that.
In China of Spring and Autumn, Warring States and Qin era it was slowly disappearing (roughly at the same time as in Mediterranean basin) but still happened occasionally. We don’t know if that did happened to either earlier fragments or to the Qin Great Wall, but it would be prime candidate.
Rome used different means of getting labour for different projects. In Rome, both public and private buildings were made using mix of hired specialists, hired or sometimes pressed freemen and slaves. mortality was varying depending on conditions, very high for modern standards. They usually did cared about the slaves to a degree you would expect (tools and slaves are expensive). For one of more infamous examples, When Tarquinius the Proud ordered building of the city sewers, the work condition were so bad that the free workers had to be pressed into work and allegedly the ones escaping were crucified (this is part of the republican propaganda where Tarquinius is portrayed as a tyrant though, in reality nobody knows if he really was that bad). There were also military projects, being build by soldiers (they needed something to do in times of peace), this actually can be treated as form slave labour too since soldiers were paid shitty and desertion even during peace was punishable by death. Mortality was probably pretty high too (lower than in war), but lowered because roman soldiers were pretty experienced since they actually were building much more than fighting.
One thing to remember about the horror stories of ancients buildings is that they are exaggerated. The stories about tens of thousands people dying in the building of pyramids were ultimately blown away by the discoveries of the builders cities which clearly point out not only on labour force 5 times less than previously thought, but also made entirely of free people, and the cities despite being officially temporal, existed for around 2 decades each and had very good amenities for that time. So the posterboy of that moved of course to the Great Wall of China where allegedly 400000 people died during the contruction. This probably wont be corrected any time soon in the west, since China bad, and articles about the issue i encountered look fishy as hell (and they are often illustrated by the Ming wall when speaking about earlier ones).
i especially like the myth that worker’s bones were used as the base of the wall… lol how much of an unhinged sinophobe you gotta be to even contemplate that
This one is actually debunked oficially, but still shows up a lot in the internet.
And it wasn’t entirely baseless btw, though that bone crap was obvious nonsense. In ancient times both in Europe, Asia and Africa, common practice was to offer a human sacrifice before something very important. Building important buildings counted in that, the sactifices bodies were often interred in the foundations so that their spirits guard the building or something like that.
In China of Spring and Autumn, Warring States and Qin era it was slowly disappearing (roughly at the same time as in Mediterranean basin) but still happened occasionally. We don’t know if that did happened to either earlier fragments or to the Qin Great Wall, but it would be prime candidate.