Somewhere between 20 and 30% of people living in Rome were slaves.
People could be captured into slavery, or be a child of a slave, or a punishment for crime could’ve made them a slave, or they become a slave to pay for their debt.
Slaves did a lot of the work such as farming, mining, teaching, or even being an acoountant.
Slaves could be public or private which means that they could be public and belong to the government or be private and belong to one person.
Slaves were sometimes beat and worked really hard or in other cases treated nicely like they were a part of the family.
Slaves could be set free and then were consdiered a citizen.
A third of the people in Rome were slaves.