Source Analysis: The Life of a Slave in Ancient Rome Read the extract from Apuleius’s The Golden Ass (165 AD) and answer the questions that follow.
Their skins were seamed all over with the marks of old floggings, as you could easily see through the holes in their ragged shirts that shaded rather than covered their scarred backs; but some wore only loin-cloths. They had letters branded on their foreheads, and half-shaved heads and irons on their legs. Their complexions were frightfully yellow, their eyelids caked with the smoke of the baking ovens, their eyes so bleary and inflamed that they could hardly see out of them and they were powdered like athletes in an arena, but with dirty flour, not dust.
1. Describe the appearance of the slaves in this extract.
2. Where did these slaves work?
3. What does this source tell us about the treatment of slaves in Ancient Rome? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
4. This extract was written by someone who witnessed the treatment of slaves first hand. Do you think the author sympathises with the slaves? Support your answer with reference to the text.