>>18326803
Slavery obviously

>>18326803
That depends on what kind of slave and what kind of peasant. As far as I understand it, there were both roman "house slaves", that were situated in privileged positions and had rights, and slaves that were worked to death in the mines. But I'm not that well versed in ancient roman history. However I know a lot more about the medieval periods. Within the HRE for example were numerous types of peasants; ranging from the common understanding of serfs to free farmers without any type of bondage and with imperial immediacy (meaning they were direct subjects of the Emperor). So slaves with all due likelyhood had it worse.

>>18326803
Both are better than today wagie

>>18326803
The range of slaves and peasants ranged greatly. A slave could be a mine worker, a line of work where you were incredibly likely to die before your third year on the job, a field slave, whose entire life was working on a field in chains with other slaves to a house slave who was effectively a servant to do whatever the master felt like, an educated slave like a teacher who was often effectively part of the family or at the highest, agents of powerful men. The men on the better side often became free in a few years or when their master died.

Peasants could be a Russian serf and pseudo-slaves to a well off English Yeoman, some of these men could be so well off they had retinues that included even knights. Of course men like that were effectively part of the gentry and often just willingly refused to join it. The average unfree serf would have had it better than a slave, neither had much rights but maltreatment was comparatively rarer and less legally acceptable to serfs. You couldn't beat a slave without a reason in Roman law, but you could just make one up. Far more slaves were going to be field slaves than house slaves.

>>18326925
came to say this