Likely partially. Slaves definitely were used on construction projects, but large-scale construction projects, like these aqueducts, would have included a majority-free force of unskilled wage laborers.
Funny enough, you probably would be more likely to see skilled slaves than unskilled slaves on such a project - unskilled slaves were used primarily in the worst and most tedious jobs that no one else wanted to do on the regular (mines, monocrop plantations, mills, bakeries); if you had a slave who you were going to employ full-time in construction, which was less horrid and also only intermittent in demand, it was probably someone with an actual skill, like an engineer.
Hmm…. Was this built by slaves?
Likely partially. Slaves definitely were used on construction projects, but large-scale construction projects, like these aqueducts, would have included a majority-free force of unskilled wage laborers.
Funny enough, you probably would be more likely to see skilled slaves than unskilled slaves on such a project - unskilled slaves were used primarily in the worst and most tedious jobs that no one else wanted to do on the regular (mines, monocrop plantations, mills, bakeries); if you had a slave who you were going to employ full-time in construction, which was less horrid and also only intermittent in demand, it was probably someone with an actual skill, like an engineer.
The past is a strange place!