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Where did a large-scale Roman slave-owner obtain new slaves? Varro in effect tells us: Ephesus. And the answer would probably have been the same for many generations after his time. But can we work out more systematically and more thoroughly the relative importance of different kinds of sources? The sources which most require consideration are: (1) children born to slave-mothers within the Empire; (2) persons enslaved in provincial or frontier wars; (3) persons imported across the frontiers; (4) the ‘self-enslaved’; and (5) infants abandoned at places within the Empire.Several years ago, I argued on a number of grounds that the last of these sources, child-exposure, was more important than had previously been recognized. Subsequent reconsideration of the problem has led me to suspect that the source-material under-represents the amount of slave-importation across the frontiers, but not to doubt that child-exposure was very widespread or that it made an important contribution to the slave supply. Of the many subsequent discussions, the most original is that of Ramin and Veyne, who, in an article of 1981 too little attended to in the Anglo-Saxon world, made it appear very likely that those who voluntarily sold themselves into slavery were a larger category than scholars usually imagine. More recently, Scheidel has attempted to revive the case, previously propounded by Shtaerman among others, in favour of the self-reproductivity of the slave population.