In the slave market, strong male slaves were always in the greatest demand, desired to be used as extra hands in all sorts of manual work- farming, mining, looking after livestock, transport, assistants, you name it.
But as could be seen from their prices, they were not cheap.
Even normal, healthy slaves cost an average farmer three to four years of his entire annual income, and powerful warriors could go two, three, or if they were famous enough even up to ten times the value.
So buying a slave was roughly the modern equivalent of buying a house or mansion.
Except this 'house' had the risk of being moody, temperamental, disloyal, a tendency to run away, and worst of all, falling ill and dying!
In the other cases, at least there was a chance to retrieve or even sell the slave away to make back some of the money.
But a slave dying was a cause of great misery for many middle class and even some rich families.
