More and more people are giving up work on the grounds of their mental-health problems, allowing them to live off state benefits. That raises the question:  is there something about the nature of work today that makes it seem so unrewarding?

In the ancient world there was no welfare system. The educated, wealthy elite apart (2 per cent), most had to survive off a plot of land or their manual skills (more than 340 occupations are recorded), hoping thereby to produce a surplus to meet other needs. What is striking is the pride in the work of their hands, especially by Roman freed slaves (freedmen), revealed on their grave monuments.

The inscription ‘This is the monument of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, baker, contractor, public servant’ is found on his 33ft monument, illustrating grain being ground, dough mixed, loaves stacked before weighing, and nine large mixing vessels. Trebius Justus, a builder, decorated his monument with masons mixing mortar, carrying material up ladders and laying bricks. To show how far he has come, his family is depicted in aristocratic luxury.

On small but no less skilful reliefs, a shipwright is depicted working on a beam at the front of a boat; a butcher chops up spare ribs while his wife records his activities; smiths in a coppersmith shop hammer away while others weigh the products and polish the pans. ‘Lucius, a buffoon by profession, a most respected and excellent freedman of the highest honour’ also had a relief.

For those who could not afford images, an epitaph had to suffice. Aulus Granius announced himself as ‘an auctioneer, an honourable man of high trustworthiness’; ‘Here are laid the bones of Quintus Tiburtius Menolavus, a slaughterer, freedman of Quintus’. Horaea’s stated: ‘For 20 years… I maintained the whole house. My last day delivered its judgment and death took away my breath but took not the splendour of my life.’

Such was the pride freedmen found in work. Is that not something today’s workplaces could engender?