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The aim of this paper is to explain why the participation of freemen in servile wars is a historiographical problem and to provide a convenient framework in which to develop their study. To this end, I trace the main features of an ideological representation that had a significant importance in the thinking of the ancient Greeks and Romans: the antinomy slavery/freedom. According to this conceptual framework, the chattel-slaves, defined as things, were represented as foreigners. The slaves served as the “Others” against which all citizens, from the rich slave owners to the poor artisans and peasants, defined themselves as a unity. The contrast between the slave and the citizen made it possible to shade, from an ideological point of view, the relations of exploitation and the differences of wealth between the citizens. This tended to suppress the social conflict between them. We argue that it is in terms of this ideology of binary social classification that it is possible to fully understand the problematic and contradictory character of the behavior of the free poors (aporoi) in servile wars, who ignored this dichotomy.