The serfs you’re thinking of came much later thanks to populist land reforms, largely after the black plague decimated the labor pool and gave them huge leverag

The serfs you’re thinking of came much later thanks to populist land reforms, largely after the black plague decimated the labor pool and gave them huge leverage for the first time - a thousand years later. Until then, serfs were slaves with no other protections. They didn’t get to keep anything. They and everything they had belonged to their feudal lords. Slaves on the other hand got the protection of Rome and even had opportunities to rise to freemen, unlike serfs most of whom were tied to the land for life.