Comments on Roman Slavery

[caldrail]

Sorry, but I have to take issue with some comments I found on forums here.

 Slaves were generally treated well, often playing integral roles in the household, including companionship as well as nursemaid/governess/teacher

Whilst it is true that some slaves had respected and professional roles, these were often skilled people offering their trade via slavery, and as volunteers they tended to be better trusted and treated. However, the vast majority of slaves, either former free people or born slaves, were not. 'Talking Tools' is the phrase Cato used. They were to act without unnecessary attention. At a dinner a Roman elite merely held out a goblet. He expected it to be filled, and didn't ask. The slave was not supposed to speak, just fill any goblet held out.

There's evidence of poor treatment from various sources, not least the satire of a lady's servant who is bullied and attacked because she has aroused the jealousy of her mistress by attracting the amorous attentions of her husband. Household slaves generally lived in dark cellars, below the family home. A male Roman could have a slave as he chose, male or female. The women were not supposed to use slaves like that, it was scandalous, though such things did go on.

Those slaves unfortunate enough to be bought for born into rural industrial labour could expect short hard lives, extreme physical labour and workplace hazards. Some facilities, such as metal foundries, could be downright poisonous. They might expect to be corraled like animals.

Animals... That brings me to the essential point about Roman slavery. Under Roman law, a slave has lost or possessed no humanity, equal in status to animals, because they had no say or choice. There's a description from around the time of the Slave Revolts of a Sicilian slave in appalling condition, virtually ignored and starved by his master.

It is true of course that beginning in the late Republic but noticeable more from the Principate were laws to restrict what owners could do to their slaves. Abandonment of sick slaves left to die, casual sale or gift to the gladiator schools for unwanted slaves, and other abuses were curbed. Yet a lot of this was for public image - a country villa might have wonderful gardens facing the entrance tended to by willing slaves in good condition - to the rear, out of sight, the manual labourers penned and herded, with overseers from among them just as willing to lash their victims as their approving masters.

Roman slaves were often given wages/"spending money" above and beyond room & board, and were oftrn in a position to take on extra work for pay outside the household.

That was hardly common. Slaves were indentured servants, not employees. Some were allowed to have monies - Gladiators for instance by law were entitled to receive a portion of the winnings if they won a fight, some were allowed to run businesses on behalf of their master, some were allowed informal families of their own - though any children were slaves of the master automatically - but it would be a foolish master who let his slaves run around doing their own thing. Working for profit isn't a common theme in Roman writing and for good reason. Such slaves might well have had an ulterior reason for being allowed to operate semi-independently, and that would be to observe rivals and inform on them. 

Slaves were manumitted for a number of reasons, none of which were primarily the welfare of the former slave. Some were freed to create the public image of a generous man. Others as a reward for long service though that would be exceptional. Sometimes saves might be freed for more subtle reasons, and Augustus tried twice in AD 9 to get wealthy owners to donate slaves to be freed and sent to Germania as emergency third class troops. He resorted to legal action and punished some of their owners.

Slaves were of course below the horizon socially, and we hear very little about them, but that doesn't mean their lives were happy and ordinary. Most Romans cared more for their dog than a slave in their ownership.

[guidoLaMoto]

In response to your obserstions, let us merely ask how different was the life of a slave from that of a Roman peasant? Not really any different. Maybe worse. A family of eight living in a 400 sq ft insula apartment?

Were slaves serving dinner in a Senator's triclinium treated any differently than those in servce in an episode of Upstairs Downstairs?

In regards the economic impact of slavery, compare the flow of money in, say, 19th century American coal mine towns, where miners were paid low wages, and then paid rent to live in company housing and bought food & merchandise in company stores. ....Not fundamentally different than slavery with no wages but no expenses. 

Much of what we know about American slavery comes from a famous book, Twelve Years a Slave https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html The author describes his life as a slave to an owner who he described as being usually good but having moments of cruelty. He reports that a few owners were very harsh, but lost as a fleeting comment early in the book is that most owners generally treated their slaves well. After all, most people don't abuse their valuable possessions.

In regards health issues- .life expectancy in Roman times was only ~25 yrs- foreshortened mainly by high infancy/childhood infectious diseases and death in childbirth Iit's been said that a pregnancy in those days was practically a death sentence. Perhaps we could make the argument that a female slave kept out of the reproductive pool benefited by slavery.

[caldrail]

With respect, American slavery is neither here nor there. There's plenty of academic work on Roman slavery based on literature and archeology.

Rome was a different beast. It allowed humanity to a free man as a privilege of freedom. A slave had no such right or privilege because they had no freedom, no choice, and did as the owner required or expect to be punished for disobedience, a condition resembling that of an animal as far as Romans were concerned.

Life expectancy for a typical Roman was forty years, not twenty five, although three out of five did not survive beyond twenty one. If pregnancy was as good as a death sentence, the Roman Empire would not have happened.

As for peasants, there was a world of difference. Poor, perhaps, but human, and eligible for citizenship with the right background. They could own slaves. They could vote in the Popular Assemblies until the Principate and still be a member of them until the Dominate.

Were Roman slaves treated differently to servants in 19th century England? I really need to explain that? Of course it was different. Servants were employees, usually British citizens, though the standards of low paid work and service were different to today. They could, after all, choose to leave if they wished. A Roman slave choosing to leave was a renegade and expected harsh punishment if caught.

[guidoLaMoto]

I'm not defending slavery.....I:m suggesting that freedom of choice denied by law is really no different than freedom of choice prrevented by economics.  The life of a free Roman peasant was not much different than that of most slaves, maybe worse. The slave at least could count on timely meals....The Hollywood impression  that slaves were regularly starved, beaten and worked to death is illogical. Is it common for a farmer to starve, beat or over work his plow horse?

The original question posed was how would things be different had the Romans not used slaves....I'm pointing out that certain jobs needed to be done, and there were large numbers of people who needed work to pay for the bare necessities of life  The expenses of maintaining slaves would probably have been about the same as paying wages for menial work. ...I can see how things may not have been much different had there been no slavery.....

....and is an uprising by Spartacus really any different than French peasants storming The Bastille?

[caldrail]

No, I can't agree with your conception. I don't doubt some peasants had a real tough time of things, poverty is not an easy existence, but notice how little emphasis the Romans place on social commentary. Granted, literature was written by the well to do who conformed more or less with traditional values, yet the only time we hear much of the common folk is during shortages, grain in particular, or when something bad happens. Entertainment could be had for free, street theatre, the arena, the circus, with handouts of food and possibly a kind of lottery. Also, we have to consider the social support from patronage which so rarely gets an adequate mention.

I'm well aware of the crowded and expensive living conditions of the urban poor. And other aspects of lower class life. yet you conveniently ignore one specific thing that sets slaves apart from peasants - slaves must do as they're told. 

Epitaphs from Romans run the range. From those whose lives were downright pointless and miserable, to those who had a great time and left humorous hints to those who read the inscriptions  that marked their graves. Clearly being poor wasn't so bad for everyone, but seriously, aren't you trying to to foist modern expectations on ancient Rome? Sounds like it to me.

Oh god, not Spartacus.... I don't think you understand what he was about at all.  A rebel against the injustice of Roman society? No, just a an out of control bandit who tired to stay ahead of Roman justice while looting up and down Italy for two years before he finally got cornered and defeated. I wouldn't play the Spartacus card if you want to win a debate like this. 

Edited Sunday at 05:55 PM by caldrail

[guidoLaMoto]

Apparently not all of us here are famiiiar with the rhetorical device of alllusion ...Beyond that...

Perhaps you have a false impression of how difficult life was in an agrarian society, let alone a hunter-gstherer society. There's a reason humanity progressively self-organized into a more urban way of life, a process still going on today with generalized abandonment of the rural areas.

The poor of Rome lived in six story tenements. Food was not always available. The streets were filthy. Street crime  was rampant. ...Slaves lived in palaces or in the agrarian villae. Food was no doubt always available. A certsin amount of social & economic security comes with slavery.. Had they not been taken captive, those slaves, for the most part coming from the lower end of the socio-economic ladder, living in the frontier, "barbaric" regions, would have continued living their insecure subsistence lifestyle.....Perhaps giving up freedom for security was a good trade.

And, to re-iterate, the jobs performed by slaves were not WPA style "make work" jobs. They were jobs that needed to be done. Someone had to do them. Without slavery, all those extra poor would have taken those jobs  for low pay, then paid it back to the company store....Net flow of money the same with or without slavery.......The cotton still needed to be picked, so to speak, after 1863.