Discarding Unwanted Children

[M. Porcius Cato]

To have a decently proven esstimate about the proportion of slaves in the population is a very difficult job, but to esstimate the way they became slaves it's impossible.

If there was no death from exposure because of slavetraders why institutions like "colona lactaria" developed?

Who claimed that there was NO death from exposure?? Of course infants died. The whole justification for slavery was that slaves were akin to the living dead--people who were saved from death (e.g., during war, being saved from exposure, etc) and therefore lived at the pleasure of their owners. The claim that infants died from exposure AND were enslaved go hand-in-hand.

[Primus Pilus]

[The whole justification for slavery was that slaves were akin to the living dead--people who were saved from death (e.g., during war, being saved from exposure, etc) and therefore lived at the pleasure of their owners.

 

Yes, part of the justification, but even Aristotle uses the rather ambiguous claim that slavery should be limited to those who by nature are slaves. As I recall he argues against even taking slaves through conquest, because the defeated in battle are not necessarily incapable of self governance. I'm not sure how much of the Greek thought process on the issue was truly absorbed by Romans, considering the widely diverse slave background, but it seems to me that they needed little justification other than that they were Roman, and their slaves were not.

 

I apologize for continuing to go off-topic, but interesting nonetheless (to me anyway)

[M. Porcius Cato]

[The whole justification for slavery was that slaves were akin to the living dead--people who were saved from death (e.g., during war, being saved from exposure, etc) and therefore lived at the pleasure of their owners.

Yes, part of the justification, but even Aristotle uses the rather ambiguous claim that slavery should be limited to those who by nature are slaves. As I recall he argues against even taking slaves through conquest, because the defeated in battle are not necessarily incapable of self governance.

 

Good point--maybe we should start a topic on slavery to get to the bottom of this.

[sullafelix]

To have a decently proven esstimate about the proportion of slaves in the population is a very difficult job, but to esstimate the way they became slaves it's impossible.

 

I would have to take issue with that Kosmo. I speak only for the Republican era though I have to say.

 

The Republic was the begining of large scale slavery in Italy and as such most rural slaves were from abroad. We have source evidence of this from the Gracchan period and Varro also records the desirability of slaves from Greece.

 

Secondly (and I wish I had the reference for this nugget of information on me but wrong desk!) rural slaves had a life expectancy of something under two years, so no breeding programme would keep up with that, they must have been being brought in from abroad.

 

Everybody from Brunt to Rathbone to Toynbee has estimated the slave population of Italy at this time and it is thought with some degree of accuracy at least to the point of being able to give us some idea of the proportion (this is of course a difficult area as the population of Augustan Rome is hotly contested!).

 

Finally breeding programmes on farms are particularly difficult because the gender mix is wrong only the foreman usually had a wife provided for him. In farming of course small children are unproductive because you have to grow even more unprofitable crops to feed them as well (read my previous post) and bad years on the farm preclude breeding livestock so in all liklihood in the Republican era the vast majority of rural slaves (and they were the vast majority of slaves)were first generation.

 

Sulla Felix

[caldrail]

Rural slaves varied in occupation. Those involved in heavy labour would indeed last a short time, but agriculture is a skill/science of its own and I would certainly expect knowledgable slaves to find less strenuous duties.

 

Truth is, rural slaves were bred. Shamelessly. I'm not sure if they ever kept up with demand but do remember that slave markets might be some distance - and slaves born in slavery were much better workers.

Edited February 23, 2006 by caldrail

[sullafelix]

Rural slaves varied in occupation. Those involved in heavy labour would indeed last a short time, but agriculture is a skill/science of its own and I would certainly expect knowledgable slaves to find less strenuous duties.

 

Truth is, rural slaves were bred. Shamelessly. I'm not sure if they ever kept up with demand but do remember that slave markets might be some distance - and slaves born in slavery were much better workers.

 

I am not denying that a certain amount of slave breeding went on at all. However, in the Republican countryside this was not the main source of slaves. Also the skilled jobs even on large slave run estates were often done by hired free labour.

[Kosmo]

Indeed, life in rural areas was brutal for slaves at least until Hadrian and this is why some rebellions took place in late Republic and why sending a house slave to the farms was considered a punishment.

A slave born in slavery had much better knowledge of roman ways and a better chance to escape, so to keep a good slave the owner had to pay him.

Slaves were used for different purposes and some required specialized abilities and even a lot of trust because the personal safety and even the fortune of the owner was in their hands.

Still the majority of slaves were field and mine workers with little skill and a tough life. For agriculture they needed no training because most of them were peasants before becaming slaves.

[caldrail]

Indeed, life in rural areas was brutal for slaves at least until Hadrian and this is why some rebellions took place in late Republic and why sending a house slave to the farms was considered a punishment.

A slave born in slavery had much better knowledge of roman ways and a better chance to escape, so to keep a good slave the owner had to pay him.

Slaves were used for different purposes and some required specialized abilities and even a lot of trust because the personal safety and even the fortune of the owner was in their hands.

Still the majority of slaves were field and mine workers with little skill and a tough life. For agriculture they needed no training because most of them were peasants before becaming slaves.

 

In some ways I agree. Slaves engaged in manual labour were there to work and it shouldn't suprise anyone that being recruited as a gladiator was seen as a desirable alternative when the opportunity arose. The relationship between master and slave in roman times isn't the same as more modern times. Deep down, the roman masters were wary of their slaves. They lived in houses surrounded by people that might have reason to kill them in their sleep. One senator brought forward a suggestion that all slaves should be identified with iron collars or something similar. This idea was disapproved because it was pointed out that slaves would soon realise how many of them there were! Deep down, roman slaves were wary of their masters. Should one slave break ranks and kill his master, then all the slaves in that household were facing a sentence of death. It did happen, though few romans were willing to carry out this ultimate sanction on behaviour. Treatment of slaves varied enormously. Cicero for instance was clearly loved by his slaves whereas I doubt the same could be said for Cato. If a wife thought her husband was showing undue attention to a female slave, that slave would very likely be put through hell!

 

Therefore not all slaves would have wanted to escape. Like a real life Lurcio, a slave might have found a sinecure and wouldn't want any other kind of life. On the other end of the scale, we see rebellions in Sicily because of the harsh treatment they had received.

 

A well behaved and trusted slave might receive manumission. They knew that, it was one reason to behave. As a freedman, he would probably still serve his former master in a detached way under patronage.

 

I must apologise for my previous post because I made it seem as if slaves were forced to copulate on an industrial scale. Of course they didn't. A few cruel owners would have forced a couple occaisionally, or a kinder owner would have persuaded or allowed them to.

[Andrew Dalby]

Also the skilled jobs even on large slave run estates were often done by hired free labour.

 

I'm not sure of this. Cato, dealing with a farm staffed by slaves, tells you how to word the contract when you hire a gang to pick olives or harvest the grapes. The reason is not necessarily that these were skilled jobs, rather that they demanded a lot of labour for a short period.

[Kosmo]

Laws were passed aginst the owners that set free the old or ill slaves because they did not want to take care of unproductive burdens.

 

Ancient slavery was more varied that odern slavery. A slave could run his master fortune or be a high ranking imperial administrator while another could have a short life in a mine.

A succesfull slave would became roman citizen if his owner was roman and be quite rich as those caracters in Satyricon (my favorite classical book)

 

Romans had acces to very cheap slaves in the Late Republic and later when wars of conquest stopped and the morality evolved the number of slaves droped forcing a gradual change in the economic sistem. If once in Delos 10.000 slaves could be sold in a day, later there was no source for this kind of numbers.

In most european areas of the empire slaves were never too much used.

 

Off topic: I have a theory that romans did not crack on piracy because the slave capturing that pirates did was bringing profits for the senatorial elite in form of cheap slaves for the large estates and educated greeks for the villas.

In other areas of the empire slaves were never too much used.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Off topic: I have a theory that romans did not crack on piracy because the slave capturing that pirates did was bringing profits for the senatorial elite in form of cheap slaves for the large estates and educated greeks for the villas.

 

Specifically for the senatorial elite??? Then why did the senate give such extraordinary powers to Pompey so he could crack down on the brigands? And why pick out senators as though they were the only ones (or even mostly the ones) to rely on cheap slaves? As I recall, a consul's daughter was once kidnapped by the pirates and never recovered--do you really think that the senate was such a nest of vipers as to orchestrate this?

[Kosmo]

The decurions were the ones who put pressure to give extraordinary powers to Pompei.

My problem was why it took so long to stop piracy when they had total control of the sea and they could use their allies in the East (Egypt, Rhodos) that had large navies nearby.

The most eficient the romans were against the pirates that were cuting the grain supply line with Sicilly. The father of Marcus Antonius failed to make any imppresion on those from Creta and died during the campaign.

[sullafelix]

Also the skilled jobs even on large slave run estates were often done by hired free labour.

 

I'm not sure of this. Cato, dealing with a farm staffed by slaves, tells you how to word the contract when you hire a gang to pick olives or harvest the grapes. The reason is not necessarily that these were skilled jobs, rather that they demanded a lot of labour for a short period.

 

 

You may have something there, I have just reread the passage and I think that all bets may be off on this being evidence of free labour. On reading it closely I notice that only two thirds have to be pickers, the rest presumably are overseers and other associated tasks like basket menders people transporting the baskets. It may be that it was a profitable business to run gangs of slaves for this purpose. It is an interesting point because often this passage is used to show that there was quite a lot of free labour used even on slave run estates. It has raised a whole load of interesting questions for my research. I know that there was free skiled labour by the way (Pliny mentions it for a start I'll find a reference). Mainly free labour would have been engaged in the sorts of jobs that were one offs or annual. I can think of vine training on tall trees planting specialist crops, capturing birds that sort of thing. Quite often the sort of thing that is still contracted out today..thanks for that though it has really made me think

 

Sulla

[Furius Venator]

On the pirates:

 

In many ways the Romans were torn: the pirates provided an excellent source of slave labour but they disrupted trade and captured and either ransomed or killed Roman citizens. So it's not as simple as saying 'the senate tolerated the pirates because...' or 'the equites colluded with the pirates because...'.

 

Imagine a senator who owns vast tracts of land which he has cultivated for some labour intensive activity, owns a gladiatorial school and has a sideline in educating the children of slaves and then selling them on. He's not keen to see the price of slaves rise at all. He makes a great deal of money from a supply of cheap slave labour so tries to undermine anti-pirate legislation.

But then his son is captured whilst returning from Athens. The pirates don't even bother to hold him for ransom but turf him over the side. Now the senator has a personal vendetta against the pirates and so changes his attitude in the senate.

 

It seems to me that the pirates simply grew too big for their boots. Rome would tolerate their activities whilst they were on a relatively minor scale but burning a Roman fleet at Ostia, capturing and ransoming prominent Romans (both Caesar and Clodius were held by pirates for a time) and killing lesser citizens and (above all) interfering with the all important flow of grain led to overwhelming numbers of politicians willing to take action and force through anti-pirate legislation

[caldrail]

Laws were passed aginst the owners that set free the old or ill slaves because they did not want to take care of unproductive burdens.

 

Ancient slavery was more varied that odern slavery. A slave could run his master fortune or be a high ranking imperial administrator while another could have a short life in a mine.

A succesfull slave would became roman citizen if his owner was roman and be quite rich as those caracters in Satyricon (my favorite classical book)

 

Romans had acces to very cheap slaves in the Late Republic and later when wars of conquest stopped and the morality evolved the number of slaves droped forcing a gradual change in the economic sistem. If once in Delos 10.000 slaves could be sold in a day, later there was no source for this kind of numbers.

In most european areas of the empire slaves were never too much used.

 

Off topic: I have a theory that romans did not crack on piracy because the slave capturing that pirates did was bringing profits for the senatorial elite in form of cheap slaves for the large estates and educated greeks for the villas.

In other areas of the empire slaves were never too much used.

 

Slaves were 'talking tools'. Their owners used them for whatever purpose they were good for, or whatever was most expedient. You didn't buy an educated slave to haul stones in a quarry, nor did you get a labourer to become a pedagogue for your kids. It really was a lottery for a roman slave, and a few won. A lot of them didn't. If an owner freed a slave, it was likely that freedman would still be part of his 'dependents'. Therefore the owner could show how generous and kind he was by freeing the slave, and yet retain his services under patronage. Ordinary soldiers kept slaves just likewealthy men, although obviously fewer in number! The attitude toward slaves did evolve toward a more humane one. I don't think christianity caused that - early christians kept slaves too. I think it was more of a case that with each generation people became more familiar with their slaves as they depended on them and were brought up alongside them, thus they became less of 'talking tools' and more like 'talking people'.

 

I like the pirate theory, but I think it only applied to a few romans with the right contacts. For most, pirates were parasites, thieves, and murderers upseting trade in the mediterranean.

 

It was the large number of rural slaves that drove the population of Rome higher than it might have because smaller plebian farms couldn't compete with the big slave-estates.