Crucifixion and Roman punishment

[Formosus Viriustus]

Why would Caesar bother to investigate? As I said before, he was an asprining politician with the same mindset as a gangster. Thats what he was. He was out to take control of the town, by hook or by crook. Such people are not entirely rational, though in Caesars case we have to allow for his intelligence (something often lacking in the unimaginative criminal fraternity). He already knows who his enemies and rivals are. The fact someone has plotted to kill him is neither here nor there in his mind. He expects such attempts and is prepared for them. He does not waste his time in revenge when he can wreak veageance after he has total control of the territory, when he has a position of power (and therefore, an assumed 'safety'). All that matters is Philemon was disloyal. Like a modern gangster, Caesar wacks him. Done. A lesson for everyone, now lets get back to the business in hand.

I can't agree with that analysis of Caesar at all. He was a politician with almost limitless ambitions, yes. And he was living in violent times when you had to be ruthless if necesarry to stand a chance at all. That is something entirely different in my view from a mobster who wants to get control of the liquor market with the only aim of making vast amounts of money in order to support a luxurious lifestyle. There's little to be found of that in Caesar, I think.

That he didn't think it was worth it to question a slave who attempted to murder him seems reasonable. That man either acted from a motive of purely personal revenge or for money. It can't have needed an interrogation to determine which one it was. If it was the first one, why bother to find out more ? If it was the last one, Caesar would have known who was or might have been behind it. Finding out wasn't important.

 

After all, the Romans lived with their slaves around them. The laws concerning their behaviour are very specific. Should a slave kill his master, all slaves of that household are condemned to death. There is only one recorded instance of that law being contested in a real case, and interestingly, this was for "fairness" rather than humanitarian reasons.

 

Well, I'm afraid that I find your view on slaves not much more realistic than the opposite one. They both have in common that they interprete the concept 'slave' in a very monodimensional way : the worst possible one.

I have remarked on that earlier, that the conditions of the luckier slaves in any time that slavery was widespread, must have been better, sometimes infinitesimally so, than that of the worst of free men. There is plenty of evidence for that. The Empire it self was at times mostly run by slaves or freedmen who enjoyed a lifestyle beyond the imagination of the vast majority of the free citizens.

 

I remember the anecdote you refer to, though I can't recall the author. I think your interpretation of it is not correct. If I am correct this incident was so noteworthy because it was one of the very few cases wherein there was even any suggestion that this law should actually be applied. There is a difference between laws and reality. Look around you. As to the distinction you make between fairness an humanitarianism, I fail to see it.

 

Why even the suggestion that in this one case the law should be applied caused so much uproar, among the free citizens, mind you, was that it was considered as completely inhumane because there was no indication at all that the slave who had murdered his owner had not acted all by himself.

That law was inspired by the idea that if a slave murdered his master with serious premeditation, there was no way his fellow slaves with whom he was living in very close proximity, could not have gotten wind of something, therefore they were guilty of not denouncing the culprit. As it happens, I think that if a slave murdered his master, and I am not sure how often such things occurred, he almost always acted in a rage or with very little or no premiditation or planning. So the complicity of others would seldom even have to be taken into consideration and if it had to be, it is likely that in that case efforts would be made to determine who exactly had been implicated.

 

Consider it from a property point of view: does it make any sense to burn your own house down because the roof leaks ?

I think that law was a purely theoretical statement implying that in such a case happening all the slaves of the murdered master had completely forfeited their right to live. That's not quite the same thing as being actually condemned to death and executed.

 

 

Also the flexibility of the human mind, it's ability to think in a slightly schizofrenic way if you will, is underestimated here. You are not necessarily either a fellow human being or a soulless, willless piece of property. You can very well be both, at the same time or alternatingly. I see no problem with that at all. Depending on the circumstances, your own personality or qualities and my mood you can be either my second best friend or an inferior being who 'just has to do as you are being told'. Isn't that how we treat children ? I have come across plenty of indications, though not immediately from Roman times, that more humane slave owners often treated their slaves as much as children than as anything else. Children who were told to do what they were told to do, or else ... but this often as not for their own benefit. The slaves who were imported in vast quantities in the last centuries of the Republic and who ended up on the latifundia and in the stone quarries, must have had a very deplorable lot. But not all slaves where that unlucky.

 

I often get the impression that the concept is very widespread that people who lived 2000 year ago must have had a completely different mind set, world view, psychology and emotions from us. I do not believe that at all. Humans are humans. Then as now.

Of course, Romans must, by the omnipresence of it, have been pretty immune to sights that would rob us of our sleep for weeks. But I think that doesn't mean that an average Roman wouldn't to some extend be able to consider a fellow human being as such, even if that fellow human being was legally just a piece of cattle. Nor that people who enjoyed needlessly torturing fellow living creatures were overabundant at the time while they are very rare nowadays.

 

 

 

 

Formosus

[sylla]

... Then lets make this as obvious as possible. Your logic is yours, not Caesars... Why would Caesar bother to investigate? ... He already knows who his enemies and rivals are... be aware that your own humanitarian views are not those the Romans...

That you can in some way find "humanitarian" my previous post amazes me.

 

You don't have to acknowledge humanity to dogs or wolves for being aware that they may hurt you if unchecked; and you might be in big trouble if you underestimate their intelligence; there's nothing "modern" in that concept.

 

Social status is entirely different from rationality; even deep social discrimination is perfectly compatible with the awareness of risk. Long before Eunus and Spartacus, the Romans were permanently paranoid regarding any chance for a slave rebellion (as any other slave society, BTW).

 

Romans were well aware of the potential cognitive abilities of their slaves; after all, most of their couriers, their physicians and even their children's teachers were or had been slaves, as well as many of their philosophers and literates. In fact, we may find slaves exercising almost any activity.

 

Recruiting slaves was the ultimate resource for the Roman state in extreme situations, as was the case after Cannae; no fact could be more eloquent.

 

And last but not least, the were also aware that the slave of today may very well be the freedman of tomorrow.

 

Caesar's psychology is an issue for another day; I will simply state by now that my impression of Caesar's intelligence is too high to admit he would not have extracted any relevant information from Philemon by any mean at his disposition. In fact, he did it; that's why Suetonius was able to explain us the slave's motives. We have only Suetonius' word against the chance that Caesar used torture to get such trivia.

[caldrail]

You don't have to acknowledge humanity to dogs or wolves for being aware that they may hurt you if unchecked; and you might be in big trouble if you underestimate their intelligence; there's nothing "modern" in that concept.

Nor is equating a slave with an animal

 

Social status is entirely different from rationality; even deep social discrimination is perfectly compatible with the awareness of risk. Long before Eunus and Spartacus, the Romans were permanently paranoid regarding any chance for a slave rebellion (as any other slave society, BTW).

Not so. The rebellion of Spartacus made a considerable difference to how slaves were treated. Prior to that event, slaves had been increasingly available (and cheapened) by the larger scale wars Rome was conducting. In sicily in particular, slaves had been bought in such numbers that owners didn't have the money to look after them. Hardly suprising that revolts took place. Rome's paranoia about slavery emerged after these revolts - not before. The paranoia was nothing to do with the existence of intelligent slaves, but the social changes regarding slaves in the household.

 

Following those revolts laws regarding slaves changed. For instance (and this was genera practice rather than a legal requirement), gladiators speaking the same language were seperated. The fact that Romans were aware of their slaves ability to think means nothing. They were, by virtue of their social status, less than human. Once a slave, you were forever marked as such, even if later freed, one reason why freedman were usually dependent on their former masters.

 

The social changes regarding slaves in society emerge from the realisation in the 90-70's BC that slaves were not always going to be as compliant as they had previously thought, considering the infamously brutal treatment of that time. because the slaves were now in such numbers, one senators idea that slaves should wear special identification was refused for fear the slaves would realise how many of them there were. Only after the rebellions had that been a consideration.

 

As more slaves were bought for domestic service in the homes of the wealthy in the late republic, then we see the first signs of humanisation. Of course their were owners with more generous ideals in earlier times, but the 'fashion' in treatment was going to change as the insidious presence of slaves in ordinary life (as opposed to labourers in barracks) made itself felt. Claudius after all was moved by the plight of slaves left to die on an island in the Tiber, and he was a man who enjoyed the arena and had private torture sessions arranged in the palace to indulge his fascination with the suffering of others.

 

In that respect then, we see a clue to the mindset of Rome. Cruelty in itself was not the issue. Life was short and often risky. The slaves who fought in the arena were not there to satisfy the sadism of the crowd at all, but to provide an exciting spectacle. What could be more fantastic than to see a real fight, where one man will die if he loses? The presentation of heroic and tragic combat was immensely popular, far more than the savage killings of unfortunate criminals by various means. Why would a criminal be worthy of applause, when a gladiator shows courage? Cicero praises the gladiator for his fearlessness and describes them as example of what a true Roman could do. Even he, in praise of the professional fighters, differentiates them from the comman man. Brave and noble fighters certainly, but slaves, and therefore beneath contempt in social terms (although the attraction of succesful fighters as a naughty distraction for wealthy women is well attested in the Principate, but this again shows that the exploitation of slaves was becoming more personal than in the previous century)

 

But the general labourer? Surely the most common class of slave. Huge numbers were working farms, quarries, mines, mills, and so forth. These men could expect a short and hard life, worked to death in many cases, and it's no coincidence that such men were only too keen to take any opportunity brought by a visiting lanista seeking recruits.

 

In the home, slaves were often ill treated there too, even during the imperial period. A slave woman might be bedded at will by her owner. The owners wife would not think kindly of her for that. Since these slaves worked in close and sometimes intimate proximity to the owner and his family, there was always the risk of slaves becoming above themselves. Until the reign of Claudius, a slave might be executed or sold to the arena at will. The law that condemned the slaves of a household to death if one murdered his master was there as a deterrent. The exception I noted earlier occured because the locals were worried about a local revolt if the executions took place.

 

Here then is the difference between the 'classic' slavery of the Principate and that of the time of Spartacus. In the earlier period, the treatment of the slave was often little better than an animal. There were so many that the Romans were indifferent toward the individual. In later times, especially when slaves were less readily available, more value had come to be placed upon them. Christianity is often credited with the increasingy humane treatment but there's little evidence this is so - especially since bishops had retinues of slaves themselves. As you can see, the respect paid to an individual under the christian sentiment of 'Love thy neighbour' did not extend to slaves. Even in the later period, with individualism emerging in the treatment of slaves, they remained less than human in the eyes of the typical owner.

 

Romans were well aware of the potential cognitive abilities of their slaves; after all, most of their couriers, their physicians and even their children's teachers were or had been slaves, as well as many of their philosophers and literates. In fact, we may find slaves exercising almost any activity.

Because their master had so instructed them, not because the slave was intelligent. Most slaves were treated very badly whatever role they were given. The educated and literate slave was a rarity. In fact, most Romans weren't interested in the cognitive potential of their slaves in any way. Slaves were there to do as directed. The rural slave barracks for instance were not places to get noticed. In domestic terms, how many pedagogues would a master require? Once he had made a choice (and probably bought a slave for that purpose in mind as opposed to promoting one amongst his number) other literate slaves might not have opportunities to progress from silent menial duties. A slave does not approach his master and say "Look, boss, I'm clever and literate. Why don't you give a better job". How many masters would tolerate such forward behaviour from a slave? Obedience is everything, and such a slave might well find himself punished for forgetting his place.

 

Recruiting slaves was the ultimate resource for the Roman state in extreme situations, as was the case after Cannae; no fact could be more eloquent.

Ordinarily, this was unthinkable. No slave was worthy of fighting for Rome. Whe Augustus stooped so low as to gather such recruits, he had them made freedmen first, and even then refused them standard legionary equipment nor were they allowed to fight alongside regular troops.

 

And last but not least, the were also aware that the slave of today may very well be the freedman of tomorrow.

And in most cases, the freed slave remained connected with his former master. They weren't simply freed and forgotten. The freedman, in most cases, was part of an extended familia whose liveliehood was dependent on his former masters good graces. Slaves made free by a will were sometimes outside this category (but not always).

 

I will simply state by now that my impression of Caesar's intelligence is too high to admit he would not have extracted any relevant information from Philemon by any mean at his disposition. In fact, he did it; that's why Suetonius was able to explain us the slave's motives.

Suetonius does not explain the slaves motives. In one sentence, he merely writes that Philemon was attempting to poison Caesar and was found out, and that Caesar had him killed without torture.

[caldrail]

Well, I'm afraid that I find your view on slaves not much more realistic than the opposite one. They both have in common that they interprete the concept 'slave' in a very monodimensional way : the worst possible one

 

Oh? The vast majority of slaves were not treated well. Certainly some had reached positions of trust, even to the point of running businesses for their master, but these were exceptions rather than the rule. Given the numbers of slaves involved, the bulk were in menial labour (though some villas had astonishing retinues of slaves even in urban settings, though I imagine very few were there for intelligent conversation)

The Empire it self was at times mostly run by slaves or freedmen who enjoyed a lifestyle beyond the imagination of the vast majority of the free citizens.

 

I would fight shy of describing slaves as having lifestyles beyond the imagination. Freedemen sometimes did very well for themselves. Slaves were sometimes in administrative positions that afforded them some comfort, but lifestyle beyond the imagination? I seriously don't think so. Would a citizen of professional status tolerate a slave better off than he is? Not easily. Such extravagance toward a slave would not escape notice, and if you have a particular reference, I'd like to see it.

 

I remember the anecdote you refer to, though I can't recall the author. I think your interpretation of it is not correct. If I am correct this incident was so noteworthy because it was one of the very few cases wherein there was even any suggestion that this law should actually be applied. There is a difference between laws and reality. Look around you. As to the distinction you make between fairness an humanitarianism, I fail to see it.

 

The law was very specific. If a man was murdered by his slave, all the slaves of his household were to be executed. The law existed to deter slaves from agreeing to aid a murderous slave, or even thinking of such action to begin with. This was the post-Spartacus period in which the paranoia about the slaves around them was at it's height. The distinction over fairness was made by the Romans, not me. It was an excuse. They knew the local slaves were waiting to see what happened and quite probably their masters were aware of sentiment expressed privately.

 

Why even the suggestion that in this one case the law should be applied caused so much uproar, among the free citizens, mind you, was that it was considered as completely inhumane because there was no indication at all that the slave who had murdered his owner had not acted all by himself.

 

Irrelevant under Roman slave legislation.

 

That law was inspired by the idea that if a slave murdered his master with serious premeditation, there was no way his fellow slaves with whom he was living in very close proximity, could not have gotten wind of something, therefore they were guilty of not denouncing the culprit. As it happens, I think that if a slave murdered his master, and I am not sure how often such things occurred, he almost always acted in a rage or with very little or no premiditation or planning. So the complicity of others would seldom even have to be taken into consideration and if it had to be, it is likely that in that case efforts would be made to determine who exactly had been implicated.

 

That law was inspired as a means of detering such behaviour. Slaves were less than human and since it would be necessary to resort to torture to obtain legally valid testimony, it would normally be considered more expedient to execute them all. Although slaves had some rights (precious few in pre-principatal times) it did not extend to individual representation in court. If a slave wished to make a legal defence against this law, he must do so through his owner, who unfortunately had been killed.

 

Consider it from a property point of view: does it make any sense to burn your own house down because the roof leaks ?

I think that law was a purely theoretical statement implying that in such a case happening all the slaves of the murdered master had completely forfeited their right to live. That's not quite the same thing as being actually condemned to death and executed.

 

The law stated that all were to be executed in the event of the murder.

 

Also the flexibility of the human mind, it's ability to think in a slightly schizofrenic way if you will, is underestimated here. You are not necessarily either a fellow human being or a soulless, willless piece of property. You can very well be both, at the same time or alternatingly. I see no problem with that at all.

 

Thats a modern perspective. We now find slavery an intolerable concept even though it still exists under our noses in an abstract way. Back then, slavery was normal. Roman citizenship wasn't a right. It was a privilege. Slaves were not included, and since self-determination was the essential quality that a free person, to have no self-determination made one a slave. Those with the legal status of slaves were not given human status by Romans. They state this themselves frequently. In some cases, an owner might have friendly relations with an individual slave. That of course was his choice since the slave was his property. Soome owners like Ciciero fostered loyalty by these means, but he didn't see it as demeaning to do so. Cato made a point of discussing the finer points of keeping slaves with absolutely no reference to their humanity at all.

 

Depending on the circumstances, your own personality or qualities and my mood you can be either my second best friend or an inferior being who 'just has to do as you are being told'. Isn't that how we treat children ? I have come across plenty of indications, though not immediately from Roman times, that more humane slave owners often treated their slaves as much as children than as anything else.

 

I like that concept. The difference between a pet and a domestic animal.

I often get the impression that the concept is very widespread that people who lived 2000 year ago must have had a completely different mind set, world view, psychology and emotions from us. I do not believe that at all. Humans are humans. Then as now.

 

Now be careful here. I agree the motivations and responses are from the same set as ours, and that human beings are the same as they were then. We must realise though that the Romans had a different view of the world. They saw their own culture, with its different rules to our own, as the primary source of civilisation. By the Principate, they truly believed they were destined to be (if not already) masters of the world. Their society had excesses we don't tolerate today, and their acceptance of violence in everyday life is only found in anarchistic regions in our own day.

 

Of course, Romans must, by the omnipresence of it, have been pretty immune to sights that would rob us of our sleep for weeks. But I think that doesn't mean that an average Roman wouldn't to some extend be able to consider a fellow human being as such, even if that fellow human being was legally just a piece of cattle. Nor that people who enjoyed needlessly torturing fellow living creatures were overabundant at the time while they are very rare nowadays.

 

The distribution of psychopathic individuals is probably impossible to determine. However it is true that chiildren (at least in the prosperous principate) were over-indulged and allowed to behave in an astonishing fashion by modern standards. They were brought up to believe their society was dominant, that Romans were masters over nature, and that slaves were tools. As for the lower classes, they existed in a world of street violence, gangs, unemployment, and dodgy trading. The prevailing life expectantcy was short. Unwanted infants were left to die outside houses or in sewers. Many Romans of the lower classes might not expect to live beyond twenty.

 

Now as for torturing an individual even if he was considered a piece of cattle.... The man desiring the torture to be committed was unlikely to administer it. He might command another slave to do that. So the torturer might not be a psychopath at all, nor enjoy the experience in any way. He has been simply ordered to do it. If he was a slave - he has no choice but to obey. It is of course possible that a slave might speak up for the man he is about to torture if he felt strongly. Quite what the owner would have thought or responded is another matter.

[Formosus Viriustus]

Well, I'm afraid that I find your view on slaves not much more realistic than the opposite one. They both have in common that they interprete the concept 'slave' in a very monodimensional way : the worst possible one

 

Oh? The vast majority of slaves were not treated well. Certainly some had reached positions of trust, even to the point of running businesses for their master, but these were exceptions rather than the rule. Given the numbers of slaves involved, the bulk were in menial labour (though some villas had astonishing retinues of slaves even in urban settings, though I imagine very few were there for intelligent conversation)

The Empire it self was at times mostly run by slaves or freedmen who enjoyed a lifestyle beyond the imagination of the vast majority of the free citizens.

 

I would fight shy of describing slaves as having lifestyles beyond the imagination. Freedemen sometimes did very well for themselves. Slaves were sometimes in administrative positions that afforded them some comfort, but lifestyle beyond the imagination? I seriously don't think so. Would a citizen of professional status tolerate a slave better off than he is? Not easily. Such extravagance toward a slave would not escape notice, and if you have a particular reference, I'd like to see it.

 

From Pseudo-Xenophon :

 

10] Now among the slaves and metics2 at Athens there is the greatest uncontrolled wantonness; you can't hit them there, and a slave will not stand aside for you. I shall point out why this is their native practice: if it were customary for a slave (or metic or freedman) to be struck by one who is free, you would often hit an Athenian citizen by mistake on the assumption that he was a slave. For the people there are no better dressed than the slaves and metics, nor are they any more handsome. [11] If anyone is also startled by the fact that they let the slaves live luxuriously there and some of them sumptuously, it would be clear that even this they do for a reason. For where there is a naval power, it is necessary from financial considerations to be slaves to the slaves in order to take a portion of their earnings, and it is then necessary to let them go free.3 And where there are rich slaves, it is no longer profitable in such a place for my slave to fear you. In Sparta my slave would fear you; but if your slave fears me, there will be the chance that he will give over his money so as not to have to worry anymore. [12] For this reason we have set up equality between slaves and free men, and between metics and citizens. The city needs metics in view of the many different trades and the fleet. Accordingly, then, we have reasonably set up a similar equality also for the metics.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext...%3A1999.01.0158

 

[/color]The law was very specific. If a man was murdered by his slave, all the slaves of his household were to be executed. The law existed to deter slaves from agreeing to aid a murderous slave, or even thinking of such action to begin with. This was the post-Spartacus period in which the paranoia about the slaves around them was at it's height. The distinction over fairness was made by the Romans, not me. It was an excuse. They knew the local slaves were waiting to see what happened and quite probably their masters were aware of sentiment expressed privately.

 

Why even the suggestion that in this one case the law should be applied caused so much uproar, among the free citizens, mind you, was that it was considered as completely inhumane because there was no indication at all that the slave who had murdered his owner had not acted all by himself.

 

Irrelevant under Roman slave legislation.

 

That law was inspired by the idea that if a slave murdered his master with serious premeditation, there was no way his fellow slaves with whom he was living in very close proximity, could not have gotten wind of something, therefore they were guilty of not denouncing the culprit. As it happens, I think that if a slave murdered his master, and I am not sure how often such things occurred, he almost always acted in a rage or with very little or no premiditation or planning. So the complicity of others would seldom even have to be taken into consideration and if it had to be, it is likely that in that case efforts would be made to determine who exactly had been implicated.

 

That law was inspired as a means of detering such behaviour. Slaves were less than human and since it would be necessary to resort to torture to obtain legally valid testimony, it would normally be considered more expedient to execute them all. Although slaves had some rights (precious few in pre-principatal times) it did not extend to individual representation in court. If a slave wished to make a legal defence against this law, he must do so through his owner, who unfortunately had been killed.

 

Consider it from a property point of view: does it make any sense to burn your own house down because the roof leaks ?

I think that law was a purely theoretical statement implying that in such a case happening all the slaves of the murdered master had completely forfeited their right to live. That's not quite the same thing as being actually condemned to death and executed.

 

The law stated that all were to be executed in the event of the murder.

 

Not irrelevant at all. We had the dead penalty in Belgium until the middle 1980s. In theory. I'd have to look it up but I think that apart from the WW II period and it's immediate aftermath, nobody was actually executed in the 20

[Northern Neil]

Depictions of Bacchus on a cross, however, are sometimes found, dating from the 2nd century. They even show the very familiar 'slump' of the knees to one side, seen so often in later crucifixes. (yes, I can provide references and pictures if required).

 

Please do. I never heard about this before.

Please look here, Kosmo. The website in the link shows a plaster cast of a crucified figure with the names Orpheus and Bacchus clearly inscribed in greek. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9856

and: http://www.vexen.co.uk/books/jesusmysteries.html

[sylla]

Suetonius does not explain the slaves motives. In one sentence, he merely writes that Philemon was attempting to poison Caesar and was found out, and that Caesar had him killed without torture.

"The slave Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised Caesar's enemies that he would poison him,"

I rest my case. The witness can be killed, your honor.

Edited May 17, 2009 by sylla

[caldrail]

Suetonius does not explain the slaves motives. In one sentence, he merely writes that Philemon was attempting to poison Caesar and was found out, and that Caesar had him killed without torture.

"The slave Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised Caesar's enemies that he would poison him,"

I rest my case. The witness can be killed, your honor.

 

That doesn't state his reasons. It only records that he agreed to commit the crime.

[caldrail]

From Pseudo-Xenophon :

 

If anyone is also startled by the fact that they let the slaves live luxuriously there and some of them sumptuously, it would be clear that even this they do for a reason.

 

"If anyone is startled" is the key phrase. Slaves in luxury is one thing, slaves in luxury beyond imagination is another. The slaves described above are clearly pampered, few in number, and extremely lucky to have such comfortable lifestyles, assuming of course they don't have some onerous function for which their luxury is compensation. More likely though is that these slaves are deliberately cossetted because coarse intimate servants weren't to the owners taste. One other thing. These slaves were greek? The treatment of greek and Roman slaves wasn't necessarily the same. Although their societies had common ground, cultural attitudes differed.

Not irrelevant at all. We had the dead penalty in Belgium until the middle 1980s. In theory. I'd have to look it up but I think that apart from the WW II period and it's immediate aftermath, nobody was actually executed in the 20

[sylla]

Suetonius does not explain the slaves motives. In one sentence, he merely writes that Philemon was attempting to poison Caesar and was found out, and that Caesar had him killed without torture.

"The slave Philemon, his amanuensis, who had promised Caesar's enemies that he would poison him,"

I rest my case. The witness can be killed, your honor.

 

That doesn't state his reasons. It only records that he agreed to commit the crime.

If the quoted sentence is true, the motives for poisoning Caesar were those from his unnamed enemies.

Naturally, such enemies may have come to tell him about his traitorous slave.

Or Philemon might have spontaneously confessed (if he didn't care any more for his life) without any additional stimulus (like torture).

Even under such extremely unlikely scenarios, any Roman politician (or rational human, for that matter) would have proceeded to an exhaustive interrogation by any mean available.

(Even if only to be sure that it was all the truth and nothing but the truth).

In fact, this candid anecdote is atypical enough for Suetonius selecting it as an outstanding example of Caesar's wonderful (but irrational) clemency.

[caldrail]

Philemon had his own motives - you've already stressed that point - but we don't know what they were, because we read no more than he agreed to aid Caesars enemies . In some way or other they had realised he might be willing to do so, and their succesful attempt to subborn Caesars slave may well have been what tiped him off (Caesar had his own informants too)

 

Even under such extremely unlikely scenarios, any Roman politician (or rational human, for that matter) would have proceeded to an exhaustive interrogation by any mean available.

That's what you would do. Naturally, since you don't expect to be assassinated and to learn that someone was about tto would demand an explanation.

 

In Caesars case, he already knows who's behind it because how else would Philemon have been found out? In any event, Caesar is committed to becoming top dog and will not be swayed from that path. To get embroiled in a personal war with another politician will only weaken his case and divert his attention from matters he considers more important. When he's powerful, then he can get even. A failed assassination is neither here nor there. He expects such behaviour and since the attempt failed in such a manner, clearly his opponent isn't as dangerous as it seems, so why worry.

 

You're not dealing here with an ordinary person. Caesar is an invererate risk taker. His entire political plan involves a risk of assassination anyway. There simply wasn't any need for an exhaustive interrogation. Caesar is often hasty and in a hurry to achieve (He even broke down in tears at his failure to compete with Alexanders success). He hasn't got the time to bother with a disloyal slave. Like all dictatorial and dominant ypes, he regards an assassination as an occupational hazard, and consequuently guards himself against it. King rats have very different priorities from ordinary people. That's not just my opinion - it's an observalble psychological phenomenon and one demonstrated many times in the historical record in a variety of individuals.

[Formosus Viriustus]

Salve mi caldrail,

 

Re : your post 9.30 AM today; my post 5.10 PM yesterday

 

Yes, well, but the Pseudo-Xenophon explains in my view that the ancients also had a bit of sense. They needed those slaves. And it was the wise thing to do to treat them decently. Your view that there was almost always and everywhere an absolute distinction between the free and the unfree, is not very realistic in my view. Things were much more vague. How about the perioikoi and the helots who fought, and died willingly at Thermopylae ? Not Rome again you will argue.

 

I am not arguing that at the time Rome and Italy were literally flooded with cheap slaves from the East, most of them would have faced a verry sorry lot. But if I am not mistaken, except maybe in those and comparable times, manumission was an almost universal practice. That means that the slave was a kind of bondsman or bondswoman : if he or she served his or her master well for a number of years, he got rewarded with his freedom and in many cases a handy starting capital as well. It's not like slaves didn't have the right to own money, and a generous master might have added quite a bit on top of those own savings for someone who had done his job well. How else could freedmen become some of the richest entrepreneurs within the shortest amount of time ?

 

It may be a very akward comparrison, still. If today you are a junior executive in a big company, you are not your own boss. You have to obey the rules layed down by your superiors. But you make plenty of money and that gives you clouth. Now compare that with a self-employed Joe the Plumber. Yes, he is his own boss. He is a free man. But that's about all he can say.

 

At the worst of times it might have gone pretty much as you describe it. Hence the slave revolts, which went on for almost a century and Spartacus' was only the climax of that. But afterwards things changed. I have little doubt that a more humane treatment of slaves was the deciding factor.

I also think that by the time of the Principate the situation in Rome itself and other major urban centers was more comparable to the one described by Pseudo-Xenophon.

 

I'm not disputing that the Roman world was extremely violent, that there was little regard for human life. And often very little sympathy with human suffering. But it's not completely absent either. There's plenty of instances too I think in the classics that show that.

I said that there is little doubt that if you or I would be beamed back to there and then, we'd most probably see things that to us would be of an almost unimaginable horror, maybe within the time of a few hours even. But you'd get used to that. And I am not convinced that because such things would be almost omnipresent to see, almost everybody by necessity became an unfeeling brute himself. That sounds to me a bit like the argument that violent movies and computer games make young people more violent. (Please, let's not go into that one.)

 

The anecdote about the collective execution of slaves you brought up is significant in the sense that it places things in a larger context : it does mention what the normal way of doing things was in such cases. And that normal way was that this law was not applied. I can't see how you can explain away the fact that free citizens rose in mass numbers because they thought that gratuitiously executing 100 or so slaves who were clearly completely innocent was a revolting thing to do. I think that is more indicative of how the common free people felt about their fellow humans even if those fellow humans were 'just' slaves.

 

Your view seems to reflect to me more the attitude of a twisted minded mega multifundia owner who had more slaves than he needed or could feed. So killing of a few hundred just for the heck of it might have seemed a good idea to him on occasion. But I think such a man would seldom if ever be able to let down his guard. If slaves are constantly treated like that you can be sure that there will be plenty who will be willing to risk everything to get such a bastard.

 

But I am quite prepared to agree to disagree on this one. I think we were talking about crucifixion.

 

F rmosus

[sylla]

In Caesars case, he already knows who's behind it because how else would Philemon have been found out?

You're plainly reversing the logic; Philemon was first "found" (that's the antecedent) and then the identity of Caesar's enemies was discovered in any suitable way (that's the consequence).

Edited May 18, 2009 by sylla

[Kosmo]

Depictions of Bacchus on a cross, however, are sometimes found, dating from the 2nd century. They even show the very familiar 'slump' of the knees to one side, seen so often in later crucifixes. (yes, I can provide references and pictures if required).

 

Please do. I never heard about this before.

Please look here, Kosmo. The website in the link shows a plaster cast of a crucified figure with the names Orpheus and Bacchus clearly inscribed in greek. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9856

and: http://www.vexen.co.uk/books/jesusmysteries.html

 

Thank you!

[caldrail]

In Caesars case, he already knows who's behind it because how else would Philemon have been found out?

You're plainly reversing the logic; Philemon was first "found" (that's the antecedent) and then the identity of Caesar's enemies was discovered in any suitable way (that's the consequence).

No, Im not. How was Philemon found out? Suetonius doesn't tell us that. Really it amounts to two situations. Firstly, that he was found 'in the act' of using poison by an alert member of Caesars household (which indicates they expected some sort of skulduggery at the behest of Caesar himself) or that Philemon was seen talking to Caesar's enemies, which indicates that Caesar already knew who his rivals were and was having them watched for his own protection.

 

In any case, it doesn't matter. At that stage of the game Caesar is pushing hard to come out on top. He doesn't want a war with petty rivals to distract him and embarras his politic career. It's enough that his rivals made such a cack-handed attempt. Since he survived, Caesar would have thought little more of it. The poisoner was known and executed, his enemies aware that Caesar wasn't so easily killed.

 

Caesar was sharp edged politician. Such people do not easily trust others and make sure that their rivals are kept under close watch. If Caesar had failed to do that, he would have been the victim of a plot much earlier. Poisoned perhaps? Maybe a subborned slave?