La esclavitud en la antigua Roma

La esclavitud en la antigua Roma desempeñó un papel importante en la sociedad y la economía. Los esclavos no cualificados o poco cualificados trabajaban en los campos, las minas y los molinos con pocas oportunidades de ascenso y escasas posibilidades de libertad. Los esclavos cualificados y educados (entre ellos, artesanos, cocineros, personal doméstico y asistentes personales, artistas, gerentes de empresas, contables y banqueros, educadores de todos los niveles, secretarios y bibliotecarios, funcionarios públicos y médicos) ocupaban un nivel más privilegiado de servidumbre y podían esperar obtener la libertad a través de uno de varios caminos bien definidos con protecciones bajo la ley. La posibilidad de manumisión y posterior ciudadanía era una característica distintiva del sistema de esclavitud de Roma, lo que dio lugar a un número significativo e influyente de libertos en la sociedad romana.

En todos los niveles de empleo, los trabajadores libres, los antiguos esclavos y los esclavizados hacían en su mayoría los mismos tipos de trabajos. Los romanos de élite cuya riqueza provenía de la propiedad veían poca diferencia entre la esclavitud y la dependencia de ganar un salario a partir del trabajo. Los esclavos eran considerados propiedad bajo la ley romana y no tenían derechos de personalidad jurídica. A diferencia de los ciudadanos romanos , por ley podían ser sometidos a castigos corporales, explotación sexual, tortura y ejecución sumaria. Las formas más brutales de castigo estaban reservadas para los esclavos. La adecuación de su dieta, alojamiento, ropa y atención médica dependía de su utilidad percibida para los propietarios, cuyos impulsos podían ser crueles o situacionalmente humanitarios.

Algunas personas nacieron esclavas como hijos de una madre esclava. Otras se convirtieron en esclavas. Los prisioneros de guerra eran considerados legalmente esclavizados, y la expansión militar romana durante la era republicana fue una fuente importante de esclavos. Desde el siglo II a. C. hasta la Antigüedad tardía , el secuestro y la piratería pusieron a las personas nacidas libres en todo el Mediterráneo en riesgo de esclavitud ilegal, a la que eran especialmente vulnerables los hijos de familias pobres. Aunque se aprobó una ley para prohibir la esclavitud por deudas bastante temprano en la historia de Roma, algunas personas se vendieron como esclavos contractuales para escapar de la pobreza. El comercio de esclavos, ligeramente gravado y regulado, floreció en todos los confines del Imperio romano y a través de las fronteras.

En la antigüedad, la esclavitud se consideraba una consecuencia política de la dominación de un grupo por parte de otro, y personas de cualquier raza, etnia o lugar de origen podían convertirse en esclavos, incluidos los romanos nacidos libres. La esclavitud se practicaba en todas las comunidades del Imperio romano, incluidos los judíos y los cristianos. Incluso los hogares modestos podían tener dos o tres esclavos.

Un período de rebeliones de esclavos terminó con la derrota de Espartaco en el 71 a. C.; los levantamientos de esclavos se volvieron poco frecuentes en la era imperial , cuando la huida individual era una forma de resistencia más persistente. La caza de esclavos fugitivos era la forma más concertada de vigilancia en el Imperio romano.

El discurso moral sobre la esclavitud se centraba en el trato que recibían los esclavos, y las opiniones abolicionistas eran casi inexistentes. Las inscripciones que hacían los esclavos y los libertos, así como el arte y la decoración de sus casas, ofrecen una idea de cómo se veían a sí mismos. Algunos escritores y filósofos de la época romana eran antiguos esclavos o hijos de esclavos liberados. Algunos estudiosos han intentado imaginar con más profundidad las experiencias vividas por los esclavos en el mundo romano a través de comparaciones con la trata de esclavos del Atlántico , pero no surge ningún retrato del esclavo romano "típico" a partir de la amplia gama de trabajos que realizaban los esclavos y los libertos y las complejas distinciones entre sus estatus sociales y legales .

Orígenes

Periodización de la historia romana

Terminología y fechas utilizadas en este artículo^[a]
Regio 753–509 a. C. (semilegendario)
Republicano 509–27 a. C.
República temprana, 509–década del 280/260 a. C.
República Media, años 280–146 a. C.
Clásico , siglo II a. C.–siglo II d. C. ^[b]
República tardía 146–44 a. C.
Imperial 27 a. C.–313 d. C.^[c]
Principado 27 a. C.–284 d. C.
Época augusta 27 a. C.-14 d. C.
Pax Romana, siglo I-II d. C.
La crisis del siglo III
La cristianización comienza en el año 313 d. C.^[d]
Reinado de Constantino I 306-337 d. C.
Antigüedad tardía , 313 d. C. – mediados del siglo VII
Imperio bizantino temprano 330–636 ^[e]
Reinado de Teodosio 379–395
Reinado de Justiniano 527–565

Desde el primer período histórico de Roma, los esclavos domésticos eran parte de una familia , el conjunto de dependientes de un hogar, una palabra que se refería especialmente, o a veces limitada a, los esclavos colectivamente. ^[3] Plinio (siglo I d.C.) sentía nostalgia por una época en la que "los antiguos" vivían más íntimamente en un hogar sin necesidad de "legiones de esclavos", pero aún imaginaba que esta vida doméstica más sencilla se sustentaba en la posesión de un esclavo. ^[4]

Todos los que pertenecían a la familia estaban sujetos al paterfamilias , el "padre" o cabeza de familia y, más precisamente, el propietario de la finca. Según Séneca , los primeros romanos acuñaron el término paterfamilias como un eufemismo para la relación de un amo con sus esclavos. ^[5] La palabra para "amo" era dominus , ya que era quien controlaba el dominio de la domus (casa); ^[6] dominium era la palabra para su control sobre los esclavos. ^[7] El paterfamilias tenía el poder de vida y muerte (vitae necisque potestas) sobre los dependientes de su casa, ^[8] incluidos sus hijos e hijas, así como los esclavos. ^[9] El historiador griego Dionisio de Halicarnaso (siglo I d. C.) afirma que este derecho se remontaba a la época legendaria de Rómulo . ^[10]

A diferencia de las ciudades-estado griegas , Roma era una población étnicamente diversa e incorporaba a antiguos esclavos como ciudadanos. Dionisio encontró notable que cuando los romanos manumitieron a sus esclavos, también les dieron la ciudadanía romana . ^[11] Los mitos de la fundación de Roma buscaron explicar tanto esta heterogeneidad ^[12] como el papel de los libertos en la sociedad romana. ^[13] La legendaria fundación por Rómulo comenzó con el establecimiento de un lugar de refugio que, según el historiador de la era augusta Livio , atrajo "principalmente a antiguos esclavos, vagabundos y fugitivos que buscaban un nuevo comienzo" como ciudadanos de la nueva ciudad, que Livio considera una fuente de la fortaleza de Roma. ^{[14] Se decía que} Servio Tulio , el semilegendario sexto rey de Roma , era hijo de una esclava, ^[15] y el papel cultural de la esclavitud está arraigado en algunos festivales religiosos y templos que los romanos asociaban con su reinado.

Algunos cambios legales y religiosos relacionados con la esclavitud pueden discernirse incluso en las primeras instituciones de Roma. Las Doce Tablas , el código legal romano más antiguo , que data tradicionalmente del 451/450 a. C., no contienen una ley que defina la esclavitud, cuya existencia se da por sentada. Pero sí hay menciones a la manumisión ^[16] y al estatus de los libertos, a los que se hace referencia como cives Romani liberti , "libertos que son ciudadanos romanos", lo que indica que ya en el siglo V a. C. los antiguos esclavos eran un grupo demográfico significativo al que la ley debía dirigirse, con un camino legal hacia la libertad y la oportunidad de participar en el sistema legal y político. ^[17]

El jurista romano Gayo describió la esclavitud como "el estado reconocido por el ius gentium en el que alguien está sujeto al dominio de otra persona contrariamente a la naturaleza" ( Institutiones 1.3.2, 161 d. C.). ^[18] Ulpiano (siglo II d. C.) también consideró la esclavitud como un aspecto del ius gentium , el derecho internacional consuetudinario común entre todos los pueblos ( gentes ). En la división tripartita del derecho de Ulpiano, el "derecho de las naciones" no se consideraba ni derecho natural , que se pensaba que existía en la naturaleza y gobernaba a los animales tanto como a los humanos, ni derecho civil , el código legal particular de un pueblo o nación. ^[19] Todos los seres humanos nacen libres ( liberai ) bajo el derecho natural, pero dado que la esclavitud se consideraba una práctica universal, las naciones individuales desarrollarían sus propias leyes civiles relativas a los esclavos. ^[19] En la guerra antigua, el vencedor tenía derecho bajo el ius gentium a esclavizar a una población derrotada; Sin embargo, si se había llegado a un acuerdo mediante negociaciones diplomáticas o rendición formal, por costumbre se debía evitar al pueblo la violencia y la esclavitud. El ius gentium no era un código jurídico [ ^20] y cualquier aplicación de su fuerza dependía del "cumplimiento razonado de las normas de conducta internacional". ^[21]

Aunque las primeras guerras de Roma fueron defensivas, ^[22] una victoria romana aún resultaría en la esclavitud de los derrotados bajo estas circunstancias, como se registra al concluir la guerra con la ciudad etrusca de Veyes en 396 a. C. ^[23] Las guerras defensivas también agotaron la mano de obra para la agricultura, aumentando la demanda de mano de obra, una demanda que podía satisfacerse con la disponibilidad de cautivos de guerra. ^[24] Desde el siglo VI hasta el III a. C., Roma se convirtió gradualmente en una "sociedad esclavista", ^[25] y las dos primeras guerras púnicas (265-201 a. C.) produjeron el aumento más dramático en el número de esclavos. ^[26]

La esclavitud con posibilidad de manumisión se arraigó tanto en la sociedad romana que hacia el siglo II d. C., es probable que la mayoría de los ciudadanos libres de la ciudad de Roma hayan tenido esclavos "en algún momento de su ascendencia". ^[27]

Esclavitud de los ciudadanos romanos

En la Roma primitiva, las Doce Tablas permitían la esclavitud por deudas bajo duras condiciones y sometían a los romanos nacidos libres a la esclavitud como resultado de la desgracia financiera. Una ley de finales del siglo IV a. C. puso fin a la esclavitud privada de los acreedores a un deudor moroso, aunque un deudor todavía podía ser obligado por una sentencia judicial a saldar su deuda. ^[28] De lo contrario, el único medio de esclavizar a un ciudadano nacido libre que los romanos de la era republicana reconocían como legal era la derrota militar y la captura en virtud del ius gentium .

El líder cartaginés Aníbal esclavizó a prisioneros de guerra romanos en grandes cantidades durante la Segunda Guerra Púnica . Tras la derrota romana en la Batalla del Lago Trasimeno (217 a. C.), el tratado incluyó términos para rescatar a los prisioneros de guerra. El senado romano se negó a hacerlo, y su comandante terminó pagando el rescate él mismo. Después de la desastrosa Batalla de Cannas al año siguiente, Aníbal nuevamente estipuló una redención de cautivos, pero el senado después del debate volvió a votar no pagar, prefiriendo enviar un mensaje de que los soldados debían luchar hasta la victoria o morir. Aníbal luego vendió estos prisioneros de guerra a los griegos, y permanecieron esclavos hasta la Segunda Guerra Macedónica , ^[29] cuando Flaminino recuperó a 1.200 hombres que habían sobrevivido a unos veinte años de esclavitud después de Cannas. La guerra que aumentó más dramáticamente el número de esclavos traídos a la sociedad romana al mismo tiempo había expuesto a un número sin precedentes de ciudadanos romanos a la esclavitud. ^[30]

En la República posterior y durante el período imperial, miles de soldados, ciudadanos y sus esclavos en el Oriente romano fueron tomados cautivos y esclavizados por los partos o más tarde dentro del Imperio sasánida . ^[31] Los partos capturaron a 10.000 supervivientes tras la derrota de Marco Craso en la batalla de Carrhae en el 53 a. C. y los hicieron marchar 1.500 millas hasta Margiana en Bactria , donde se desconoce su destino. ^[32] Aunque los pensamientos de devolver los estandartes militares romanos perdidos en Carrhae motivaron las mentes militares durante décadas, "se expresó una preocupación oficial considerablemente menor por la liberación de los prisioneros romanos". ^[33] Escribiendo unos treinta años después de la batalla, el poeta augusto Horacio los imaginó casados con mujeres "bárbaras" y sirviendo al ejército parto, demasiado deshonrados para ser devueltos a Roma. ^[34]

Valeriano se convirtió en el primer emperador en ser mantenido cautivo después de su derrota por Shapur I en la batalla de Edesa en el año 260 d. C. Según fuentes cristianas hostiles, el anciano emperador fue tratado como un esclavo y sometido a una grotesca serie de humillaciones. ^[36] Los relieves e inscripciones ubicados en el sitio sagrado zoroastriano de Naqsh-e Rostam , al suroeste de Irán, celebran las victorias de Shapur I y su sucesor sobre los romanos, con emperadores sometidos y legionarios pagando tributo. ^[37] Las inscripciones de Shapur registran que las tropas romanas que había esclavizado provenían de todos los confines del imperio. ^[38]

Un romano esclavizado en la guerra en tales circunstancias perdía sus derechos de ciudadanía en su país. Perdía su derecho a poseer propiedades, su matrimonio se disolvía y, si era cabeza de familia, su poder legal (potestas) sobre sus dependientes quedaba suspendido. Si era liberado de la esclavitud, su estatus de ciudadano podía ser restaurado junto con su propiedad y potestas . Sin embargo, su matrimonio no se renovaba automáticamente; se tenía que concertar otro acuerdo de consentimiento entre ambas partes. ^[39] La pérdida de la ciudadanía era una consecuencia de someterse a un estado soberano enemigo; las personas nacidas libres secuestradas por bandidos o piratas eran consideradas capturadas ilegalmente y, por lo tanto, se podía pedir un rescate por ellas o su venta como esclavos podía ser nula, sin comprometer su estatus de ciudadano. Este contraste entre las consecuencias para el estatus de la guerra (bellum) y del bandidaje ( latrocinium ) puede reflejarse en la distinción judía similar entre un “cautivo de un reino” y un “cautivo del bandidaje”, en lo que sería un raro ejemplo de la ley romana influyendo en el lenguaje y la formulación de la ley rabínica . ^[40]

El proceso legal desarrollado originalmente para reintegrar a los cautivos de guerra ^[41] fue postliminium , un retorno después de salir de la jurisdicción romana y luego cruzar de nuevo el propio "umbral" (limen) . ^[42] No todos los cautivos de guerra eran elegibles para la reintegración; los términos de un tratado podían permitir al otro lado retener a los cautivos ^[43] como servi hostium , "esclavos del enemigo". ^[44] Se podía pagar un rescate para redimir a un cautivo individualmente o como grupo; un individuo rescatado por alguien fuera de su familia debía devolver el dinero antes de que se le pudieran restaurar todos sus derechos, y aunque era una persona libre, su estatus era ambiguo hasta que se levantaba el gravamen. ^[45]

Bajo el emperador Adriano se puso en marcha un procedimiento de investigación para determinar si los soldados que regresaban habían sido capturados o se habían rendido voluntariamente. Los traidores, desertores y aquellos que tuvieron la oportunidad de escapar pero no lo intentaron no tenían derecho a la restauración de su ciudadanía post liminio . ^[46]

Debido a que el derecho postliminium también se aplicaba a la confiscación enemiga de propiedad móvil, ^[47] era el medio por el cual los esclavos de apoyo militar tomados por el enemigo eran devueltos a su posesión y restaurados a su antiguo estado de esclavos bajo sus dueños romanos. ^[48]

El esclavo en el derecho y la sociedad romana

Fundamentalmente, el esclavo en el derecho romano antiguo era aquel que carecía de libertas , libertad definida como “la ausencia de servidumbre”. ^[49]^[f] Cicerón (siglo I a.C.) afirmó que la libertad “no consiste en tener un amo justo (dominus) , sino en no tener ninguno”. ^[51] La palabra latina común para "esclavo" era servus , ^[g] pero en el derecho romano , un esclavo como bien mueble era mancipium , ^[52] una palabra gramaticalmente neutra ^[53] que significa algo "tomado en la mano", manus , una metáfora de posesión y, por lo tanto, control y subordinación. ^[54] Los esclavos agrícolas, ciertas tierras de cultivo dentro de la península italiana y los animales de granja eran todos res mancipi , una categoría de propiedad establecida en la economía rural de la Roma temprana como requiriendo un proceso legal formal ( mancipatio ) para transferir la propiedad. ^[55] El derecho exclusivo a comerciar en res mancipi era un aspecto definitorio de la ciudadanía romana en la era republicana; los residentes no ciudadanos libres ( peregrini ) no podían comprar y vender esta forma de propiedad sin una concesión especial de derechos comerciales. ^[56]

El ciudadano romano que disfrutaba de la libertad en su máxima extensión era, por tanto, el propietario, el paterfamilias , que tenía el derecho legal de controlar el patrimonio. El paterfamilias ejercía su poder dentro de la domus , la "casa" de su familia extendida, como amo (dominus) ; ^[57] el patriarcado estaba reconocido en el derecho romano como una forma de gobierno a nivel del hogar. ^[h] El cabeza de familia tenía derecho a gestionar a sus dependientes y administrarles justicia ad hoc con una supervisión mínima del estado. En la Roma primitiva, el paterfamilias tenía derecho a vender, castigar o matar tanto a sus hijos ( liberi , los "libres" del hogar) como a los esclavos de la familia . Este poder de vida y muerte, expresado como vitae necisque potestas , se ejercía sobre todos los miembros de la familia extendida excepto su esposa ^[i] : una mujer romana libre podía poseer propiedades propias como domina , y los esclavos de una mujer casada podían actuar como sus agentes independientemente de su marido. ^[59] A pesar de las simetrías estructurales, Cicerón expresa claramente la distinción entre el gobierno del padre sobre sus hijos y sobre sus esclavos: el amo puede esperar que sus hijos lo obedezcan fácilmente, pero necesitará "coaccionar y quebrantar a su esclavo". ^[60]

Aunque los esclavos eran reconocidos como seres humanos ( homines , singular homo ), carecían de personalidad jurídica ( persona en latín) . ^[61] Al carecer de capacidad legal como persona, un esclavo no podía celebrar contratos legales en su propio nombre; de hecho, seguía siendo un menor perpetuo. Un esclavo no podía ser demandado ni ser demandante en un pleito. ^[61] El testimonio de un esclavo no podía ser aceptado en un tribunal de justicia ^[62] a menos que el esclavo fuera torturado, una práctica basada en la creencia de que los esclavos en posición de estar al tanto de los asuntos de sus amos deberían ser demasiado virtuosamente leales para revelar evidencia perjudicial a menos que fueran coaccionados, ^[63] aunque los romanos eran conscientes de que el testimonio producido bajo tortura no era confiable. ^[64] A un esclavo no se le permitía testificar contra su amo a menos que la acusación fuera traición ( crimen maiestatis ) . Cuando un esclavo cometía un crimen, el castigo exigido probablemente era mucho más severo que por el mismo crimen cometido por una persona libre. ^[61] Persona se convirtió gradualmente en "sinónimo de la verdadera naturaleza del individuo" en el mundo romano, en la visión de Marcel Mauss , pero " servus non habet personam ('un esclavo no tiene persona'). No tiene personalidad. No es dueño de su cuerpo; no tiene antepasados, ni nombre, ni apodo, ni bienes propios". ^[65]

Debido a un creciente cuerpo de leyes, en el período imperial un amo podía enfrentar sanciones por matar a un esclavo sin una causa justa y podía ser obligado a vender un esclavo por motivos de maltrato. ^[61] Claudio decretó que si un esclavo era abandonado por su amo, se volvía libre. Nerón concedió a los esclavos el derecho a quejarse contra sus amos en un tribunal. Y bajo Antonino Pío , un amo que matara a un esclavo sin una causa justa podía ser juzgado por homicidio. ^[66] Desde mediados hasta finales del siglo II d. C., los esclavos tenían más derecho a quejarse del trato cruel o injusto por parte de sus dueños. ^[67] Pero dado que incluso en la Antigüedad tardía los esclavos todavía no podían presentar demandas, no podían testificar sin sufrir primero tortura y podían ser castigados con la quema viva por testificar contra sus amos, no está claro cómo estos delitos podían ser llevados a los tribunales y procesados; hay escasa evidencia de que así fuera. ^[68]

A medida que el Imperio romano se cristianizaba, Constantino II (emperador 337-340 d. C.) prohibió a los judíos poseer esclavos cristianos, convertir a sus esclavos al judaísmo o circuncidarlos . Las leyes de la Antigüedad tardía que desalentaban la sujeción de los cristianos a propietarios judíos sugieren que tenían como objetivo proteger la identidad cristiana, ^[69] ya que las familias cristianas seguían teniendo esclavos que eran cristianos. ^[70]

Matrimonio y familia

En el derecho romano, el esclavo no tenía parentesco —ni linaje ancestral o paterno, ni parientes colaterales— . ^[72] La falta de personalidad jurídica significaba que los esclavos no podían contraer matrimonio en formas reconocidas por el derecho romano , y un esclavo varón no era padre por ley porque no podía ejercer la potestad patriarcal. ^[73] Sin embargo, los esclavos nacidos en la familia y los esclavos "ascendentes" ^[74] que tenían posiciones privilegiadas podían formar una unión heterosexual con una pareja que se pretendía que fuera duradera o permanente, dentro de la cual se pudieran criar hijos. ^[75] Tal unión, ya sea arreglada ^[76] o aprobada y reconocida por el dueño del esclavo, ^[77] se llamaba contubernium . Aunque técnicamente no era un matrimonio, tenía implicaciones legales que fueron abordadas por los juristas romanos en la jurisprudencia y expresaban la intención de casarse si ambos socios obtenían la manumisión. ^[78] Un contubernium era normalmente una cohabitación entre dos esclavos dentro del mismo hogar, ^[79] y los contubernia se registraban junto con los nacimientos , muertes y manumisiones en los hogares grandes relacionados con el linaje. ^[80] A veces, solo uno de los miembros de la pareja (contubernalis) obtenía el estatus de libre antes de la muerte del otro, como se conmemora en los epitafios. ^[81] Estas uniones cuasi matrimoniales eran especialmente comunes entre los esclavos imperiales. ^[82]

El amo tenía el derecho legal de separar o vender a los miembros de la familia, y a veces se ha asumido que lo hacían de manera arbitraria. ^[83] Pero debido al valor que los romanos daban a los esclavos criados en casa (vernae) para expandir su familia , ^[84] hay más evidencia de que la formación de unidades familiares, aunque no se reconocía como tal para fines de ley y herencia, era apoyada dentro de los hogares urbanos más grandes y en las propiedades rurales. ^[85] Los juristas romanos que opinaban sobre las acciones que podrían separar a las familias de esclavos generalmente estaban a favor de mantenerlas juntas, y las protecciones para ellas aparecen varias veces en el compendio de derecho romano conocido como el Digesto . ^[86] Un amo que dejaba su propiedad rural a un heredero a menudo incluía la fuerza de trabajo de los esclavos, a veces con disposiciones expresas de que las familias de esclavos (padre y madre, hijos y nietos) se mantuvieran juntas. ^[87]

Entre las leyes que Augusto promulgó relativas al matrimonio y la moralidad sexual había una que permitía el matrimonio legal entre una liberta y un hombre libre de cualquier rango por debajo del senatorial, y legitimaba a sus herederos. ^[88] Un amo podía liberar a una esclava con el fin de casarse con ella, convirtiéndose a la vez en su patrón y en su marido. ^[89] Las mujeres romanas, incluidas las libertas, podían poseer propiedades e iniciar el divorcio , que requería la intención de solo uno de los cónyuges. Pero cuando el matrimonio había sido una condición del acuerdo de manumisión de la liberta, carecía de estos derechos. ^[90] Si quería divorciarse de su patrón y casarse con otra persona, tenía que obtener su consentimiento; ^[91] proporcionar pruebas de que no era mentalmente competente para formar la intención; ^[92] o demostrar que había roto su compromiso al planear casarse con otra persona o tomar una concubina . ^[93]

Peculio

Como ellos mismos eran propiedad (res) , por ley los esclavos romanos no podían poseer propiedades. Sin embargo, se les podía permitir tener y administrar propiedades, que podían usar como si fueran suyas, aunque en última instancia pertenecieran a su amo. ^[94] Un fondo o propiedad reservada para el uso de un esclavo se llamaba peculium . Isidoro de Sevilla , mirando hacia atrás desde principios del siglo VII, ofreció esta definición: “ peculium es en sentido propio algo que pertenece a menores o esclavos. Porque peculium es lo que un padre o amo permite que su hijo o esclavo administre como si fuera suyo”. ^[95]

La práctica de permitirle a los esclavos un peculium probablemente se originó en las fincas agrícolas, donde se reservaban pequeñas parcelas de tierra donde las familias de esclavos podían cultivar parte de su propia comida. La palabra peculium apunta a la adición de ganado ( pecus ). Cualquier excedente podía venderse en el mercado. Al igual que otras prácticas que fomentaban la iniciativa entre los esclavos para mejorar sus habilidades, esta forma temprana de peculium servía a una ética de autosuficiencia y podía motivar a los esclavos a ser más productivos de maneras que en última instancia beneficiaban al dueño del esclavo, lo que con el tiempo conducía a oportunidades más sofisticadas para el desarrollo empresarial y la gestión de la riqueza para las personas esclavizadas. ^[96]

Los esclavos de una familia o finca adinerada podían recibir un pequeño peculio monetario como asignación. ^[98] La obligación del amo de proveer para la subsistencia del esclavo no se contaba como parte de este peculio discrecional . El crecimiento del peculio provenía de los propios ahorros del esclavo, incluyendo ganancias apartadas de lo que se le debía al amo como resultado de ventas o transacciones comerciales realizadas por el esclavo, y cualquier cosa dada a un esclavo por un tercero por "servicios meritorios". ^[99] Las propias ganancias del esclavo también podían ser la fuente original del peculio monetario en lugar de una concesión del amo, ^[100] y en las inscripciones los esclavos y los libertos a veces afirman que habían pagado por la dedicación "con su propio dinero". ^[101] El peculio en forma de propiedad podía incluir otros esclavos puestos a disposición del poseedor del peculio ; ^[102] en este sentido, las inscripciones no pocas veces registran que un esclavo "pertenecía a" otro esclavo . ^{[103] Los dependientes de una familia, definidos como alguien subordinado a la}potestad del paterfamilias , no podían poseer bienes, lo que incluía no sólo a los esclavos, sino también a los hijos adultos que permanecían menores de edad por ley hasta la muerte de su padre. Toda la riqueza pertenecía al jefe de familia, excepto la que poseía independientemente su esposa, ^[104] cuyos esclavos podían operar con sus propias peculiaridades a partir de ella. ^[105]

La evasión legal del peculium permitió que tanto los hijos adultos como los esclavos capaces administraran propiedades, obtuvieran ganancias y negociaran contratos. ^[106] Los textos legales no reconocen una distinción fundamental entre esclavos e hijos que actuaban como agentes comerciales (institutores) . Sin embargo, las restricciones legales para hacer préstamos a los hijos no emancipados, introducidas a mediados del siglo I d. C., los hicieron menos útiles que los esclavos en esta función. ^[107]

Los esclavos con las habilidades y oportunidades para ganar dinero podían esperar ahorrar lo suficiente para comprar su libertad. ^[108]^[109] Existía el riesgo de que la persona que aún estaba esclavizada se retractara y se quedara con las ganancias, pero una de las protecciones ampliadas para los esclavos en la era imperial era que se podía hacer cumplir un acuerdo de manumisión entre el esclavo y su amo. ^[110] Si bien muy pocos esclavos alguna vez controlaron grandes sumas de dinero, ^[111] los esclavos que manejaban un peculium tenían muchas más posibilidades de obtener la libertad. Con esta perspicacia comercial, ciertos libertos llegaron a amasar fortunas considerables. ^[112]

Manumisión

Los esclavos eran liberados del control de su amo mediante el acto legal de manumissio (" manumisión "), que significa literalmente "liberar de la mano" ^[113] (de manu missio) . ^[114] El acto equivalente para liberar a un hijo menor del poder legal de su padre ( potestas ) era emancipatio , de donde deriva la palabra inglesa " emancipación ". Tanto la manumisión como la emancipación implicarían la transferencia de parte o la mayor parte de cualquier peculium (fondo o propiedad) que el esclavo o el menor hubiera manejado, menos el costo de autocompra del esclavo comprando su libertad. ^[115] El hecho de que los dos procedimientos sean paralelos a la hora de deshacer el control del paterfamilias lo indica la ficción legal a través de la cual se producía la emancipatio : técnicamente, era una venta ( mancipatio ) del hijo menor tres veces a la vez, basada en la disposición arcaica de las Doce Tablas de que un hijo vendido tres veces quedaba liberado de la potestas de su padre . ^[116]^[117]

Los esclavos de la casa del emperador (la familia Caesaris ) eran manumitidos rutinariamente a las edades de 30 a 35 años, una edad que no debe tomarse como estándar para otros esclavos. ^[118] Dentro de la familia Caesaris , una mujer joven en sus años reproductivos parece haber tenido la mayor oportunidad de manumisión, ^[119] permitiéndole casarse y tener hijos legítimos y libres, ^[120] aunque en general las mujeres podrían no haber esperado la manumisión hasta que sus años reproductivos hubieran pasado. ^[121]^[j] Un esclavo que tenía un peculium lo suficientemente grande también podía comprar la libertad de un compañero esclavo, un contubernalis con quien había cohabitado o un socio en los negocios. ^[123] Ni la edad ni la duración del servicio eran motivos automáticos para la manumisión; ^[124] "la generosidad magistral no era la fuerza impulsora detrás de los tratos de los romanos con sus esclavos". ^[125]

Los estudiosos han diferido en cuanto a la tasa de manumisión. ^[126] Los trabajadores manuales tratados como bienes muebles eran los que tenían menos probabilidades de ser manumitidos; los esclavos urbanos calificados o con un alto nivel educativo, la mayor probabilidad. La esperanza siempre fue mayor que la realidad, aunque puede haber motivado a algunos esclavos a trabajar más duro y a conformarse al ideal del "sirviente fiel". Al ofrecer la libertad como recompensa, los propietarios de esclavos podían sortear los problemas morales de esclavizar a las personas colocando la carga del mérito sobre los esclavos: los esclavos "buenos" merecían la libertad y otros no. ^[127] La manumisión después de un período de servicio puede haber sido un resultado negociado de la esclavitud contractual, aunque a un ciudadano que había entrado voluntariamente en la servidumbre no libre se le impedía la restauración completa de sus derechos. ^[128]

Había tres tipos de manumisión legalmente vinculante: por la vara, por el censo y por los términos del testamento del propietario ; ^[129] los tres eran ratificados por el estado. ^[130] La ceremonia pública de manumissio vindicta ("por la vara") era un juicio ficticio ^[131] que tenía que realizarse ante un magistrado que tenía imperium ; un ciudadano romano declaraba libre al esclavo, el propietario no lo impugnaba, el ciudadano tocaba al esclavo con un bastón y pronunciaba una fórmula, y el magistrado lo confirmaba. ^[132] El propietario también podía liberar al esclavo simplemente inscribiéndolo en la lista oficial de ciudadanos durante el censo; ^[133] en principio, el censor tenía el poder unilateral de liberar a cualquier esclavo para servir a los intereses del estado como ciudadano. ^[134] Los esclavos también podían ser liberados en el testamento de su propietario ( manumissio testamento ), a veces con la condición de servicio o pago antes o después de la libertad. ^[135] Un esclavo recompensado con la manumisión en un testamento a veces también recibía un legado , que podía incluir la transferencia de la propiedad de un contubernalis (pareja matrimonial informal) a él o ella. ^[136] Los herederos podían optar por complicar la manumisión testamentaria, ya que una condición común era que el esclavo tenía que comprar su libertad al heredero, y un esclavo que aún cumpliera la condición de su libertad podía ser vendido. Si no había un heredero legítimo, un amo no solo podía liberar al esclavo sino convertirlo en heredero. ^[137] Una manumisión formal no podía ser revocada por el patrón, y Nerón dictaminó que el estado no tenía interés en hacerlo. ^[138]

La libertad también podía concederse de manera informal, como por ejemplo per epistulam , en una carta que declaraba esta intención, o inter amicos , "entre amigos", en la que el propietario proclamaba la libertad de un esclavo frente a testigos. Durante la República, la manumisión informal no confería el estatus de ciudadano, ^[139] pero Augusto tomó medidas para aclarar el estatus de los liberados. ^[140] Una ley creó el estatus de " latino juniano " para estos esclavos manumitidos informalmente, una especie de "casa a medio camino entre la esclavitud y la libertad" que, por ejemplo, no confería el derecho a hacer testamento. ^[141]

En el año 2 a. C., la lex Fufia Caninia limitó el número de esclavos que podían ser liberados mediante testamento de un amo en proporción al tamaño de la herencia. ^[142] Seis años después, otra ley prohibió la manumisión de esclavos menores de treinta años, con algunas excepciones. ^[143] Los esclavos de la propia casa del emperador estaban entre los que tenían más probabilidades de recibir la manumisión, y no se aplicaban los requisitos legales habituales. ^[144]

A principios del siglo IV d. C., cuando el Imperio se estaba cristianizando, los esclavos podían ser liberados mediante un ritual en una iglesia, oficiado por un obispo o sacerdote ordenado. Constantino I promulgó edictos que autorizaban la manumissio in ecclesia , la manumisión dentro de una iglesia, en 316 y 323 d. C., aunque la ley no entró en vigor en África hasta 401 d. C. Se permitió a las iglesias manumitir a los esclavos entre sus miembros, y el clero podía liberar a sus propios esclavos mediante una simple declaración sin presentar documentos o la presencia de testigos. ^[145] Leyes como la Novella 142 de Justiniano en el siglo VI dieron a los obispos el poder de liberar esclavos. ^[146]

Hombres libertos

Un esclavo varón que había sido legalmente manumitido por un ciudadano romano disfrutaba no solo de libertad pasiva de propiedad, sino también de libertad política activa ( libertas ), incluido el derecho a votar. ^[147] Un esclavo que había adquirido libertas era, por lo tanto, un libertus ("persona liberada", liberta femenina ) en relación con su antiguo amo, que luego se convirtió en su patrón ( patronus ). Los libertos y los patrones tenían obligaciones mutuas entre sí dentro de la red de patrocinio tradicional , y los libertos también podían "trabajar en red" con otros patrones. ^[148] Un edicto en 118 a. C. declaró que el liberto era legalmente responsable solo de los servicios o proyectos (operae) que se habían explicado como estipulaciones o jurado por adelantado; no se podía exigir dinero y ciertos libertos estaban exentos de cualquier operae formal . ^[149] La Lex Aelia Sentia del año 4 d. C. permitía a un mecenas llevar a su liberto a los tribunales por no llevar a cabo sus operae como se indicaba en su acuerdo de manumisión, pero las posibles sanciones (que varían en severidad desde una reprimenda y multas hasta la condena a trabajos forzados) nunca incluyen el regreso a la esclavitud. ^[150]

Como clase social, los esclavos liberados eran libertini , aunque escritores posteriores usaron los términos libertus y libertinus indistintamente. ^[151]^[152] Los libertini no tenían derecho a ocupar las magistraturas de " carrera " o los sacerdocios estatales en la ciudad de Roma, ni podían alcanzar el rango senatorial . ^[153] Pero podían ocupar cargos locales y de barrio que les daban derecho a usar la toga praetexta , ordinariamente reservada para aquellos de rango superior, para funciones ceremoniales y sus ritos funerarios. ^[154] En las ciudades ( municipia ) de las provincias y más tarde en las ciudades con el estatus de colonia , las inscripciones indican que los antiguos esclavos podían ser elegidos para todos los cargos por debajo del rango de pretor , un hecho oscurecido por la literatura de élite y las aparentes barreras legales. ^[155]Ulpiano incluso sostiene que si un esclavo fugitivo lograba ser elegido pretor, sus actos jurídicos seguirían siendo válidos si se descubriera su verdadero estatus, porque el pueblo romano había decidido confiarle el poder. ^[156] Las limitaciones se impusieron solo a los antiguos esclavos y no se aplicaron a sus hijos. ^[157]

Durante el período imperial temprano, algunos libertos llegaron a ser muy poderosos. Aquellos que formaban parte de la casa del emperador (familia Caesaris) podían convertirse en funcionarios clave en la burocracia gubernamental. Algunos ascendieron a puestos de gran influencia, como Narciso , un antiguo esclavo del emperador Claudio . Su influencia creció hasta tal punto bajo los emperadores julio-claudios que Adriano limitó su participación por ley. ^[153]

Entre las historias de éxito de los libertos, una de las más típicas sería la de los comerciantes de capas Lucio Arlenus Demetrius, esclavizado de Cilicia, y Lucio Arlenus Artemidorus, de Paflagonia , cuyo apellido compartido sugiere que su asociación hacia un negocio sólido y rentable comenzó durante la esclavitud. ^[158] Algunos libertos se volvieron muy ricos. Se cree que los hermanos que poseían la Casa de los Vettii , una de las casas más grandes y magníficas de Pompeya , eran libertos. ^[159] Construir tumbas y monumentos impresionantes para ellos y sus familias era otra forma de que los libertos demostraran sus logros. ^[160] A pesar de su riqueza e influencia, la aristocracia tradicional aún podía despreciarlos como un vulgar nuevo rico . En el Satiricón , el personaje Trimalción es una caricatura de un liberto así. ^[161]

Dedicicios

Aunque en general los esclavos liberados podían convertirse en ciudadanos, aquellos clasificados como dediticii no tenían derechos ni siquiera si eran liberados. El jurista Gayo llamó al estatus de dediticius "la peor clase de libertad". ^[162] Los esclavos cuyos amos los habían tratado como criminales (encadenándolos, tatuándolos o marcándolos, torturándolos para que confesaran un crimen, encarcelándolos o enviándolos involuntariamente a una escuela de gladiadores ( ludus ) o condenándolos a luchar con gladiadores o bestias salvajes ) si eran liberados eran contados como una amenaza potencial para la sociedad junto con los enemigos derrotados en la guerra, ^[163] independientemente de si los castigos de su amo habían sido justificados. Si llegaban a cien millas de Roma, ^[k] estaban sujetos a la reesclavización. ^[164] Los dediticii fueron excluidos de la concesión universal de la ciudadanía romana a todos los habitantes libres del imperio realizada por Caracalla en el año 212 d. C. ^[165]

Causas de la esclavitud

"Los esclavos nacen o se hacen" (servi aut nascuntur aut fiunt) : ^[166] en el mundo romano antiguo, la gente podía volverse esclava como resultado de la guerra, la piratería y el secuestro, o el abandono de los niños; el miedo a caer en la esclavitud, expresado con frecuencia en la literatura romana, no era solo una exageración retórica. ^[167] Un número significativo de la población esclavizada eran vernae , nacidos de una mujer esclava dentro de un hogar ( domus ) o en una granja familiar o finca agrícola ( villa ). Algunos académicos han sugerido que la gente libre que se vendía como esclava era un suceso más frecuente de lo que las fuentes literarias por sí solas indicarían. ^[168] La proporción relativa de estas causas de esclavitud dentro de la población esclava es difícil de determinar y sigue siendo un tema de debate académico. ^[169]

Cautivos de guerra

Durante la era republicana (509-27 a. C.), la guerra fue posiblemente la mayor fuente de esclavos, ^[170] y ciertamente explicó el marcado aumento en el número de esclavos en poder de los romanos durante la República Media y Tardía. ^[171] Una batalla importante podía dar como resultado cautivos que ascendían a cientos o decenas de miles. ^[172]^[173] Los recién esclavizados eran comprados al por mayor por comerciantes que seguían a las legiones romanas. ^[174] Una vez durante las Guerras de las Galias , después de su asedio a la ciudad amurallada de los Aduatuci , Julio César vendió a toda la población, que ascendía a 53.000 personas, a los traficantes de esclavos en el lugar. ^[175]

La guerra continuó produciendo esclavos para Roma durante todo el período imperial, ^[176] aunque se podría decir que los cautivos de guerra se volvieron menos importantes como fuente alrededor del comienzo del siglo I d.C., después de que las principales campañas de Augusto , el primer emperador, concluyeran en su vida posterior. ^[177] La guerra a menor escala y menos continua de la llamada Pax Romana de los siglos I y II todavía producía esclavos "en cantidades más que triviales". ^[178]

Como ejemplo del impacto en una comunidad, fue durante este período que se comerció con la mayor cantidad de esclavos de la provincia de Judea , como resultado de las guerras judeo-romanas (66-135 d. C.). ^[179] El historiador judío helenístico Josefo informa que la Gran Revuelta Judía del 66-70 d. C. solo resultó en la esclavitud de 97.000 personas. ^[180] El futuro emperador Vespasiano esclavizó a 30.000 personas en Tariquea después de ejecutar a los que eran ancianos o enfermos. ^[181] Cuando su hijo y futuro sucesor Tito capturó la ciudad de Japha , mató a todos los varones y vendió a 2.130 mujeres y niños como esclavos. ^[182] Lo que parece haber sido un caso único de exceso de oferta en el mercado romano de esclavos ocurrió en el año 137 d. C., después de que se sofocara la revuelta de Bar Kokhba y se pusieran en el mercado más de 100.000 esclavos. Durante un tiempo, un esclavo judío podía comprarse en Hebrón o Gaza por el mismo precio que un caballo. ^[183]

La demanda de esclavos puede explicar algunas acciones expansionistas que no parecen tener ningún otro motivo político: Gran Bretaña , Mauritania y Dacia pueden haber sido conquistas deseables principalmente como fuentes de mano de obra, y lo mismo ocurre con las campañas romanas a través de las fronteras de sus provincias africanas . ^[184]

CautivoEn la cultura romana

El Digesto ofrece una etimología que conecta la palabra servus con el cautiverio de guerra como alternativa a matar a los derrotados: "Los esclavos (servi) se llaman así porque los comandantes venden cautivos y a través de esto hacen que sea habitual salvarlos (servare) y no matarlos". ^[185] Uno de los mitos de Rómulo era que comenzó la práctica de integrar a los cautivos de guerra en la sociedad romana esclavizándolos en lugar de matarlos. ^{[ cita requerida ]} Julio César concluyó su campaña contra los galos vénetos ejecutando a su senado pero vendiendo a los sobrevivientes sub corona , "bajo la corona". ^[186] El botín de guerra, incluida la tierra conquistada, se subastaba habitualmente sub hasta , "bajo la lanza" simbólico de la soberanía romana, ^[187] y "vender bajo la lanza" llegó a significar simplemente "subasta". Pero se decía que los cautivos de guerra eran vendidos sub corona , "bajo la corona" ^[188] porque en los primeros tiempos habrían sido envueltos ^[189] como una víctima de sacrificio ^[190] ( hostia , que Ovidio relaciona con hostis , "enemigo" ^[191] ).

La cultura romana produjo respuestas artísticas a la visibilidad de los cautivos ya en las Guerras Púnicas, cuando el dramaturgo cómico Plauto escribió Captivi ("Cautivos", ca. 200 a. C.). ^[192] La suposición cultural de que la esclavitud era un resultado natural de la derrota en la guerra se refleja en la ubicuidad del arte imperial que representa a los cautivos, una imagen que aparece no solo en contextos públicos que sirven a propósitos manifiestos de propaganda y triunfalismo, sino también en objetos que parecen destinados a la exhibición doméstica y personal, como figurillas, lámparas, cerámica arretina y gemas. ^[193]

Piratería y secuestro

La piratería tiene una larga historia en el tráfico de personas. ^[194] El objetivo principal del secuestro no era la esclavitud sino maximizar las ganancias, ^[195] ya que se esperaba que los familiares de los cautivos pagaran un rescate. ^[196] Las personas que se preocupaban por recuperar al cautivo estaban motivadas a pagar más de lo que pagaría un extraño si el cautivo fuera subastado como esclavo, ya que el precio estaría determinado por las cualidades individuales del cautivo, pero a veces la demanda de rescate no podía ser satisfecha. Si un esclavo era secuestrado, el dueño podía o no decidir que la cantidad del rescate valía la pena. Si varias personas de la misma ciudad eran secuestradas al mismo tiempo y las demandas de pago no podían satisfacerse de forma privada, la ciudad de origen podía intentar pagar el rescate con fondos públicos, pero estos esfuerzos también podían resultar insuficientes. ^[197] El cautivo podía entonces recurrir a pedir prestado el dinero del rescate a prestamistas especuladores, poniéndose en efecto en servidumbre por deudas con ellos. La venta de la víctima secuestrada en el mercado abierto era un último recurso, pero no infrecuente. ^[198]

Ningún viajero estaba a salvo; el propio Julio César fue capturado por piratas de Cilicia cuando era joven. Cuando los piratas se dieron cuenta de su alto valor, fijaron su rescate en veinte talentos . Según se cuenta, César insistió en que lo aumentaran a cincuenta. Pasó treinta y ocho días en cautiverio mientras esperaban que le entregaran el rescate. ^[199] Se dice que, tras su liberación, regresó y sometió a sus captores a la forma de ejecución reservada por la costumbre para los esclavos: la crucifixión . ^[200]

Dentro de la comunidad judía, los rabinos solían alentar la recompra de judíos esclavizados, pero aconsejaban que “no se debía rescatar a los cautivos por más de su valor, por el buen orden del mundo” porque los rescates inflados solo “motivarían a los romanos a esclavizar aún a más judíos”. ^[201] En la Iglesia primitiva, el rescate de cautivos se consideraba una obra de caridad (caritas) , y después de que el Imperio quedó bajo el dominio cristiano, las iglesias gastaron “enormes fondos” para recomprar a los prisioneros cristianos. ^[202]

La piratería sistemática con el propósito de tráfico de personas fue más desenfrenada en el siglo II a. C., cuando la ciudad de Side en Panfilia (dentro de la actual Turquía) era un centro del comercio. ^[203] A Pompeyo se le atribuye la erradicación de la piratería del Mediterráneo en el 67 a. C., ^[204] pero se tomaron medidas contra los piratas ilirios en el 31 a. C. después de la batalla de Actium , ^[205] y la piratería todavía era una preocupación abordada durante los reinados de Augusto y Tiberio. Si bien la piratería a gran escala estuvo más o menos controlada durante la Pax Romana , el secuestro pirata continuó contribuyendo al suministro de esclavos romanos en la era imperial posterior, aunque puede que no haya sido una fuente importante de nuevos esclavos. ^[206] A principios del siglo V d. C., Agustín de Hipona todavía lamentaba el secuestro a gran escala en el norte de África. ^[207] El misionero cristiano Patricio, de la Britania romana , fue secuestrado por piratas alrededor del año 400 d. C. y llevado como esclavo a Irlanda , donde continuó el trabajo que finalmente condujo a su canonización como San Patricio . ^[208]

Vernae

Según el derecho consuetudinario de las naciones ( ius gentium ) , el hijo de una madre legalmente esclavizada nacía esclavo. ^[209] La palabra latina para un esclavo nacido dentro de la familia de un hogar ( domus ) o finca agrícola ( villa ) era verna , plural vernae .

Existía una obligación social más fuerte de cuidar de las vernae , cuyos epitafios a veces las identificaban como tales, y en ocasiones habrían sido los hijos biológicos de los varones libres de la casa. ^[210]^[211] La mención frecuente de las vernae en fuentes literarias indica que los esclavos criados en casa no solo eran preferidos a los obtenidos en los mercados de esclavos, sino que recibían un trato preferencial. Era más probable que se permitiera a las vernae cohabitar como pareja ( contubernium ) y criar a sus propios hijos. ^[212] Una niña verna podía ser criada junto con el hijo del propietario de la misma edad, incluso compartiendo la misma nodriza. ^[213] Tenían mayores oportunidades de educación y podían ser educados junto con los niños nacidos libres de la casa. ^[214] Muchos "esclavos intelectuales" eran vernae . ^[215] Una inscripción dedicatoria que data del año 198 d. C. enumera los nombres de veinticuatro libertos imperiales que eran maestros ( paedagogi ) ; Seis de ellos se identifican como vernae . ^[216] El uso de verna en los epitafios de los libertos sugiere que los antiguos esclavos podrían enorgullecerse de su nacimiento dentro de una familia . ^[217]

Pero el nacimiento como verna podía tener un lado más oscuro, dependiendo del tipo de "casa" en la que naciera y se criara el niño. Las vernae nacidas de trabajadoras esclavizadas de burdeles se anunciaban como tales en grafitis de Pompeya , a veces con un precio o el servicio sexual que proporcionaban. De las vernae atestiguadas epigráficamente en Pompeya, el 71% están relacionadas con la prostitución , y su educación en burdeles parece haber sido considerada como un argumento de venta. ^[218]

Algunos eruditos creen que la mayoría de los esclavos en el período imperial eran vernae o que la reproducción doméstica era la fuente más importante de esclavos; las estimaciones modernas dependen de la interpretación de datos a menudo inciertos, incluido el número total de esclavos. ^[219]

Antiguos alumnos

Los niños llevados a un hogar para ser acogidos sin adopción formal ^[l] eran alumni (plural; femenino alumnae ), "aquellos que han sido criados". ^[220] Incluso si eran cuidados con amor, los alumni a menudo tenían un estatus legal ambiguo. El término alumni se usa para una variedad de niños de acogida, incluidos huérfanos, "parientes pobres" y aprendices, la mayoría de las veces atestiguados entre las edades de 9 y 14, principalmente en áreas urbanizadas prósperas. ^[221] De los alumni atestiguados , aproximadamente una cuarta parte puede identificarse con seguridad como esclavos; ^[222] el lugar de los alumni como esclavos en el hogar parece similar al de las vernae en términos de privilegios. ^[223] Un niño elegido para ser criado no sería pignorado como garantía de un préstamo ni estaría sujeto a embargo por los acreedores. ^[224]

Los ex alumnos a menudo se convertían en miembros de confianza de la familia , y aquellos en condición de esclavos parecen haber tenido una buena oportunidad de manumisión. ^[225] A veces se prevén explícitamente en los testamentos; por ejemplo, se le dejaba un fideicomiso a un joven ex alumno liberto que debía ser administrado por el amigo del adoptivo hasta que cumpliera veinticinco años. ^[226] La cantidad de ex alumnos y vernae asociados con las artes y la artesanía sugiere que el talento era una forma de que los niños desfavorecidos pudieran ser notados y obtener oportunidades. ^[227]

Trabajo infantil

En las familias que tenían que trabajar, ya fueran técnicamente libres o esclavas, los niños podían empezar a adquirir hábitos de trabajo a los cinco años, cuando se volvían capaces de llevar a cabo pequeñas tareas desde el punto de vista del desarrollo. ^[228] El período de transición de la primera infancia (infantia) a la infancia funcional (pueritia) se producía entre los romanos entre los cinco y los siete años, y las clases altas disfrutaban de una infantia y una pueritia más prolongadas y protegidas , como en la mayoría de las culturas. ^[229] En general, los diez años era la edad en la que los niños esclavos eran considerados lo suficientemente útiles como para ser comercializados como tales. ^[230] Entre los trabajadores de algunos medios, un niño esclavo podía ser una inversión; un ejemplo del Digesto jurídico es un herrero que compra un niño esclavo, le enseña el oficio y luego lo vende al doble del precio original pagado. ^{[231] Existen contratos} de aprendizaje para niños libres y esclavos, con pocas diferencias en los términos entre ambos. ^[232]

La formación para trabajos especializados comenzaba normalmente entre los 12 y los 14 años y duraba entre seis meses y seis años, según la ocupación. ^[233] Los trabajos para los que los niños esclavos hacían aprendizajes incluían la producción textil, la metalurgia, como la fabricación de clavos y la forja del cobre , la fabricación de espejos , la taquigrafía y otras habilidades de secretaría, la contabilidad , la música y las artes, la panadería , la jardinería ornamental y las técnicas de construcción . ^[234] Las menciones incidentales en los textos literarios sugieren que los programas de formación eran metódicos: los niños aprendían a ser barberos utilizando una navaja deliberadamente desafilada. ^[235]

En los hogares ricos y socialmente activos de la era imperial, los niños prepúberes (impuberes) eran entrenados para servir comida, ya que se pensaba que su pureza sexual confería beneficios higiénicos. ^[236] Un capsarius era un asistente infantil que iba a la escuela con los hijos del amo, llevando sus cosas y asistiendo a las lecciones con ellos. ^[237] Las casas grandes podían entrenar a su propio personal, algunas incluso dirigían escuelas internas, o enviar esclavos de entre 12 y 18 años a paedagogia , escuelas vocacionales dirigidas por el imperio que proporcionaban habilidades y refinamiento. ^[238] Los esclavos adolescentes de tan solo 13 años podían ser empleados hábilmente en contabilidad y otros trabajos de oficina, además de servir como heraldos, mensajeros y correos. ^[239]

Las compañías de artes escénicas eran una mezcla de personas libres y esclavizadas que podían realizar giras de forma independiente o ser patrocinadas por una familia, y hay un gran número de niños entre los artistas. Algunos de los artistas más jóvenes son gimnastas , acróbatas o gimnastas artísticos . También se encuentran niños esclavos como bailarines y cantantes, preparándose como profesionales para formas populares de teatro musical. ^[240]

Por lo general, en una granja, los niños comienzan a ayudar con tareas propias de su edad bastante temprano. Las fuentes antiguas que mencionan a niños muy pequeños nacidos en la esclavitud rural los muestran alimentando y cuidando pollos u otras aves de corral, ^[241] recogiendo ramas, aprendiendo a desmalezar, recolectando manzanas ^[242] y cuidando el burro de la granja. ^[243] No se esperaba que los niños pequeños trabajaran todo el día. ^[244] Los niños mayores podían cuidar pequeños rebaños de animales que eran sacados por la mañana y regresaban antes del anochecer. ^[245]

La minería de la era moderna empleó mano de obra infantil hasta principios del siglo XX, y hay alguna evidencia de que los niños trabajaban en ciertos tipos de minería de la antigua Roma . Es probable que los impuberes documentados en minas que dependían principalmente de trabajadores libres fueran parte de familias mineras, aunque las tablillas de cera de una mina en Alburnus Maior registran la compra de dos niños, de 6 y 10 (o 15) años. ^[246] Los niños parecen haber sido empleados especialmente en minas de oro , arrastrándose hacia las partes más estrechas de los pozos para recuperar el mineral suelto, ^[247] que se pasaba al exterior en cestas de mano en mano. ^[248]

La osteoarqueología puede identificar a adolescentes y niños trabajando junto a adultos, pero no si eran libres o esclavizados. ^[249] Los niños pueden ser difíciles de distinguir de los esclavos tanto en fuentes verbales, ya que puer podía significar "niño" o "esclavo" ( pais en griego), como en el arte, ya que los esclavos a menudo se representaban como más pequeños en proporción a los sujetos libres para mostrar su menor estatus, y los niños mayores que los bebés y los niños pequeños a menudo parecen adultos pequeños en el arte. ^[250] Dado que, como cuestión de derecho romano, un padre tenía derecho a contratar a todos los dependientes de un hogar para trabajar, entre los trabajadores que aún eran menores de edad a menudo hay poca diferencia práctica entre libres y esclavos. ^[251]

Abandono infantil

Los puntos de vista académicos varían en cuanto al grado en que el abandono infantil en sus diversas formas era una fuente importante de esclavos potenciales. ^[252] Los hijos de ciudadanos pobres que quedaban huérfanos eran vulnerables a la esclavitud, y al menos algunos niños llevados a una casa para ser acogidos como ex alumnos tenían un estatus legal de esclavos. Un comerciante podía acoger a un niño abandonado como ex alumno y ponerlo a su aprendiz, un acuerdo que no excluía el afecto y podía dar como resultado la transmisión del negocio con la expectativa de recibir cuidados en la vejez. ^[253] Una forma en que los primeros cristianos hicieron crecer su comunidad fue acogiendo a niños abandonados y huérfanos, y las " iglesias domésticas " podrían haber sido refugios seguros donde los niños nacidos en esclavos y los niños libres de todos los estatus se mezclaban. ^[254]

Sin embargo, los traficantes de esclavos se aprovechaban de los niños abandonados que tenían edad suficiente para andar solos por la calle, atrayéndolos con "dulces, pasteles y juguetes". ^[255] Los niños esclavos obtenidos de esta manera corrían especial peligro de ser criados como prostitutas o gladiadores o incluso de ser mutilados para hacerlos más dignos de compasión como mendigos. ^[256]

Exposición infantil

El abandono infantil, ya sea por muerte de un familiar o intencionalmente, debe distinguirse de la exposición infantil (expositio) , que los romanos parecen haber practicado ampliamente y que está arraigada en el mito fundador de los gemelos expuestos Rómulo y Remo amamantando a la loba. Las familias que no podían permitirse criar a un niño podían exponer a un bebé no deseado, generalmente imaginado como abandonándolo en condiciones al aire libre que probablemente causarían su muerte, por lo tanto un medio de infanticidio . ^[257] Un defecto de nacimiento grave se consideraba motivo de exposición incluso entre las clases altas. ^[258] Una visión es que los bebés sanos que sobrevivieron a la exposición generalmente eran esclavizados e incluso eran una fuente importante de esclavos. ^[259]

Un niño sano expuesto podía ser acogido o adoptado por una familia, pero incluso esta práctica podía tratar al niño como una inversión: si la familia biológica deseaba más tarde reclamar a su descendencia, tenía derecho a hacerlo pero tenía que reembolsar los gastos de crianza. ^[260] Los traficantes también podían recoger a los niños supervivientes y criarlos con entrenamiento como esclavos, ^[261] pero como es poco probable que los niños menores de cinco años proporcionen mucho trabajo de valor, ^[262] no está claro cómo sería rentable invertir los cinco años de trabajo adulto en la crianza. ^[263]

La exposición infantil como fuente de esclavos también supone sitios predecibles donde los comerciantes podrían esperar una "cosecha" regular; los nacimientos exitosos estarían más concentrados en entornos urbanos, y los sitios probables para el depósito de infantes son templos y otros sitios religiosos como la oscura Columna Lactaria , el hito de la "Columna de la Leche" sobre el cual se sabe poco. ^[264] El satírico Juvenal escribe sobre supuestos niños tomados de la escoria al seno de la diosa Fortuna , quien se ríe mientras los envía a las grandes casas de familias nobles para ser criados tranquilamente como si fueran suyos. ^[265] Las casas grandes contaban con nodrizas y otras asistentes de cuidado infantil que compartirían las tareas de crianza de los niños adoptivos (exalumnos) y todos los infantes de la casa, libres o esclavos. ^[266]

Algunos padres pueden haber acordado entregar al neonato directamente por un pago como una especie de subrogación ex post facto . ^[267]Constantino , el primer emperador cristiano, formalizó la compra y venta de recién nacidos durante las primeras horas de vida, ^[268] cuando el recién nacido todavía era sanguinolentus , ensangrentado antes del primer baño. En una época en la que la mortalidad infantil podría haber sido tan alta como el 40 por ciento, ^[269] se pensaba que el recién nacido en su primera semana de vida estaba en un estado liminal peligroso entre la existencia biológica y el nacimiento social, ^[270] y el primer baño era uno de los muchos rituales que marcaban esta transición y apoyaban a la madre y al niño. ^[271] La ley constantiniana ha sido vista como un esfuerzo por detener la práctica de la exposición como infanticidio ^[272] o como "una póliza de seguro en nombre de los propietarios de esclavos individuales" ^[273] diseñada para proteger la propiedad de aquellos que, sin saberlo o no, habían comprado un bebé que luego afirmaron o demostraron haber nacido libre. ^[274] En el período histórico, la expositio puede haberse convertido en realidad en una ficción legal por la cual los padres entregaban al recién nacido durante la primera semana de vida, antes de que hubiera sido ritualmente aceptado y legalmente registrado como parte de la familia biológica, y transferían la potestad sobre el infante a la nueva familia desde el comienzo de su vida. ^[275]

Venta parental

El antiguo derecho de patria potestas facultaba a los padres a disponer de sus dependientes como creyeran conveniente. Podían vender a sus hijos igual que a sus esclavos, aunque en la práctica, el padre que vendía a su hijo probablemente era demasiado pobre para poseer esclavos. El padre renunciaba a su poder (potestas) sobre el niño, que pasaba a ser posesión (mancipium) de un amo. ^[276] Una ley de las Doce Tablas (siglo V a. C.) limitaba el número de veces que un padre podía vender a sus hijos: una hija solo una vez, pero un hijo hasta tres. Este tipo de venta en serie solo del hijo sugiere nexum , una obligación temporal como resultado de una deuda que fue abolida formalmente a fines del siglo IV a. C. ^[277] Una evasiva en torno al estatus de nacido libre que continuó hasta la Antigüedad tardía era arrendar el trabajo del niño menor hasta los 20 o 25 años, de modo que el titular del arrendamiento no fuera dueño del niño como propiedad, sino que tuviera uso a tiempo completo a través de la transferencia legal de potestas . ^[278]

El derecho romano se enfrentó así a las tensiones entre la supuesta santidad del nacimiento libre, patria potestas , y la realidad ^[279] de que los padres podían verse obligados por la pobreza o las deudas a vender a sus hijos. ^[280] La potestas significaba que no había ninguna sanción legal para el padre como vendedor. ^[281] El contrato de venta en sí mismo siempre era técnicamente nulo debido al estado libre del niño comercializado, que si el comprador lo desconocía le daba derecho a un reembolso. ^[282] Incluso si la venta no se había contratado como temporal, los padres que llegaban a días mejores podían restaurar el estado libre de sus hijos pagando el precio de venta original más el 20 por ciento para cubrir los costos de su cuidado durante la servidumbre. ^[283]

La mayoría de los padres habrían vendido a sus hijos solo bajo extrema presión. ^[284] A mediados de los años 80 a. C., los padres de la provincia de Asia dijeron que se vieron obligados a vender a sus hijos para pagar los altos impuestos recaudados por Sila como procónsul . ^[285] En la Antigüedad tardía, la venta de los hijos de la familia era vista en la retórica cristiana como un síntoma de decadencia moral causada por los impuestos, los prestamistas, el gobierno y la prostitución. ^[286] Las fuentes que moralizan desde una perspectiva de clase alta sobre los padres que venden a sus hijos pueden a veces estar tergiversando los contratos de aprendizaje y trabajo que eran necesarios para las familias asalariadas, especialmente porque muchos de estos eran organizados por las madres. ^[287]

La cristianización del imperio posterior modificó las prioridades dentro de las contradicciones inherentes a este marco legal. Constantino , el primer emperador cristiano, intentó aliviar el hambre como una de las condiciones que conducían a la venta de niños ordenando a los magistrados locales que distribuyeran grano gratis a las familias pobres, ^[288] aboliendo posteriormente el "poder de vida y muerte" que había tenido el paterfamilias . ^[289]

Esclavitud por deudas

Nexum era un contrato de servidumbre por deudas en la temprana República romana . Dentro del sistema legal romano , era una forma de mancipatio . Aunque los términos del contrato variaban, esencialmente un hombre libre se comprometía a ser un esclavo ( nexus ) como garantía de un préstamo. También podía entregar a su hijo como garantía. Aunque el esclavo podía esperar enfrentar humillación y algunos abusos, como ciudadano bajo la ley se suponía que estaba exento de castigo corporal. Nexum fue abolido por la Lex Poetelia Papiria en 326 a. C.

Los historiadores romanos ilustraron la abolición del nexum con una historia tradicional que variaba en sus detalles: en líneas generales, un nexus , que era un joven apuesto y honrado, sufría acoso sexual por parte del tenedor de la deuda. La historia aleccionadora resaltaba las incongruencias de someter a un ciudadano libre al uso de otro, y la respuesta legal apuntaba a establecer el derecho del ciudadano a la libertad ( libertas ), a diferencia del esclavo o paria social ( infamis ). ^[290]

Aunque el nexum fue abolido como una forma de asegurar un préstamo, todavía podía resultar una forma de servidumbre por deudas después de que un deudor incumpliera sus obligaciones. ^[291] Siguió siendo ilegal esclavizar a una persona libre por este motivo o comprometer a un menor para asegurar la deuda de un padre, y las sanciones legales se aplicaban al acreedor, no al deudor. ^[292]

Autoventas

La libertad del ciudadano romano era un principio "inviolable" del derecho romano, y por lo tanto era ilegal que una persona libre se vendiera a sí misma ^[293] —en teoría. En la práctica, la autoesclavitud podía pasarse por alto a menos que una de las partes cuestionara los términos del contrato. ^[294] Las "autoventas" no están bien representadas en la literatura romana, presumiblemente porque eran vergonzosas y contrarias a la ley. ^[295] La evidencia limitada se encuentra principalmente en fuentes legales imperiales, que indican que la "autoventa" como camino a la esclavitud era tan reconocida como ser capturado en la guerra o nacer de una madre esclava. ^[296]

Las ventas propias se ponen en evidencia principalmente cuando se impugnan en los tribunales por motivos de fraude . Se podría alegar fraude si el vendedor o el comprador sabían que la persona esclavizada había nacido libre ( ingenuus ) en el momento de la venta, mientras que la persona objeto de trata no lo sabía. También se podría alegar fraude si la persona vendida hubiera sido menor de veinte años. La argumentación jurídica deja claro que proteger la inversión del comprador era una prioridad, pero si se demostraba cualquiera de estas circunstancias, se podía reclamar la libertad de la persona esclavizada. ^[297]

Como era difícil probar quién sabía qué y cuándo, la prueba más sólida de la esclavitud voluntaria era si la persona que antes era libre había dado su consentimiento recibiendo una parte de las ganancias de la venta. Se pensaba que una persona que renunciaba a sabiendas a los derechos de la ciudadanía romana no era digna de mantenerlos, y por lo tanto la esclavitud permanente se consideraba una consecuencia apropiada. ^[298] La autoventa por parte de un soldado romano sería una forma de deserción, ^[299] y la ejecución era la pena. ^[300] Los romanos esclavizados como prisioneros de guerra eran considerados igualmente inelegibles para recuperar su ciudadanía si habían renunciado a su libertad sin luchar lo suficiente para mantenerla (véase la esclavitud de los ciudadanos romanos más arriba); a medida que la República romana se descentralizaba, la retórica política instaba febrilmente a los ciudadanos a resistir la vergüenza de caer en la "esclavitud" bajo el gobierno de un solo hombre. ^[301]

Sin embargo, los casos de autoventa que llegaban al nivel de apelación imperial a menudo resultaban en la anulación del contrato, ^[298] incluso si la persona esclavizada había dado su consentimiento, ya que un contrato privado no anulaba el interés del Estado en regular la ciudadanía, que conllevaba obligaciones fiscales. ^[302]

La economía esclavista

Durante el período de expansión imperial romana, el aumento de la riqueza entre la élite romana y el crecimiento sustancial de la esclavitud transformaron la economía. ^[303] Multitudes de esclavos fueron llevados a Italia y comprados por terratenientes ricos para trabajar en sus propiedades. La inversión en tierras y la producción agrícola generaron una gran riqueza; en opinión de Keith Hopkins , las conquistas militares de Roma y la posterior introducción de vastas riquezas y esclavos en Italia tuvieron efectos comparables a la innovación tecnológica generalizada y rápida. ^[304]

Los académicos difieren en cómo los detalles de la esclavitud romana como institución pueden enmarcarse dentro de las teorías de los mercados laborales en la economía en general. ^[305]^[306]^[307] El historiador económico Peter Temin ha argumentado que "Roma tenía un mercado laboral funcional y una fuerza laboral unificada" en la que la esclavitud jugaba un papel integral. ^[308] Dado que los salarios podían ser ganados tanto por trabajadores libres como por algunos esclavos, y fluctuaban en respuesta a la escasez de mano de obra, ^[309] la condición de movilidad requerida para el dinamismo del mercado se cumplía con el número de trabajadores libres que buscaban salarios y esclavos calificados con un incentivo para ganar. ^[310]

La trata de esclavos

El jurista romano Papiniano denominó «el tráfico regular y diario de esclavos» ^[311] y afectaba a todas las partes del Imperio romano, incluso a través de las fronteras. El comercio estaba regulado apenas por la ley. ^[312] Parece que existían mercados de esclavos en la mayoría de las ciudades del Imperio, pero fuera de Roma el mayor centro era Éfeso . ^[313] Los principales centros del comercio imperial de esclavos estaban en Italia , el norte del Egeo , Asia Menor y Siria . Mauritania y Alejandría también eran importantes. ^[314]

El mayor mercado de la península itálica, como era de esperar, era la ciudad de Roma, ^[315] donde los más notorios traficantes de esclavos se instalaron junto al Templo de Cástor en el Foro Romano . ^[316] Puteoli puede haber sido el segundo más activo. ^[317] También se comerciaba en Brundisium , ^[318] Capua , ^[319] y Pompeya . ^[320] Se importaban esclavos desde el otro lado de los Alpes hasta Aquileia . ^[321]

El ascenso y caída de Delos es un ejemplo de la volatilidad y las perturbaciones del comercio de esclavos. En el Mediterráneo oriental , la vigilancia del Reino Ptolemaico y Rodas había mantenido cierto control sobre el secuestro pirata y el comercio ilegal de esclavos hasta que Roma, en la ola de su éxito inesperado contra Cartago , expandió el comercio y ejerció dominio hacia el este. ^[322] El puerto de Rodas, establecido desde hacía mucho tiempo, conocido como un estado de "ley y orden", tenía barreras legales y regulatorias para la explotación por parte de los nuevos "empresarios" italianos, ^[323] que tuvieron una recepción más porosa en Delos cuando establecieron su negocio a fines del siglo III a. C. ^[324] Para perjudicar a Rodas, y en última instancia devastar su economía, ^[325] en 166 a. C. los romanos declararon a Delos un puerto libre, lo que significa que los comerciantes allí ya no tendrían que pagar el impuesto aduanero del 2 por ciento. ^[326] El comercio pirata de esclavos luego inundó Delos "sin hacer preguntas" sobre el origen y el estado de los cautivos. ^[327] Aunque la cifra del geógrafo Estrabón de 10.000 esclavos comerciados diariamente es más una hipérbole que una estadística, ^[328] los esclavos se convirtieron en el producto básico número uno de Delos. ^[329] Las grandes operaciones agrícolas comerciales en Sicilia ( latifundios ) probablemente recibieron grandes cantidades de esclavos sirios y cilicios comerciados en Delos , quienes luego lideraron las rebeliones de esclavos que duraron años en 135 y 104 a. C. ^[330]

Pero a medida que los romanos establecieron centros comerciales mejor ubicados y más sofisticados en Oriente, Delos perdió su privilegio como puerto libre y fue saqueada en 88 y 69 a. C. durante las Guerras Mitrídaticas , de las que nunca se recuperó. ^[331] Otras ciudades como Mitilene pueden haber tomado el relevo. ^[332] La economía esclavista de Delos había sido artificialmente exuberante, ^[333] y al desviar la mirada los romanos exacerbaron el problema de la piratería que los molestaría durante siglos. ^[334]

Las principales fuentes de esclavos de Oriente incluyen Lidia , Caria , Frigia , Galacia y Capadocia , para las que Éfeso era un centro de comercio. ^{[335] Se supone que} Esopo , el escritor frigio de fábulas, fue vendido en Éfeso. ^{[336] Es probable que} Pérgamo haya tenido un comercio de esclavos "regular e intenso", ^[337] al igual que la próspera ciudad de Acmonia en Frigia. ^[338] Estrabón (siglo I d. C.) describe a Apameia en Frigia como la segunda en comercio de la región, después de Éfeso, y observa que era "el almacén común para los de Italia y Grecia", un centro de importaciones desde Occidente, y los esclavos eran el producto más probable para el comercio de exportación. ^[339] También es probable que hayan existido mercados en Siria y Judea , aunque la evidencia directa es escasa. ^[340]

En el norte del Egeo, un gran monumento a un comerciante de esclavos en Anfípolis sugiere que este podría haber sido un lugar donde se comerciaba con esclavos tracios . ^[341] Bizancio era un mercado para el comercio de esclavos del Mar Negro . ^[342] Los esclavos procedentes de Bitinia , Ponto y Paflagonia habrían sido comercializados en las ciudades de Propontis . ^[343]

En Dacia (actual Rumanía ) se han encontrado tesoros de monedas romanas que datan de los años 60 a. C. en una abundancia inusual , y se han interpretado como evidencia de que el éxito de Pompeyo en acabar con la piratería provocó un aumento en el comercio de esclavos en la cuenca baja del Danubio para satisfacer la demanda. Los tesoros disminuyen en frecuencia en los años 50 a. C., cuando las campañas de Julio César en la Galia dieron como resultado grandes lotes de nuevos esclavos traídos al mercado, y resurgieron en los años 40 y 30. ^[345] La arqueología hasta el siglo XXI ha seguido produciendo evidencia de tráfico de esclavos en partes del Imperio donde había sido poco atestiguado, como el Londres romano . ^[346]

Los esclavos eran objeto de comercio desde fuera de las fronteras romanas en varios puntos, como lo mencionan fuentes literarias como Estrabón y Tácito y está atestiguado por evidencia epigráfica en la que los esclavos se enumeran entre los productos sujetos a aranceles. ^[347] La disposición de los tracios a intercambiar esclavos por el producto necesario de la sal se volvió proverbial entre los griegos. ^[348] Diodoro Sículo dice que en la Galia anterior a la conquista, los comerciantes de vino podían intercambiar un ánfora por un esclavo; Cicerón menciona a un comerciante de esclavos de la Galia en el 83 a. C. ^[349] Walter Scheidel conjeturó que los "esclavizables" se comercializaban a través de las fronteras desde la actual Irlanda, Escocia, Alemania oriental, el sur de Rusia, el Cáucaso , la península árabe y lo que solía denominarse " el Sudán "; el Imperio parto habría consumido la mayor parte del suministro hacia el este. ^[350]

Subastas y ventas

William V. Harris describe cuatro lugares de mercado para el comercio de esclavos:

transacciones en pequeña escala entre propietarios en las que se podía intercambiar un solo esclavo;
el “mercado oportunista”, como los traficantes de esclavos que seguían al ejército y manejaban grandes cantidades de esclavos;
ferias y mercados en pequeñas ciudades, donde los esclavos habrían estado entre los diversos bienes intercambiados;
mercados de esclavos en las grandes ciudades, donde se celebraban subastas periódicamente. ^[351]

Los esclavos comercializados en el mercado eran empticii ("comprados"), a diferencia de los esclavos criados en casa nacidos dentro de la familia . Los empticii se compraban con mayor frecuencia a bajo precio para las tareas o el trabajo cotidiano, pero algunos eran considerados una especie de bien de lujo y alcanzaban precios altos, si poseían una habilidad especializada buscada o una cualidad especial como la belleza. ^[352] La mayoría de los esclavos comercializados en el mercado tenían entre 19 y 20 años. ^[353] En el edicto de Diocleciano sobre los controles de precios (301 d. C.), se fija un precio máximo para los esclavos cualificados de entre 16 y 40 años de edad de hasta el doble del de un esclavo no cualificado, que era el equivalente a 3 toneladas de trigo para un hombre y 2,5 para una mujer. ^[354] El precio real difería según el tiempo y el lugar. ^[355] La evidencia de precios reales es rara y se conoce principalmente a partir de documentos en papiros preservados en el Egipto romano , ^[356] donde la práctica de la esclavitud puede no ser típica de Italia o del imperio en su conjunto. ^{[ cita requerida ]}

From the mid-1st century BC, the edict of the aediles, who had jurisdiction over market transactions,^[358] had a section aimed at protecting buyers of slaves by requiring any disease or defect to be divulged at time of sale.^[359] Information about the slave was either written on a tablet (titulus) hung from the neck^[360] or called out by the auctioneer.^[361] The slave being auctioned might be placed on a stand for viewing.^[m] Prospective buyers could feel the slave, have them move or jump, or ask for them to be undressed to make sure the dealer wasn't concealing a physical defect.^[364] The wearing of a particular cap (pilleus) marked a slave who didn't come with a warranty;^[365]^[366] chalk-whitened feet were a sign of foreigners newly arrived in Italy.^[367]

A rare depiction of an auction, on a funeral monument from about the same time as the edict, shows a male slave wearing a loincloth and possibly shackles and standing on a pedestal- or podium-like structure.^[368] To the left is an auctioneer (praeco);^[369] the gesturing, toga-wearing figure to the right may be a buyer asking questions.^[370] The monument was set up by a familia of former slaves, the Publilii, who were either depicting their own history or, like many freedmen, expressing pride in conducting their own business successfully and honestly.^[371]

If defects were fraudulently concealed, a six-month return policy required the dealer to take back the slave and issue a refund, or to make a partial refund during an extended warranty of twelve months.^[372]^[373] Roman jurists closely parsed what might constitute a defect—not, for instance, missing teeth, since perfectly healthy infants, it was reasoned, lack teeth.^[374] Slaves who were sold for a single price as a functional unit, such as a theatre troupe, could be returned as a group if one proved to be defective.^[375]

Although slaves were property (res), as human beings they were not to be considered merchandise (merces); those who sold them therefore were not merchants or traders (mercatores) but sellers (venalicarii).^[376]

Slave-traders

The Latin word for slave-trader was venalicius or venalicarius (from venalis, "something that can be bought," especially as a substantive, a human being for sale)^[377] or mango, plural mangones,^[378] a word of likely Greek origin^[379] that had connotations of "huckster";^[380] in Greek more bluntly somatemporos, a dealer in bodies.^[381] Slave-traders had a reputation for dishonesty and deceptive practices, but most of the moral judgments are about defrauding customers rather than the welfare of the slaves.^[382] While the senatorial class disdained commerce in general as sordid,^[383] rhetoric reviling slave-traders in particular is found widely in Latin literature.^[384] Although slaves play leading roles in the comedies of Plautus, no major character is a slave-trader.^[385]

Professional slave-traders are rather shadowy figures, as their social standing and identities are not well documented in ancient sources.^[386] They appear to have formed trade organizations (societates) that lobbied for legislation and perhaps also for the purpose of raising investment capital.^[387] Most of those known by name are Roman citizens;^[388] of these, most are freedmen.^[389] Only a few slave-traders receive prominent mention by name in literature; one Toranius Flaccus was considered a witty dinner companion and socialized with the future emperor Augustus.^[390] Mark Antony relied on Toranius as a procurer of female slaves, and even forgave him upon learning that the supposedly twin boys he had purchased were in fact not consanguineous, the mango having persuaded the triumvir that their identical appearance was therefore all the more remarkable.^[391]

A few slave-traders were comfortable enough with their occupation that they had themselves identified as such in their epitaphs.^[392] Others are known from inscriptions recognizing them as benefactors, indicating that they were prosperous and locally prominent.^[393] The Genius venalicii, an obscure guardian spirit to do with the slave market, is honored presumably by slave-traders in four inscriptions, one of which is dedicated to this genius in the company of Dea Syria, perhaps reflecting the heavy trade in Syrian slaves from which arose a Syrian neighborhood in the city of Rome.^[394] The cultivation of various genii was an everyday feature of classical Roman religion; the Genius venalicii normalizes the trade in slaves as like any other prosperity-seeking marketplace.^[395]

Slaves were also sold widely by people who made their main living in other ways and by merchants dealing primarily in other goods.^[396] In late antiquity, itinerant Galatians protected by powerful patrons become prominent in the North African trade.^[397] Although elite owners generally acquired slaves through intermediaries,^[398] some may have been more directly involved than literary sources like to acknowledge. When the future emperor Vespasian returned bankrupt from his proconsulate in Africa, he is thought to have restored his fortunes by trading in slaves, possibly specializing in eunuchs as a luxury good.^[399]

Taxes and tariffs

During the Republic, the only regular revenue from slaveholding collected by the state was a tax placed on manumissions starting in 357 BC, amounting to 5 percent of the slave's estimated value.^[400] In 183 BC, Cato the Elder as censor placed a sumptuary tax on slaves that had cost 10,000 asses or more, calculated at a rate of 3 denarii per 1,000 asses on an assessed value ten times the purchase price.^[401] In 40 BC, the triumvirs attempted to impose a tax on slave ownership, which was squelched by "bitter opposition."^[402]

In AD 7, Augustus imposed the first tax on Roman citizens as purchasers of slaves,^[403] at a rate of 2 percent, estimated to generate annual revenues of about 5 million sesterces—a figure that may indicate some 250,000 sales.^[313] By comparison, the sales tax on slaves in Ptolemaic Egypt had been 20 percent.^[404] The slave-sales tax was increased under Nero to 4 percent,^[405] with a misguided attempt to divert the burden to the seller, which only increased prices.^[406]

Tariffs on slaves imported to or exported from Italy were taken at harbor customs, as they were all around the Empire.^[407] In AD 137, for example, the customs dues in Palmyra for teenage slaves was 2 to 3 percent of value.^[408] At Zaraï in Roman Numidia, the tariff for a slave was the same as for a horse or mule.^[409] A law of the censors exempted the paterfamilias from paying harbor tax at Sicily on servi brought into Italy for his direct employment in a wide range of roles, indicating that the Romans saw a difference between obtaining slaves who were to be incorporated into the life of the household and those traded for profit.^[410]

Types of work

Slaves worked in a wide range of occupations that can be roughly divided into five categories: household or domestic service, urban crafts and services, agriculture, imperial or public service, and manual labor such as mining.^[411] Both free and enslaved labor was employed for nearly all forms of work, though the proportion of free workers to slaves might vary by task and at different time periods.^{[citation needed]} Legal texts state that slaves' skills were to be protected from misuse; examples given include not using a stage actor as a bath attendant, not forcing a professional athlete to clean latrines, and not sending a librarius (scribe or manuscript copyist) to the countryside to carry baskets of lime.^[412] Regardless of the status of the worker, labor in the service of another was regarded as a form of submission in the ancient world,^[413] and Romans of the governing class regarded wage-earning as equivalent to slavery.^[414]

Household slaves

Epitaphs record at least 55 different jobs a household slave might have,^[411] including barber, butler, cook, hairdresser, handmaid (ancilla), launderer, wet nurse or nursery attendant, teacher, secretary, seamstress, accountant, and physician.^[304] For large households, job descriptions indicate a high degree of specialization: handmaids might be assigned to the upkeep, storage, and readiness of the mistress's wardrobe or specifically mirrors or jewelry.^[415] Rich households with specialists who might not be needed full-time year round, such as goldsmiths or furniture painters, might lease them out to friends and desirable associates or give them license to run their own shop as part of their peculium.^[416] A "poor" household was one in which the same few slaves did everything without specialization.^[417]

In Roman Egypt, papyri preserve apprenticeship contracts written in Greek that indicate the training a worker might require to become skilled, usually for a full year. A beautician (ornatrix) required a three-year apprenticeship; in one Roman legal case, it was ruled that a slave who had studied for only two months could not be considered an ornatrix as a matter of law.^[418]

In the Imperial era, a large elite household (a domus in town, or a villa in the countryside) might be supported by a staff of hundreds;^[411] or on the lower end of scholarly estimates, perhaps an average of 100 slaves per domus during the time of Augustus. Possibly half the slaves in the city of Rome served in the houses of the senatorial order and of the richer equestrians.^[419] The living conditions of the familia urbana—slaves attached to a domus—were sometimes superior to those of many free urban poor in Rome,^[420] though even in the grandest houses, they would have lived "packed in to basement rooms and odd crannies."^[421] Still, household slaves likely enjoyed the highest standard of living among Roman slaves, next to publicly owned slaves in administration, who were not subject to the whims of a single master.^[372]

Urban crafts and services

Of slaves in the city of Rome not attached to a domus, most were engaged in trades and manufacturing. Occupations included fullers, engravers, shoemakers, bakers, and mule drivers. The Roman domus itself should not be thought of as a "private" home in the modern sense, as business was often conducted there, and even commerce—the first-floor rooms facing the street might be shops used or rented out as commercial spaces.^[422] The work done or the goods made and sold by enslaved labor from these storefronts complicates the distinction between household and general urban labor.

Through the end of the 2nd century BC, skilled labor throughout Italy, such as pottery design and manufacture, was still predominated by free workers, whose corporations or guilds (collegia) might own a few slaves.^[423] In the Imperial era, as many of 90 percent of workers in these areas might be slaves or former slaves.^[424]

Training programs and apprenticeships are well if briefly documented. Slaves whose ability was noticed might be trained from a young age in trades requiring a high degree of artistry or expertise; for example, an epitaph mourns the premature death of a talented boy, only age 12, who was already apprenticing as a goldsmith.^[425] Girls might be apprenticed particularly in the textile industry; contracts specify apprenticeships of varying durations. One four-year contract from Roman Egypt that apprentices an underage girl to a master weaver shows how detailed terms could be. The owner is to feed and clothe the girl, who is to receive periodic pay raises from the weaver as her skills level up, along with eighteen holidays a year. Sick days are to be tacked onto her term of service, and the weaver is responsible for taxes.^[426] The contractual aspect of benefits and obligations seems "distinctly modern"^[427] and indicates that a slave on a skills track might have opportunities, bargaining power, and relative social security nearly on a par with or exceeding free but low-skill workers living at a subsistence level. The widely attested success of freedmen might have been one possible motivation for contractual self-sale, as a well-connected owner might be able to obtain training for the slave and market access later as a patron to the new freedman.^[428]

In the city of Rome, working people and their slaves lived in insulae, multistory buildings with shops on the ground floor and apartments above.^[424] Most apartments in Rome lacked proper kitchens and might have only a charcoal brazier.^[429] Food therefore was widely prepared and sold by free and slave labor at pubs and bars, inns, and food stalls (tabernae, cauponae, popinae, thermopolia).^[430] But carryout and dining-in establishments were for the lower classes; fine dining was offered in wealthy homes with an enslaved kitchen staff comprising a head chef (archimagirus), sous chef (vicarius supra cocos), and assistants (coci).^[431] Columella decries the extravagance of culinary workshops that produce chefs and professional servers when schools for agriculture don't exist.^[432] Seneca mentions the specialized training required for poultry-carving, and the habitually indignant Juvenal rails about a carver (cultellus) who rehearses dance-like moves and knife-wielding to meet the exacting standards of his teacher.^[433]

In the Roman world, architects were usually freeborn men for hire or freedmen, but the names of some high-profile enslaved architects are known, including Corumbus, the slave of Caesar's friend Balbus,^[434] and Tychicus, whom the emperor Domitian owned.^[435]

Agriculture

Agricultural workers using a reaper on a relief from Roman Gaul

Farm slaves (familia rustica) may have lived in more healthful conditions than their urban counterparts in trade and manufacturing. Roman agricultural writers expect that the workforce of a farm will be mostly slaves,^[411] who are regarded as speaking versions^[436] of the animals they tend. Cato advises farm owners to dispose of old and sickly slaves just as they would worn-out oxen,^[437] and Columella finds it convenient to house slaves next to the cattle or sheep they tend.^[438] Roman law was explicit that farm slaves were to be equated with quadrupeds kept in herds.^[439] They were far less likely to be manumitted than either skilled urban or household slaves.^[440]

Large farms employing slaves for planting and harvesting are found in the eastern empire as well as Europe, and are alluded to in the Christian Gospels.^[441]

The ratio of male slaves to female on a farm was likely to be even more disproportionate than in a household (perhaps as high as 80 percent). The relatively few women would spin and weave wool, make clothes, and work in the kitchen.^[442] The slaves on a farm were managed by a vilicus, who was often a slave himself.^[411] Male slaves who had proven their loyalty and ability to manage others might be allowed to form a long-term relationship with a female fellow slave (conserva) and have children. It was especially desirable for the vilicus to have a quasi marriage (contubernium).^[443] The vilica who supervised food preparation and textile production for the estate^[444] held her position on her own merit and only infrequently was the woman who lived with the vilicus as his wife.^[445]

From the Middle Republic on, unmanageable slaves might be punished by confinement to an ergastulum, a work barracks for those subjected to chaining; Columella says every farm needs one.^[446]

Hard labor

In the Republican era, a punishment that slaves feared was hard labor in chains at mill and bakery operations (pistrina) or work farms (ergastula).^[447] In an early example of condemnation to hard labor, enslaved captives from the war with Hannibal were chained and sent to work in a quarry after they rebelled in 198 BC.^[448]

Prison sentences for citizens were not a part of the Roman criminal justice system; jails were meant for holding prisoners transitionally. Instead, in the Imperial era the convicted would be sentenced to hard labor and sent to camps where they would be put to work in the mines and quarries or the mills.^[449] Damnati in metallum ("those condemned to the mine", or metallici) lost their freedom as citizens (libertas), forfeited their property (bona) to the state, and became servi poenae, slaves as a legal penalty. Their status under the law differed from that of other slaves; they could not buy their freedom, be sold, or be set free. They were expected to live and often die in the mines.^[450] In the later Empire, the permanence of their status was indicated by a tattooing of the forehead.^[451]

Convicts numbering in the tens of thousands were condemned to the notoriously brutal conditions of enslavement in the mines and quarries.^[411] Christians felt that their community was particularly subject to this penalty.^[452] The condemnation of free inhabitants of the Empire to conditions of slavery was among the punishments that degraded the citizenship status of the lower classes—the humiliores who had not held office at the level of decurion or higher and were most of the populace—in ways that would have been intolerable during the Republic.^[453] Slaves could also end up in the mines as punishment, and even in the mines were subject to harsher discipline than the formerly free convicts.^[454] Women could be sentenced to lighter work at the mines.^[455] Some provinces did not have mines, so those condemned as metallici might have to be transported great distances to serve their sentence.^[456]

Convict labor played a role in public works in the municipalities; the quarrying of building stone and fine stone such as alabaster and porphyry; the mining of metals and minerals (such as lime, which was used in Roman concrete, and sulphur), and perhaps in salt works. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, convicts began to be sentenced to pistrina in Rome, a punishment formerly reserved for slaves, and to the new state-owned factories that made clothing for the military and imperial household.^[457] The Imperial novelty of sentencing free people to hard labor may have compensated for a declining supply of war captives to enslave, though ancient sources don't discuss the economic impact as such, which was secondary to demonstrating the "coercive capacities of the state"—the cruelty was the point.^[458]

Not all mining labor was unfree, as indicated for example by an employment contract dating to AD 164. The employee agrees to provide "healthy and vigorous labor" at a gold mine for wages of 70 denarii and a term of service from May to November; if he chooses to quit before that time, 5 sesterces for each day not worked will be deducted from the total.^[459] There is no evidence that convict labor was used in the major mining district in Lusitania, the Imperial gold mines in Dacia, or Imperial quarries in Phrygia; these would have employed the usual combination of free and slave labor.^[460] Mine administration and management was often handled by imperial slaves and freedmen of the familia Caesaris.^[461]

Contrary to modern popular imagery, the Roman navy did not employ galley slaves except in wartime when there was a shortage of free oarsman.^[462] While it's likely that merchants regularly used enslaved oarsmen for shipping, the practice is not well attested.^[463]

Public and imperial slaves

A servus publicus populi Romani was a slave owned not by a private individual, but by the Roman people. Public slaves at Rome worked in temples and other public buildings and were attached especially to the public treasury (aerarium).^[464] Most performed general, basic tasks as servants to the College of Pontiffs, magistrates, and other officials. They were often employed as messengers. They might be assigned to revenue collection, archives, waterworks, firefighting, and other public works.^[465] Less savory tasks also fell to public slaves, such as carrying out executions.^[466] Some well-qualified public slaves did skilled office work such as accounting and secretarial services: "the greater part of the business of Rome seems to have been conducted through slaves."^[467] Often entrusted with managerial roles, they were permitted to earn money for their own use,^[468] and they were paid a yearly stipend from the treasury.^[469]

Because they had an opportunity to prove their merit, public slaves could acquire a reputation and influence, and their chances for manumission were higher. During the Republic, a public slave could be freed by a magistrate's declaration, with the prior authorization of the senate; in the Imperial era, liberty would be granted by the emperor. A public slave acquired his own position and it was not passed down to a son.^[470] Public slaves held testamentary rights that even informally manumitted freedmen were not permitted: a servus publicus could write a will and bequeath up to half his estate, and could also receive bequests.^[471]

Since women did not serve in the government, women were not themselves public slaves in the privileged sense of a servus publicus, though they could be in the possession of the state temporarily as captives or confiscated property,^[472] and as the quasi-marital partner of a public slave would share some of his privileges.^[473]

The term "imperial slave" is broader and includes not only slaves owned by the emperor and serving in the imperial bureaucracy but also more generally the familia Caesaris, the slaves employed in the emperor's household, including those on his wife's staff. Women were therefore part of the familia Caesaris.^[411] Public and imperial slaves were among those most likely to have a contubernium, an informally recognized union that could become a legal marriage if both parties were manumitted.^[475]

Because public slaves primarily assisted the senatorial functions of government, the institution waned in the Imperial era^[476] as the emperor's own slaves assumed their administrative roles. Vast numbers of imperial slaves helped drive the large-scale public works of the Roman Empire; for example, Frontinus (1st century AD) says that personnel for the city of Rome's aqueducts alone numbered 700.^[477]

Municipal slaves were owned by the municipalities and served similar functions as the public slaves of the Roman state. Municipal public slaves could be freed by their municipal council.^[468] Imperial and municipal slaves are better documented than most slaves because their higher status prompted them to identify themselves as such in inscriptions.^[478]

Business managers and agents

A slave whose master gave him “free administration” (libera administratio) could travel and act independently on business.^[479] One common managerial role was the institor, someone who ran a business that remained fully owned by the principal.^[480] The institor (translated loosely as "agent")^[481]—who might be the business owner's slave, another person's slave, a freedman, or a freeborn person such as his son—could operate a branch business in the provinces on behalf of a business owner living in Italy, or in Italy on behalf of a provincial owner.^[482] Other managerial positions regularly held by slaves were actor, a general term for manager or agent;^[483] vilicus, originally the overseer on an agricultural estate but later in an urban setting a general supervisor; and dispensator, a keeper of accounts who handled disbursements in the household and served generally as its steward.^[484] Because Roman contract law permitted only direct agency, slaves were placed in these roles for the very reason that they lacked independent personhood and legally could act only as an instrument of their master rather than as a third-party representative.^[485] Dispensatores in particular could expect to become wealthy and be manumitted; their wives^[n] were often free.^[487] Although these most lucrative financial positions were held most often by male slaves, inscriptions also record women in the role of dispensatrix.^[488]

The owner who set aside money or property as a peculium for the slave to manage in effect created a company with limited liability.^[489] But the agency of slaves in conducting business could raise complex legal issues, with hazards for the slave and potential blowback for the master. If a slave was accused of fraud, for example, or a suit was brought in civil court, the master faced a dilemma: he could acknowledge his ownership and defend the slave, making himself liable for paying damages if they lost the case, or he could decline to defend the slave^[490] and surrender all claims to ownership and future patronage.^[491] The slave was therefore vulnerable to the master's calculations on the relative advantages of defending him or not.^[492]

This situation was more than hypothetical; some local laws in the provinces seem aimed at dealing with the legal peculiarities of the relative freedom Romans gave slaves at this operational level. A city in Caria, for example, spelled out that if a Roman slave violated local banking regulations, the owner could either pay a fine or punish the slave; the punishment was specified as fifty blows and six months of prison.^[493] If the slave had to testify in cases involving contract law to defend either his master or his own actions, there is no indication that he was exempt from the law that his testimony could be accepted only under torture; the slave therefore had a compelling incentive to meet the most scrupulously high standards in conducting business.^[494]

Slaves may even have been routinely preferred to paid free labor in areas of employment such as banking and accounting. At times, an estate might be managed by slaves while free persons provided manual labor.^[495] Households that are settings for narratives in the Christian Gospels also show privileged slaves acting as estate managers and agents, collecting rent and produce from tenant farmers, or investing money and conducting business on behalf of their master,^[496] as well as serving as oikonomoi (household managers or "economists") in charge of allocating and disbursing food and funds to other members of the familia.^[497]

Gladiators, entertainers, and prostitutes

Gladiators, entertainers such as actors and dancers, and prostitutes were among those persons in Rome who existed in the social limbo of infamia or disrepute, regardless of whether they were enslaved or technically free. Like slaves, they could not bring a case in court nor have someone represent them; like freedmen, they were not eligible to hold public office.^[498] In a legal sense, infamia was an official loss of standing for a freeborn person as a result of misconduct, and could be imposed by a censor or praetor as a legal penalty.^[499] Those who displayed themselves to entertain others had surrendered the right of citizens not to subject their body to use: "They lived by providing sex, violence, and laughter for the pleasure of the public."^[500]

Those deemed infames had few legal protections even if they were Roman citizens who were not subject to being traded as slaves.^[501] They were liable to corporal punishment of the kinds usually reserved for slaves.^[502] Their daily life probably differed little from that of a slave within the same area of employment, though they had control of their income and more freedom to make decisions about their living arrangements. Their lack of legal standing arose from the kind of work they did—perceived as a morally suspect manipulation of and simultaneous surrender to others' desires for pleasure—not the fact that they worked alongside slaves, since that would be true of nearly all forms of labor in Rome. Lenones (pimps) and lanistae (trainers or managers of gladiators) shared the disreputable status of their workers.^[503]

Actors were moreover subversive because the theatre was a place for free speech. Actors were known to mock politicians from the stage, and there was established law from the 4th century BC and into the late Republic that they could be subjected to physical punishment as slaves were.^[504] The comic playwright known in English as Terence was a slave who was manumitted because of his literary abilities.^[505]

In the Late Republic, about half the gladiators who fought in Roman arenas were slaves, though the most skilled were often free volunteers.^[506] Freeborn gladiators erased the distinction between citizen and slave by taking an oath to subject their bodies to physical abuse, including being branded and beaten, both marks of slavery.^[507] Enslaved gladiators who enjoyed success in the arena were occasionally rewarded with manumission but remained in a state of infamia.

Prostitutes in the city of Rome had to be registered with the aediles,^[508] and prostitution was legal throughout the Roman Empire in all periods before Christian hegemony.^[509] However, Romans saw prostitution as worse than slavery, since slavery did not inherently or permanently damage the slave's personal morality, and so a woman's contract might include a clause specifying that she was not to be prostituted.^[510] Prostitutes who worked in brothels (lupanaria) were more likely to be slaves than were streetwalkers, who might start selling sex under economic duress and be self-employed. A few freedwomen who were former prostitutes amassed enough wealth to become public benefactors, but most enslaved brothel workers are likely to have received little or no payment for their own use.^[511] Male prostitutes also existed.

Selling a slave against his will to a training camp for gladiators was a punishment,^[512] and the emperor Hadrian banned the sale of slaves to pimps or gladiator managers "without cause," indicating that prostitution and violence in the arena were considered beyond the pale of standard servitude.^[513] Legislation under Christian emperors likewise forbade masters to employ slaves as stage actors against their will or to prevent actors from retiring from the theatre.^[514] Sexual slavery was forbidden by the Church, and Christianization was a factor in curtailing or altogether ending traditional spectacles and games (ludi) such as gladiator matches and public theatrical performances.^[515]

Serfdom

By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labour.^[516] The status of these tenant farmers (coloni) steadily eroded. Because the tax system implemented by Diocletian assessed taxes based on both land and the inhabitants of that land, it became administratively inconvenient for peasants to leave the land where they were counted in the census.^[516] In 332 AD Constantine issued legislation that greatly restricted the rights of the coloni and tied them to the land.

As a result, from the 3rd century onward, differentiating a slave, a worker hired under contract, and a peasant tied to the land became at best academic, as socio-legal status devolved into a bifurcation of honestiores and humiliores: the tiny percentage of the populace who had access to power and wealth, having attained honors to the rank of decurion or higher; and those of humbler free status who were increasingly subjected to forms of control reserved for slaves in the Republican era. By the 5th century, the legal status that had distinguished free citizen from slave had all but vanished; what remained was the honestiores who held legally defined privilege, and the humiliores subject to exploitation.^[517] Some^[who?] see these laws as the beginning of medieval serfdom in Europe.

Demography

Demographic studies of antiquity are plagued by incomplete data requiring extrapolation and conjecture. Conclusions should be understood as relative, and scholars who employ demographic models typically issue caveats. For example:

For Italy of the period from the mid-sixties to 30 BC it has been assumed that 100,000 new slaves were needed annually, and that for the empire as a whole from 50 BC to AD 150 in excess of 500,000 new slaves were required each year, on the hypothesis that the slave population was ten million in a total imperial population of 50 million.None of these figures is capable of proof. [italic added] ^[518]

Estimates for the proportion of slaves in the population of the Roman Empire therefore vary.

The percentage of the population of Italy who were slaves by the end of the 1st century BC is estimated at about 20% to 30% of Italy's population, upwards of one to two million slaves.^[519]^[520]^[521]^[522] One study estimated that for the empire as a whole during the period 260–425 AD, the slave population was just under five million, representing 10–15% of the total population of 50–60 million inhabitants. An estimated 49% of all slaves were owned by the elite, who made up less than 1.5% of the empire's population. About half of all slaves worked in the countryside where they were a small percentage of the population except on some large agricultural, especially imperial, estates; the remainder of the other half were a significant percentage – 25% or more – in towns and cities as domestics and workers in commercial enterprises and manufacturers.^[523]

Slaves (especially foreigners) had higher mortality rates and lower birth rates than natives and were sometimes even subjected to mass expulsions.^[524] The average recorded age at death for the slaves of the city of Rome was extraordinarily low: seventeen and a half years (17.2 for males; 17.9 for females).^[525] By comparison, average life expectancy at birth for the population as a whole was in the mid-twenties.^[526]

Race and ethnicity

Roman slavery was not based on race,^[528]^[529] particularly not race as characterized by skin color,^[530] with the caveat that modern definitions of "race" may not align with ancient expressions of the concept. Slaves were drawn from all over Europe and the Mediterranean, including but not limited to Gaul, Hispania, North Africa, Syria, Germany, Britannia, the Balkans, and Greece.^[524]

However, Greek and Roman ethnographers did attribute a set of characteristics to peoples based on their understanding, or misunderstanding, of cultural customs that differed from their own, and on where a people lived, believing that climate and environmental factors affected temperament.^[531] Place of origin (natio) was one of the pieces of information that had to be disclosed at time of sale. Slaves from certain "nations" were thought to perform better at tasks that might be of value to the prospective buyer.^[532] The Roman scholar Varro stated that "in buying human beings as slaves, we pay a higher price for one that is better by nationality."^[533] The association of job and natio could be quite specific; Bithynians were touted as litter-bearers^[534]^[535] and desired as a status symbol.^[536]^[537]

Ethnic stereotypes among the Romans included the belief that Asiatic Greeks, Jews, and Syrians were by nature more susceptible to living as slaves.^[538] Asia Minor was such an important source of slaves that the typical slave was stereotyped as a Cappadocian or Phrygian.^[539] In practice, Jews were "both slaves and slaveholders. They were the slaves of Jews and non-Jews and owned both Jewish and non-Jewish slaves” throughout the Classical period.^[540] Historian of Christianity Dale Martin has noted, “The relevant factors for slave structures and the existence of slavery itself were geographical and socio-economic and had little if anything to do with ethnicity or religion.”^[541]

Quality of life

The "gross power differential" inherent in slavery is not peculiar to Rome, but as a universal characteristic of the institution, it defines Roman practice as it does that of other slave cultures: "slaves stood powerless before their masters' or mistresses' whims and presumably remained in a perpetual state of unease, not necessarily able to anticipate when the next act of cruelty or degradation would come yet certain it would."^[542] Many if not most slaves could expect to be subjected to relentless labor; corporal punishment or physical abuse in varying degrees of severity; sexual exploitation; or the caprices of owners in selling or threatening to sell them.^[543] Cato the Elder was a particularly harsh "slave-driver" whose exploitation was "unmitigated by any consideration of the needs of the slave as a human being."^[544]

The enslaved who were traded on the open market might find themselves transported great distances across the empire: the epitaph of a slave woman in Roman Spain records her home as having been in Northern Italy;^[545] a Cretan woman was traded between two Romans in Dacia;^[546] a ten-year-old girl named Abaskantis, taken from Galatia, was sold to a buyer from Alexandria, Egypt, a destination about 1,500 miles from her home.^[547] The conditions experienced by the hundreds of thousands traded in Roman antiquity have been described as "personal degradation and humiliation, cultural disorientation, material deprivation, severance of familial bonds, emotional and psychological trauma."^[548]

At the same time, despite this "natal alienation," slaves could not have been completely deprived by their masters of agency in carrying out everyday actions; even if the ongoing negotiation of power was grossly asymmetrical, as human beings slaves would have sought emotional connections and ways to improve their conditions in the moment.^[550] No single picture of the "typical" Roman slave's life emerges from the widely ranging conditions of work performed by slaves and the complex distinctions of legal status that affected the terms of their service, their prospects of manumission, and the degree to which they enjoyed rights if freed.^[551] The stratification of free Roman society manifests also in slave society, from penal slaves (servi poenae) at the bottom to the sometimes wealthy and influential slaves of the imperial house (servi caesaris) at the top, with an in-between range of slaves whose skills and knowledge gave them social value not defined by law.^[552]

Literary sources were mostly written by or for slaveholders, and inscriptions set up by slaves and freedmen preserve only glimpses of how they saw themselves.^[553] Elite literature indicates that how a Roman treated a slave was viewed as evidence of the master's character. Although the judicial torture of slaves was standard practice, a zeal for torture, particularly of a slave known to be loyal and truthful, was considered contemptible.^[554] Masters were expected to be neither gratuitously cruel and wrathful nor overly affectionate and attached to a slave. The type of the saeva domina (cruel slave mistress) emerges from Roman literature as the woman who flies into a rage at her handmaids' minor faults, stabbing them with pins or biting them and then punishing them with a beating.^[555] But Cicero was concerned that his grief over the death of Sositheus, a companionable young slave who had served him as a reader (anagnostes), might appear to others as excessive.^[556]

Plutarch writes approvingly that Cato bought slaves for their robust utility and never paid extra for mere good looks; but he finds fault with Cato for using his slaves like "beasts of burden" and then selling them off when they started to age "instead of feeding them when they were useless"—the implication being that a "good" master would provide care.^[557]^[558] Aulus Gellius in turn records an anecdote about Plutarch that exemplifies what slaveholders meant by restraint and moderate behavior. Plutarch owned a slave who had a philosophical education, despite or because of which he had developed a rebellious character. When Plutarch “for some offense or other” ordered him stripped and whipped, instead of screaming the slave began to shout that to act in anger in such a way was shameful for someone with philosophical pretensions. Plutarch simply replied, with utter composure, that he wasn't angry; they could continue their discussion along with the lashes.^[559] In one of the Moral Epistles often cited for its humane considerations of the slave as a human being, Seneca expressed the prevailing utilitarian view^[560] that a slave who was treated well would perform a better job than a poorly treated one.

Healthcare

Mentions in ancient literature of medical care for slaves are infrequent. The medical writer Rufus of Ephesus has one title among his works that stands out as not self-evidently medical: On the Purchase of Slaves, which presumably gave advice to the trade on assessing slave fitness and possibly their care,^[561] since health defects could invalidate a sale.^[562] Ongoing care would have depended on the utility of keeping workers healthy to maximize productivity, and at times on the owner's humane impulses or attachment to a particular slave. Pliny the Younger indicates that slaves did receive care from medici (medical attendants or physicians), but he observes that while “slaves and free persons differ not at all when they are in ill health, the free receive gentler and more merciful treatment.”^[563]

Pliny himself had sent his slave Zosimus, for whom he expresses his affection and esteem at length, to Egypt to seek therapy for a lung disease that had him coughing up blood. Zosimus was restored to health and at some point was manumitted, but the symptoms later returned. Pliny then wrote to ask if he could send Zosimus for rehab in the more healthful climate of a friend's country estate in a part of Gaul that is today the south of France.^[564]

Individual acts of compassion by slaveholders stand apart as exceptions. The practice of abandoning sick slaves on Rome's Tiber Island, where a temple to the healing god Aesculapius was located, led to such homelessness and contagion that the emperor Claudius decreed any slave who survived abandonment could not be reclaimed by his owner and was automatically free. Law was also enacted under Claudius that criminalized the killing of a sick or disabled slave as murder even by his owner.^[565]

While Roman law had no provision for medical malpractice, a physician who harmed or killed a slave through incompetence could be sued by the owner for property damage.^[566]

Physicians

Medicine was held in higher regard in Greece as a technē (art or skill) than it was in Rome. The best Greek medical schools did not admit slaves, and some city-states restricted slaves to practicing medicine only on fellow slaves. Though denied advanced theoretical study, slaves were part of a two-tier system to deliver care to the lower classes, and could receive often extensive training as physicians' assistants, becoming well versed in practical medicine.^[567]

At Rome, medicine was considered an unsuitable occupation for the upper classes because it requires tending to the needs of another's body.^[568] Elite households were attended by Greek physicians, either one of great prestige enticed to Rome with privileges and an offer of citizenship,^[569] or a staff of freedmen or enslaved medici.^[570] During the reign of Augustus, the celebrated Publius Decimus Eros Merula of Assisi was an enslaved clinical physician, surgeon, and eye specialist who eventually bought his freedom for 50,000 sesterces and left a fortune of 800,000.^[571] There were also free itinerant doctors who could be hired to provide care to households that lacked the means or desire to have a full-time medical attendant. Some slaves might assist with healthcare as nurses, midwives, medics, or orderlies.^[572] During the Imperial era, the desire of freedmen to acquire medical training was such that it was exploited by scam medical schools.^[573]

The physician Galen, who came to Rome from Pergamum, developed his surgical techniques attending to the injuries of enslaved gladiators, and recorded a case study of one gladiator who had suffered a grievous wound to the abdomen but made a complete recovery after a high-risk omentectomy.^[574] From the perspective of the physician, the diversity of the city of Rome and its slave population made it an “exceptional field of observation”.^[575]

Cicero and Tiro

Among Cicero's collected letters are those he wrote to one of his administrative slaves, the well-educated Tiro. Cicero remarked that he wrote to Tiro "for the sake of keeping to [his] established practice"^[576] and occasionally revealed personal care and concern for his slave, whose education he had taken into his own hands.^[577] He sought Tiro's opinions and seems to have expected him to speak with exceptional freedom,^[578] though in collecting Cicero's papers for publication, Tiro did not publish his own replies along with those of other correspondents.^[579] While these letters suggest a personal connection between master and slave, each letter contains a direct command, suggesting that Cicero relied on familiarity to ensure performance and loyalty from Tiro.^[580]

Tiro was either a verna or alumnus,^[581] part of the household from birth or childhood, and as Cicero's trusted secretary, he would have been afforded better living and working conditions than most slaves. He was freed before his master's death and was successful enough to retire on his own country estate, where he died at the age of 99.^[582]^[583]^[584]

Names

As a freedman, Cicero's slave Tiro became Marcus Tullius Tiro, adopting Cicero's family name. The use of a single male name in an inscription or legal document is usually taken to indicate that the person was a slave.^[585] By the Late Republic, the nomenclature of freeborn Roman men had become normalized as the tria nomina: praenomen, first name; gentilicium, the name of the family or clan (gens); and cognomen, a distinguishing last name that originally was earned by an individual but then might be passed down, added to, or replaced.^[o] When a slave was manumitted, he was renamed as free by the use of the tria nomina, most often appending his single name to the praenomen and gentilic name of his former master, now his patron.^[586] The use of a cognomen as a distinguishing third name became widespread among freedmen before it was standard for the upper class.^[587]

For example, the silversmith Publius Curtilius Agatho (d. early 1st century AD), known from his funerary monument, would been called by his Greek name Agatho (“the Good”) as a slave. Upon manumission he appended his patron's Latin names, Publius Curtilius, to create his full citizen name.^[588] Naturalized citizens followed this same convention, which might result in a tria nomina construction with two Latin names and a strikingly non-Latin cognomen.^[p]

Throughout the Republican era, slaves in the city of Rome might bear a name that was also in use by free Italians or was common as a Roman praenomen, such as Marcus, or diminutives of the name (Marcio, Marcellus).^[590] Salvius, for example, was a very common name for slaves that was also in wide use as a free praenomen in Rome and throughout Italy during this time, morphing into names for freedpersons such as Salvianus, Salvillus (feminine Salvilla), and possibly Salvitto.^[591]

Epitaph for a Narcissus, one of the most popular Greek names for slaves

Ancient Roman scholars thought that in earliest times slaves had been given the first name of their master suffixed with -por, perhaps to be taken as a form of puer, “boy.”^[592] Male slaves were often addressed as puer^[593] regardless of age; a slave was one who was never emancipated into adulthood and thus never allowed to become fully a man (vir). Names such as Marcipor, sometimes contracted to Marpor, are attested,^[594] but rather than being suffixed to the master's name, the -por may have marked someone as a slave when his name was also in common use for free men.^[595]

In the Late Republic and Early Empire, more differentiation between slave and free names seems to have been desired.^[596] In Cicero's day, Greek names were the trend.^[597] Fanciful Greek names such as Hermes, Narcissus, and Eros were popular among the Romans but had not been used among free Greeks for either themselves or their slaves.^[598] Several of Cicero's slaves are known by name, mainly from the extensive collection of his letters; those with Greek names include the readers (anagnostes) Sositheus and Dionysius; Pollex, a footman; and Acastus.^[599] The slaves and freedmen Cicero mentions by name are most often his secretaries and literary assistants; he rarely refers by name to slaves whose duties were humbler.^[600]

Slave names at times may reflect ethnic origin; in the early Republic, Oscan names such as Paccius and Papus occur.^[602] But the distribution of slave names as recorded by inscriptions and papyri are cautions against assuming a slave's ethnicity based on the linguistic origin of their name.^[603] The first-century BC scholar Varro noted that some slaves had geographical names, such as Iona from Ionia, and was likely right to think these names indicated places where they were traded and not their ethnic origin, which by law had to be stated separately in sales documents.^[604]

Among the mismatched appellations found in surviving documents are the Greek names Hermes for a German, Paramone for a Jewish woman whose child was named Jacob, Argoutis for a Gaul, and Aphrodisia for a Sarmatian woman.^[605] In late antiquity, Christians might bear Greek names expressing a willing servility as a religious value, such as Theodoulos, “God's slave” (theos, "god"; doulos, "slave").^[606] German slaves memorialized in the family tomb of the Statilii in Rome mostly have Latin names such as Felix, Castus, Clemens, Urbanus, and Strenuus; two are named Nothus and Pothus, Latinized forms of Greek names.^[607] Greek names became so common for slaves that they began to be regarded as inherently servile; this taint may be why home-reared vernae, who generally had enhanced opportunities, are statistically more likely to have received a Latin name that would help them “pass” if they were manumitted.^[608]

Gladiators are sometimes memorialized by what appear to be “stage names,” such as Pardus ("the Leopard") or Smaragdus ("Emerald").^[609] A slave who took a path other than citizen integration might also adopt a new name. The “Salvius” who was the first leader of the Sicilian slave revolt in 104 BC restyled himself as Tryphon.^[610]

In Latin epitaphs, a slave commemorating his deceased master sometimes refers to him by praenomen with the pronoun noster, for example “our Marcus”. In speaking of himself to a person of higher status, a slave might identify by his role in relation to his master's first name; Cicero records a conversation in which a slave owned by Mark Antony is asked “Who are you?” (Quis tu?) and replies “The tabellarius [courier] from Marcus” (a Marco tabellarius).^[611] The enslaved potters who made the earliest Arretine ware signed their work with their name and the possessive form of their master's name; for example, Cerdo M. Perenni, “Marcus Perennius's Cerdo”.^[612] A standard phrase in sales contracts refers to the slave “named so-and-so, or by whatever name he/she is called”^[613]—the slave's name was subject to the master's whim.

Clothing

Certain items of clothing or adornment were restricted by law to freeborn people entitled to wear them as markers of high status; “slave clothing” (vestis servilis) was clothing of lesser quality that lacked distinguishing features^[614]—slaves did not wear clothing meant to identify them as such.^[615] The clothing of slaves was determined primarily by the kind of work they did and secondarily by the wealth of the household they belonged to.^[616] Most working slaves would have been given clothing that looked like that of free people who did similar work; Diocletian's edict on price controls (301 AD) lists clothes for “common people or slaves” as a single category.^[617] In a crowd, slaves would not have been immediately legible as unfree,^[618] as the everyday attire of most people was a tunic. Men wore a shorter tunic, while the tunics of women covered the legs.^[619]

In depictions of domestic scenes, tunics of handmaids (ancillae) are sometimes shorter, reaching to mid-calf, while the mistress's tunic falls to her feet.^[620] In a mosaic from Sidi Ghrib, the handmaids wear ankle boots,^[621] and ancillary hairstyles are simpler than those of the centrally depicted mistress.^[622] Female slaves tucked in the loose fabric of their tunics under the bust and shaped the sleeves with belting to give themselves more freedom of movement for their tasks.^[623] An ancilla in one of the comedies of Plautus is mocked "for dressing above her station" and wearing bronze rings.^[624]

Domestic slaves who would be visible to the family and their guests were given garments that met their owners’ standards for pleasing appearance and quality.^[616] Presentability was desired for slaves who served as personal attendants. Slaves wore few accessories but were themselves an extension of their masters’ accessories. Because Roman clothing lacked structured pockets, the slaves who always accompanied the well-to-do on excursions carried anything needed.^[626] They might hold parasols or wield fans to shield the privileged from the heat.^[627] They went with them to the public baths to watch over their valuable clothing, since theft was common in the dressing areas. At dinner parties, guests took off their outdoor shoes and put on light house shoes (soleas), so a rich attendee would bring a slave to wrangle their footwear.^[628]

Clothing for laborers was meant to be economical, durable, and practical. A relief from Roman Germany shows mine workers wearing a tunic and an apron of leather “feathers” (pteruges).^[629] Columella recommended weather-resistant clothing of leather, patchwork, and “thick shoulder capes” for farm workers.^[630] A male farm slave working for the stern and frugal Cato could expect to be issued a tunic and a cloak (sagum) every other year, and would have to turn in the old outfit so it could be recycled for patchwork.^[631] The fragility of textiles makes them rare in the archaeological record, but a store of regularly cut pieces measuring about 10 by 15 centimeters from Roman Egypt, found at the Mons Claudianus quarry, is evidence of organized patchworking.^[632]

One of the causes of the Sicilian slave rebellion of 135 BC, which broke out among rural workers, was the master's refusal to accept responsibility for providing clothing. When the enslaved herdsmen came asking, the master, Damophilos, told them to get their own clothes, so they did—by banding together to raid small farms and waylay travelers. When violence escalated to full-scale insurrection, Damophilos was among the first to be killed.^[633]

At one point, the Roman senate debated whether to require slaves to wear a sort of uniform to distinguish them as such, but eventually decided that was a bad idea: it would make the enslaved more conscious of having a group identity, and they would see how strong their numbers were.^[634]

Resistance and control

Open rebellion and mass violence arose among the large population of the enslaved only sporadically across the millennium of ancient Roman history.^[635] A more persistent form of resistance was escape; as Moses Finley remarked, "Fugitive slaves are almost an obsession in the sources."^[636] Runaway slaves were considered criminals and were harshly punished.

Resistance might occur on a daily basis at a low-grade, even comic level. Cato, without suspecting that this might be deliberate mischief, was concerned that his taking of the auspices at home, which required ritual silence, would be vitiated by the farting of his napping slaves.^[637] Plutarch tells the story of how one Pupius Piso, having ordered his slave not to speak unless spoken to, waited in embarrassment and in vain for the guest of honor to arrive at his dinner party. The slave had received the guest's regrets, but the master didn't ask him to speak, so he didn't.^[638]

A master might even seek to extend his control over a slave beyond his own death; although wills were a common way to manumit slaves, they sometimes included clauses that expressly prohibited the freeing of certain slaves perceived as unworthy.^[639]

Rebellions

The earliest slave uprisings occurred during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the Second Punic War, when many slaves held by the Romans would have been soldiers captured from the armies of Hannibal, and when at times as many as half the Roman male population of fighting age would have been away serving in the military.^[640] The Augustan historian Livy is the main but not always a clear source for these uprisings.^[641]

The first recorded rebellion comes in 217 BC, when an informer reported that twenty-five slaves were conspiring on the Campus Martius; they were punished in the earliest securely attested instance of crucifixion among the Romans.^[642] In 198 BC, Carthaginian captives rebelled at Setia, which they may have held briefly before being met with force and fleeing, though two thousand were captured and executed. They next made an attempt on Praeneste but were again defeated, resulting in the execution of another five hundred.^[643] This uprising prompted more policing of the streets and the building of places of confinement.^[644] Two years later, it took a full legion to quell an uprising in Etruria, after which the leaders were flogged and crucified.^[645]

The last rebellion of this period broke out in 185 BC in Apulia among herdsman, who were also to play a leading role in the first two Servile Wars. The Apulian shepherds were accused of banditry (latrocinium), and 7,000 were condemned to death; some escaped.^[646]

The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC) chronicled the three major slave rebellions of the Roman Republic known as the Servile Wars, the first two of which originated in Rome's first province, Sicily.^[647] Diodorus gives the total number of slaves participating in the first rebellion as 200,000 (elsewhere, the figure is given as 60,000–70,000), and 40,000 in the second.^[648] While these large round numbers in ancient sources seem inflated, their significance here lies in indicating the scope of rebellion.^[649]

First Servile War (135–132 BC)

The First Servile War began as a protest by enslaved herdsmen against deprivation and mistreatment, localized on the "ranch" (latifundium)^[650] of Damophilos in Enna, but soon spread to include slaves in the thousands.^[651] They attained a major strategic objective in controlling both Enna and Agrigentum, two towns key to holding Sicily that Rome and Carthage had fought over repeatedly during the first two Punic Wars.^[652] To assure a food supply, they refrained from laying waste to the farms around their strongholds and did not target small farmers.^[653] They were militarily capable of mounting direct confrontations with Roman troops, which were brought to bear speedily.^[654]

The leader, Eunus, maintained communal cohesion and motivation on the model of the Hellenistic kings, even restyling himself by name as Antiochus and minting coins.^[655] Slave families formed a community at the stronghold of Tauromenium.^[656] The rebel slaves were able to sustain their movement within the difficult Sicilian environment^[657] for four years—eight or more, in some accounts^[658]—before Roman forces managed a decisive defeat, primarily by besieging and starving out Tauromenium.

Second Servile War (104–100 BC)

The Second Servile War had its roots in the piratical kidnapping that subjected freeborn people to random seizure and enslavement mostly in the eastern Mediterranean.^[659] People who had been enslaved illegally in this way had a right to reclaim their freedom under the recently passed Lex de Plagiariis, a law concerning piracy and the slave trade associated with it.^[660] The praetor assigned to Sicily, Licinius Nerva, had been holding hearings and releasing the enslaved in numbers great enough to offend the privilege of the slaveholding landowners, who pressured him to desist—whereupon the slaves revolted.^[661] The rebellion started in two households and soon encompassed 22,000 slaves.^[662]

Their leader, whose slave name was Salvius, adopted the name Tryphon, perhaps in honor of Diodotus Tryphon to rally the many enslaved Cilicians among the rebels.^[663] He organized the slaves into cavalry and infantry units, besieged Morgantina, and along with the slave general Athenion^[664] had a string of early successes against Roman troops as the number of rebels grew to "immense proportions".^[665] Unlike the first rebellion, however, they were unable to hold towns or maintain supply lines, and seem to have lacked the long-term strategic objectives of Eunus; the less focused, at times incompetent Roman response enabled them to prolong the rebellion.^[666]

Eunus and Salvius each had held a privileged place in his household when enslaved; both Eunus and Athenion are noted as having been born into freedom. These experiences may have enhanced their ability to lead through articulating a vision of life beyond slavery.^[667]

Third Servile War (73–71 BC)

The so-called Third Servile War was briefer; the cause, "to break the bonds of their own grievous oppression".^[669] But its leader, Spartacus, arguably the most famous slave from all antiquity and idealized by Marxist historians and creative artists, has captured the popular imagination over the centuries to such an extent that an understanding of the rebellion beyond his tactical victories is hard to retrieve from the various ideologies it has served.^[670]

The rebellion broke out on a relatively trivial scale, only seventy-four gladiators from a training school in Capua. The two best-known leaders are the Thracian fighter Spartacus, who in some accounts is said to have served formerly in the Roman auxiliary troops, and the Gaul Crixus. They entrenched themselves at Vesuvius and quickly dispatched the forces of three successive praetors as the insurgency grew to 70,000 men "with alarming speed," both slaves and free herdsmen joining up,^[671] ultimately reaching a force of 120,000.^[672]

Spartacus's plan seems to have been to head to northern Italy, where the men could disperse and head to their countries of origin, free; but the Gauls were keen on plundering first and spent weeks ravaging southern Italy, giving the Romans a more urgent reason and time^[673] to make up for their "tardy and ineffective" initial response.^[674] Crixus and his Gauls were soon dealt with, but Spartacus got as far as north as Cisalpine Gaul before turning back for a possible assault on Rome, about which he then changed his mind. After more rebel military successes without clear objectives, the senate gave Marcus Crassus special command of the consular forces, and the tide of the war turned.^[675]

Spartacus headed south, hoping to cross to Sicily and "resuscitate the embers" of the slave rebellion three decades earlier; instead, the pirates who had accepted payment for transport set sail without him.^[676] After some weeks of increasingly successful fighting, Crassus obtained a victory in which Spartacus was said to have died, though his body was not identified; 5,000 fugitives fled north and ran into troops led by Pompey, who "annihilated" them; and Crassus concluded his victory by crucifying 6,000 captured rebels along the Appian Way.^[677]

Later uprisings

The last slave rebellion of the Republic was put down at Thurii in southern Italy by Gaius Octavius, the father of the future emperor Augustus. In 60 BC, Octavius received a commission from the senate to hunt down fugitives who were alleged (emphasis on "alleged") to be the remnants of Spartacus's men and slaves who had been drawn into the Catilinarian conspiracy.^[678]

Though they failed, the Servile Wars left Romans with a deep-seated fear of slave uprisings^[679] that resulted in stricter laws regulating the keeping of slaves and harsher measures and punishments to keep enslaved people under control.^[680] In AD 10, the senate decreed that if a master was killed by one or a group of his slaves, all the slaves "under the same roof" were to be tortured and executed.^[681] In the early Imperial period, the slave uprisings against Lucius Pedanius Secundus, who was killed by one of his household slaves (all 400 were executed), and Larcius Maceo, a praetor who was murdered in his private bath, occasioned panic among slaveholders but failed to catch fire as the Sicilian rebellions had.^[682] None of the sporadic attempts at rebellion over the next centuries encompassed nearly as much territory as that led by Spartacus.

Fugitive slave-catching

Fugitive slaves were considered criminals, whose crime was theft of the owner's property—themselves.^[683] From the perspective of owners, runaway slaves not only caused economic harm but stoked fears of a return to the social upheavals of the Servile Wars.^[684] The harboring of fugitive slaves was against the law, and professional slave-catchers (fugitivarii) were hired to hunt down runaways. Advertisements were posted with precise descriptions of escaped slaves, and offered rewards.^[685]

Slave-catching was an unusually intensive police activity in that it involved coordination among all four forms of policing in the Roman Empire, which otherwise operated more or less independently: civilian or private security forces; the imperial guard; troops under the command of provincial governors, or municipal public slaves used as a quasi-police force; and the Roman army.^[686] Augustus himself boasted in his official record of achievements of having 30,000 fugitive slaves rounded up and returned for punishment to their owners.^[687]

Although the Apostle Paul expresses sympathy for runaway slaves, and some Christians seem to have taken in runaways, fugitives were still a concern as the Empire was Christianized. The Synod of Gangra in the mid-4th century placed any Christian who encouraged slaves to escape under anathema.^[688]

The fugitive in Roman culture

In a society where slavery was not based on race, a slave who escaped could hope to blend in and go unnoticed among the free.^[689] One of Cicero's slaves on his literary staff, named Dionysius, ran away and took several books with him. Although the eventual fate of this Dionysius is unknown, two years later he remained free.^[690] Certain temples in Greece had long offered asylum to slaves who ran away, and in the Imperial era, a fugitive could claim asylum at the foot of the emperor's statue.^[691]

A fugitive slave is the protagonist of a tale that became familiar from the fables of Aesop, who according to tradition was himself traded as a slave. The earliest written version of Androclus and the lion is narrated by Aulus Gellius (2nd century AD). Androclus is serving in the household of the Roman proconsul for the province of Africa, who had him beaten unjustly every day. Driven to escape, he seeks solitude in the wilderness, resigned to death by starvation, which would at least bring him peace. When he comes upon a lion nursing its wounded paw, he removes the thorn causing pain, thereby becoming a medicus for the beast. The two live as companions in the wild for three years, with the lion providing food.

One day when the lion is out on the hunt, Androclus goes walking and is captured by soldiers, taken back to Rome, and condemned to the beasts in the arena. But as it turns out, the lion he had befriended has also been captured, and instead of attacking him fawns over him affectionately. Caligula himself is among the spectators, and the emperor pardons both Androclus and the lion, who are thereafter spotted strolling freely about the city as companions. Gellius sketches the story within the specific framework of a Roman slave's experience: desperation, escape, capture and punishment, and the fantasy of mercy and freedom.^[693]

The experiences of captives, slaves, and fugitives were on constant display in Roman culture.^[694] The Captivi ("Captives") of Plautus is a comedy, but with "a plot featuring kidnapping, enslavement, chaining, direct discussions of flight, and torturous punishments … that were extreme enough to serve as an example to other slaves.”^[695]

Punishments

As the Romans increased the numbers of slaves they held, their fear of them grew, as did the severity of discipline.^[696] Cato the Elder whipped the household slaves for even small mistakes and kept his enslaved agricultural workers in chains during the winter.^[697] In the Satyricon, the immensely specialized household staff of the fictional freedman Trimalchio includes a pair of torturers who stand by with whips.^[698] The physician Galen observed slaves being kicked, beaten with fists, and having their teeth knocked out or their eyes gouged out, witnessing the impromptu blinding of one slave by means of a reed pen. Galen himself had been taught not to strike a slave with his hand but always to use a reed whip or strap.^[699] The future emperor Commodus at age 12 is supposed to have ordered one of his bath attendants to be thrown into the furnace, though this order may not have been carried out.^[700]

In his treatise De Ira ("On Anger"), Seneca offers a lurid anecdote^[701] on the proportionality of punishment, famously retold, referenced,^[702]^[703] and analyzed.^[704] At a dinner party hosted by Vedius Pollio with Augustus in attendance, a young slave broke a crystal cup. Vedius flew into a rage and ordered him seized and thrown into the lamprey pond^[r] to be fed upon. The boy wriggled away and threw himself at Augustus's feet, begging to be killed rather than eaten alive—apparently aware that the lamprey "clamps its mouth on the victim and bores a dentated tongue into the flesh to ingest blood".^[705] Taken aback by the sheer novelty of this cruel punishment, Augustus ordered the boy set free, the rest of the crystal smashed, and the lamprey pond backfilled. Vedius, who became a "stock villain" in Latin literature, fell so out of favor for this and other more political reasons that Augustus eventually razed his entire villa.^[706] Seneca bookends his moral criticism of Vedius in De Clementia ("On Mercy"), comparing the torture pond to a snake pit and saying that Vedius was universally despised for his excessive cruelty.^[707]

Such acts of casual sadism^[708] are perhaps to be distinguished from the head of household's ancient right to pass sentence on a dependent for perceived wrongdoing, but the slaveholder's right to punish a slave was only weakly limited by law.^[709] The censors were a countervailing moral authority (regimen morum) if the paterfamilias exceeded community standards of cruelty, but the office was often left vacant or manipulated toward other ideological ends, and there is little or no evidence that the censors would rebuke others of their class for the abuse of slaves.^[710] Unless the excessive cruelty had been blatantly public, there was no process for bringing it to the attention of the authorities—the slave boy targeted by Vedius was saved extrajudicially by the chance presence of an emperor willing to be offended,^[711] the only person with the authority to stop what was allowed by law.^[712]

When slaves did commit an actual crime, the penalties prescribed by law were far more severe than for free persons. For instance, the regular penalty for counterfeiting was deportation and confiscation of property, but a slave was put to death.^[713] The liberty of a Roman citizen, by contrast, was defined by freedom from physical coercion and by the judicial right of appeal after receiving a capital sentence.^[714] This definition holds into the early Imperial era as a common understanding: in the Acts of the Apostles, when Paul asserts his rights as a Roman citizen to a centurion after having been bound and threatened with flogging, the tribune who has seized him acknowledges the error by backing off.^[715]

In the later Imperial era, the status of "convict" versus "slave" often becomes a distinction without a practical difference^[716] as free people of lower social status were increasingly subjected to more severe legal penalties once reserved for slaves.^[717]

Chaining

Chaining was a legal penalty imposed with some specificity; chains weighing ten pounds were ordered for the enslaved captives who rebelled in 198 BC.^[718] Archaeological evidence of fetters, manacles, and shackles has been found mainly in the northern provinces and only infrequently in Italian villa settings.^[719]

In the Republican period, a large agricultural estate would have an ergastulum (plural ergastula), a place of work confinement, built partially underground, where slaves were often kept in chains for disobedience, acts of resistance, or committing crimes. Slaves sent to the ergastulum might be sold for exploitation in gladiatorial games.^[720] However, despite the assumptions of some scholars and modern images of chained slaves at hard labor, there is no evidence that agricultural slaves routinely worked in chain gangs.^[721] Roman writers on agriculture regarded slaves who were controllable only through chaining as an inferior form of farm labor and deprecated their use on the commercial latifundia under absentee ownership.^[722]

A slave who had been put in chains as punishment was labeled thereafter as a servus vinctus. As a category of property value, the “chained slave” had to be identified as such if sold, and would bring a lower price on the market. As a category of legal status, after the Augustan law that created a class of slaves to be counted permanently among the dediticii who were technically free but held no rights, the servus vinctus was barred from obtaining citizenship even if manumitted.^[723]

Tattooing and branding

Fugitive slaves might be marked by letters tattooed on their forehead, called stigmata in Greek and Latin sources,^[725] a practice most attested as a consequence of condemnation to hard labor.^[726] The tattooing of slaves had been expressly banned in Hellenistic Egypt except as part of a criminal sentence, when a forehead tattoo came with a beating.^[727] The Romans picked up slave tattooing from the Greeks, who in turn had acquired it from the Persians.^[728] Attic comedy frequently mentions slave stigmata, and the most notable passage in Latin literature comes in the Satyricon when Encolpius and Giton fake tattooing as an absurd form of disguise.^[729] Tattooing slaves with text to mark them as previous fugitives is most abundantly attested among the Greeks, and there is "no direct evidence for what was inscribed on runaways' foreheads in Rome,"^[730] though criminals generally were labeled with the name of their crime.^[731] Literature alludes to the practice, as when the epigrammatist Martial satirizes a luxuriously attired freedman at the theater who keeps his inscribed forehead under wraps, and Libanius mentions a slave growing out bangs to cover his stigmata.^[732]

In inscriptions from the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus, Greek slaves who had been tattooed ask the god to remove their markings, and in some cases thank him for doing so.^[733] Less miraculous means might also be sought, as various sources record medical procedures for removing stigmata, mostly herbal applications for which complete success was not guaranteed.^[734]

The evidence for Roman branding of slaves is less certain.^[735] The methodical tortures to which slaves were subjected juridically included the application of hot metal plates or rods,^[736] which would leave marks that could be seen as brands,^[737] since the branding of herd animals is known in the Roman world.^[738] The scars left by whipping were also "read" as inscribing slaves.^[739]

Slaves who played visible or public roles on behalf of a household, and female slaves in general, were not disfigured with markings.^[740] That stigmatized slaves were those who had been marked as irredeemably criminal is indicated by their inclusion among the dediticii, those who held no citizen rights even if manumitted.^[741]

Collaring

What appears to be a distinctly Roman practice is the riveting of a "humiliating" metal collar around the former fugitive's neck.^[742] Because of the role the hope of manumission played in motivating the industry of slaves, the Romans may have preferred removable collars to permanent disfigurement,^[743] or for keeping open the possibility of resale.^[744]

Some forty-five examples of Roman slave collars have been documented, most found in Rome and central Italy, with three from cities in Roman North Africa. All date from the Christian era of the 4th and 5th centuries,^[745] and some have the Christian chi-rho symbol or a palm frond.^[746] Some were found still on the necks of human skeletons or with remains, suggesting that the collars might be worn for life and not just as a temporary ID tag; others seem to have been removed, lost, or discarded.^[747] In circumference, they are about the same size as Roman neck shackles (see relief under "Enslavement of war captives"), tight enough to keep them from slipping over the head but not so tight as to restrict breathing.^[748]

Fugitive slave collars have been found in urban environments rather than settings for hard labor.^[749] One tag from Bulla Regia in Africa identifies the fugitive wearing it as a meretrix, a wage-earning prostitute.^[750] The tags are typically inscribed with the owner's name, status, and occupation, and the "address" to which the slave should be returned.^[751] The most common instructional text is tene me ("hold me") with either ne fugiam ("so I don't run away") or quia fugi ("because I've run away").^[752] The tag on the most intact example of these collars reads "I have escaped, catch me; when you return me to my master Zoninus, you'll receive a gold coin."^[753]

Crucifixion

Crucifixion was the capital punishment meted out specifically to slaves, traitors, and bandits.^[757]^[758]^[759]^[760] Crucifixion is rarely mentioned among the Greeks,^[761] and the Romans said that they had learned the technique from the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars.^[762] The earliest crucifixion among the Romans definitively described as such dates to 217 BC and was inflicted on rebellious slaves;^[763] Hannibal had crucified an Italian serving as his guide only a few weeks before, and several previous crucifixions by the Carthaginians were known to the Greeks and Romans.^[764] The few mentions of what might be construed as Roman crucifixion before that time are more likely to have been archaic punishments such as being bound to a stake and flogged, or being suspended from a tree (perhaps an arbor infelix^[765]) or furca and beaten to death.^[766] Curse tablets urging the hated person to commit suicide by hanging use language that overlaps with some details of crucifixion.^[767]

From its early use at a time when citizens were infrequently sentenced to death, crucifixion became the servile supplicium, reserved for slaves during the Republican era, and the worst punishment that could be inflicted on a slave.^[768] Crucifying Roman citizens is one of Cicero's most vehement accusations in the prosecution of Verres as a corrupt governor of Sicily.^[769]

An inscription from the late 1st century BC documents a law at Puteoli that made the services of an executioner available to private citizens who had decided to crucify a slave.^[770] The law specifies that the patibulum, generally taken as another term for the cross (crux), will be carried to the site of execution, probably by the slave to be executed,^[771] who will also be scourged before affixed to it.^[772] Advertisements for gladiatorial games sometimes promoted crucifixions as part of the spectacle, presumably as a prelude to beast-baiting or burning at the stake, since it was a notoriously slow and "static" way to die.^[773]

Although crucifixion under the Christian emperors abated, the Christian apologist Lactantius (d. ca. 325) still thought that runaway slaves should be whipped, chained, and even crucified.^[774]

Suicide

Reports of mass suicide or suicide by an individual to avoid enslavement or submission as a result of war are not rare in the Roman world.^[776] In one incident, a group of captive Germanic women told Caracalla that they would rather be executed than enslaved. When he ordered them sold anyway, they committed suicide en masse, some of them first killing their children.^[777]

Such an act could be considered honorable or rational in antiquity, and a slave might commit suicide for the same reasons a free person would, such as an agonizing health condition, religious fanaticism, or mental health crisis.^[778] But suicide among the enslaved might also be the ultimate way to resist and escape the master's control or abuse. One of Cato's slaves was so distraught after doing something he thought his master would disapprove of that he killed himself.^[779] An inscription from Moguntiacum records the killing of a freedman by one of his slaves, who then committed suicide by drowning himself in a river.^[780]

Roman law recognized that slaves might be driven to suicidal despair. A suicide attempt was one of the pieces of information about a slave that had to be disclosed on a bill of sale, indicating that such attempts occurred often enough to be of concern. However, the law did not always regard slaves as criminally fugitive if they ran away in despair and attempted suicide. The jurist Paulus wrote, “A slave acts to commit suicide when he seeks death out of wickedness or evil ways or because of some crime that he has committed, but not when he is able no longer to bear his bodily pain.”^[781]

Slavery and Roman religion

Slaves in classical Roman religion

Religious practices attest to the presence of slaves in Roman society from the earliest period.^[782] The Matralia was a women's festival held June 11 in connection with the goddess Mater Matuta,^[783] whose temple was among Rome's oldest.^[784] According to tradition, it was established in the sixth century BC by the slave-born king Servius Tullius.^[785] The observance featured the ceremonial beating of a slave girl by free women, who brought her into the temple and then drove her from it. Slave women were otherwise forbidden from participation.^[786] It has been conjectured that this scapegoat ritual reflected the wives' anxiety about the introduction of slave girls into the household as sexual usurpers.^[787]

Another slaves' holiday (servorum dies festus) was held August 13^[788] in honor of Servius Tullius himself. Like the Saturnalia, the holiday involved a role reversal: the matron of the household washed the heads of her slaves, as well as her own.^[789]^[790] Following the Matronalia on March 1, matrons gave slaves of their household a feast, a custom that also evokes Saturnalian role reversal. Each matron feasted her own slaves in her capacity as domina or slave mistress. Both Solinus and Macrobius see the feast as a way to manipulate obedience, indicating that physical compulsion was not the only technique for domination; social theory suggests that the communal meal also promotes household cohesion and norms by articulating the hierarchy through its temporary subversion.^[791]

The temple of Feronia at Terracina in Latium was the site of special ceremonies pertaining to manumission. The goddess was identified with Libertas, the personification of liberty,^[792] and was a tutelary goddess of freedmen (dea libertorum). A stone at her temple was inscribed "let deserving slaves sit down so that they may stand up free."^[793]

Saturnalia

The Roman festival most famously celebrated by slaves was the Saturnalia, a December observance of role reversals during which time slaves enjoyed a rich banquet, gambling, free speech and other forms of license not normally available to them. To mark their temporary freedom, they wore the pilleus, the cap of freedom, as did free citizens, who normally went about bareheaded.^[794]^[795] Some ancient sources suggest that master and slave dined together,^[796]^[797] while others indicate that the slaves feasted first, or that the masters actually served the food. The practice may have varied over time.^[798]

Saturnalian license also permitted slaves to enjoy a pretense of disrespect for their masters, and exempted them from punishment. The Augustan poet Horace calls their freedom of speech "December liberty" (libertas Decembri).^[799]^[800] In two satires set during the Saturnalia, Horace portrays a slave as offering sharp criticism to his master.^[801]^[802]^[803] But everyone knew that the leveling of the social hierarchy was temporary and had limits; no social norms were ultimately threatened, because the holiday would end.^[804]

The Festival of Handmaids

Slave women were honored at the Ancillarum Feriae on July 7.^[805]^[806] The holiday is explained as commemorating the service rendered to Rome by a group of ancillae (female slaves or "handmaids") during the war with the Fidenates in the late 4th century BC.^[807]^[808] Weakened by the Gallic sack of Rome in 390 BC, the Romans next had suffered a stinging defeat by the Fidenates, who demanded that they hand over their wives and virgin daughters as hostages to secure a peace. A handmaid named either Philotis or Tutula came up with a plan to deceive the enemy: the ancillae would put on the apparel of the free women, spend one night in the enemy camp, and send a signal to the Romans about the most advantageous time to launch a counterattack.^[783]^[809] Although the historicity of the underlying tale may be doubtful, it indicates that the Romans thought they had already had a significant slave population before the Punic Wars.^[810]

Temple slaves

Among the public slaves (servi publici) were those who served Rome's traditional religious practices. The cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima was transferred to the keeping of public slaves in 312 BC when the patrician families originally charged with its maintenance died out.^[811]

The calator was a public slave who assisted the flamens, the senior priests of the state, and carried out their day-to-day business.^[812] An epitaph records the career of a calator of the augurs who rose to the position after serving as a dispensator (keeper of accounts) for a senator; he had been manumitted before he died at the age of 32.^[813] The popa, depicted in sacrificial processions as carrying a mallet or axe with which to strike the sacrificial animal, is said in sources from late antiquity to have been a public slave.^[814]

In the East, especially during the first century BC, large numbers of “holy” slaves (Greek hierodouloi) served in temples such as those of Ma in Comana, Cappadocia, where 6,000 male and female slaves served, and of the Great Mother at Pessinus in Galatia.^[815] The notion that hierodouloi in the Roman era engaged in sacred prostitution is mostly a modern fantasy arising from the presence of prostitutes at temples and festivals, either as members of the participating community or peripherally plying their trade where potential customers would congregate.^[816] Temple slaves were not traded as chattel,^[817] and the Romans, given their instinct for religion as a source of social order, tended not to capitalize on them as such. Strabo states that the chief priest of the Temple of Ma at Comana did not have the right to sell hierodouloi; however, as the sites of such temples are often associated with trading centers, they might have played some role in facilitating the slave trade.^[818]

Mithraic cult

The Mithraic mysteries were open to slaves and freedmen, and at some cult sites most or all votive offerings are made by slaves, sometimes for the sake of their masters' wellbeing.^[819] The slave Vitalis is known from three inscriptions involving the cult of Mithras at Apulum (Alba Iulia in present-day Romania).The best preserved is the dedication of an altar to Sol Invictus for the wellbeing of a free man, possibly his master or a fellow Mithraic initiate.^[820] Vitalis was an arcarius, a treasurer probably in the administration of imperial customs (portorium); his position gave him the opportunity to earn the wealth required for setting up stone monuments.^[821]

Numerous Mithraic inscriptions from the reaches of the empire record the names of both privately held slaves and imperial slaves, and even one Pylades in Roman Gaul who was the slave of an imperial slave.^[822] Mithraic cult, which valued submission to authority and promotion through a hierarchy, was in harmony with the structure of Roman society, and thus the participation of slaves posed no threat to social order.^[823]

Early Christian church

Christianity gave slaves an equal place within the religion, allowing them to participate in the liturgy. According to tradition, Pope Clement I (term c. 92–99), Pope Pius I (158–167), and Pope Callixtus I (c. 217–222) were former slaves.^[824]

Commemoration

Epitaphs are one of the most common forms of Roman writing to survive, arising from the intersection of two salient activities of Roman culture: the care of the dead and what Ramsay MacMullen called the “epigraphic habit.”^[825] One of the ways that Roman epitaphs differ from those of the Greeks is that the name of the commemorator is typically given along with that of the deceased.^[826] Commemorations are found both for slaves and by slaves.

Simple epitaphs for domestic slaves might be set up in the communal tomb of their household. This inclusion perpetuated the domus by enlarging the number of survivors and descendants who might carry out tomb maintenance and the many ritual observances for the dead on the Roman religious calendar.^[827]

The commemoration of slaves often included their job—cook, jeweler, hairdresser—or an emblem of their work such as tools.^[828] The funerary relief of the freed silversmith Publius Curtilius Agatho (see under “Names” above) shows him in the process of working a cup that lies incomplete by his left hand. He holds a hammer in his right hand, and a punch or graver in his left. Despite these realistic details of his craft, Agatho is depicted wearing a toga—which Getty Museum curator Kenneth Lapatin has compared to going to work in a tuxedo—that expresses his pride in his citizen status,^[829] just as the choice of marble as the medium rather than the more common limestone gives evidence of his level of success.^[830]

Although not required on tombstones,^[831] the deceased's status at times can be identified by Latin abbreviations such as SER for a slave; VERN or VER specifically for vernae, slaves born into a familia (see funerary bust above); or LIB for a freedperson. This legal status is usually absent for gladiators, who were social outcasts regardless of having been freeborn, manumitted, or enslaved at the time of death; instead they were identified by their fighting specialty such as retiarius or murmillo or less often as a freeborn man, LIBER, a status which was not typically asserted.^[832] Gladiators who had become celebrities might also be remembered by fans (amatores) in popular media—images of gladiators, sometimes labeled by name, appeared widely on everyday items such as oil lamps and vessels that could long survive them.

Epitaphs represent only slaves who were more highly favored or esteemed within their household or who belonged to communities or social organizations (such as collegia) that offered care of the dead. With the permission of their master, slaves could join burial societies along with free people of modest means and freed slaves who pooled their resources to ensure decent entombment and commemoration.^[833] Most slaves did not have the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with a free person or participate in social networking and were disposed of in mass graves along with "free" people who were destitute.^[834] The Augustan poet Horace, himself the son of a freedman, wrote of "a fellow slave contracted to transport the castaway corpses to narrow rooms on a cheap chest; here lay the common grave of the wretched masses."^[835]

Although slaves were denied the right to make contracts or conduct other legal matters in their own name, it was possible for a master to allow his slave to make less formal arrangements that functioned like a will. In a letter to a friend, Pliny said that he permitted his slaves to write up a “sort of will” (quasi testamenta) so that their last wishes could be carried out, including who should receive their possessions or other gifts and bequests. The beneficiaries have to be other members of the household (domus), which Pliny frames as the "republic" within which slaves hold a kind of citizenship (quasi civitas).^[836]

Slavery and Roman morality

Slavery as an institution was practiced within every community of the Greco-Roman world, including Jewish and Christian communities who at times struggled to reconcile the practice within their beliefs. Some Jewish sects, such as the Essenes and Therapeutae, did articulate anti-slavery principles—which is one of the things that "made them look like fringe utopians" for their time.^[837] Both literary and juristic texts in Latin invoke humanitas as a principle in relations with slaves, a virtue that broadly encompasses the quality of living as a fully realized human being,^[838] and Pliny asserts that a master whose treatment of slaves is based only on economic considerations is not fully human.^[839]

The apparent ease of manumission, along with some Roman laws and practices that mitigated slavery, has led some scholars to view Roman slavery as a more benign institution, or at least a more open system, than the race-based Atlantic slave trade.^[840] The majority of slaves suffered in grinding toil but are mostly silent and undifferentiated in ancient sources, while the freedmen and imperial slaves who enjoyed social mobility are represented because of their success: "the ideology of slaveowning had been successfully transmitted to those who had once been its victims."^[841]

The Roman concept of the virtues and what it meant to be moral was not founded on the value of an individual life and preserving it, regardless of the social status of that life.^[842] In early Rome as the Twelve Tables were being formulated, murder was regarded as a pollution of the community that had to be expiated.^[843] Killing an individual was sanctioned when doing so removed a threat from the community, as in war and for capital punishment; homicide was not a statutory offense under Roman law until 80 BC.^[844] "'Life', taken as individual existence, is not significant," Jörg Rüpke has observed of Roman morality. "It is important only instrumentally."^[845]

The value of the life of a slave differed from that of a conquering general in the nature of this instrumentality: the murder of a slave—a "speaking tool" (instrumentum vocale), in the words of Varro^[846]—under law was property loss to the owner.^[847] And yet in the Satyricon, Petronius has Trimalchio assert that "slaves too are men. The milk they have drunk is just the same even if an evil fate has oppressed them."^[848] When the jurists argue for resolution of legal issues in favor of slaves, they draw on a Roman vocabulary of moral duty (pietas), decency (pudor), respect (reverentia), traditional morals (mores maiorum), and the need for kindliness (benignitas) to prevent duritia, a hardening of the heart.^[849] The many, sometimes inadvertent acknowledgments of the slave's humanity in Roman literature and law; the individual expressions of esteem or affection toward a slave by an owner; and pleas for the humanitarian treatment of slaves particularly among Stoics all produce a dissonance^[850] within a moral framework largely dependent on utilitarianism^[851] or at best "enlightened self-interest".^[852]

In his book Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine, Peter Garnsey outlines six moral views that express various and inconsistent "anxieties and tensions" inherent in slavery throughout Classical antiquity in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian thought:^[853]

1. Slavery is natural, a normative view most notoriously expressed by Aristotle.

2. Slavery can be justified for its utility— culturally, the most "numerous and authoritative" of the views expressed.^[854]

3. Slavery is an evil and should be condemned as an institution—"few and isolated" voices^[855] not to be construed as an abolitionist movement.^[856]

4. The institution of slavery can be abused, and these abuses, such as the wrongful enslavement of free people, can be criticized and corrected.^[857]

5. Slaves are human beings worthy of humane regard.

6. There is an obligation to improve the conditions under which slaves live.

Stoic philosophy

The Stoic affirmation of universal human dignity extended to slaves and women.^[858] Cicero, who had some Stoic inclinations, did not think that slaves were by nature inferior.^[859] Because human dignity was inherent, it could not be affected by external circumstances such as enslavement or poverty. The individual's dignity could be damaged, however, by a lack of self-governance. Anger and cruelty damaged the person who felt them, and therefore a slave owner ought to exercise clementia, mildness or mercy, toward those who were slaves by law. But since emotion-based compassion was likewise a response to external conditions, it was not grounds for political action—true freedom was wisdom, and true slavery the lack thereof. By denying that material and institutional conditions for human flourishing mattered, Stoics had no impulse toward abolition and were limited to seeing the institution of slavery as, in the words of Martha Nussbaum, "no big deal."^[860] From a philosophical perspective, what mattered was the conduct of the individual owner, not the reform of legal institutions.^[861]

One of the major Roman-era Stoic philosophers, Epictetus (died ca. AD 135), spent his youth as a slave. Writing in colloquial Greek, he addressed a broad audience, consonant with the Stoic belief that the pursuit of philosophy should not just be the province of an elite.^[862]

Epicurean philosophy

The Epicureans admitted enslaved people to their philosophical circles and, like the Stoics, rejected the Aristotelian view that some people were destined by nature to be slaves. In Epicurean terms, slavery was an eventum, an accident that might befall a person, not a coniunctum, something inseparable from a person's nature.^[863] But Epicureans never advocated for abolition, and again like the Stoics and other philosophical schools, they spoke of slavery most often as a metaphor, specifically the moral state of "enslavement" to custom or other psychological ills.^[864]

The Epicurean poet and philosopher Philodemus (1st century BC) wrote a treatise On Anger in which he admonishes masters not to impede their moral progress by directing violence or inhumane or indecent acts against slaves; he attributes violent rebellion among slaves to the injustices perpetrated by their masters. In the treatise On Property Management, Philodemus proposes that slaves should receive moral instruction, recognizing them as capable of learning and of acting as moral agents.^[865] A good property manager should show mildness of character, sensitivity, philanthropy, and decency towards slaves and all subordinates,^[866] whereas the wealth-obsessed manager will not refrain from exploiting slave labor in the mines.^[867] It is not shameful, however, to earn income from property, and that includes slaves if they are employing their skills or arts in ways that are appropriate to them and do not require "excessive toil" from anyone.^[868] The recovery of Philodemus's work is still ongoing, as a major source is the charred rolls of texts preserved at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum owing to the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.

Early Christian attitudes toward slavery

In the Christian scriptures, fair treatment of slaves was enjoined upon owners, and slaves were advised to obey their earthly masters, even if they were unjust, and to obtain freedom lawfully if possible.^[869]^[870]^[871]^[872] In the theology of the Apostle Paul, slavery is an everyday reality that must be accepted, but as a condition of this world, it is ultimately rendered meaningless by salvation. Roman Christians preached that slaves were human beings and not things (res),^[873] but while slaves were regarded as human beings with souls that needed to be saved, Jesus of Nazareth said nothing toward abolishing slavery, nor were religionists of the faith admonished against owning slaves in the first two centuries of Christianity's existence.^[874] The parables of Jesus that refer in English translations to "servants" are in fact about slaves (Greek douloi),^[875] and the "faithful parabolic slave" is rewarded with greater responsibilities, not manumission.^[876] Slaves are portrayed in roles that are typical of Roman culture—agricultural workers, financial agents, household stewards, and overseers—as well as "a body awaiting discipline."^[877] In the Gospel of Matthew, parables that frame divine punishment from God as analogous to the punishments inflicted by masters on slaves assume the just proportionality of such punishments.^[878]

There is little evidence that Christian theologians of the Roman Imperial era problematized slavery as morally indefensible. Certain senior Christian leaders (such as Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom) called for good treatment for slaves and condemned slavery, while others supported it.^{[citation needed]} That Christians might be susceptible to accusations of hypocrisy from outside the faith was anticipated in Christian apologetics, such as Lactantius's defense that both slave and free were inherently equal before God.^[879] Salvian, a Christian monk writing polemic for Christian slaveowners in Gaul around AD 440, wrote that kindly treatment could be a more effective way of obtaining obedience than physical punishment, but he still regarded slaves as ‘wicked and worthy of our contempt’, and he never imagined a social system without slavery.^[880] Saint Augustine, who came from an aristocratic background and likely grew up in a home where slave labor was utilized, described slavery as being against God's intention and resulting from sin.^[881]

Sexual ethics and attitudes

Because slaves were regarded as property under Roman law, the slaveholder had license to use them for sex or to hire them out to service other people.^[882] While sexual attitudes differed substantially among the Jewish community, up to the 2nd century AD it was still assumed that male slaveholders would have sexual access to female slaves within their own household, an assumption not subjected to Christian criticism in the New Testament,^[883] though the use of prostitutes was prohibited.^[884] Salvian (5th century AD) condemned the immorality of his audience in regarding their female slaves as natural outlets for their sexual appetites, exactly as "pagan" masters had done in the time of Martial.^[885]

Traditional Roman morality had some moderating influence, and upper-class slaveholders who exploited their familia for sex were criticized if this use became known as indiscreet or excessive. Social censure was not so much indignation at the owner's abuse of the slave as disdain for his lack of self-mastery.^[886] It reflected poorly on an upper-class male to resort sexually to a female slave of his household, but a right to consent or refuse did not exist for her.^[887] The treatment of slaves and their own conduct within the elite domus contributed to the perception of the household's respectability. The materfamilias in particular was judged by her female slaves' sexual behavior, which was expected to be moral or at least discreet;^[888] as domina, she had the right to exercise control over sexual access to female slaves who were her property.^[889] This decorum may have helped alleviate the sexual exploitation of ancillae within the household,^[890] along with men having easy, even ubiquitous access outside the home to legal, inexpensive, and often highly specialized services from professional sex workers.^[891]

"Not one single surviving legal text refers in any way whatever to sexual abuse of slave children," states legal historian Alan Watson—presumably because no special protections were afforded by law to child slaves.^[892] Some household staff, such as cup-bearers for dinner parties, generally boys, were chosen at a young age for their grace and good looks, qualities that were cultivated, sometimes through formal training, to convey sexual allure and potential use by guests.^[893]

A slave's own expressions of sexuality were closely controlled. An estate owner usually restricted the heterosexual activities of his male slaves to females he also owned; any children born from these unions added to his wealth.^[894] Because home-reared slaves were valued, female slaves on an estate were encouraged to have children with approved male partners. The agricultural writer Columella rewarded especially fecund women with extra time off for a mother of three, and early manumission for a mother of four or more.^[895] There is little or no evidence that estate owners bought women for the purpose of “breeding,” since the useful proportion of male to female slaves was constrained by the fewer number of tasks for which women were employed.^[896]

Despite the controls and restrictions placed on a slave's sexuality, Roman art and literature often perversely portray slaves as lascivious, voyeuristic, and sexually knowing, indicating a deep ambivalence about master-slave relations.^[898] Roman art connoisseurs did not shy away from displaying explicit sexuality in their collections at home,^[899] but when figures identifiable as slaves appear in erotic paintings within a domestic scenario, they are either hovering in the background or performing routine peripheral tasks, not engaging in sex.^[900]

However, most prostitutes were slaves^[901] or freedwomen, and paintings found in Roman brothels (lupanaria) feature prostitutes performing sex acts.^{[citation needed]} Sexual services were cheap enough that urban male slaves, unlike their rural counterparts, could frequent brothels to seek gratification, just as upper-class men did, making the lupanar one of the most egalitarian facilities among men in Roman society.^[902] Like slavery, prostitution was a legal way to use a human body other than one's own—and in both cases a use that a free person was to resist absolutely in the name of liberty.^[903]

The dynamics of Roman phallocentric sex were such that an adult male was free to enjoy same-sex relations without compromising his perceived virility, but only as an exercise of dominance and not with his adult peers or their underage sons—in effect, he was to limit his male sexual partners, whatever the desired age, to prostitutes or slaves. The Imperial poet Martial describes a specialized market to meet this demand, located at the Julian Saepta in the Campus Martius.^[904] Seneca expressed Stoic indignation that a male slave should be groomed effeminately and used sexually, because a slave's human dignity should not be debased.^[905] Eunuchs castrated under the age of ten were rare and as expensive as a skilled artisan.^[906] The trade in eunuch slaves during the reign of Hadrian prompted legislation prohibiting the castration of a slave against his will "for lust or gain".^[907]

The significant body of law and legal argumentation pertaining to slavery and prostitution indicates that Romans recognized the moral conflict between their family values and forcing a woman into prostitution.^[908] The contract when a slave was sold might include a ne serva prostituatur covenant that prohibited the employment of the slave as a prostitute. The restriction remained in force for the term of enslavement and throughout subsequent sales, and if it was violated, the illegally prostituted slave was granted freedom, regardless of whether the buyer had known the covenant was originally attached.^[909]

No laws prohibited a Roman from exploiting slaves he owned for sex, but he was not entitled to compel any enslaved person he chose to have sex; doing so might be regarded as a form of theft, since the owner retained the right to his property.^[910] If a free man did force himself on someone else's slave for sex, he could not be charged with rape because the slave lacked legal personhood. But an owner who wanted to press charges against a man who raped someone in his familia might do so under the Lex Aquilia, a law that allowed him to seek property damages.^[911]

In Latin and Imperial Greek literature

Slaves appear widely in genres of Roman literature written mostly by or for the elite, including history, letters, drama, satire, and prose narrative. These expressions may have served to navigate master-slave relationships in terms of slaves' behavior and punishment. Literary examples often focus on extreme cases, such as the crucifixion of hundreds of slaves for the murder of their master, and while such instances are exceptional, the underlying problems must have concerned the authors and audiences.^[912]

Lost works thought to have been written by slaves or former slaves include a history of the Sicilian slave rebellions by Caecilius of Calacte and a biographical collection by Hermippos of Berytus on slaves celebrated for their learning.^[913]

Roman comedy

Slaves are depicted ubiquitously in the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence. In Roman comedy, servi or slaves make up the majority of the stock characters, and generally fall into two basic categories: loyal slaves and tricksters. Loyal slaves often help their master in their plan to woo or obtain a lover—the most popular driver of plot in Roman comedy. Slaves are often dim, timid, and worried about what punishments may befall them.

Trickster slaves are more numerous and often use their masters' unfortunate situation to create a "topsy-turvy" world in which they are the masters and their masters are subservient to them. The master will often ask the slave for a favor and the slave only complies once the master has made it clear that the slave is in charge, beseeching him and calling him lord, sometimes even a god.^[914] These slaves are threatened with numerous punishments for their treachery, but always escape the fulfillment of these threats through their wit.^[914]

Plautus’ plays represent slavery "as a complex institution that raised perplexing problems in human relationships involving masters and slaves".^[915]

Terence added a new element to how slaves were portrayed in his plays, due to his personal background as a former slave. In the work Andria, slaves are central to the plot. In this play, Simo, a wealthy Athenian wants his son, Pamphilius, to marry one girl but Pamphilius has his sights set on another. Much of the conflict in this play revolves around schemes with Pamphilius's slave, Davos, and the rest of the characters in the story. Many times throughout the play, slaves are allowed to engage in activity, such as the inner and personal lives of their owners, that would not normally be seen with slaves in every day society. This is a form of satire by Terence due to the unrealistic nature of events that occurs between slaves and citizens in his plays.^[916]

Notes

^ This timeline is a framework for understanding periods of Roman history as they are referred to in this article. It is not meant as definitional.
^ A core period of Roman history producing the most abundant extant literary sources.
^ This article treats the Christianization of the Roman Empire as a turning point that affects legislative, moral, social, and cultural concerns.
^ The Edict of Milan is here taken as the beginning of the Christianization of the Roman state and the eventual suppression of religious pluralism in the Roman Empire.
^ Isidore of Seville is the latest primary source regarded as "ancient" by the scholarship on which this article is based.
^ W. W. Buckland, whose early 20th-century book on Roman law pertaining to slavery remains an essential reference,^[50] gave up on "the hopeless task of defining liberty" (The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 437).
^ Other words used to refer to the slave include homo (human being of any gender), famulus (referring to the slave's role within the familia), ancilla (a female slave; serva was less common), and puer (boy).
^ Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family: "Rome has provided the paradigm of patriarchy in western thought," based on "the paterfamilias with his unlimited legal powers over members of his familia. … The Roman family was unquestionably patriarchal, in the sense that it was defined with reference to the father, who was endowed with a special authority in the household … a striking potestas encompassing extensive coercive and proprietary rights" (p. 255). Saller emphasizes throughout that this is a reductively legalistic view that in no way encompasses the full range of emotional and moral relations within the family.
^ The phrase vitae necisque potestas is not used to express a husband's power over his wife, though summary execution of a wife was considered justifiable under some circumstances, such as adultery or drunkenness, that varied by historical period. In early Rome, marriage contracted in manu put wives in a subordinate position; from the time of Augustus, a married woman remained under her own father's power, granting a female Roman citizen an unusual degree of independence from her husband relative to many other ancient societies. In the event of divorce, wealth the wife brought into the marriage remained attached to her, along with profits generated.^[58]
^ Generally, fertility also is a motive for the purchase of female slaves; according to one survey of the evidence, more than 30 percent of women traded were of prime childbearing age (20 to 25).^[122]
^ A perimeter of banishment is found in an unusual case of AD 9, when the Germans under Arminius captured Romans after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Mistrusting the loyalty of the army of the Rhine, which would have preferred Germanicus as emperor, Tiberius only reluctantly permitted these prisoners of war to be ransomed, with the provision that they were banned from Italy. Vasile Lica, "Clades Variana and Postliminium," Historia 50:4 (2001), pp. 598 and 601, especially n. 31, notes that the soldiers should have been eligible for full postliminium restoration of their citizenship status (see "Enslavement of Roman citizens" above) but “politics was more important than the lex [law].”
^ Most Roman adoptions were of an adult son to carry on the family line when there were no heirs. Adoption was a complex legal process involving inheritance rights and concomitant duties to the house and family gods, and not a usual way to bring a young child into a family to nurture; see Neil W. Bernstein, "Adoptees and Exposed Children in Roman Declamation: Commodification, Luxury, and the Threat of Violence," Classical Philology 104:3 (2009), p. 335.
^ The stand has sometimes been described as revolving, based on a mention in the poetry of Statius (1st century AD).^[362]^[363]
^ Since slaves could not enter into a marriage contract, "wife" usually refers to a contubernalis, a spouse in a sort of common-law marriage or a marriage conducted according to rites not recognized within Roman law. If a dispensator wished to retain the advantages of his position, he might arrange to have his contubernalis manumitted instead of himself so that any children they had would be born as free citizens.^[486]
^ Because of the cultural importance of carrying on family lineage, Roman names are of limited variety, so that members of the same gens are often readily confused with one another in the historical sources.
^ For example, Gaius Julius Vercondaridubnus was an Aeduan Gaul who held the first high priesthood in the imperial cult at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in the first century BC; his cognomen is distinctively Celtic, and his praenomen and gens name may indicate that Julius Caesar himself granted his family's citizenship,^[589]
^ Pliny the Elder describes the "fillet-bearer" (diadumenos) statue type as a molliter iuvenis, a young man depicted with grace and softness (Natural History 34.55.
^ Fishkeeping was a hobby dear to some upperclass Romans, both for pleasure and as a source of fresh delicacies for the table. Lampreys (muraenae) were eaten, but some scholars have wondered whether Vedius may rather have kept moray eels for this purpose.

References

^ Aliza Steinberg, Weaving in Stones: Garments and Their Accessories in the Mosaic Art of Eretz Israel in Late Antiquity (Archaeopress 2020), p. 97, noting the decorated tunics (tunicae manicatae) of the two free men being served.
^ Described by Mikhail Rostovtzev, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Tannen, 1900), p. 288.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family," Phoenix 38:4 (1984), p. 343.
^ Clive Cheesman, "Names in -por and Slave Naming in Republican Rome," Classical Quarterly 59:2 (2009), p. 515, citing Pliny, Natural History 33.26.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household," Classical Philology 94:2 1999), pp. 182–184, 192 (citing on paterfamilias Seneca, Epistula 47.14), 196.
^ Saller, "Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family," pp. 342–343.
^ Benedetto Fontana, "Tacitus on Empire and Republic," History of Political Thought 14:1 (1993), p. 28.
^ Raymond Westbrook, "Vitae Necisque Potestas," Historia 48:2 (1999), p. 208.
^ Westbrook, "Vitae Necisque Potestas," pp. 203–204.
^ Westbrook, "Vitae Necisque Potestas," p. 205.
^ ‘The Bitter Chain of Slavery’: Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome. Keith Bradley. Curated studies. Hellenic Centre of Harvard University. https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/snowden-lectures-keith-bradley-the-bitter-chain-of-slavery/
^ Kathryn Lomas, Andrew Gardner, and Edward Herring, "Creating Ethnicities and Identities in the Roman World," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 120 (2013), p. 4.
^ Parshia Lee-Stecum, "Roman refugium: refugee narratives in Augustan versions of Roman prehistory," Hermathena 184 (2008), p. 78, specifically on the relation of Livy's account of the asylum to the Augustan program of broadening the political participation of freedmen and provincials.
^ Rex Stem, "The Exemplary Lessons of Livy's Romulus," Transactions of the American Philological Association 137:2 (2007), p. 451, citing Livy 1.8.5–6; see also T. P. Wiseman, "The Wife and Children of Romulus," Classical Quarterly 33:3 (1983), p. 445, on Greek attitudes that therefore "the Romans were simply robbers and bandits, strangers to the laws of gods or men," citing Dionysius 1.4.1–3. 1.89–90.
^ J. N. Bremmer and N. M. Horsfall, Roman Myth and Mythography (University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), p. 32.
^ Alan Watson, Rome of the XII Tables: Persons and Property (Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 86.
^ Keith R. Bradley, "The Early Development of Slavery at Rome," Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 12:1 (1985), p. 4.
^ Fields, Nic. Spartacus and the Slave War 73–71 BC: A Gladiator Rebels against Rome. (Osprey 2009) p. 17–18.
^ a b Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002, originally published 1997 by Scholars Press for Emory University), p. 136.
^ R. W. Dyson, Natural Law and Political Realism in the History of Political Thought (Peter Lang, 2005), vol. 1, p. 127.
^ David J. Bederman, International Law in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 85.
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Slavery at Rome," p. 7.
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Slavery at Rome," p. 6, citing Livy 5.22.1.
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Slavery at Rome," pp. 7–8.
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Slavery at Rome," p. 1, especially n. 2, citing Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge 1978), pp. 99–100 on the criteria for "slave society."
^ William L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (American Philosophical Society 1955), p. 60.
^ Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (W. W. Norton, 2015), pp. 68–69, qualifying this statement as the view of "some historians."
^ Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 37.
^ Ernst Levy, “Captivus Redemptus,” Classical Philology 38:3 (1943), p. 161, citing Livy 22.23.6–8, 22.60.3–4, 22. 61.3, 7, and 34.50.3–7; Plutarch, Fabius 7.4–5.
^ Matthew Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 96, in connection with the Captivi of Plautus.
^ Jon Coulston, “Courage and Cowardice in the Roman Imperial Army,” War in History 20:1 (2013), p. 26.
^ In 36 BC, during a failed attempt to recover the standards lost, Mark Antony is supposed to have been guided by a survivor of Carrhae who had served under Parthians: Velleius Paterculus 2.82; Florus 2.20.4; Plutarch, Antony 41.1. in the 1940s, American sinologist Homer H. Dubs stirred up both scholarly imagination and scholarly indignation in a series of articles and finally a book arguing that enslaved Roman survivors of Carrhae were traded, or escaped and settled, as far as China. See for instance Dubs, “An Ancient Military Contact between Romans and Chinese,” American Journal of Philology 62:3 (1941) 322-330.
^ Coulston, “Courage and Cowardice,” p. 27.
^ Horace, Odes 3.5.6, from Jake Nabel, "Horace and the Tiridates Episode," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 158: 3/4 (2015), pp. 319–322. Some captives from Carrhae and from two later attempts to avenge the defeat may have been restored in 20 BC when Augustus negotiated the return of the standards; see J. M. Alonso-Núñez, “An Augustan World History: The Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus,” Greece & Rome 34:1 (1987), pp.60–61, citing Pompeius Trogus in the epitome of Justinus.
^ Marjorie C. Mackintosh, "Roman Influences on the Victory Reliefs of Shapur I of Persia," California Studies in Classical Antiquity 6 (1973), pp. 183–184, citing Persian author Firdausi, The Epic of Kings, tr. by Reuben Levy (1967) 284, on Shapur's use of Roman engineers and labor.
^ Laura Betzig, “Suffodit inguina: Genital attacks on Roman emperors and other primates,” Politics and the Life Sciences 33:1 (2014), pp. 64–65, citing Orosius, Contra Paganos 7.22..4; Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 5.5–6; Agathias, Histories 4.23.2–7.
^ Coulston, “Courage and Cowardice,” p. 26.
^ M. Sprengling, “Shahpuhr I the Great on the Kaabah of Zoroaster,” American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 57:4 (1940), pp. 371–372; W. B. Henning, “The Great Inscription of Šāpūr I,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 9;4 (1939), pp. 898ff.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 81; and specifically on potestas, Orit Malka and Yakir Paz, “Ab hostibus captus et a latronibus captus: The Impact of the Roman Model of Citizenship on Rabbinic Law,” Jewish Quarterly Review 109:2 (2019), p. 153, citing Gaius 1.129 and Ulpian 10.4, and pp. 159 and 161 on renewal as a second marriage.
^ Malka and Paz, “Rabbinic Law,” pp. 154–155 et passim.
^ Stanly H. Rauh, “The Tradition of Suicide in Rome's Foreign Wars,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 145:2 (2015), p. 400.
^ Clifford Ando, “Aliens, Ambassadors, and the Integrity of the Empire,” Law and History Review 26:3 (2008), pp. 503–505.
^ W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery: The Condition of the Slave in Private Law from Augustus to Justinian (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 305–307.
^ Vasile Lica, "Clades Variana and Postliminium," Historia 50:4 (2001), p. 498, citing Cicero, De officiis 3.13.
^ Ernst Levy, “Captivus Redemptus,” Classical Philology 38:3 (1943), p. 161.
^ Lica, "Clades Variana,” p. 498.
^ Specified as “a horse or a mule or a ship” by Aelius Gallus (as quoted by Festus p. 244L), because these could evade possession without dishonoring the owner: a horse could bolt, but weapons could only be lost through the failure of their possessor and therefore could not be restored—as explained by Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome, p. 60.
^ Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome, pp. 60–62.
^ Tim Cornell, “Rome: The History of an Anachronism,” in City States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy (Ann Arbor, 1991) p. 65.
^ Martin Schermaier, introduction to The Position of Roman Slaves: Social Realities and Legal Differences, Dependency and Slavery Studies, vol. 6 (De Gruyter, 2023), p. 1.
^ Daniel Kapust, “Skinner, Petitt and Livy: The Conflict of the Orders and the Ambiguity of Republican Liberty,” History of Political Thought 25:3 (2004), p. 383, citing Cicero, De re publica 2.43.5.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 58.
^ Benet Salway, "MANCIPIVM RVSTICVM SIVE VRBANVM: The Slave Chapter of Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 5.
^ Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 255.
^ Berger, entry on res mancipi, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 678.
^ Saskia T. Roselaar, "The Concept of Commercium in the Roman Republic," Phoenix 66:3/4 (2012), pp. 381-413, noting (p. 382) that "farmland" may have been defined more narrowly as land designated as ager Romanus.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household," Classical Philology 94:2 (1999), pp. 186–187.
^ Raymond Westbrook, "Vitae Necisque Potestas," Historia 48:2 (1999), pp. 203–204, 208.
^ Saller, "Pater Familias," p. 197.
^ Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, citing Cicero, De re publica 3.37
^ a b c d Berger, entry on servus, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 704
^ Ingram, John Kells (1911). "Slavery" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 216–227.
^ S. J. Lawrence, “Putting Torture (and Valerius Maximus) to the Test,” Classical Quarterly 66:1 (2016), pp. 254–257, discusses the implications of this peculiar form of wishful thinking.
^ Alan Watson, "Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology," Phoenix 37:1 (1983), pp. 58-59, citing Digest 48.1.1.23 (Ulpian).
^ Marcel Mauss, "A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of the Person, the Notion of 'Self'," in Sociology and Psychology: Essays(Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 81.
^ Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (Routledge, 2005), p. 297
^ Thomas McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 309.
^ Watson, "Roman Slave Law," pp. 64–65.
^ Dale B. Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” The Jewish Family in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies 2020), p. 118, citing the extensive collection of legal texts by Amnon Linder, The Jews in Imperial Roman Legislation (Wayne State UP 1987).
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 150.
^ CIL VI, 09499.
^ Thomas Finkenauer, "Filii naturales: Social Fate or Legal Privilege?" in The Position of Roman Slaves: Social Realities and Legal Differences (De Gruyter, 2023), pp. 25–26.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, pp. 77 (n. 3), 79; Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. filius iustus (= filius legitimus), p. 473, and spurius, p. 714.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Contubernales in CIL 6," Phoenix 35:1 (1981), p. 59.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Concubinae," Papers of the British School at Rome 49 (1981), p. 59.
^ Bradley (1994), pp. 50–51.
^ Treggiari, "Contubernales," p. 43.
^ Martin Schermaier, "Neither Fish nor Fowl: Some Grey Areas of Roman Slave Law," in The Position of Roman Slaves, p. 252; a few scholars who assert otherwise overlook juristic discussions of family law in which contubernium is cited as extralegal or ad hoc marriage even though not matrimony by law.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Family Life among the Staff of the Volusii," Transactions of the American Philological Association 105 (1975), p. 396.
^ Treggiari, "Contubernales," p. 61.
^ Treggiari, "Contubernales," pp. 45, 50.
^ Treggiari, "Contubernales," pp. 50–52.
^ Finkenauer, "Filii naturales," pp. 47, 64.
^ Pedro López Barja de Quiroga, "Freedmen Social Mobility in Roman Italy, Historia 44:3 (1995), pp. 345–346 and n. 68, disputing Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire, chapter 2.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery between Evidence and Models," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 92 (2007), pp. 25–26.
^ Finkenauer, "Filii naturales," pp. 35–36, 41, citing as examples Paulus, Digest 42.5.38 pr. (Sententiae, book 1), and Seneca, Controversiae 9.3.3.
^ Finkenauer, "Filii naturales," pp. 49–59, 64, weighing utilitarian and humanitarian motives.
^ Thomas A.J. McGinn, "Missing Females? Augustus' Encouragement of Marriage between Freeborn Males and Freedwomen," Historia 53:2 (2004) 200-208; see Lex Iulia et Papia.
^ Judith Evans-Grubbs, "'Marriage More Shameful Than Adultery'": Slave-Mistress Relationships, 'Mixed Marriages', and Late Roman Law," Phoenix 47:2 (1993), p. 127.
^ Katharine P. D. Huemoeller, "Freedom in Marriage? Manumission for Marriage in the Roman World," Journal of Roman Studies 110 (2020), p. 131, citing Digest 23.2.28 (Marcian) and 23.2.9 (Ulpian).
^ Thomas A. J. McGinn, "Concubinage and the Lex Iulia on Adultery, Transactions of the American Philological Association 121 (1991), p. 346.
^ Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Taylor & Francis, 1986), n.p., citing the jurist Paulus.
^ Treggiari, "Concubinae," pp. 77–78, citing Digest 24.2.11.2.
^ Gamauf (2009)
^ Antti Arjava, "Paternal Power in Late Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998), p. 164, citing Isidore, Origines 5.25.5 in connection with the survival of emancipatio in Visigothic law.
^ Richard Gamauf, "Peculium: Paradoxes of Slaves with Property," in The Position of Slaves, p. 111, and on broader opportunities passim.
^ AE 1955, 261. D S P stands for de sua pecunia, "from his own money".
^ Ulrike Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 92.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 93, citing Digest (Florentinus) 15.1.39.
^ Edward E. Cohen, Roman Inequality: Affluent Slaves, Businesswomen, Legal Fictions (Oxford University Press, 2023), pp. 51–52.
^ De sua pecunia: Gamauf, "Peculium: Paradoxes of Slaves with Property," p. 109.
^ Peter Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34:4 (2004), p. 527.
^ Gamauf, "Peculium: Paradoxes of Slaves with Property," p. 115, and "Dispensator: The Social Profile of a Servile Profession," p. 148, n. 140. The "belonging to" is typically expressed by the genitive case in Latin.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household," Classical Philology 94:2 (1999), pp. 187, 197.
^ Leslie Shumka, "Inscribing Agency? The Mundus Muliebris Commemorations from Roman Italy," Phoenix 70:1/2 (2016), p. 89.
^ Jane Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Taylor & Frances, 2008), n.p.
^ Jane F. Gardner, “The Adoption of Roman Freedmen,” Phoenix 43:3 (1989), p. 250, n. 31, citing the senatusconsultum Macedonianum (Digest 16.6).
^ Kehoe, Dennis P. (2011). "Law and Social Function in the Roman Empire". The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World. Oxford University Press. pp. 147–8.
^ Bradley (1994), pp. 2–3
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 83.
^ Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," p. 485.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 83.
^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. manumissio, p. 476.
^ Jakob Fortunat Stagl, "Favor libertatis: Slaveholders as Freedom Fighters," in The Position of Roman Slaves, p. 211, citing Ulpian, Institutiones 4 (Digest 1.1.4).
^ Ulrike Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), pp. 99–105.
^ Johnston, Roman Law in Context, p 39
^ Berger, entry on emancipatio, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 451. See also "Parental sale".
^ Thomas E. J. Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," Classical Quarterly 35:1 (1985), p. 163.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Contubernales in CIL 6," Phoenix 35:1 (1981) p.50ff et passim.
^ William V. Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36 (1980), p. 120.
^ Walter Scheidel, "Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997), p. 162.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 243.
^ Leonhard Schumacher, "On the Status of Private Actores, Dispensatores and Vilici,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), pp. 36–38.
^ Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," pp. 173–174.
^ Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship," p. 105.
^ As discussed by Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," pp. 162–175.
^ Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," pp. 165, 175.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 79, n. 5, citing Digest 40.12.40 (Hermogenian), 40.13. 1 (pr Ulpian), and 40.13.3 (Papinian); pp. 93, n.17; 96-97, 99.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), pp. 106–107.
^ David Daube, "Two Early Patterns of Manumission," Journal of Roman Studies 36 (1946), pp. 58–59.
^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. manumissio vindicta, p. 577. The view of manumissio vindicta as a fictitious trial concerning rei vindicatio was promulgated by Mommsen; some scholars see it as a more straightforward procedure.
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 11
^ Berger, Encyclopedia Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. manumissio censu, p. 576.
^ Daube, "Two Early Patterns of Manumission," pp. 61–62.
^ Mouritsen (2011), pp. 180–182
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 157
^ Berger, Encyclopedia Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. manumissio sub condicione and manumissio testamento, p. 576.
^ Egbert Koops, "Masters and Freedmen: Junian Latins and the Struggle for Citizenship," Integration in Rome and in the Roman World: Proceedings of the Tenth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Lille, June 23-25, 2011) (Brill, 2014), pp. 111–112.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 107.
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 85–86
^ Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship," p. 107.
^ Gaius, Institutiones 1.43, as cited by Pedro López Barja, Carla Masi Doria, and Ulrike Roth, introduction to Junian Latinity in the Roman Empire. Vol. 1: History, Law, Literature, Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Slavery (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), pp. 7–8.
^ Bradley (1994), p. 156.
^ Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," p. 163.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 154–155.
^ Youval Rotman, "Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World", Harvard University Press, 2009 p. 139
^ Fergus Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (University of Michigan, 1998, 2002), pp. 23, 209.
^ Gardner, Jane F. (1989). "The Adoption of Roman Freedmen". Phoenix. 43 (3): 236–257. doi:10.2307/1088460. ISSN 0031-8299. JSTOR 1088460.
^ Koops, "Masters and Freedmen," p. 110, especially note 32.
^ Koops, "Masters and Freedmen," pp. 110–111.
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 36
^ Adolf Berger, entry on libertus, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (American Philological Society, 1953, 1991), p. 564.
^ a b Berger, entry on libertinus, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 564.
^ Brent Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 41–43, 68, 90 (toga praetexta), 97, 159–161, 165, 170, et passim.
^ Amanda Coles, "Between Patronage and Prejudice: Freedman Magistrates in the Late Roman Republic and Empire," Transactions of the American Philological Association 147:1 (2017), pp. 180, 198–199 et passim, and providing inscriptions pp. 201–205.
^ Stagl, "Favor libertatis," p. 231, citing Digest 1.14.3 (Ulpian 38 ad Sab.).
^ Koops, "Masters and Freedmen," p. 110.
^ Keith Bradley, "'The Regular, Daily Traffic in Slaves': Roman History and Contemporary History," Classical Journal 87:2 (Dec. 1991–Jan. 1992), p. 131.
^ Hackworth Petersen, Lauren (2006). The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History. Cambridge University Press.
^ Mouritsen (2011)
^ Schmeling, Gareth L; Arbiter, Petronius; Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (2020). Satyricon. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-99737-0. OCLC 1141413691.
^ Pessima … libertas: Gaius, Institutiones 1.26, as cited by Deborah Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55 (2010), p. 104.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Men Without Hope," Papers of the British School at Rome 79 (2011), p. 90, citing Gaius, Institutes 1.13 and pointing also to Suetonius, Divus Augustus 40.4
^ Jane F. Gardner. 2011. "Slavery and Roman Law", in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Cambridge University Press. vol. 1, p. 429.
^ Herbert W. Benario, "The Dediticii of the Constitutio Antoniniana," p. 196 et passim.
^ Institutiones 1.3, as cited by John Madden, "Slavery in the Roman Empire: Numbers and Origins," Classics Ireland 3 (1996), p. 113.
^ Keith Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000), p. 112.
^ Alice Rio, "Self-Sale and Voluntary Entry into Unfreedom, 300-1100," Journal of Social History 45:3 (2012), p. p. 662, calling attention to Jacques Ramin and Paul Veyne, "Droit romain et sociéte: les hommes libres qui passent pour esclaves et l'esclavage volontaire," History 30:4 (1981), as deserving of more scholarly interest (p. 662).
^ Walter Scheidel, "Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997), pp. 156–169.
^ Keith Bradley, "On Captives under the Principate," Phoenix 58:3/4 (2004), p 299; P. A. Brunt Italian Manpower (Oxford 1971), p. 707; Hopkins 1978, pp. 8–15.
^ William V. Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36 (1980), p. 121.
^ Tim Cornell, 'The Recovery of Rome' in CAH2 7.2 F.W. Walbank et al. (eds.) Cambridge.
^ Wickham (2014), pp. 210–217
^ Wickham (2014), pp. 180–184
^ Joshel, Sandra Rae (2010). Slavery in the Roman World. Cambridge Introduction to Roman Civilization. Cambridge University Press. p. 55. ISBN 9780521535014. ISSN 1755-6058.
^ Bradley, "On Captives," pp. 298–318.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 118, 122.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 122.
^ Catherine Hezser, “The Social Status of Slaves in the Talmud Yerushalmi and in Graeco-Roman Society,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (Mohr, 2002), p. 96.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 122, citing Josephus, The Jewish War 6.420; Hezser, “The Social Status of Slaves,” p. 96 (Hezser is skeptical of Josephus's numbers).
^ Hezser, “The Social Status of Slaves,” p. 96, citing Josephus, Jewish War 3.10.10, 539ff.
^ Hezser, “The Social Status of Slaves,” p. 96, citing Josephus, Jewish War 3.7.31, 303–304.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 122, citing Chronicon Paschale 1.474 ed. Dindorf.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 122.
^ Ulrike Roth, "The Gallic Ransom and the Sack of Rome: Livy 5.48.7-8," Mnemosyne 71:3 (2018), p. 463, citing Digest (Florentinus) 1.5.4.2.
^ Thomas Wiedemann, "The Fetiales: A Reconsideration," Classical Quarterly 36:2 (1986), p. 483, citing Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 3.16.
^ Alexander Thein, "Booty in the Sullan Civil War of 83-82 B.C.," Historia 65:4 (2016), p. 462.
^ Roth, "The Gallic Ransom," p. 463, citing Varro, De re rustica 2.10.4.
^ In contrast to those wearing a cap (the pilleati) indicating that the seller offered no warranty on the slaves: Joseph A. Howley, "Why Read the Jurists?: Aulus Gellius on Reading Across Disciplines," in New Frontiers: Law and Society in the Roman World (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), citing Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 6.4.
^ M. Cary and A. D. Nock, "Magic Spears," Classical Quarterly 21:3/4 (1927), p. 123, n. 1, citing the work of Köchling and Wilken.
^ Ovid, Fasti 1.336, as cited by Steven J. Green, Ovid, Fasti 1: A Commentary (Brill, 2004), pp. 159–160.
^ Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome, p. 22 et passim.
^ Bradley, "On Captives," pp. 298–300, 313–314 et passim.
^ Vincent Gabrielsen, "Piracy and the Slave-Trade," in A. Erskine (ed.) A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Blackwell, 2003, 2005) pp. 389–404.
^ Gabrielsen, “Piracy and the Slave Trade,” p. 393.
^ Gabrielsen, “Piracy and the Slave Trade,” p. 392, citing Livy 34.50.5; Appian, Hannibalic Wars 28.
^ Gabrielsen, “Piracy and the Slave Trade,” pp. 393–394.
^ Gabrielsen, “Piracy and the Slave Trade,” p. 393.
^ Gabrielsen, “Piracy and the Slave Trade,” p. 393, citing Plutarch, Caesar 2.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 112, citing Plutarch, Caesar 1.4–2.4 and Suetonius, Julius Caesar 74.1.
^ Catherine Hezser, “Seduced by the Enemy or Wise Strategy? The Presentation of Non-Violence and Accommodation with Foreign Powers in Ancient Jewish Literary Sources,” in Between Cooperation and Hostility: Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), p. 246, citing m. Git. 4:2; t. Mo’ed Qat. 1:12. The reference to paying ransom to Romans may suggest war captives.
^ Levy, “Captivus Redumptus,” p. 173.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128, citing Strabo 14.664.
^ Plutarch, Pompey 24-8.
^ Madden, "Slavery in the Roman Empire," p. 121.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 124, citing mentions in Apuleius, Metamorphoses 7.9; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 8.7.12; Strabo 11.496; Xenophon of Ephesus 1.13–14; Dio Chrysostom 15.25; Lucian, De mercede conductis 24.
^ St. Augustine Letter 10.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 25, especially n. 26.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 75, citing Digest (Marcian) 1.5.5.1.
^ Bradley (1994), pp. 33–34, 48–49
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 100
^ John Madden "Slavery in the Roman Empire: Numbers and Origins," Classics Ireland 3 (1996), p. 115, citing Columella, De re rustica 1.8.19 and Varro, De re rustica 1.17.5, 7 and 2.126.
^ Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 256.
^ S. L. Mohler, "Slave Education in the Roman Empire," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 71 (1940), p. 272 et passim.
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 138 n. 90
^ Mohler, "Slave Education," p. 272, citing CIL 6.1052.
^ Mouritsen (2011), p. 100 n. 155
^ Sarah Levin-Richardson, "Vernae and Prostitution at Pompeii," Classical Quarterly 73:1 (2023), pp. 250–256.
^ McKeown, Niall (2007). The Invention of Modern Slavery?. London: Bristol Classical Press. pp. 139–140. ISBN 978-0-7156-3185-0.
^ Jane Bellemore and Beryl Rawson, "Alumni: The Italian Evidence," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 83 (1990), pp. 4–5.
^ Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, pp. 251–252.
^ Bellemore and Rawon, "Alumni," p. 7.
^ Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 255.
^ Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 253.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 271.
^ Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 253.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 264–265.
^ Christian Laes, "Child Slaves at Work in Roman Antiquity," Ancient Society 38 (2008), passim.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 241–242.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 245.
^ Keith R. Bradley, "Child Labour in the Roman World," Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 12:2 (1985), p. 324, citing Digest 17.1.26.8.
^ Ville Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World," Ancient Society 33 (2003), pp. 192–193.
^ Bradley, "Child Labour," pp. 319, 322.
^ Bradley, "Child Labour," pp. 321, 325 et passim.
^ Bradley, "Child Labour," citing Petronius, Satyricon 94.14.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 253, citing Columella 12.4.3.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 257.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 254–255.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 255–256.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 264–266.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 247, and Bradley, "Child Labor," p. 326.
^ Bradley, "Child Labor," p. 326, citing the poetic example in Vergil, Eclogues 8.37–40.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 248.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 246.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 247, citing Varro, De re rustica 2.10.
^ The age of the second child is less legible; Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 250–252, citing CIL 3.2, TC 6 (a girl) and TC 7 (a boy).
^ Bradley, "Child Labour," pp. 250–251, citing John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans 31, on 16.1, and Agatharchides, On the Erythraean Sea (frg. 23–29) apud Photius, Bibliotheca p. 447.21–p. 449.10a) and the version of Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 3.12.1–14.5
^ T. A. Rickard, "The Mining of the Romans in Spain," Journal of Roman Studies 18 (1928), p. 140.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 235–237.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 239, 241.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 268 et passim.
^ See discussions amongst Walter Scheidel, "Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997) 159–169; W. V. Harris, "Demography, Geography and the Sources of Roman Slaves," Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999), 62–75; Christian Laes, "Child Slaves at Work in Roman Antiquity," Ancient Society 38 (2008), especially p. 267; Elio lo Cascio, "Thinking Slave and Free in Coordinates," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 28.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 262–263, citing as example the commemoration of an alumnus and apprentice by an anaglyptarius (relief tooler), CIL 2.7.347, and p. 272.
^ Margaret Y. MacDonald, "Children in House Churches in Light of New Research on Families in the Roman World," in The World of Jesus and the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation in the Early Communities of Faith (Hendrickson, 2011), n.p..
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 268, citing John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos 7.10 (PG 48, 855): "Kidnappers often entice little boys by offering them sweets, and cakes, and marbles, and other such things; then they deprive them of their freedom and their very life," in reference to metaphorical Gehenna.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 269–270, citing mainly Roman comedy and the rhetorical tradition, Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 10.4.7 and John Chrysostom, homily 21 on First Corinthians 9:1 (on adults maiming themselves).
^ Ville Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World," Ancient Society 33 (2003), pp. 199–202.
^ Christian Laes, "Infants between Biological and Social Birth in Antiquity: A Phenomenon of the longue durée," Historia 63:3 (2014), pp. 364–383.
^ (Harris 1994, p. 9)
^ Neil W. Bernstein, "Adoptees and Exposed Children in Roman Declamation: Commodification, Luxury, and the Threat of Violence," Classical Philology 104:3 (2009), citing Seneca, Controversiae 9.3; Quintilian, Institutiones 7.1.14, 9.2.89; Declamationes Minores 278, 338, 376.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves at Work," p. 267.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves at Work," p. 241 et passim.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 198, asserting that "The selling of children had very little to do with child-exposure from the perspective of social history" (p. 206).
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 108.
^ Silver, "Contractual Slavery,” p. 108, citing Juvenal, Satire 6.592–609.
^ Silver, "Contractual Slavery," p. 109.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 199.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 183.
^ On maternal and neonatal mortality in the Roman world, see for example M. Golden, "Did the Ancients Care When Their Children Died?" Greece & Rome 35 (1988) 152–163; Keith R. Bradley, "Wet-nursing at Rome: A Study in Social Relations," in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (Cornell University Press, 1986, 1992), p. 202; Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 104.
^ Laes, "Infants between Biological and Social Birth," pp. 364–383.
^ Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, pp. 101–102.
^ Ido Israelowich, "The extent of the patria potestas during the High Empire: Roman midwives and the decision of non tollere as a case in point," Museum Helveticum 74:2 (2017), pp. 227–228, citing the Codex Theodosianus 11.15.1.
^ Laes, "Infants Between," p. 376, citing K. Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World AD 275–425 (Cambridge 2011), pp. 404–409.
^ Laes, "Infants Between," p. 375, citing Codex Theodosianus 5.10.1.
^ Silver, "Contractual Slavery," p. 108.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 267–268.
^ Ville Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World," Ancient Society 33 (2003), p. 181.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," pp. 188–191.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 181.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 267.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 181.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 181.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 267.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 267.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 61, citing Plutarch, Lucullus 20 and the prevalence of Greek names in the slave lists of Minturnae.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," pp. 172–178.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," pp. 197 (on the role of mothers), 201–204.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 182, citing Codex Theodosianus 27.2.
^ Israelowich, "The extent of the patria potestas during the High Empire," pp. 227–228, citing the Codex Theodosianus 11.15.1.
^ P.A. Brunt, Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (Chatto & Windus, 1971), pp. 56–57.
^ Brunt, Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic, pp. 56–57.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," pp. 187–188.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 179.
^ Rio, “Self-sale,” drawing extensively on Ramin and Veyne, “Droit romain et société," pp. 472–497.
^ Rio, "Self-Sale," p. 662.
^ Rio, “Self-sale,” p. 664, citing Justinian, Institutes 1.3.4, 1.16.1; Digest 1.5.5.1, 1.5.21, and 28.3.6.5.
^ Rio, “Self-sale,” pp. 663–664.
^ a b Rio, “Self-sale,” p. 664.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), pp. 75–76.
^ Rio, “Self-sale,” p. 680, n. 18, citing Digest 48.19.14.
^ Mary Nyquist, Arbitrary Rule: Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of Life and Death (University of Chicago Press, 2013), pp. 51–53, citing mainly the works of Cicero.
^ Rio, “Self-sale,” p. 665.
^ Hopkins, Keith. Conquerors and Slaves: Sociological Studies in Roman History. Cambridge University Press, New York. Pgs. 4–5
^ a b Moya K. Mason, "Roman Slavery: The Social, Cultural, Political, and Demographic Consequences", accessed 17 March 2021
^ Finley, Moses I. (1960). Slavery in classical Antiquity. Views and controversies. Cambridge.
^ Finley, Moses I. (1980). Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. Chatto & Windus.
^ Montoya Rubio, Bernat (2015). L'esclavitud en l'economia antiga: fonaments discursius de la historiografia moderna (Segles XV-XVIII). Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté. pp. 15–25. ISBN 978-2-84867-510-7.
^ Peter Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34:4 (2004), p. 515.
^ Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," pp. 519 and 522–524.
^ Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," pp. 514–515, 518.
^ Adsidua et cottidiana comparatio servorum: Keith Bradley, "'The Regular, Daily Traffic in Slaves': Roman History and Contemporary History," Classical Journal 87:2 (Dec. 1991–Jan. 1992), p. 126.
^ Walter Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," in The Cambridge World History of Slavery: The Ancient Mediterranean World, vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 302.
^ a b Harris (2000), p. 721
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126.
^ Morris Silver, "Places for Self-Selling in Ulpian, Plautus and Horace: The Role of Vertumnus," Mnemosyne 67:4 (2014), p. 580; on the Temple of Castor as the site, Seneca, De Constantia Sapientis 13.4; Plautus, Curculio 481.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126, documented for instance by wax tablets from the Villa of Murecine.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126, citing Suetonius, De gramm. 25.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 126, 138 n. 93.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126, citing CIL 10.8222.
^ Eleanor G. Huzar, "Egyptian Relations in Delos," Classical Journal 57:4 (1962), p. 170. The policing action of Rhodes has also been seen as a "naval protection racket" that allowed it to exercise control over shipping in the name of suppressing "piracy": Philip de Souza, "Rome's Contribution to the Development of Piracy," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 6 (2008), p. 76, drawing on V. Gabrielsen, "Economic Activity, Maritime Trade and Piracy in the Hellenistic Aegean," Revue des Études Anciennes 103:1/2 (2001) pp. 219-240.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 170–171.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 170, 176, citing a number of inscriptions on the Italian presence at an earlier date than had conventionally been thought.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," p. 169, citing Polybius 30,29, 31.7; Livy 33.30; Strabo 10.5.4, and p. 171, noting that "it is evident that Rome had no real understanding of the economic implications of her actions."
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," p. 170.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 171, 175, 176.
^ Strabo 14.5.2, as cited and tamped down by Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 169, 175.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," p. 175.
^ Aaron L. Beek, "The Pirate Connection: Roman Politics, Servile Wars, and the East," Transactions of the American Philological Association 146:1 (2016), p. 105.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 169, 175.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 126–127.
^ Huzar, "Roman-Egyptian Relations in Delos," pp. 175–176.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 66–65, calling the Romans "criminally negligent" and callously indifferent because of their appetite for slaves.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 127, citing Varro, De lingua Latina 9.21.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 127.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 127.
^ A. B. Bosworth, "Vespasian and the Slave Trade," Classical Quarterly 52:1 (2002), pp. 354–355, citing MAMA 6.260; Cicero, Pro Flacco 34–38 on Acmoninan prosperity; Appian, Mithridatic Wars 77.334; Memnon of Heracleia, FGrH 434 F 1 (28.5–6); and Plutarch, Lucullus 17.1, 24.1, 30.3, 35.1.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 127.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 126, citing Strabo 11.493, 495–496
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 126, 138 n. 97 (with numerous citations of primary sources).
^ Ralph Jackson, "Roman Bound Captives: Symbol of Slavery?" in Image, Craft, and the Classical World: Essays in Honour of Donald Bailey and Catherine Johns (Montagnac, 2005), pp. 143–156.
^ Michael H. Crawford, “Republican Denarii in Romania: The Suppression of Piracy and the Slave-Trade,” Journal of Roman Studies 67 (1977), pp. 117-124.
^ Jackson, "Roman Bound Captives: Symbols of Slavery?" p. 151.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 124, citing Strabo 5.214 and 11.493; Tacitus, Agricola 28.3; and Periplous Maris Erythraei 13, 31, 36.
^ Marius Alexianu, "Lexicographers, Paroemiographers, and Slaves-for-Salt: Barter in Ancient Thrace," Phoenix 65:3/4 (2011), pp. 389-394.
^ Crawford, “Republican Denarii in Romania,” p. 121, citing Diodorus 5.26 and Cicero, Pro Quinctio 24.
^ Walter Scheidel, "Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997), p. 159.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 125–126.
^ Harris,“Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” p. 121.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 302.
^ Walter Scheidel, "Real Slave Prices and the Relative Cost of Slave Labor in the Greco-Roman World," Ancient Society 35 (2005), p. 8.
^ Scheidel, "Real Slave Prices," pp. 16–17.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 302.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 126, 138 n. 93.
^ Section de mancipiis vendundis ("on slaves for sale") of the Edicts of the Curule Aediles (Digest 21.1.44 pr 1–2 and 21.1.1), as cited by Lisa A. Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves and the Curule Aediles' Edict: Some Epigraphic and Iconographic Evidence from Capua," Ancient Society 36 (2006), pp. 239, 249.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," pp. 250, 253.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," p. 258, citing Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4.2.1, noting reliefs that depict slaves wearing such a tablet.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," pp. 245.
^ "Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Catasta". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2023-07-16.
^ "Statius, P. Papinius, Silvae, book 2, Glauctas Atedii melioris delicatus". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2023-07-16.
^ Bradley, "'The Regular, Daily Traffic in Slaves'," p. 128.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 302.
^ Gellius, Aulus. Attic Nights. 6.4.1.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 102, citing Pliny, Natural History 35.58.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," pp. 240, 243–244, disputing an alternate interpretation of the figure as a statue.
^ As indicated by his attire: Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," p. 245.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," p. 246.
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," pp. 249–250 et passim.
^ a b Johnston, Mary. Roman Life. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1957, p. 158–177
^ Johnston, David (2022). Roman Law in Context (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-108-70016-0. The actio redhibitoria for 6 months and the actio quanto minoris for 12, applying to sales of slaves and cattle in the market.
^ Alan Watson, Legal Origins and Legal Change (Hambledon Press, 1991), p. 252, observing along with W. W. Buckland that the inability of infants also to walk calls the rigor of this reasoning into question.
^ Finkenauer, "Filii naturales," in The Position of Roman Slaves, pp. 43–44, citing Ulpian on the Edict of the Curule Aediles, book 2 (Digest.21.1.38.14).
^ Hughes, "The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves," p. 255, citing Africanus, Digest L 16.207 (3 ad Quaestiones).
^ Oxford Latin Dictionary (1985 printing), s.v. venalicarius, venalicius, and venalis, pp. 2025–2026.
^ Walter Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," in The Cambridge World History of Slavery: The Ancient Mediterranean World, vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 300.
^ Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. mango, p. 1073.
^ Brent D. Shaw, "The Great Transformation: Slavery and the Free Republic," in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 189.
^ Shaw, "The Great Transformation," p. 190. For a local dealer, andrapodokapelos: C. M. Reed, Maritime Traders in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 22.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 300.
^ A. B. Bosworth, “Vespasian and the Slave Trade,” Classical Quarterly 52:1 (2002), p.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 300.
^ Shaw, "The Great Transformation," p. 190.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 300.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 301.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 301.
^ H. W. Pleket, "Urban Elites and Business in the Greek Part of the Roman Empire," in Trade in the Ancient Economy (University of California Press, 1983), p. 139.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Slave Trade," p. 129, citing Pliny, Natural History 7.56; Suetonius, Divus Augustus 69; Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.4.28.
^ Bosworth, “Vespasian and the Slave Trade,” p. 356, citing Pliny, Natural History 7.56.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. .
^ Pleket, "Urban Elites and Business," p. 139.
^ Taco T. Terpsta, "The Palmyrene Temple in Rome and Palmyra's Trade with the West," in Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade Between Orient and Occident. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Athens, December 1-3, 2012 (Archaeopress, 2016), p. 44, citing CIL 6.399. Terpsta expresses doubt about the sufficiency of the standard interpretation, primarily of Coarelli, that this dedication should be connected to the Palmyrene community of either slaves or slave traders in Rome.
^ Sandra R. Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 95
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Slave Trade," p. 129.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 301.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Slave Trade," pp. 132–133.
^ A. B. Bosworth, “Vespasian and the Slave Trade,” Classical Quarterly 52:1 (2002), pp. 350-357, arguing on the basis of Suetonius, Vespasianus 4.3 and other mentions that this trade was not in mules as is sometimes thought; this view is accepted also by Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 301.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 71.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 71, citing Plutarch, Cato the Elder 18.2, and remarking on "Cato's bitter statement that handsome slaves cost more than a farm" (Diodorus Siculus 31.24).
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 71.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 95.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 95.
^ Harris (2000), p. 722
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 95, citing Tacitus, Annales 13.31.2.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 95.
^ Scheidel, "The Roman Slave Supply," p. 302.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," pp. 124, 138 n. 81, citing CIL 8.4508.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household," Classical Philology 94:2 (1999), p. 187, citing the Digest 50.16.203.
^ a b c d e f g "Slavery in Rome," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 323.
^ Martin Schermaier, "Neither Fish nor Fowl: Some Grey Areas of Roman Slave Law," in The Position of Roman Slaves (De Gruyter, 2023), p. 242, citing Digest (Ulpian ad Sabinum, book 18) 7.1.15.1–2.
^ Christian Laes, “Child Slaves at Work in Roman Antiquity,” Ancient Society 38 (2008), p. 240, citing Paulus, Sent. 2.18.1.
^ Peter Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34:4 (2004),p. 519, citing Cicero, De officiis 21.1.150–151.
^ Marice E. Rose, "The Construction of Mistress and Slave Relationships in Late Antique Art," Woman's Art Journal 29:2 (2008), p. 41
^ Susan Treggiari, “Jobs in the Household of Livia,” Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975) p. 55.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, p. 57.
^ Clarence A. Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 86 (1955), pp. 332–333.
^ Ramsay MacMullen, "The Unromanized in Rome," in Diasporas in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies 2020), pp. 49–50, basing his guess of one hundred per household on his earlier demographic work in Changes in the Roman Empire (1990).
^ Roman Civilization Archived 2009-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
^ MacMullen, "The Unromanized in Rome," p. 49.
^ John R. Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration (University of California Press, 1991), p. 2.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 73.
^ a b MacMullen, "The Unromanized in Rome," p. 51.
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 334, citing ILS 7710.
^ Forbes, “Education and Training of Slaves,” pp. 331–332.
^ Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," p. 514.
^ Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," pp. 525–526, 528.
^ John E. Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), p. 144, 144, 178; Kathryn Hinds, Everyday Life in the Roman Empire (Marshall Cavendish, 2010) ,p. 90.
^ Claire Holleran, Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate (Oxford Universwity Press, 2012), p. 136ff.
^ J. Mira Seo, "Cooks and Cookbooks," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University, 2010), pp. 298–299.
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 335, citing Columella, 1 praef. 5 ("workshop" is officina).
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," pp. 335-336, citing Seneca, Moral Epistle 47.6, and Juvenal 5.121.
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 334, citing Cicero, Letter to Atticus 14.3.1
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 334, citing ILS 7733a.
^ Keith Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000), p. 110, citing Varro, De re rustica 1.17.1.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 110, citing Cato, De agricultura 2.7.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 110, citing Columella, De re rustica 1.6.8.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 111, citing the jurist Gaius interpreting the Lex Aquilia at Digest 9.2.2.2.
^ William V. Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 36 (1980), p. 118.
^ Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” p. 128, citing for example the parable in Matthew 13:24–30.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Slave Trade," p. 119.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Slave Trade," p. 120, citing Columella 1.8.4.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery between Evidence and Models," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 92 (2007), pp. 3, 17, 36, citing Columella 12.1.5, 12.3.3, and 12.3.8 and Cato, De agricultura 143.3.
^ Roth, "Thinking Tools," p. 49, citing Cato, De agricultura 143.1.
^ Miroslava Mirković, "The Later Roman Colonate and Freedom," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 87:2 (1997), p. 42, noting that in other contexts, the ergastulum seems to be a penal workhouse not necessarily for agricultural labor, as when Livy (2.2.6) contrasts a debtor who is led non in servitium sed in ergastulum, "not into slavery but into the workhouse."
^ Fergus Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire, from the Julio-Claudians to Constantine," Papers of the British School at Rome 52 (1984), pp. 143–144.
^ William Heinemann, notes to Livy 32.26.17–18, in Livy: Books XXXI-XXXIV with an English Translation (Harvard University Press, 1935), pp. 236–237.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire, from the Julio-Claudians to Constantine," pp. 131–132.
^ Alfred Michael Hirt, Imperial Mines and Quarries in the Roman World: Organizational Aspects 27–BC AD 235 (Oxford University Press, 2010), sect. 3.3.
^ W. Mark Gustafson, "Inscripta in Fronte: Penal Tattooing in Late Antiquity," Classical Antiquity 16:1 (1997), p. 81.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 124–125.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 127–128, 132, 137–138, 146.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 128, 138.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," p. 139.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 139–140.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 140, 145–146.
^ Eusebius, writing of those who were subjected to mutilations that reduced their capacity to work and were then sent to the copper mines "not so much for service as for the sake of ill treatment and hardship" (Historia Ecclesiastica 8.12.10), as referenced in this context by Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," pp. 141, 147.
^ Temin, "The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire," p. 520.
^ Millar, "Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire," p. 141–142.
^ Hirt, Imperial Mines and Quarries, sect. 4.2.1.
^ Christian G. De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein, “Writing a Global History of Convict Labour,” in Global Histories of Work (De Gruyter, 2016), p. 58.
^ Lionel Casson, "Galley Slaves," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 97 (1966), p. 35.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, pp. 318–319.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 320.
^ Sarah Bond, Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean (University of Michigan Press, 2016), pp.70–71.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 320.
^ a b Adolf Berger. 1991. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. American Philosophical Society (reprint). p. 706.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, pp. 320–321.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 320.
^ Wolfram Buchwitz, "Giving and Taking: The Effects of Roman Inheritance Law on the Social Position of Slaves," in The Position of Roman Slaves, pp. 183–184, citing Tit. Ulp. 20.16; CIL VI.2354 and X.4687.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 319, especially n. 4.
^ Buchwitz, "Giving and Taking: The Effects of Roman Inheritance Law on the Social Position of Slaves," pp. 183–184, citing CIL VI 2354 on the designation of a public slave's concubina as his heir.
^ Peter J. Holliday, "The Sarcophagus of Titus Aelius Evangelus and Gaudenia Nicene," The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 21 (1993), pp. 94, 96.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Contubernales in CIL 6," Phoenix 35:1 (1981), p. 50.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 319.
^ John Madden, "Slavery in the Roman Empire Numbers and Origins," Classics Ireland 3 (1996), citing Frontinus, De aquaeductu 116–117.
^ Marianne Béraud, Nicolas Mathieu, Bernard Rémy, "Esclaves et affranchis chez les Voconces au Haut-Empire: L'apport des inscriptions," Gallia 74:2 (2017), p. 80.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 83.
^ William V. Harris, "Roman Terracotta Lamps: The Organization of an Industry," Journal of Roman Studies 70 (1980), p. 140.
^ David Johnston, "Law and Commercial Life of Rome," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 43 (1997), p. 59.
^ Harris, "Roman Terracotta Lamps: The Organization of an Industry," pp. 140–141; Johnston, "Law and Commercial Life," p. 56 et passim, on the son as institor.
^ Leonhard Schumacher, "On the Status of Private Actores, Dispensatores and Vilici,”Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 31.
^ Susan Treggiari, "Jobs in the Household of Livia," Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975), p. 49.
^ Treggiari, ""Jobs in the Household of Livia," p. 50.
^ Schumacher, "On the Status of Private Actores, Dispensatores and Vilici,” pp. 36–38.
^ Treggiari, "Jobs in the Household of Livia," p. 50.
^ Gamauf, "Dispensator: The Social Profile of a Servile Profession," p. 130, n. 24; Jesper Carlsen, "Vilici" and Roman Estate Managers until AD 284 (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1995), p. 148, n. 492, cites CIL IX 2558 and CIL IX 4644 (= ILS 3857) on two dispensatrices.
^ Willem Zwalye, "Valerius Patruinus' Case Contracting in the Name of the Emperor," in The Representation and Perception of Roman Imperial Power: Proceedings of the Third Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Roman Empire, c. 200 B.C.–A.D. 476), Rome, March 20-23, 2002 (Brill, 2003), p. 160.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 82.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, pp. 162, 274–275.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 82.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 82.
^ Alan Watson, "Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology," Phoenix 37:1 (1983), pp. 56-57.
^ Silver, "Contractual Slavery," p. 90.
^ Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” p. 128, citing Matthew 21:34 and 25:14–30.
^ Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” p. 128, citing Matthew 24:45 and Mark 13:35.
^ Catherine Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome," in Roman Sexualities (Princeton UP 1997), pp. 72–73, citing the Tabula Heracleensis on some restrictions outside the city of Rome.
^ Thomas A.J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford UP 1998) p. 65ff.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," pp. 66–67.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," p. 66.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," p. 73.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," pp. 76, 82–83.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," pp. 74–75, citing Livy 7.2.12; Augustus mitigated the practice.
^ D. Selden, "How the Ethiopian Changed His Skin," Classical Antiquity 32:2 (2013), p. 329, citing Donatus, Vita Terenti 1.
^ Alison Futrell, A Sourcebook on the Roman Games (Blackwell, 2006), p. 124.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," p. 82.
^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," p. 81.
^ Amy Richlin, "Sexuality in the Roman Empire," in A Companion to the Roman Empire (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 350.
^ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law, pp. 293, 316.
^ Rebecca Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999), pp. 49–50.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 76.
^ Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum," p. 53, citing Scriptores Historiae Augustae, "Hadrian" 18.8.
^ Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery, p. 38, citing Codex Iustiniani 1.4.14, 33; Institutiones 1.8.2.
^ Codex Theodosianus 9.40.8 and 15.9.1; Symmachus, Relatio 8.3.
^ a b Mackay, Christopher (2004). Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 298. ISBN 978-0521809184.
^ Vuolanto, "Selling a Freeborn Child," p. 191.
^ Keith R. Bradley, "On the Roman Slave Supply and Slavebreeding," in Classical Slavery (Frank Cass, 2000), p. 53.
^ Rosenstein, Nathan (2005-12-15). Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-6410-4. Recent studies of Italian demography have further increased doubts about a rapid expansion of the peninsula's servile population in this era. No direct evidence exists for the number of slaves in Italy at any time. Brunt has little trouble showing that Beloch's estimate of 2 million during the reign of Augustus is without foundation. Brunt himself suggests that there were about 3 million slaves out of a total population in Italy of about 7.5 million at this date, but he readily concedes that this is no more than a guess. As Lo Cascio has cogently noted, that guess in effect is a product of Brunt's low estimate of the free population
^ a b Goldhill, Simon (2006). Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge University Press.
^ Walter Scheidel. 2005. 'Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population', Journal of Roman Studies 95: 64–79. Scheidel, p. 170, has estimated between 1 and 1.5 million slaves in the 1st century BC.
^ Wickham (2014), p. 198 notes the difficulty in estimating the size of the slave population and the supply needed to maintain and grow the population.
^ No contemporary or systematic census of slave numbers is known; in the Empire, under-reporting of male slave numbers would have reduced the tax liabilities attached to their ownership. See Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425. Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 58–60, and footnote 150. ISBN 978-0-521-19861-5
^ a b Noy, David (2000). Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers. Duckworth with the Classical Press of Wales. ISBN 978-0-7156-2952-9.
^ Harper, James (1972). Slaves and Freedmen in Imperial Rome. Am J Philol.
^ Frier, "Demography", 789; Scheidel, "Demography", 39.
^ "Estimated Distribution of Citizenship in the Roman Empire". byustudies.byu.edu.
^ Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A. J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 15.
^ Stefan Goodwin, Africa in Europe: Antiquity into the Age of Global Expansion, vol. 1 (Lexington Books, 2009), p. 41, noting that "Roman slavery was a nonracist and fluid system".
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 111.
^ Thomas Harrison, "Classical Greek Ethnography and the Slave Trade," Classical Antiquity 38:1 (2019), p. 39.
^ Jane Rowlands, "Dissing the Egyptians: Legal, Ethnic, and Cultural Identities in Roman Egypt," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 120 (2013), p. 235.
^ Harrison, "Classical Greek Ethnography," citing Varro, De Lingua Latina 9.93.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 29, note 29, citing Catullus 10.14–20.
^ Kathryn Tempest, "Saints and Sinners: Some Thoughts on the Presentation of Character in Attic Oratory and Cicero's Verrines," in "Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae": Rhetoric, Law, And Taxation In Cicero's "Verrines" (Institute of Classical Studies, 2007), p. 31, citing Ad Verrem 5.27.
^ L. Richardson Jr., "Catullus 4 and Catalepton 10 Again," American Journal of Philology 93:1 (1972), p. 217.
^ Maeve O'Brien, "Happier Transports to Be: Catullus' Poem 4: Phaselus Ille," Classics Ireland 13 (2006), pp. 71.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 42, and “Roman Slavery and Roman Law,” p. 481.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 1. The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 122.
^ Catherine Hezser, "Slavery and the Jews," p. 439. A similar conclusion is expressed by Dale B. Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” in The Jewish Family in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies 2020), p. 118, citing evidence from inscriptions and papyri of Jewish slave owners in Transjordan, Egypt, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, and evidence of Jewish slaves in Jerusalem, Galilee, Egypt, Italy, and Greece.
^ Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” p. 113.
^ Fanny Dolansky, "Reconsidering the Matronalia and Women's Rites," Classical World 104:2 (2011), p. 206.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 117.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 76.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128, citing Eph. Ep. 8 (1899) 524 no. 311.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128, citing FIRA 3 no. 89.
^ Bradley, "'The Regular Daily Traffic in Slaves'," pp. 133, 137.
^ Bradley, "'The Regular Daily Traffic in Slaves'," p. 133.
^ Rudolf Franz Ertl and Helmut Leitner, Wasser für Carnuntum: Versorgung, Entsorgung, Badekultur im Römischen Reich und in der Stadt an der Donau, vol. 2: Carnuntum (Hollitzer, 2023), p. 735.
^ Eftychia Bathrellou and Kostas Vlassopoulos, Greek and Roman Slaveries (Wiley, 2022), pp. 4–5.
^ Ulrike Roth, "Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 105.
^ Martin Schermaier, introduction to The Position of Roman Slaves: Social Realities and Legal Differences (De Gruyter, 2023), p. vi, and "Without Rights? Social Theories Meet Roman Law Texts," pp. 6–7.
^ Sandra R. Joshel, "Nurturing the Master's Child: Slavery and the Roman Child-Nurse," Signs 12:1 (1986), p. 4, with reference to the classic work of Moses Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology.
^ Victoria Emma Pagán, “Teaching Torture in Seneca, Controversiae 2.5,” Classical Journal 103:2 (Dec.–Jan. 2007/2008), p. 175, citing Cicero, Pro Cluentio 175–177.
^ Dolansky, "Reconsidering the Matronalia," pp.205–206.
^ Susan Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," Greece & Rome 16.2 (1969), p. 195, citing Ad Atticum 1.12.4.
^ Gerard B. Lavery, "Training, Trade and Trickery: Three Lawgivers in Plutarch," Classical World 67:6 (1974), p. 377; Plutarch, Life of Cato 4.4–5.1.
^ Mellor, Ronald. The Historians of Ancient Rome. New York: Routledge, 1997. (467).
^ Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 1.26, as cited by Clarence A. Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 86 (1955), p. 338.
^ Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 17, 93, 238.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 127.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 99–100.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 107, citing Pliny, Epistle 8.24.5
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 107, citing Pliny, Epistle 5.19.1–4.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 107 and 114, citing Suetonius, Claudius 25 and the Digest of Justinian 40.8.2.
^ Gary B. Ferngren, "Roman Lay Attitudes towards Medical Experimentation," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 59:4 (1985), p. 504. Free people had no recourse, though pharmacological malpractice that resulted in death by poisoning could result in a charge of homicide against the physician under the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis.
^ Clarence A. Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 86 (1955), pp. 343–344; also Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 114, using the word technē.
^ Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 344, noting Cicero's tactful if condescending dismissal that "professions such as medicine, architecture, and teaching of the liberal arts which either involve higher learning or are utilitarian to no small degree are honorable for those whose social status they are suited" (De officiis 1.42.151)—that status not being senatorial.
^ Ramsay MacMullen, "Social Ethic Models: Roman, Greek, 'Oriental',"Historia 64:4 (2015), p. 491.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 114; Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," p. 344–345.
^ George C. Boon, "Potters, Oculists and Eye-Troubles," Britannia 14 (1983), p. 6, citing CIL 11.5400, ILS 7812; on the size of his estate, Cornelia M. Roberts, "Roman Slaves," Classical Outlook 43:9 (1966), p. 97, gives 400,00, and Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves," the larger sum (p. 347); floruit of Merula from Barbara Kellum, review of Rome's Cultural Revolution by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, American Journal of Philology 132:2 (2011), p. 334.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 74, citing Suetonius, Augustus 11; CIL 10.388; Cicero, Pro Cluentio 47.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 114, citing Galen, Therapeutikē technē 1 (Kühn) and Pliny, Natural History 29.1.4 (9).
^ Véronique Boudon-Millot, “Greek and Roman Patients under Galen's Gaze: A Doctor at the Crossroads of Two Cultures,” in "Greek" and "Roman" in Latin Medical Texts: Studies in Cultural Change and Exchange in Ancient Medicine (Koninklijke Brill, 2014), pp. 7, 10.
^ Boudon-Millot, “Greek and Roman Patients,” p. 9.
^ Cicero. Ad familiares 16.6
^ Cicero. Ad familiares 16.3
^ Bankston (2012), p. 209
^ Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," p. 200.
^ Bankston (2012), p. 215
^ Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," p. 484.
^ Cicero, Ad familiares 16.21
^ Jerome, Chronological Tables 194.1
^ William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology vol. 3, p. 1182 Archived 2006-12-07 at the Wayback Machine
^ Valerie Hope, “Fighting for Identity: The Funerary Commemoration of Italian Gladiators,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 73 (2000), p. 101.
^ Christer Bruun, “Greek or Latin? The owner's choice of names for vernae in Rome,” in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2013), pp. 21–22.
^ Brent D. Shaw, "The Great Transformation: Slavery and the Free Republic," in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 196.
^ “Grave Relief of a Silversmith,” Getty Museum Collection, object number 96.AA.40, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104034. See more on Publius Curtilius Agatho under “Commemoration” below.
^ J. F. Drinkwater, “The Rise and Fall of the Gallic Julii: Aspects of the Development of the Aristocracy of the Three Gauls under the Early Empire,” Latomus 37 (1978) 817–850.
^ Clive Cheesman, "Names in -por and Slave Naming in Republican Rome," Classical Quarterly 59:2 (2009), pp. 516, 523.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 516.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” pp. 511, 519, 521, et passim.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” pp. 521, 527.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 524. Marcipor is also the name of a Menippean satire by Varro.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 528.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 512.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 517.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 524.
^ Susan Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," Greece & Rome 16.2 (1969), p. 196.
^ The status of some servants he names is not clear from context; they could be either slaves or freedmen still working for him; Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," p. 196.
^ Anna Anguissola, "Remembering the Greek Masterpieces: Observations on Memory and Roman Copies," in "Memoria Romanum": Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory, American Academy in Rome (University of Michigan Press, 2014), pp. 121–122.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 517.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 96.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 96, citing Varro, De lingua latina 8.21.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 96 and especially n. 2.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 518. See also “Temple slaves”.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 96.
^ So argued by Bruun, “Greek or Latin? The owner's choice of names for vernae in Rome.” Bruun also argues that naming your own children might have been one of the perks of being a verna.
^ Hope, “Fighting for Identity,” p. 101, citing inscriptions EAOR 1.63 and EAOR 2.41 = AE (1908) 222.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 516, citing Diodorus Siculus 36.4.4.
^ Cheesman, “Names in -por,” p. 518, citing Cicero, Philippics 2.77: “Quis tu?” “A Marco tabellarius.”
^ Westermann,Slave Systems, p. 92 and n. 34.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 96.
^ Michele George, “Slave Disguise,” in Representing the Body of the Slave (Routledge, 2002, 2013), p. 42 et passim.
^ Thomas Wiedemann and Jane Gardner, introduction to Representing the Body of the Slave, p. 4; George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 43.
^ a b Rose, “The Construction of Mistress and Slave,” p. 43, with reference to George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 44.
^ Alexandra Croom, Roman Clothing and Fashion (Amberley 201), n.p.
^ Wiedemann and Gardner, introduction to Representing, p. 4; George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 44.
^ George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 43.
^ George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 38.
^ Sandra R. Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge UP, 2010), p. 133.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, p. 56.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, p. 39.
^ Amy Richlin, Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus and Popular Comedy (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 116, 121, citing Truculentus 270–275.
^ Joshel, “Slavery in the Roman World,” pp. 133, 137. The scene may suggest a sequential narrative—changing into party shoes, drinking, the aftermath upon departure—rather than the simultaneous actions of two different guests.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, p. 8.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, pp. 68–69.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, pp. 8–9.
^ Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World, pp. 133, 135.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, citing Columella 1.8.9 (sic).
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, citing Cato, On agriculture 59.
^ Croom, Roman Clothing, n.p.
^ R. T. Pritchard, “Land Tenure in Sicily in the First Century B.C.,” Historia 18:5 (1969), pp. 349–350, citing Diodorus Siculus 34.2.34.
^ George, “Slave Disguise,” p. 44, 51, n. 14 citing Seneca.
^ Keith R. Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions in Ancient Sicily," Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 10:3 (1983), p. 435.
^ M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (1980), p. 111, as cited by Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," p. 489, n. 35.
^ Dan-el Padilla Peralta, "Slave Religiosity in the Roman Middle Republic,"Classical Antiquity 36:2 (2017), p. 355, citing Cato apud Festus 268 L.
^ Keith Bradley, "The Problem of Slavery in Classical Culture" (review article), Classical Philology 92:3 (1997), pp. 278–279, citing Plutarch, Moralia 511d–e.
^ Thomas E. J. Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," Classical Quarterly 35:1 (1985), p. 165, citing Codex Justinianus 3.36.5 = GARS 199, 7.12.2 = GARS 10; and CIL 6.2.10229 (starting at line 80).
^ Holt Parker, "Crucially Funny or Tranio on the Couch: The Servus Callidus and Jokes about Torture," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119 (1989), p. 237.
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," p. 237.
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," p. 237, citing Livy 22.33.2; see also William A. Oldfather, "Livy i, 26 and the Supplicium de More Maiorum," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 39 (1908), p. 62
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," pp. 237–238, citing Livy 32.26.4–18 and Zonaras 9.16.6.
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," p. 238.
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," p. 238, citing Livy 33.36.1–3.
^ Holt, "Crucially Funny," p. 238, citing Livy 39.29.8–10.
^ Diodorus Siculus, The Civil Wars; Siculus means "the Sicilian".
^ Some scholars question whether Sicilian grain production or ranching was extensive enough at this time to sustain such large-scale slaveholding, or the extent to which the rebellions might also have attracted poorer or disadvantaged free persons: Gerald P. Verbrugghe, "Sicily 210-70 B.C.: Livy, Cicero and Diodorus," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 103 (1972), pp. 535-559, and "The Elogium from Polla and the First Slave War," Classical Philology 68:1 (1973), pp. 25–35; R. T. Pritchard, "Land Tenure in Sicily in the First Century B.C.," Historia 18:5 (1969), pp. 545–556 on latifundia pushing out small farmers in favor of ranching operations employing slaves.
^ Keith R. Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions in Ancient Sicily," Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 10:3 (1983), p. 443.
^ Verbrugghe, "Sicily 210-70 B.C.," p. 540; on a certain type of latifundium functioning as a ranch, K. D. White, "Latifundia," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 14 (1967), p. 76.
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," pp. 441–442.
^ Peter Morton, "The Geography of Rebellion: Strategy and Supply in the Two 'Sicilian Slave Wars'," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 57:1 (2014), pp. 26.
^ Morton, "The Geography of Rebellion," pp. 28–29.
^ Morton, "The Geography of Rebellion," pp. 29, 35.
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," pp. 436–437 (reviewing other scholars on the subject) and moderating views of Eunus's actual monarchical ambitions pp. 439–440
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," p. 447.
^ Morton, "The Geography of Rebellion," p. 22ff., from the logistical perspective of "terrain";
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," p. 441.
^ Aaron L. Beek, "The Pirate Connection: Roman Politics, Servile Wars, and the East," TAPA 146:1 (2016), p. 100.
^ Beek, "The Pirate Connection," p. 100.
^ Beek, "The Pirate Connection," p. 100, citing Diodorus 36.3.2.
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," p. 442.
^ Beek, "The Pirate Connection," pp. 104–106.
^ Athenion's name is inscribed on several sling bullets found at multiple sites in Sicily; Beek, "The Pirate Connection," pp. 31–32.
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," p. 442.
^ Beek, "The Pirate Connection," pp. 32–34.
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," pp. 449–550.
^ Anne Searcy, "The Recomposition of Aram Khachaturian's Spartacus at the Bolshoi Theater, 1958–1968," Journal of Musicology 33:3 (2016), pp. 362-400, citing the 2013 production as an example of the "heavily revised version … [that] has become canonical" (p. 398) and describing it as "no longer … an exploration of musical national diversity" but nationalist (p. 399) and devoid of the ethnic diversity of Spartacus's followers as originally conceived by the composer (p. 365).
^ Erich S. Gruen,The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (University of California Press, 1974), p. 20.
^ Gruen, The Last Generation, p. 20.
^ Robin Seager, "The Rise of Pompey," The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 221.
^ Gruen, The Last Generation, p. 20.
^ Seager, "The Rise of Pompey," pp. 221–222.
^ Gruen, The Last Generation, p. 21.
^ Seager, "The Rise of Pompey," p. 222.
^ T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, vol. 2 (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 489, citing Plutarch.
^ Seager, "The Rise of Pompey," pp. 222–233.
^ Christopher J. Furhmann, Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 24.
^ Naerebout and Singor, "De Oudheid", p. 296
^ Furhmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 24.
^ Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," p. 488, citing Digest 29.5.1.27 (Ulpian).
^ Bradley, "Slave Kingdoms and Slave Rebellions," p. 443; "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," p. 488 on the number executed.
^ A legal principle reaching "the level of the preposterous" notes Keith R. Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law, Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 15:3 (1988), p. 489; Digest 47.2.61 (Africanus), as cited by Silver, "Places for Self-Selling," p. 582.
^ Christopher J. Furhmann, Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 42.
^ Bradley, Keith Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, pp. 31ff.
^ Furhmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 24.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 28, note 28.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 124.
^ Susan Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," Greece & Rome 16.2 (1969), p. 196, citing Cicero Ad familiares 13.77.3 and 5.9–11.
^ Morris Silver, "Contractual Slavery in the Roman Economy," Ancient History Bulletin 25 (2011), p. 76.
^ María Isabel Baldasarre, "Comentario sobre Androcles," Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires, inv. 5498, https://www.bellasartes.gob.ar/coleccion/obra/5498/
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society, p. 107, citing Aulus Gellius 5.14, who credits Apion as an eyewitness attending the venatio; Seneca, De beneficiis 2.19.1; Aelian, De natura animalium 7.48.
^ Keith Bradley, "On Captives under the Principate," Phoenix 58:3/4 (2004), pp. 298-318.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 26.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 75.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 76–77, citing Plutarch, Cato the Elder 21.3, and Cato, On agriculture 56.
^ Jennifer A. Glancy, "Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables," Journal of Biblical Literature 119:1 (2000), p. 67, citing Petronius, Satyricon 49.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 105, citing Galen, De animi morbis 4 (Kühn 5:17).
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 105, Script. Hist. Aug., Commodus 1.9.
^ As characterized by Matthew Roller, "In the Intersignification of Monuments in Augustan Rome," American Journal of Philology 134:1 (2013), p. 126.
^ By Pliny the Elder, Natural History 9.77; Cassius Dio 54.23.1–5; and indirectly Tacitus, Annales 1.10, 12.60, as cited by Thomas W. Africa, "Adam Smith, the Wicked Knight, and the Use of Anecdotes," Greece & Rome 42:1 (1995), pp. 71–72.
^ Likely alluded to in a similar incident at Trimalchio's dinner party, Satyricon 52.4, according to Barry Baldwin, "Careless Boys in the Satyricon," Latomus 44:4 (1985), pp. 847-848.
^ Alan Watson, "Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology," Phoenix 37:1 (1983), p. 56, citing De ira 3.40.1–3.
^ Africa, "Adam Smith," pp. 70–71.
^ Africa, "Adam Smith," pp. 71 ("stock villain"), 75, and 77, note 16.
^ Africa, "Adam Smith," pp. 73, citing Seneca, De Clementia 1.18.2.
^ Africa, "Adam Smith," p. 73, for the characterization.
^ Holt Parker, "Crucially Funny or Tranio on the Couch: The Servus Callidus and Jokes about Torture," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119 (1989), p. 237.
^ Watson, "Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology," citing the Greek historian Dionysius Roman Antiquities 20.13 as "weak" evidence of censorial powers and likely not well informed.
^ Watson, "Roman Slave Law," pp. 55–56.
^ Africa, "Adam Smith," p. 71.
^ Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," pp. 491–492.
^ Michelle T. Clarke, "Doing Violence to the Roman Idea of Liberty? Freedom as bodily integrity in Roman Political Thought," History of Political Thought 35:2 (2014), pp. 212,
^ Clarke, "Doing Violence to the Roman Idea of Liberty," pp. 219–220, citing Acts 22:23–29.
^ W. Mark Gustafson, "Inscripta in Fronte: Penal Tattooing in Late Antiquity," Classical Antiquity 16:1 (1997), p. 79.
^ Bradley, "Roman Slavery and Roman Law," pp. 492–493.
^ Holt Parker, "Crucially Funny or Tranio on the Couch: The Servus Callidus and Jokes about Torture," Transactions of the American Philological Association 119 (1989), p. 238; Livy 32.26.18.
^ Michele George, "Slavery and Roman Material Culture," in The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge UP, 2011), p. 395.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 76, citing Cicero, Pro Sestio 134.
^ Ulrike Roth, “Men Without Hope,” Papers of the British School at Rome 79 (2011), p. 73.
^ Roth, “Men Without Hope,” passim, especially pp. 88–90, 92–93.
^ Roth, “Men Without Hope,” p. 76.
^ Servitium amoris, a theme of Latin love poetry; Martin Beckmann, "Stigmata and the Cupids of Piazza Armerina," American Journal of Archaeology 125:3 (2021) 461–469; the V had previously been interpreted as a manufacturer's mark.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 29.
^ Gustafson, "Inscripta in Fronte," p. 79.
^ Westerman, Slave Systems, p. 53, citing the Lille Papyrus 29:27–36.
^ C. P. Jones, "Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987), p. 155.
^ Jones, "Stigma," pp. 139–140, 147.
^ Deborah Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity," Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55 (2010), p. 101.
^ Such as FUR for "thief"; Gustafson, "Inscripta in Fronte," p. 93.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 104, citing Martial, 2.29.9–10 and Libanius 25.3.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 106.
^ Jones, "Stigma," p. 143, and more abundantly Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," pp.105–107.
^ Jones, "Stigma," p. 154–155. More in evidence among the Greeks: Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 100.
^ S. J. Lawrence, “Putting Torture (and Valerius Maximus) to the Test,” Classical Quarterly 66:1 (2016), p. 254.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," pp. 95, 98.
^ Jones, "Stigma," p. 151.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," pp. 96–97, 99/
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 95.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 104.
^ Fuhrmann,Policing the Roman Empire, pp. 29–30, for the word "humiliating".
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 101.
^ Jennifer Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery," American Journal of Archaeology 120:3 (2016), p. 461.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," pp. 447–448, 459. Some collars have been lost after being documented in the early modern era.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," p. 448.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," pp. 457–458.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," p. 460.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," p. 459.
^ Rebecca Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999), p. 43, n. 21, citing ILS 9455.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," pp. 455–456. The owners range in rank from a linen manufacturer to a consul.
^ Trimble, "The Zoninus Collar," pp. 460–461.
^ Kamen, "A Corpus of Inscriptions," p. 101: Fugi, tene me | cum revocu|veris me d(omino) m(eo) | Zonino accipis | solidum (CIL 15.7194).
^ Kurt Weitzmann, introduction to “The Late Roman World,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35:2 (1977), pp. 70–71.
^ Allyson Everingham Sheckler and Mary Joan Winn Leith, "The Crucifixion Conundrum and the Santa Sabina Doors," Harvard Theological Review 103:1 (2010), pp. 79–80, with possible iconographical resemblance to the Ficus Ruminalis.
^ Casket, The British Museum, museum no. 1856,0623.5, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1856-0623-5
^ Strauss, pp. 190–194, 204
^ Fields, pp. 79–81
^ Losch, p. 56, n. 1
^ Philippians 2:5–8.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 75.
^ William A. Oldfather, “Livy i, 26 and the Supplicium de More Maiorum,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 39 (1908), pp. 61–65; Holt Parker, “Crucially Funny or Tranio on the Couch: The Servus Callidus and Jokes about Torture,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 119 (1989), p. 239.
^ Holt, “Crucially Funny,” p. 237, citing Livy 22.33.2
^ Oldfather, “Livy i, 26 and the Supplicium de More Maiorum,” p. 62, listing (note 5) numerous references in Greek and Roman sources to Carthaginian crucifixions.
^ John Granger Cook, "Crucifixion as Spectacle in Roman Campania," Novum Testamentum 54:1 (2012), p. 90, citing Livy 1.26.6.
^ Oldfather, pp. 65–71, contra the view of Mommsen (pp. 65–66), who thought that the supplicium servile and the supplicium de more maiorum were one and the same.
^ Cook, "Crucifixion as Spectacle in Roman Campania," Novum Testamentum 54:1 (2012), p. 91.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 75, citing Tacitus, Historiae 4.11; Script. Hist. Aug., Avidius Cassius 4.6.
^ John Granger Cook, "Envisioning Crucifixion: Light from Several Inscriptions and the Palatine Graffito," Novum Testamentum 50:3 (2008), pp. 268, 274.
^ Cook, "Envisioning Crucifixion," pp. 265–266.
^ The text of the inscription is not entirely clear on this point, but references in Plautus make the slave as the bearer of the cross the more likely reading: Cook, "Envisioning Crucifixion," pp. 266–267. The patibulum may be only the crossbar that distinguishes a cross from the stake.
^ Cook, "Envisioning Crucifixion," pp. 266, 270.
^ John Granger Cook, "Crucifixion as Spectacle," pp. 69–70, 80–82.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 28, citing Lactantius, Divine Institutions 5.19.14 (= CSEL 19.460).
^ Michael P. Speidel, "The Suicide of Decebalus on the Tropaeum of Adamklissi," Revue Archéologique 1 (1971), pp. 75-78.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 44, 111.
^ Keith Bradley, ‘On Captives under the Principate,” Phoenix 58:3/4 (2004), p. 314, citing Cassius Dio 77.14.2.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society, p. 122.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society, p. 111, citing Plutarch, Cato the Elder 10.5.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society, pp. 111–112, citing CIL 13.7070.
^ Bradley, Slavery and Society, p. 112., citing Digest 21.1.17.4 (Vivianus), 21.1.17.6 (Caelius), and 21.1.43.4 (Paulus).
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Roman Slavery," pp. 2–3.
^ a b Bradley (1994), p. 18
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Roman Slavery," pp. 2–3, noting the existence of archaeological evidence.
^ Bradley, "The Early Development of Roman Slavery," p. 3.
^ Plutarch, Moralia 267D (Quaestiones Romanae 16).
^ Angela N. Parker, "One Womanist's View of Racial Reconciliation in Galatians," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 34:2 (2018), p. 36, citing Jennifer Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Fortress 2006), p. 23.
^ Richard P. Saller, "Symbols of Gender and Status Hierarchies in the Roman Household," in Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture (Routledge, 1998; Taylor & Francis, 2005), p. 90.
^ Plutarch, Roman Questions 100
^ Saller, "Symbols of Gender and Status Hierarchies," p. 91.
^ Fanny Dolansky, "Reconsidering the Matronalia and Women's Rites," Classical World 104:2 (2011), pp. 197, 201–204 (and especially n. 40), citing Solinus 1.35; Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12.7; Ioannes Lydus, De mensibus 3.22, 4.22. On social theory, Dolansky cites C. Grignon, "Commensality and Social Morphology: An Essay of Typology," in Food, Drink, and Identity, ed.P. Scholliers (Oxford 2001), pp. 23–33, and Seneca, Epistle 47.14.
^ Servius, in his note to Aeneid 8.564, citing Varro.
^ Peter F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion (Brill, 1992), p. 109, citing Livy, 22.1.18.
^ H.S. Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," in Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual (Brill, 1993, 1994), p. 147
^ Dolansky (2010), p. 492
^ Seneca, Epistulae 47.14
^ Barton (1993), p. 498
^ Dolansky (2010), p. 484
^ Horace, Satires 2.7.4
^ Hans-Friedrich Mueller, "Saturn", in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 221,222.
^ Horace, Satires, Book 2, poems 3 and 7
^ Catherine Keane, Figuring Genre in Roman Satire (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 90
^ Maria Plaza, The Function of Humour in Roman Verse Satire: Laughing and Lying (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 298–300 et passim.
^ Barton (1993), passim
^ The calendar of Polemius Silvius is the only one to record the holiday.
^ William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 176.
^ Plutarch, Life of Camillus 33, as well as Silvius.
^ By Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.11.36
^ Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2002; First Fortress Press, 2006), p. 27
^ K.R. Bradley, "On the Roman Slave Supply and Slavebreeding," in Classical Slavery (Frank Cass Publishers, 1987, 1999, 2003), p. 63.
^ These were the Potitia and the Pinaria gentes; Rüpke, Religion of the Romans, p. 26.
^ Jörg Rüpke, Religion of the Romans (Polity Press, 2007, originally published in German 2001), p. 227, citing Festus, p. 354 L2 = p. 58 M.
^ Leonhard Schumacher, "On the Status of Private Actores, Dispensatores and Vilici,”Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies suppl. 109 (2010), p. 32, citing CIL 6.7445.
^ Marietta Horster, "Living on Religion: Professionals and Personnel", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 332–334.
^ Also temples of a local Zeus in Morimene, Cappadocia; of the Men of Pharnaces at Cabeira; and of Anaitis at Zela (modern-day Zile, Turkey): Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128, citing Strabo 12.12.535, 537, 557–559, 567.
^ Rebecca Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999), p. 46, n. 35 citing Mary Beard and John Henderson, "'With This Body I Thee Wed': Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity," Gender and History 9 (1997) 480–503.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128.
^ Harris, "Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade," p. 128, citing Strabo 12.558 on the chief priest of Ma at Comana.
^ Clauss (2001), pp. 33, 37–39
^ Mariana Egri, Matthew M. McCarty, Aurel Rustoiu, and Constantin Inel, "A New Mithraic Community at Apulum (Alba Iulia, Romania)" Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 205 (2018), pp. 268–276. The other two are dedicated to Mithraic torch-bearers (p. 272).
^ Egri et al., "A New Mithraic Community," pp. 269–270.
^ Andrew Fear, Mithras (Routledge 2022), p. 40 et passim.
^ Clauss (2001), pp. 40, 143
^ Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Slavery and Christianity."
^ Ramsay MacMullen, “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire,” American Journal of Philology 103:3 (1982), pp. 233–246, pp. 238–239 on epitaphs in particular.
^ Elizabeth A. Meyer, “Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs,” Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), p. 75.
^ David Noy, review of Roman Death by V.M. Hope, Classical Review 60:2 (2010), p. 535.
^ Valerie Hope, “Fighting for Identity: The Funerary Commemoration of Italian Gladiators,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 73 (2000), p. 108, citing G. Zimmer, Römische Berufdarstellungen (Berlin 1982); see also the tabulation made by Richard P. Saller and Brent D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves,” Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), pp. 147–156, which includes commemorative inscriptions by masters for slaves.
^ “Grave Relief of Silversmith, feat. Kenneth Lapatin” (audio file), Getty Museum Collection, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104034.
^ Funerary Relief of Publius Curtilius Agatho, Silversmith, feat. Kenneth Lapatin (audio file), Getty Museum Collection, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104034
^ Dale B. Martin, “Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family,” The Jewish Family in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies 2020), p. 114.
^ Hope, “Fighting for Identity," pp. 101–102.
^ Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal: Society Studies in Roman History, vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 213–214, citing Digest (Marcian) 47.22.3.2
^ MacMullen, "The Unromanized in Rome," p. 53.
^ MacMullen, "The Unromanized in Rome," p. 53, citing Horace, Satire 1.8.
^ Meyer, “Explaining the Epigraphic Habit,” p. 80, citing Pliny, Epistle 8.16.
^ Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 27, n. 27.
^ Stagl, "Favor libertatis," pp. 231–232, citing as one exaple Digest 2823.4 (Paulus libro 17 quaestionum).
^ Jacobo Rodríguez Garrido, "Imperial Legislation Concerning Junian Latins: From Tiberius to the Severan Dynasty," in Junian Latins, p. 106.
^ Wiedemann, "The Regularity of Manumission at Rome," p. 162.
^ Keith Bradley, "'The Bitter Chain of Slavery’: Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome," Snowden Lectures, Hellenic Centre of Harvard University (November 2, 2020), https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/snowden-lectures-keith-bradley-the-bitter-chain-of-slavery
^ Jörg Rüpke, "You Shall Not Kill: Hierarchies of Norms in Ancient Rome," Numen 39:1 (1992), p. 62.
^ Rüpke, "You Shall Not Kill," pp. 60–62.
^ Rüpke, "You Shall Not Kill," pp. 59–61.
^ Rüpke, "You Shall Not Kill," p. 62.
^ Varro, De re rustica 1.17.1, as cited by Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p. 110.
^ Rüpke, "You Shall Not Kill," p. 62.
^ Westermann, William Linn (1942). "Industrial Slavery in Roman Italy". The Journal of Economic History. 2 (2): 161. doi:10.1017/S0022050700052542. S2CID 154607039.
^ Finkenauer, "Filii naturales," pp. 44–46, 64–65.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, pp. 116 (citing here too the Cena Trimalchionis 71.1), 157.
^ Bradley, "Animalizing the Slave," p.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 76.
^ Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 238 for "anxieties and tensions," as outlined by Keith Bradley, "The Problem of Slavery in Classical Culture" (review article), Classical Philology 92:3 (1997), p. 277.
^ Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, p. 238.
^ Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, p. 238.
^ Bradley, "The Problem of Slavery," pp. 276–277.
^ Bradley, "The Problem of Slavery," p. 277.
^ Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. xx.
^ Susan Treggiari, "The Freedmen of Cicero," Greece & Rome 16.2 (1969), p. 195, citing Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum (46 BC), 5.33 ff.
^ Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 505.
^ C. E. Manning, "Stoicism and Slavery in the Roman Empire," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.36.3 (1972), p. 1523.
^ Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, pp. 331, 513.
^ C. E. Manning, "Stoicism and Slavery in the Roman Empire," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.36.3 (1972), p. 1522, citing Lucretius 1.455–458.
^ Ilaria Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 60–61.
^ Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery, p. 61.
^ Voula Tsouna, Philodemus, "On Property Management" (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), p. xxx, citing Philodemus, On Property Management 9.32; 10.15–21; 23.4–5, 20–22.
^ Tsouna, Philodemus, "On Property Management", p. xxxii, citing 23.4–5.
^ Tsouna, Philodemus, "On Property Management", p. xxxix and xl, citing 23.22.
^ Ephesians 6:5–9
^ Colossians 4:1
^ 1Corinthians 7:21.
^ "1 Peter 2:18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh". biblehub.com. Retrieved 2016-02-17.
^ n, Slavery Systems, p. 150.
^ Western, Slave Systems, p. 150, and especially notes 5–7 for further discussion.
^ Mary Ann Beavis, "Ancient Slavery as an Interpretive Context for the New Testament Servant Parables with Special Reference to the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-8)," Journal of Biblical Literature 111:1 (1992), p. 37.
^ Jennifer A. Glancy, "Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables," Journal of Biblical Literature 119:1 (2000), p. 70.
^ Glancy, "Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables," pp. 71–72.
^ Glancy, "Slaves and Slavery in the Matthean Parables," p. 82.
^ Westermann, Slave Systems, p. 151, citing Lactantius, Institutiones divinae 5.10.
^ ‘The Bitter Chain of Slavery’: Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome. Keith Bradley. Curated studies. Hellenic Centre of Harvard University. https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/snowden-lectures-keith-bradley-the-bitter-chain-of-slavery/
^ Augustine of Hippo. "Chapter 15 - Of the Liberty Proper to Man's Nature, and the Servitude Introduced by Sin," City of God 19". Retrieved 11 February 2016.
^ Elaine Fantham, “Stuprum: Public Attitudes and Penalties for Sexual Offences in Republican Rome,” in Roman Readings: Roman Responses to Greek Literature from Plautus to Statius and Quintilian (Walter de Gruyter, 2011), pp. 118, 128.
^ Jennifer A. Glancy, "The Sexual Use of Slaves: A Response to Kyle Harper on Jewish and Christian Porneia," Journal of Biblical Literature 134:1 (2015), pp. 215-229.
^ Jennifer A. Glancy, "Obstacles to Slaves' Participation in the Corinthian Church," Journal of Biblical Literature 117:3 (1998), p. 483.
^ ‘The Bitter Chain of Slavery’: Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome. Keith Bradley. Curated studies. Hellenic Centre of Harvard University. https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/snowden-lectures-keith-bradley-the-bitter-chain-of-slavery/
^ Neil W. Bernstein, "Adoptees and Exposed Children in Roman Declamation: Commodification, Luxury, and the Threat of Violence," Classical Philology 104:3 (2009), 338–339.
^ Martha C. Nussbaum, "The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman" in The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome (University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 307–308. See also Holt Parker, "Free Women and Male Slaves, or Mandingo meets the Roman Empire," in Fear of Slaves—Fear of Enslavement in the Ancient Mediterranean (Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2007), p. 286, observing that having sex with one's own slaves was considered "one step up from masturbation".
^ Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman Mediterranean, AD 275–425 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 294–295.
^ Kathy L. Gaca, "Controlling Female Slave Sexuality and Men's War-Driven Sexual Desire," in Slavery and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021), pp. 42, 50, et passim; Gaca's argument is not primarily based on property rights but on the idea that rape would be an imposition of the military sphere on the domus.
^ Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman Mediterranean, pp. 294–295.
^ Rebecca Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire," Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999), p. 45, and citing Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "Public Honour and Private Shame: The Urban Texture of Pompeii" in Urban Society in Roman Italy (1995), 39–62.
^ Alan Watson, "Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology," Phoenix 37:1 (1983), p. 56.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," pp. 253, 255.
^ Eva Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World (Yale University Press, 1992), p. 103.
^ Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” p. 120, n. 33, citing Columella 1.8.19 on feminae fecundiores.
^ Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” pp. 120, 135 (n. 36).
^ John R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (University of California Press, 2001), pp. 99–101.
^ Harper, Slavery, pp. 203–204.
^ Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking, p. 93.
^ Parker, "Free Women and Male Slaves," p. 283.
^ Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum," p. 41.
^ Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum," p. 45.
^ Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum," pp. 60–61.
^ Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” p. 138, n. 90, citing Martial 9.59.1–6.
^ Nussbaum, The Sleep of Reason, p. 308, citing Seneca, Epistula 47; see also Bernstein, “Adoptees,” p. 339, n. 32, citing Seneca, Controversia 10.4.17 on the cruelty of castrating male slaves to prolong their appeal to pederasts.
^ Laes, "Child Slaves," p. 245, citing Digest 9.2.27.8 and 39.4.16.7; Suetonius, Domitian 7.1; Pliny, Natural History 7.129.
^ Ra'anan Abusch, "Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law in the Early Empire," in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite (Brandeis University Press, 2003), pp. 77–78.
^ Flemming, "Quae Corpore Quaestum," p. 53.
^ Thomas A. J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 288ff., especially p. 297 on manumission.
^ Cantarella, Bisexuality, p. 103.
^ McGinn, Prostitution, p. 314; see also Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 119.
^ Hopkins, Keith (1993). "Novel Evidence for Roman Slavery". Past & Present (138): 6, 8. doi:10.1093/past/138.1.3.
^ Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge, introduction to The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge UP, 2011), p. 3.
^ a b Segal, Erich. Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. (99–169).
^ Stewart, Roberta (2012). Plautus and Roman Slavery. Malden, MA: Oxford.
^ Terence (2002). Andria. Bristol Classical Press.

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