Invisible Romans (49 page)

I now put next to this ancient picture of outlawry one particularly vivid comparison, the life of sea outlaws of the ‘golden age of piracy,’ the first half of the eighteenth century, in the Atlantic Ocean. Marcus Rediker presents an excellent account of these men in the book
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
It needs to be stressed that whereas there were even in the eighteenth century and before accounts of pirates and pirate life, including a justly famous pseudonymous one by Daniel Defoe, the exceptional value of Rediker’s approach lies in his use of evidence from the actual statements of pirates. These statements sometimes came after a pirate had ‘reformed’ and taken up writing memoirs (with not a little fiction thrown in, one might suppose), sometimes through investigations of authors, but the most valuable material comes from court records of trials of pirates. These trials were very public affairs and drew a good deal of attention as spectacle. In the course of them, pirates gave testimony of their deeds; their witness was recorded and preserved. Thus the very statements of pirates exist, which while not necessarily to be taken at face value in all cases, nevertheless give something totally lacking from ancient times.

Rediker’s pirates live in a place removed from lawful society – the pirate ship and/or island base – and have a clearly articulated social order. This order seemed disorder to contemporaries, but upon examination it is revealed to be coherent, purposeful, and effective, given the origins, possibilities, and goals of the outlaw gang. What is more, ‘this social order, articulated in the organization of the pirate ship, was conceived and deliberately constructed by the pirates themselves. Its hallmark was a rough, improvised, but effective egalitarianism that placed authority in the collective hands of the crew … egalitarianism was institutionalized aboard the pirate ship.’ The origins of pirates were almost universally among the lower class poor; as is expectable, most had some seafaring experience, but this aspect would apply only to pirates, not to outlaws in general, of course. Almost all were male; of 521 pirates
documented by Rediker (out of perhaps 5000 operating at the height of piracy), only two are female. In general, they came to outlawry free from close ties to lawful society: no wives or family were allowed; the politics of lawful society became irrelevant; established religion was actively rejected. They, in fact, rejected the entire structure of lawful society, and most especially the ideology of the stratified, hierarchical civil society captured and defined by its laws. In its place they substituted the egalitarianism just mentioned, and a new set of laws based upon that ideology. Internally, this egalitarianism meant that every outlaw had an equal voice, and that decisions were made communally. Externally, it meant that pirates did not prey on other pirates – there was a certain communitarianism that united the pirates in sentiment, even if there were few, if any, documented ‘pirate alliances.’ The feeling of being a member of a special community was perhaps enhanced by the use of a ‘secret language’ – a pidgin English mostly based upon extensive profanity and a limited vocabulary.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this new society was the existence of – even a requirement for – a written contract, called ‘Articles,’ which set out the constitution of the group. In a time before it was usual to think of government being based upon a concocted document rather than upon divine right and/or everlasting tradition (for example, the ‘rights of Englishmen’), the pirates took their cue from contracts of business partnerships and laid out mutual obligations, governmental structures, laws of behavior, and economic rules. These documents had many elements in common, and so a ‘normal’ picture can be drawn.

Authority was in the band. An oath was sworn to work as a group. Each man had one vote and the majority ruled. Everyone was subject to the community’s authority and had to obey its rules as laid down in the ‘Articles,’ even the captain. Indeed, ‘the captain was the creature of his crew.’ The governmental structure included mechanisms for legislating rules, executive action, and judicial decisions. The rules, as I have noted, were made in an assembly of the whole, called the council. The executive function was performed by this council (i.e. major decisions as to actions were voted upon), as was the judicial, when it sat as a court to deal with social or disciplinary problems. The chief executive, the captain, was elected by the council; in battle or other crisis he had full authority, but otherwise he had to lead by consensus, cajoling, and
persuasion, as he could be deposed at any time by the council. The other elected official was the quartermaster. This man had the role of protector of the interests of the crew. In particular, he kept track of the booty and saw to its fair distribution. He was a sort of ‘civil’ magistrate alongside the ‘military’ captain.

Indeed, these two offices summarize well the basic leadership needs of the band: to get booty and to distribute it. The plunder was divided up into shares (the analogy with joint-stock companies is evident) and the shares distributed among the crew. The captain and quartermaster got more shares than others because of their responsibilities; each got 1.5 to 2 shares. Skilled men such as gunners also got more than a single share – 1.25 to 1.5 shares each. The rest of the men got a single share. Thus the egalitarian spirit was expressed in booty distribution; all were engaged in a ‘risk-sharing venture’; no one was a laborer, no one a master.

Quite naturally the outlaw groups had their problems with discipline and maintenance of order. The men were most often deserters from the highly structured and disciplined life at sea found most strongly in the traditions of the British navy, but also in life on a merchantman. They had no inclination to recreate the life they had hated and fled. Thus, discipline was very loose. The basic goal was to discourage violence within the community; the basic methodology was to highlight a problem and bring a quick resolution by ejection from the community or death. Lashing was universally prohibited; the lash as the most painful symbol of the brutality of the navy and merchant marine was not allowed within the pirate community. If a dispute arose between two crew members, dueling was the accepted method of conflict resolution. In the case of conflict between the group and an individual, marooning was the normal punishment. Actual execution of a crew member was rare, and used only in the case of treason or introducing weakening elements into the group, such as women and young boys.

The similarities between Rediker’s early modern pirates and ancient novelists’ outlaw bands are striking. The same egalitarianism exists, and many of the same institutions and habits as well, such as a council for decision-making and agreed-upon rules of behavior. Of course, there is no complete correspondence. For example, whereas Rediker’s pirates will have nothing to do with any religion, Apuleius’ outlaws
are committed to their protecting deity, Mars, as are Xenophon’s in
An Ephesian Tale
(2.11–14). However, Plutarch notes irreligious or nontraditional religious behavior: ‘They raided and violated places of refuge and holy sanctuaries … They offered strange sacrifices at Olympia and celebrated secret rites’
(Life of Pompey
24.5/Perrin). An inscription records the results of just such a raid on a sanctuary:

This statue of Venus is dedicated to Valerius Romanus, Most Outstanding, Guardian Overseer of the Most Splendid Colony Sicca Veneria, a man of wondrous goodness and integrity, because he restored the statue of the goddess damaged a long time ago by outlaws who had broken into the temple. May the memory of our steadfast patron last through the ages! (
CIL
13.3689 =
ILS
5505)

In another literary example, the cannibalism and bloody rituals found in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius represent a total rejection of the ‘decent’ in normal religion, and so fall into line with the rejection of normal religion on the part of Rediker’s pirates, but those pirates do not indulge in such unholy acts. On the other hand, in the ancient world the absence of monolithic religious establishments supporting the status quo removed the impulse to revolt against them felt by Rediker’s pirates, but nonetheless, if one turned away from other aspects of lawful society, inverting them could still be a powerful statement of independence. It is not necessary to believe the lurid details of the novelists to accept their basic background, that outlaws were hostile not only to the legal norms of society, but also to its standard religious practices.

The shared traits and habits of Rediker’s pirates and ancient outlaws as seen in history and fiction are a strong indication that the picture drawn here of Romano-Grecian outlaws reflects reality – a reality the sources do not privilege us to see very directly, but which can be retrieved by a careful use of ancient and modern sources.

Conclusion

Outlawry was one way – perhaps the only and surely the quickest way – to break the heavy hand of the law and its enforcers. With this perspective, outlaws are seen to live out a genuinely alternative life within the
heavily stratified lawful society of the ancient Romano-Grecian world. Like Rediker’s real pirates, Apuleius’ fictional outlaws and the outlaws of the Greek romances live in a rough, cruel world, but also offer a kind of egalitarianism and democracy that stands in stark contrast to the hierarchical structure of the mainstream social system. Their community provides a – perhaps the only – alternative social structure in their respective worlds, and so it is a powerful, radical critique of those worlds. While the self-justifying and protective negative interpretation put on this critique by the elites might deceive one into thinking it is a cultural illusion, the ancient evidence and Rediker’s pirates give strong indication that it was real in the eyes of the poor, the oppressed, and the outlaws themselves.

VALEDICTORY

‘INVISIBLE’ IS AN ADJECTIVE
often used to describe the people I have talked about. These people, of course, were not invisible at all; they made up almost the entire population of the Romano-Greek world and were perfectly visible to each other. It is the elite’s blindness to them that creates their historical penumbra, a shadowy world where brief illuminations only heighten the overall sense of their invisibility. This blindness is not so much to the literal existence of invisibles, but rather is an almost complete lack of interest in their lives on the invisibles’ own terms. This bias makes using elite sources to discover the lives of ordinary folk very problematic. But given the significantly undersourced nature of ancient evidence for almost any aspect of history or life, muscling aside elite material in favor of lesser-known evidence might seem at least counterproductive and perhaps even foolhardy. I became convinced, however, that starting at the other end of the evidence, so to speak, would yield what the high-profile elite literature problematized or even obfuscated. And so I worked primarily with the lesser-known material of inscriptions and papyri, and used admittedly problematic insights from fiction, fable, Christian sources, fortune-telling, and magic.

These sources gradually revealed to me a world that once was invisible. It was a world of down-to-earth assessments, choices, chances, successes, and disasters. It was a world of limited options and limited opportunities for bettering oneself. But it was not a world of despair.
Fundamentally, people have always excelled at making the most of their situations; the race would hardly have survived if in the face of daunting challenges, manipulation, and oppression, people had just given up. Rather, people cope within the parameters of their lives. And sometimes even do very well. The visible that emerged was a tapestry of people working to make their lives as good as possible, struggling with all the emotional crosscurrents and enjoying all the satisfactions that came with it. Opening up their mind worlds was a revelation.

In the end, the people now made visible do not seem all that different from moderns. Not in the material ways, not in all moral norms, not in political sensibilities, or in the specifics of careers and possibilities. But in the gritty reality of dealing with what comes along, seeking solace and reward in interpersonal relationships and the supernatural, and carving out a place for themselves, they are much like other people, ancient and modern. While this banal reality stands far apart from the excitement of great deeds by great men, and certainly is not the engine of high-profile historical transformations, that does not mean it is inconsequential. There is a certain importance to the lives of the nonheadline makers; in them we glimpse the crowd in which the rich and famous move, and understanding them helps us to understand the whole culture and society. We can without hesitation turn from them to the Alexanders, the Caesars, the emperors and generals of the ancient world; we can study and be inspired by their philosophy, laws, literature, and architectural wonders. But behind all these accomplishments stood tens of millions who sustained the world of those accomplishments – ordinary men and women, slaves and freedmen, fairly wealthy and abysmally poor, even common soldiers, prostitutes, gladiators, and outlaws. They deserve to be made visible on their own terms, and I hope I have succeeded in making a start at doing so.

SOURCES

TRADITIONALLY, LITERATURE PRODUCED BY THE ELITE
deserves pride of place in the discussion of the sources; its aesthetic as well as its richness deservedly mark it out for first attention. I try to extract evidence from this material. Thus when Horace writes in his work of freedmen, I can assume that entangled in whatever impression he wishes to give of freedmen are tidbits of the actual: Freedmen exist, they have patrons, they have attitudes that are intended to produce success. I need not accept Horace’s presentation of freedmen, or his use of them for other rhetorical, poetic, or aesthetic purposes in order to extract plausible facts about ‘real’ freedmen and their attitudes from his work. He has taken these facts and arranged them for his purposes; social historians can do the same, taking the material and arranging it in a way that seems to fit with a broad picture of freedmen and their mind world. But it is a dangerous business: The historian can easily be deceived. Some literature is going to be more grounded in that world in immediate ways, some less. And some historians will start from here and some from there in seeing and being deceived. The challenge is to judge how much of the literary world is a construct of the author that hides the non-elite, and how much can be used to reveal them. The key is to work as carefully as possible to take the useful material and reject the narrative of dominance into which it is imbedded by the author. The social-history detail that can be extracted from ancient authors (mostly) intent on other things is amazing. Yet
there are many aspects of daily life that the elite – the Ciceros, Tacituses, Martials, Juvenals, Plinys – could see if they wanted. But they simply do not care – they seldom even give a glance at the people enacting these details in their actual lives as people. High literature, therefore, provides not windows, but peepholes through which historians get glances at the ordinary Romans.