The Roman Guide to Slave Management (3 page)

Thankfully, the slave owner today need not trouble himself with such concerns. The army is now professional and it is many, many years since there has been a great slave revolt. Today’s slave owner needs to worry only about keeping control of his own household. These are matters that I picked up at my father’s knee. As a lad, I learnt to command authority, issuing my string of attendants with their orders: ‘Bring me my cloak!’, ‘Wash my hands!’, ‘Serve me my breakfast, boy!’ were the commands that punctuated my daily life. And as a callow youth, my father taught me how to instil respect into even the most recalcitrant slave.

The household is the cornerstone of society and, indeed, all human life. No kind of civilised existence is possible at all without the acquisition of the basic necessities that the household provides. But a household is just a house if it has no slaves. To be sure, a family needs a wife and children. Indeed, we can profit from their work. But it is the slaves who provide the bulk of the services. This is particularly beneficial because it means the master of the household does not have to rely on outsiders to provide those services. We all know how
degrading it is to have to ask others for help and how tiresome to bring in external contractors to do jobs for us. They never turn up when instructed to, take liberties with their fees, and, taking little pride in their work, carry out their tasks shoddily. With slaves, however, we can be sure that work will be carried out in just the way that we want it to be done. The slaves, therefore, turn the family unit into a much more significant unit, that is to say, the household.

The household is like a miniature version of the state itself, with its own structure, hierarchy and leadership and its own sense of community. Husband/wife, father/son, master/slave are the basic building blocks of social life. As such, slavery is one of the key principles of social organisation. The slave is at the complete disposal of the master of the household, in the same way that the citizen must obey the commands of the state. But slavery is a state of absolute subjection. The slave has no kin, he cannot assume the rights and obligations of marriage, his very identity is imposed by the owner, who gives him his name. Slavery is the same as social death in this respect. Complete submission is expected. Regrettably, slaves sometimes have to be coerced and worn down into obedience. Their spirit has to be broken. It is for this reason that some of the prouder tribes refuse ever to surrender when defeated in battle. The Cantabri in Spain, for example, killed themselves after the failure of their revolt rather than suffer enslavement.

All slaves share the same lack of legal rights. But we should not assume that they only perform tasks that are beneath the free man. In fact, as we shall also see, many
slaves have acquired positions of influence on account of the power of their masters. Equally, many poor free men have to carry out the most loathsome tasks in order to put bread before their families. Slaves are also used to carry out a bewildering array of tasks. Whether it is the old retainer keeping watch on the front door, or the young boy serving water at table, or the comely slave girl attending in the bed-chamber, slaves carry out a wide variety of jobs within a large household that minister to the master’s every need.

My father taught me what slaves were also for – showing off! Slaves may be morally worthless, mere things and possessions, but despite this they confer high status upon their owners. In the same way that a fine horse reflects well upon its rider, so a well-mannered and deferential slave highlights the merits of its owner. And if there are four hundred of them in the household, then how much greater is the glory which is displayed! Who but the highest in society can afford to maintain so impressive and prestigious a retinue?

For slaves might be dullards but they serve the noblest. If you want to learn how you too should treat those slaves who accrue to you as your good fortune grows, then read on. For however much the practice of your own times is at variance with the principles of the ancient world, that should not discourage you from learning from them. For in the works of the ancients far more is to be found to merit your approval than your rejection. Read and learn.

   COMMENTARY   

The story that the Alan tribe did not have slaves shows how remarkable such a fact was to a Roman writer. The fourth-century
AD
historian Ammianus felt it was worth recording precisely because it would have struck his Roman audience as curious at best. There are no examples of Romans arguing that slavery should be abolished. It was a simple fact of social life, in the same way that owning a car or a cat is today. Wealthy Romans saw slaves as being necessary for a high standard of living, just as we view modern domestic appliances. Slaves did all the things that you would not want to do yourself – washing, cleaning, even wiping your backside – as well as providing a whole range of other services. But not all slaves were alike. There was a big difference between domestic slaves in the city and the slaves working in the fields. Urban slaves were as much about status as efficiency, in much the same way as are many modern household possessions (do we really need that 100-inch plasma TV?). Even country slaves may not always have been kept primarily for economic reasons, even though their roles were crucial, especially in the large estates of the rich.

The Greeks held a stronger view of the nature of slaves than did the Romans. Aristotle famously argued that slaves were naturally slavish, and it was right for them to be owned by the superior Greeks. Athenian society maintained a strong divide between citizen and slave, which made it difficult for slaves to be assimilated into society even when they were freed. A completely
different model operated in Rome, where large numbers of outsiders were habitually assimilated into its ranks of citizens. One of the main reasons for Rome’s great success was its ability to incorporate all manner of foreigners and their gods. This allowed it to expand its pool of manpower along with its territory. In such a society, it made no sense to exclude slaves permanently from becoming Roman. Instead it seemed more sensible to think of slavery as a temporary state, after which, if the right attitude had been shown, a slave could achieve Roman citizenship. Somewhat surprisingly, Roman slavery was as much about social mobility as structural rigidity.

Slaves had few legal rights in Roman law but this was not adhered to rigorously, especially in urban households. It was usual for city slaves to be allowed to own money and possessions, even if this
peculium
legally remained the property of the owner. Although slaves could not marry, in practice they were often allowed to form partnerships. They acquired more legal rights during the empire: for example they could appeal to the emperor’s statue for sanctuary from an abusive master. But this increased level of imperial interest did not mean that the emperors wanted to improve slaves’ conditions. As supreme leaders, they simply came to interfere in all kinds of issues. People looked to them to provide guidance and rulings about what was legally acceptable in all manner of domestic matters.

Numbers regarding the quantity of slaves in the Roman world need to be treated with caution. They are informed guesses at best. The surviving evidence is poor and also pretty thin. You can find discussion of the
numbers and degree of social mobility of slaves in Roman Italy in Walter Scheidel’s ‘Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population’, in the
Journal of Roman Studies
, 95 (2005), 64–79, and ‘The slave population of Roman Italy: speculation and constraints’, in
Topoi
, 9 (1999), 129–44.

For the story that the Alans were notable for not having any slaves, see Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.25. Seneca complains that owners who get angry are too quick to punish their slaves with whippings and by having their legs broken for very minor offences such as answering back or giving them cheeky looks: see
On Anger
3.24 and 32. The explanation for Marcus’s aims of this book is based on the preface of Columella’s work,
On Agriculture
. The legal status of slaves can be found in the
Digest
1.5. Aristotle
Politics
1.2 contains the discussion about the household, slaves as tools, and whether slaves are so by nature. For the ancient analysis of why slave numbers increased in Italy, see Appian,
Civil Wars
, 1.1; this can be usefully compared with the modern analysis of Keith Hopkins in the first chapter of his
Conquerors and Slaves
.

   
CHAPTER I