 Hey everybody, this is Darius R. for Ancient Rome Live. AncientRomeLive.org is part of the American Institute for Roman Culture. It is a learning platform, basically like a big video book that allows you to immerse yourself in the ancient world through monuments, places, original content videos, filming inside museums and sites in Rome and throughout Italy and the rest of the Roman Empire and of course our weekly webinars. Today's topic is slavery in the ancient Roman world, enslaved people, people in slavery. We know who they are and we can see right behind me my screen saver today for today's presentation is in fact a bunch of slaves pictured from Parthia at the base of the Parthian arch of Septemius Severus in none other than the Roman form. You can see here how just right next to me the slaves are portrayed. They have their dress so you know they're not Romans, they're wearing pants and then you have of course a little weenie hat so you can tell their Parthians and if you look closely their hands are held together and they are actually sculpted on these relief panels chains so they are enslaved. So what is the life of the slave in ancient times? Let's go right back to the beginning. Let's go back to Romulus because Romulus when he starts a city doesn't have much of a population. We know that he steals young maidens doing a festival that he holds and will become the Valley of the Serpent Maximus. We know that he has an asylum space in the Capitoline Hill where he can pretty much bite anyone, even runaway slaves and robbers, anyone who wants to become part of this new community of Rome. So it's a very old idea instilled and preserved let's say or retrojected back into the oral tradition as early as the time. Romulus, what we look at the 12 tables that we have been talking about in the previous webinar, which are a series of laws that come up through a dispute between the Pratricians and everybody else, the Plaps. And through a series of secessions these tables are created, which underline essentially it's called inalienable rights of the people of Rome. And already in the fifth century this precious document is referring to liberti, that means that's freed men. So what we have in ancient Rome is a reality very early on that you're not seeing really anywhere else in the ancient world to this degree, which is in the ancient world, in the world of the Romans throughout the Mediterranean, it was common to fight against people, to defeat people or to be vanquished. And then the victor would make slaves out of some of the people that they vanquished, you wanted to be the victor. And we know historically that Rome on its march to empire was successful so many times and they're going to amass a great number of slaves. But right here from the get go they have the oral tradition as well as some of our earliest written texts, the fact that they have freed people. Former slaves are in a new category. They're allowed to be citizens but there are a number of conditions which we can go over. As already as early as the fifth century BC then we have a lot of old festivals in Rome, the Matralia, the Temple of Viana on the Abbotine and the St. Analiant, which are also quite old going back to the early Republic, if not earlier, all of which include the role of slaves or slaves are banned from certain number of these festivals or St. Analiant slaves have a day off. So slavery is part of the Roman society from the beginning. What the Romans are going to do, and this is going to pick up its own momentum with the passing of time, is they're going to be freeing a lot of these slaves. I don't think we have to look at the Roman Empire today and say what great wonderful people they were because they freed their slaves. But they definitely had something different going on. And if you do want to look at the history of Rome, the success of Rome, I have to have everyone to define that success. One of the things they had to their advantage was manpower, was a lot of citizens. And it wasn't just by having more babies, because we know about the difficulties of children living to adulthood. We know about how extreme the infant mortality rate was. But it's also just being able then to make more Romans without having to go through the whole process of the baby and so forth and growing up and living through adulthood. So franchising people was something quite amazing and extreme, different. That's what the Romans are doing. And of course, this happens in fits and starts. And if you know your Roman history, you know about the difficulties and ultimately giving real voting rights to the allies, the Sochi. So we have the social war, which is when you have after hundreds of years of success of the Roman Republic. And you have that also because of the fighting force from the Italian allies that don't have that representation in the Roman government that ultimately revolt. And they have to be and franchise allowed to be part of the city of Rome. Then you see also that it's not just a simple case of you're either a citizen of Rome or a slave. There was a lot of in between and a big group of people that were in that in between kind of area with the freed men and the freed women of the Roman Empire. And over time, it's quite extraordinary then that for the most part, they're becoming citizens. They can vote. It's quite extraordinary. And there can be some obligations to the former master. So you're not just entirely off the hook. And then your children to the former slaves, children will have no inhibition or no no blockage within a society, but that freed man could actively vote and be in society, but couldn't hold some of the highest offices. Even if he attained a lot of wealth, couldn't become a member of the Senate. So there were a number of limitations and always obligations to the former master's household. So the rich continue to get richer. So it is worth to consider that right there from the get go, always considering the plight of the slave from the beginning, whether it be in conquest through war or stolen by stolen away from your family by robbers or being captured by pirates. We've also had a lecture on pirates. So piracy wasn't a big deal. And that's a way that you can say, hey, wait, wait, wait, I'm a I'm a free citizen. No, I don't care. We don't we don't I don't see your passport. I don't see your driver's license. So off you go. And you're sold in slavery. So there are a lot of ways into which people did become slaves. And what's the reality of once you're a slave bought in an auction in Rome or somewhere throughout the empire? Delos was really famous in the second century, B.C. In the imperial period, Ephesus in the east in what we call modern day Turkey was a real hub for buying and selling slaves where you're starting from zero, we're starting from scratch. And of course, your cost, your value is going to be reduced to what's your skill set, how old are you, you know, what do you look like? So it's a really, really awful reality. And once you're been selected, purchased, you know, you got to see what's going to happen next. Are you being sent out to live a harsh reality, working the fields, which is what so money did, not the majority of them did. Not much chance of getting your freedom there, sent to the mines. That's a death sentence. And that's about as bad as it gets. And subsequently we do hear people being purchased from the mines to serve as gladiators. Well, that's out of the frying pan and into the fire. I mean, it's not a great, great idea to become a gladiator here. We know how difficult that lifestyle can be. But there are going to be, with the rise of Rome, a lot of people that are then acquired to do something in the city. Think about how you have, like never before, these urban centers that are developing. So you have a lot of slaves that will be domestic slaves in some household. You have slaves that are going to be involved in the industries, like the baker, the cobbler. You're going to be grinding grain. You're going to be working in a fuller shop, standing in a tub of urine, treading in water and urine to get the stains out of the togas of the wealthy. So there are a lot of people employed like that. Heck, you know, we have so many examples of slaves serving in cities, like even the Vigileses. You could be in the fire department. But after 20 or so years of service, you get your freedom. You get a stipend, and you're off to create your own fortune. So there are a lot of very interesting relationships, particularly when we start to take a look at the realities of the slaves in the urban set. So when you're a slave, you've lost your rights. You're basically property. You can be tortured, abused, anything. But we do see, with the passing of time, there's more and more legislation that's going to be passed that's going to be recognizing more of the humanity of these human possessions. And that picks up under Claudius through, say, Hadrian. And it really does, with the passing of time, have more obligation on the part of the owner. If they get sick, Claudius was getting upset that a lot of slaves getting sick in Rome were being abandoned on the Tiber Island, where you have the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the God of Medicine. He said, you know, if you're going to abandon those slaves, and those slaves are going to be free, they're not yours. If they get healthy and they don't die, they're free. So there are different ways in which the government would, of course, step in. So let's see if there are any questions here, and then I will move on. Could you be enslaved as the punishment for a criminal offense? Absolutely, absolutely. And that's a horrible way to go, because you're forfeiting all of your rights. But generally speaking, you know, depending on your status in society would determine, you know, rather than being put to death or being made a slave, it was really about what kind of financial fine, what kind of penalty you're going to pay, or what kind of exile will you have? That's for the upper classes in Rome. But generally speaking, you can do something really, really heinous, really, really awful against the state. We're Greeks, both slaves and teachers. It's an odd statue to have. I never quite understood the relationship. Okay, absolutely great question. So what you do have indeed is that you have a huge influx of people coming into your markets that are from places that you conquered. Britain, what we call France, Rigaul, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Middle East, the Greek city-states, the Balkans, Germany, and everyone's coming in then as adults are going to have skill sets. You're going to have knowledge. You're going to have knowledge. And that will then fetch a higher price. So I am the head of a household. I'm a wealthy guy, and here's my opportunity. So if you want to get a tutor for your kid today, we are on lockdown. The pandemic, we found a nice French tutor who's in Florence and doing the Skype call. And it's an extra way to have my younger daughter continue to speak French because she wasn't getting as much of a French in school. You go online, you have a friend, you have a reference, you pay the person money, and you have your tutor. For the Romans, what do you do? You go to the market or you send one of your slaves to go to the market. Then purchase someone who has knowledge of Greek because you want your kid to know Greek. So you literally purchase. You're not buying an app. You're not buying a computer. You're buying a human being who already has that knowledge. Who maybe from their previous life was even a teacher of Greek. And so then they become part of your household. Your familia in ancient Roman times is more so than just the family, like the nuclear family that we have mom and dad and grandparents and the children. But it actually includes all of your slaves. And the wealthy people would kind of have hundreds and hundreds of slaves. So are you a domestic slave? Are you polishing the silver? Are you the doorman, the balancer? Are you the cook? Are you the Greek tutor? Are you the person who's instructing the child how to ride a horse? Are you the one instructing the mathematics and so forth? If you couldn't afford that kind of money, you then sent your kid to a school in the porticoes in the city of Rome. And then that teacher, probably a former slave, will be earning an income by getting a smaller stipend from each individual student. And they have to have a form. Now they have 10, 15 students for that guy to say, okay, it's worth it for me to have a class here in some public space. Because the word are private schools. But imagine that you actually own the teacher. It's like owning a school. And that's one of the great roles that the slaves, the educated slaves, would pay. And they're the ones then that we look at and look at their inscriptions on their tombs when they've been freed and you see what they were doing. There was someone that had a real human interaction and an opportunity to have a relationship with the owner. So the famous scribe, attendant of Cicero, he's a slave, but ultimately he's freed. And he's getting a stipend and he's going to have his own estate. It's that kind of relationship that we see. Good service. You're not just getting your peculiar tip or allowance. You're also getting your freedom. And it happened very, very frequently. So just a couple of points here. They're coming from success in war. It's kind of spiked by the second century BC with the success in the Punic Wars. And again, the Romans then all the way through are allowing a lot of these people that come in, these foreigners, different ideas, different languages, different culture, different everything. They come into their system and ultimately be a part of the system as pre-existence. What an extraordinary thing that the Romans do. But it wasn't all easy. For example, with the influx of slaves, you have a lot of slaves working in the plantations, they're working in agriculture. And there are then as a result, massive groups of people that aren't really heavily attended and managed. So there are the slave wars, 135 and 132. 104 to 100, both in Sicily. And then finally, third one led by Spartacus. We all know Spartacus breaking out of a slave school, a gladiator school in Capua. So again, how do you get a slave from Rome? Through warfare, piracy, human trafficking. And again, some of the key places are Daedalus and Ephesus. And with the creation of the empire under the emperors, you start to tax everything. So Augustus put a 2% sales tax on the sale of every slave. And by the reign of from Tiberius, and actually more like Caligula into Claudius, it's up to even 4%. So just imagine now we can play about our sales taxes. Imagine just how much revenue that brings into your country or your state. How much revenue is it bringing into the Roman state? And another big thing to keep in mind, two things. How many slaves are there in Rome? How many slaves are there in the empire? A lot of ink has been spilled on this. We don't really know. Ballpark number 20 to 30% in the city of Rome of a million people. That's a lot of slaves. But then you start to go through and the scholarship is getting much more sophisticated, much more insightful. So I think that number over time, we're going to see a much more refined. At the same time, it's still a lot of guesswork. It's still a lot of guesswork. And who are the slaves? And what's the bias against them? The main bias against them through and throughout is that they're a slave. Not that they're a Berber, a Numidian, or an Egyptian, or a Greek, or a Dacian, or a Parthian, per se. It's simply you are a slave. And there are lots of comments. And ultimately, juveniles are very vocal about hating this person and that person that's now come to the city just ruining it because they're not Romans, but they're a bunch of foreigners, this sort of thing. But by and large, the Romans, it wasn't about what you look like, where you were from. It was simply your slave. And then, of course, they're the freed men. And the freed women that can vote. They're now part of the system. Do you think there was bias against them? Of course there was. And we have some written accounts, not very many, the famous Atronius Trimalchio and so forth. But by and large, we want to think about what that bias would be. We want to think about how people would look at them. And on the flip side of it, we have an incredible amount of freed men and freed women, tombstones, gravesides, monuments, after their death that show pride, celebration, success, family, indebtedness to the former masters, and so forth. You see a very dynamic period, a dynamic population of people that make it, having been slaves and made them become quite wealthy. But it's neat to see that and then still imagine, as we can imagine again, turning back to our slaves here at the base of the Archus of Temios Seperis, the inherent biases and prejudice that would have been a constant in society. If they were there for the slaves, they would have been there for the freed slaves. And we want to think about all those different kinds of dynamics. Who's looking at the artwork behind me? Who's looking at it as a former slave? As a slave, as a member of the Senate, as he walks by, to think about all the different people involved in Roman society and what kind of reflection they have on seeing people enslaved in chains. I think we can start to really get to that idea of how complex the feelings would have been and the attitudes would have been of the Romans because the Romans were varied, right? They weren't all the same cookie cutter figures. Rome in the imperial period is becoming a massive cosmopolitan mix of ideas and peoples and cultures and everyone's got their own cultural baggage, but they're also then looking to Rome. They're becoming Romans and so forth. And then expand it all the way to Caracalla, making everyone a Roman citizen in 212. What kind of impact that would have on that kind of identification of yourself, who you were? First a Greek, then a Roman citizen, first a Roman citizen, then a Greek and so forth. So a lot of different feelings and layered feelings, just like you feel today when you live in one place, like I'm from the United States. I live in Italy. Think about the different layer of that little experience right there, which so much of the world is going through. Levels of acceptance, understanding, bias and so forth that will exist no matter who you are or where you go. Okay, so what do they do? They're in domestic spaces. They're owned by the state. They can be in accounting. They can be town priors. They can be cleaning out the sewer lines. They can be attendants of the colleges, of the pontiffs and other officials. And of course, a lot of them could be quite educated, even being at secretary levels to the person's self. Many of them have skill sets already. So they act as cobblers and bakers and owned by somebody else and making profit out of them. Or they're just one of those attendants within that mechanism, like pulling as we talked about. It might be a doctor, an orator. There's something of great value then. They'll get them that interaction with the owners and you can potentially then get their freedom. I remember that the worst thing, I guess of all that sort of system is going to work in the fields or to go and even working in the mines. But if you did get freed, then you're free, you can vote and really no strings attached, your children have full citizenship. So what an incredible thing. And we don't know exactly what the statistics are for, how many free people were, how frequently they were freed. These are big questions. Big questions to consider and we don't have all the answers to them. But the process, when I get to these questions, we're gonna get, oh, a lot of questions, that's great. But we do have to understand that definitely the process of freeing the slaves is called menomiscio and it's as if you've been sent out from your hand, you get a little pilius, a little cap, it's recorded and there can be a ceremony and a meal with the former master's family and so forth. So a very, very big deal and something that you'll never forget, I assure you. And in the imperial period, you're taking on as one of your names, the name of the emperor at that time. And why? Because of a good deed that you've done to the owner or out of friendship or mutual respect or you save up your allowance to Bakuio to buy your freedom and sometimes you even marry your master. All right, here are some questions. Could I ask what an average price of a slave was? I presume the most famous slave, Spartacus, being a gladiator would cost substantially more than a regular slave. Yes, I mean, well, we'd have to go through it, like what time period are we talking about and what's the role of the person? But like we're saying, if you are a doctor, a lawyer, you know something, you're fetching a higher price. Children of slaves, slaves are eventually free, is the question. Children of slaves were slaves. So yes, they could breed slaves to make more slaves and those slaves would remain slaves. And as you see in that picture behind me, if you imagine those people being sold, you don't auction off a family, you separate the family, you separate the children. So this is a really horrible time and there's even one image, I don't think you really see it here, but there's a man, a slave, holding a baby in his arms. That baby is going to be eventually ripped out of his arms and sold away. The legalization of Christianity by Constantine have any effect on slavery? It did, but already in a sense, the writing was on the walls and there are fewer slaves already by the third century. Definitely the stoicism has pushed the humane treatment of slaves. So a lot of different ideas floating around there, not just Christianity. Were female slaves freed and given citizenship? Yes, they were. Just freed, ma'am, liberatives. Freed woman, liberta. Of course, women didn't vote. But what was done to condition slaves to make them safe in the household? So they had all kinds of harsh rules. So if anyone ever tries to kill the master and it's found out what happens to the other slaves, they're all going to be executed. So it's pretty nasty. And that's one of the ways in which the Romans felt, I'm secure because if anyone tries anything, everybody is going to be killed. So a very lot of harsh rules to say the least. What would happen to the slaves in the house or the master of the house dies? So that's one way where you do free people. The master of the house dies, what's he got? Just like today, you've got a will. The will is read. And then there are ways in which you could publicly show how generous you were. And one of the ways that the truly wealthy showed how generous they were was to free a lot of their slaves. And the real thing about that is that also, not just you're generous, but it's also you're financially generous because you've just lost, you know, part of your financial wealth. Is there a fabulous monument in Rome of a freedman who made his wealth by being a baker? Do we have a picture of it? Yes, the tomb of Erisakis. And yeah, a quite extraordinary man, makes a lot of money, apparently supplying bread to the Roman army in the time of Augustus. It's at the port of Majority. We should definitely do a video on that. And these are great questions. And I think we've covered a lot of good content. Just a few more things if I may to wrap things up. Let's see here. I think there was one other thing. The main thing is there's a great contradiction here. You know, think about the people, change the gladiators, their slaves, but they're at the bottom of society. And yet they can be superstars. You call them property, you can use them and abuse them, but then you're freeing them, even becoming their friends and so forth. But when they're your slaves, if they disappoint, if they disobey, flogging, branding, slave collars, I mean, just horrible, horrible things. Particularly if you try to not be a slave, you try to run away. We talked about the slave revolts, which were so dramatic. And of course, there are plenty of examples of kindness on the part of people. For the most part, you see that people are rather severe with them. And then here's Hadrian legislation of Hadrian. He forbade masters to kill their slaves. Capital charges against slaves were to be handled through official courts and execution if necessary, carried out in these courts. He forbade and masters to sell a male or female slave to a pimp or to a gladiator chainer without first showing good cause. So what's happening, it seems over time, the second and the third centuries is there's less of a desire really to use and abuse these people. And that's imagined at that point for how many centuries and centuries and centuries of having the manumission of freeing the slaves. And by the time of the third century, you've got a real shortage of slaves. And then you start to bring in more of the serfdom, kind of while you're a freed person, you can work this land but you're really kind of dying to me. And it seems that it picks up in tempo. And then of course you're gonna have slavery under Constantine. You're gonna have slavery for quite some time, but it eventually goes the way of the gladiator fights. That's another story. So I just wanted to cover a little bit about the harsh realities of being a slave, the ancient Roman world, where they come from, how they're treated and ultimately this very interesting reality that exists in the Roman world, the strange reality of the frequency through which they freed then those slaves that were basically human property. Property like Cavalier or whatever, chattel and within allowed to become enfranchised and part of that grand idea of Rome. Quite extraordinary and that's the life that I don't think anyone would wanna really be a part of even going through a time machine or something, and experience all that incredible reality of ancient Rome. But with the inscriptions, with the monuments, with the ancient sources, we have some insight on what it was like to be a slave in the ancient Roman world. Thanks very much. This ancient Rome live, the webinars are always gonna be on the YouTube channel afterwards. YouTube.com slash we dig Rome. We ask you for your support. 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