Slavery in ancient Rome

[39] The loss of citizenship was a consequence of submitting to an enemy sovereign state; freeborn people kidnapped by bandits or pirates were regarded as seized illegally, and therefore they could be ransomed, or their sale into slavery rendered void, without compromising their citizen status.

[54] Agricultural slaves, certain farmland within the Italian peninsula, and farm animals were all res mancipi, a category of property established in early Rome's rural economy as requiring a formal legal process (mancipatio) for transferring ownership.

[83] But because of the value Romans placed on home-reared slaves (vernae) in expanding their familia,[84] there is more evidence that the formation of family units, though not recognized as such for purposes of law and inheritance, was supported within larger urban households and on rural estates.

[149] The Lex Aelia Sentia of AD 4 allowed a patron to take his freedman to court for not carrying out his operae as outlined in their manumission agreement, but the possible penalties—which range in severity from a reprimand and fines to condemnation to hard labor—never include a return to enslavement.

[192] The cultural assumption that enslavement was a natural result of defeat in war is reflected in the ubiquity of Imperial art depicting captives, an image that appears not only in public contexts that serve overt purposes of propaganda and triumphalism but also on objects that seem intended for household and personal display, such as figurines, lamps, Arretine pottery, and gems.

[233] Jobs for which child slaves apprenticed include textile production, metalworking such as nail-making and coppersmithing, mirror-making, shorthand and other secretarial skills, accounting, music and the arts, baking, ornamental gardening, and construction techniques.

[256] Child abandonment, whether through the death of family or intentionally, is to be distinguished from infant exposure (expositio), which the Romans seem to have practiced widely and which is embedded in the founding myth of the exposed twins Romulus and Remus suckling at the she-wolf.

At a time when infant mortality might have been as high as 40 percent,[269] the newborn was thought in its first week of life to be in a perilous liminal state between biological existence and social birth,[270] and the first bath was one of many rituals marking this transition and supporting the mother and child.

[271] The Constantinian law has been viewed as an effort to stop the practice of exposure as infanticide[272] or as "an insurance policy on behalf of individual slave-owners"[273] designed to protect the property of those who, unknowingly or not, had bought an infant later claimed or shown to have been born free.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, tried to alleviate hunger as one condition that led to child-selling by ordering local magistrates to distribute free grain to poor families,[288] later abolishing the "power of life and death" the paterfamilias had held.

[343][344] Roman coin hoards dating from the 60s BC are found in unusual abundance in Dacia (present-day Romania), and have been interpreted as evidence that Pompey's success in shutting down piracy caused an increase in the slave trade in the lower Danube basin to meet demand.

[351] Walter Scheidel conjectured that "enslavables" were traded across borders from present-day Ireland, Scotland, eastern Germany, southern Russia, the Caucasus, the Arab peninsula, and what used to be referred to as "the Sudan"; the Parthian Empire would have consumed most supply to the east.

[392] 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.

[411] 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.

[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.

[416] Epitaphs record at least 55 different jobs a household slave might have,[413] including barber, butler, cook, hairdresser, handmaid (ancilla), launderer, wet nurse or nursery attendant, teacher, secretary, seamstress, accountant, and physician.

[417] 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.

[428] The contractual aspect of benefits and obligations seems "distinctly modern"[429] 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.

[459] 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.

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.

[674] 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.

[715] 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,[716] the only person with the authority to stop what was allowed by law.

[719] 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.

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.

[736] 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.

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.

[824] 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.

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,[834] just as the choice of marble as the medium rather than the more common limestone gives evidence of his level of success.

[897] 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.

[903] Roman art connoisseurs did not shy away from displaying explicit sexuality in their collections at home,[904] 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.

Roman mosaic from Dougga , Tunisia (2nd/3rd century AD): Two large slaves carrying wine jars each wear an amulet against the evil eye on a necklace, with one in a loincloth (left) and the other in an exomis ; [ 1 ] the young slave to the left carries water and towels, and the one on the right a bough and a basket of flowers. [ 2 ]
Romans Passing under the Yoke (1858) by Charles Gleyre , imagining the subjugation of Romans following their defeat by the Helvetii around 107 BC (Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts)
Sarcophagus relief of Valerius Petronianus, with his slave holding writing tablets (4th century AD)
Funerary relief (ca. 80 BC) celebrating the marriage between Aurelius Hermia and Aurelia Philematium as conliberti , fellow slaves in the same household who were freed [ 71 ] ( British Museum )
An inscription declaring that the freedman Gaius Antistius Threptus paid for the dedication "with his own money" ( Musée des Jacobins , Auch ) [ 97 ]
Fragment of a marble relief (1st century BC) depicting a manumission ceremony and the wearing of the pileus , a felt cap that was a symbol of liberation
Illustration by Luigi Bazzani (1895) of the atrium of the House of the Vettii, thought to have been owned by freedmen
Cinerary urn for the freedman Tiberius Claudius Chryseros and two women, probably his wife and daughter
Relief from Smyrna (present-day İzmir , Turkey) depicting a Roman soldier leading captives in chains
Reverse of a sestertius issued by Vespasian, one among a twenty-five-year series of Iudaea capta coins depicting a personification of the defeated province of Judaea
The Gemma Augustea onyx cameo depicting the elevated Augustus receiving a wreath ( corona ) amid divinities; below, soldiers erect a war trophy and ready captives for sale
Funerary bust (AD 100–115) commemorating a verna named Martialis, who died just under the age of three (Digital image courtesy of Getty 's Open Content Program)
Funerary monument (AD 101–125) for the 16-year-old alumna Lutatia Lupata, playing a pandura
Statuette of a slave boy waiting with a lantern for his master (1st–2nd century AD)
Infant exposure with subsequent fosterage is a narrative premise in one of the best-known Roman myths: in this relief (2nd century AD), the shepherd Faustulus finds the twins Romulus and Remus nursing at the she-wolf under the sacred fig tree
The Roman Empire at its greatest extent during the reign of Trajan
An example of small perforated copper-alloy figurines (2nd–3rd century AD) depicting captives, found scattered widely in Britain and along the Rhine-Danube Roman frontier; they are thought to be connected to slave-trading, but their possible use or significance remains a mystery (Portable Antiquities Scheme) [ 345 ]
Captives in Rome , a nineteenth-century painting by Charles W. Bartlett
A wall painting from the House of Julia Felix depicts the market in the forum at Pompeii , where trade included slaves [ 359 ]
Funerary monument of Gaius Aiacius, a slave-trader (mango) at the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne ( CIL 13.8348; 30–40 BC)
Mosaic from a Roman villa at Sidi Ghrib (in present-day Tunisia) depicting two female slaves ( ancillae ) attending their mistress
Fullers at work in a wall painting from Pompeii; free and enslaved people often can't be distinguished in depictions of labor
An ancient Roman restaurant ( thermopolium ) near the forum in Ostia Antica : all aspects of food preparation and service employed both free and slave labor
Agricultural workers using a reaper on a relief from Roman Gaul
Inscription from the base of a statue honoring the imperial freedman Publius Aelius Liberalis as the patron of the vicus Augustanus in Ostia , where he held several governmental positions up to that of procurator of the grain supply ( annona )
Gravesite marker (2nd century AD) for the wool merchant Titus Aelius Evangelus, likely a freedman of Antoninus Pius , along with his wife, Ulpia Fortunata; Ulpius Telesphorus, of likely Trajanic freedman lineage and a relative of the wife or a conlibertus ; Gaudenia Marcellina, the natural daughter of Evangelus from a previous union; and their freedpersons and descendants [ 476 ]
Terra cotta relief (late 1st century BC–early 1st century AD): a slave seeks refuge at an altar to escape his master's punishment in a scene from Roman comedy ( Louvre )
A bilingual Latin-Greek tombstone from Carnuntum for a 26-year-old slave named Florus, set up by his master ob meritis , in recognition of his merits ( AE 1973, 421) [ 554 ]
Publius Pupius Mentor, a freedman and medical doctor ( Civico Lapidario , Umbria )
Publius Curtilius Agatho, a freed craftsman who worked in silver ( Getty Villa Roman Collection)
Epitaph for a Narcissus, one of the most popular Greek names for slaves
The only known instance of a Roman tombstone representing the deceased with a work of art and not his own portrait: the freedman Titus Octavius Diadumenus was objectified and named for a type of statue ( diadumenos ) that depicted a youth of "remarkable beauty" [ 606 ] [ q ]
Handmaid looking through a storage box, detail of a wall painting from Pompeii
A dinner party in a wall painting from Pompeii: a small slave in a white tunic (lower left) helps the master with his shoes; the slave in the center offers him a drink; another slave (lower right) supports a vomiting guest who's overindulged [ 630 ]
The Third Servile War has lent itself to countless cultural interpretations ; the Soviet-era ballet Spartacus , composed by Aram Khachaturian , has been perennially restaged since 1956 by the Bolshoi (here in 2013) to suit the prevailing ideology [ 673 ]
Androcles (1902) by the French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme , a different take from the scenes of violence in the Roman arena for which Gérôme helped establish modern visual conventions [ 697 ]
Slave shackle from Roman Britain
Mosaic (early 4th century) depicting two fishermen Cupids at left wearing servile clothing, with a V for Venus forehead tattoo chastising them as penal slaves of love [ 729 ]
Zoninus collar
One of the earliest extant depictions (ca. AD 420–430) of the crucifixion of Jesus , on an ivory carving that also shows the suicide of Judas : the crucified Christ is serenely detached from the suffering of torture [ 759 ] and defiantly alive on a dead tree, while Judas hangs dead on a living tree [ 760 ] (British Museum [ 761 ] )
A relief from Trajan's Column shows the defeated Dacian king Decebalus surrounded by Roman cavalry and holding his sica to his throat, in the moment before he commits suicide to escape captivity (from the plates of Conrad Cichorius ) [ 780 ]
Bronze plaque recording the fulfillment of a vow to Feronia, a tutelary goddess of freedmen, by an ancilla named Hedone ( CIL 6.147, 2nd century AD)
Attendant with ax at a sacrifice, a popa or victimarius (from Carthage, 50-150 AD)
Dedication to Mithras by the Imperial slave Atimetus
"Eros the cook, slave of Posidippus, lies here" ( CIL VI, 6246)
The Colchester Vase from Roman Britain (c. 175 AD) is inscribed around the top with the names of four gladiators; on this side, the murmillo Secundus fights the retiarius Marius
Statuette of a slave from the Bursa Archaeological Museum
Two slaves stand by as a bride awakens to sexuality on her wedding night, [ 902 ] in a bedroom fresco from the Casa della Farnesina, Trastevere
Mosaic depicting a scene from a Roman comedy, with the slave in chains (Tunisia, 3rd century AD)
Bronze figurine of an actor wearing a comic mask and portraying a slave (3rd century AD)