The Roman Guide to Slave Management Read Free Page B

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 completelydifferent 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 thenumbers 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    
HOW TO BUY A SLAVE
     

     
    I F A SCULPTOR WISHES to make a great work of art he begins by searching out the piece of stone that most perfectly suits his purpose. So too the slave owner must realise that it is only from the right kind of human material that he can ever hope to fashion slaves who display the desirable characteristics of cheerfulness, hard work and obedience. It is vital that he takes the greatest care in selecting the best slaves in the market, ensuring that they are free from defects, whether physical, mental or moral. Here I shall instruct you how best to go about the