Slavery

Laws.—By the original Roman law the master was clothed with absolute dominion over the slave, extending to the power of life and death, which is not surprising when we consider the nature of the patria potestas. The slave could not possess property of any kind; whatever he acquired was legally his master's. He was, however, in practice permitted to enjoy and accumulate chance earnings or savings, or a share of what he produced, under the name of peculium. A master could not enter into a contract with his slave, nor could he accuse him of theft before the law; for, if the slave took anything, this was not a subtraction, but only a displacement, of property. The union of a male and female slave had not the legal character of a marriage; it was a cohabitation (contubernium) merely, which was tolerated, and might be termi nated at will, by the master; a slave was, therefore, not capable of the crime of adultery. Yet general sentiment seems to have given a stronger sanction to this sort of connection; the names of hus band and wife are freely used in relation to slaves on the stage, and even in the laws, and in the language of the tombs. For enter ing the military service or taking on him any State office a slave was punished with death. He could not in general be examined as a witness, except by torture. A master, when accused, could offer his slaves for the "question," or demand for the same purpose the slaves of another; and, if in the latter case they were injured or killed in the process, their owner was indemnified. A slave could not accuse his master, except of adultery or incest (under the latter name being included the violation of sacred things or places) ; the case of high treason was afterwards added to these. An accused slave could not invoke the aid of the tribunes. The penalties of the law for crime were specially severe on slaves.

Treatment of Slaves.

Columella, like Xenophon, favours a certain friendliness and familiarity in one's intercourse with his farm slaves. Cato ate and drank the same coarse victuals as his slaves, and even had the children suckled by his wife, that they might imbibe a fondness for the family. But he had a strict eye to profit in all his dealings with them. He allowed the contuber nium of male and female slaves at the price of a money payment from their peculium. Columella regarded the gains from the births as a sufficient motive for encouraging these unions, and thought that mothers should be rewarded for their fecundity ; Varro, too, seems to have taken this view. The immense extension of the rural estates (latifundia) made it impossible for masters to know their slaves, even if they were disposed to take trouble for the purpose. Effective superintendence even by overseers became less easy; the use of chains was introduced, and these were worn not only in the field during working hours but at night in the ergastulum where the slaves slept. Urban slaves had probably often a life as little enviable, especially those who worked at trades for specu lators. Even in private houses at Rome, so late as the time of Ovid, the porter was chained. In the familia urbana the favourites of the master had good treatment, and might exercise some influ ence over him which would lead to their receiving flattery and gifts from those who sought his vote or solicited his support.

Doubtless there was often genuine mutual affection; slaves some times, as in noted instances during the civil wars, showed the noblest spirit of devotion to their masters. Those who were not inmates of the Lousehold, but were employed outside of it as keepers of a shop or boat, chiefs of workshops, or clerks in a mercantile business, had the advantage of greater freedom of action. The slaves of the leno and the lanista were probably in most cases not only degraded but unhappy. The lighter punish ments inflicted by masters were commonly personal chastisement or banishment from the town house to rural labour ; the severer were employment in the mill (pistrinum) or relegation to the mines or quarries. To the mines also speculators sent slaves; they worked half-naked, men and women, in chains, under the lash and guarded by soldiers. Vedius Pollio, in the time of Au gustus, was said to have thrown his slaves, condemned sometimes for trivial mistakes or even accidents, to the lampreys in his fish pond. Cato advised the agriculturist to sell his old oxen and his old slaves, as well as his sick ones; and sick slaves were exposed in the island of Aesculapius in the Tiber ; by a decree of Claudius slaves so exposed could not be reclaimed by their masters, in case of their recovery.

Though the Roman slaves were not, like the Spartan Helots, kept obedient by systematic terrorism, their large numbers were a constant source of danger. The law under which the slaves of Pedanius were put to death, probably introduced under Augustus and more fully enacted under Nero, is sufficient proof of this anxiety, which indeed is strongly stated by Tacitus in his narra tive of the facts. There had been many conspiracies amongst the slaves in the course of Roman history, and some formidable insur rections. The growth of the latifundia made the slaves more and more numerous and formidable. Free labour was discountenanced. Cato, Varro and Columella all agree that slave labour was to be preferred to free except in unhealthy regions and for large occa sional operations, which probably transcended the capacity of the permanent familia rustica. Cicero and Livy bear testimony to the disappearance of a free plebs from the country districts and its replacement by gangs of slaves working on great estates. The worst form of such predial slavery existed in Sicily, whither Mommsen supposes that its peculiarly harsh features had been brought by the Carthaginians. In Sicily, accordingly, the first really serious servile insurrections took place. The rising under Eunus in 133 B.C. was with some difficulty suppressed by Rupilius. Partial revolts in Italy succeeded ; and then came the second Sicil ian insurrection under Trypho and Athenio, followed by the Servile War in Italy under Spartacus (q.v.). Clodius and Milo used bands of gladiators in their city riots, and this action on the part of the latter was approved by Cicero. In the First Civil War they were to be found in both camps, and the murderers of Caesar were escorted to the Capitol by gladiators. Antony, Octa vius, and Sextus Pompeius employed them in the Second Civil War; and it is recorded by Augustus on the Monumentum Ancy ranum that he gave back to their masters for punishment about 30,00o slaves who had borne arms against the State.