THE SLAVE SYSTEMS OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY WILLIAM L. WESTERMANN THE SLAVE SYSTEMS OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY Memoirs of the AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge Volume 40 THE SLAVE SYSTEMS OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY WILLIAM L. WESTERMANN Professor Emeritus of History Columbia University THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY INDEPENDENCE SQUARE PHILADELPHIA 1955 Copyright 1955 by the American Philosophical Society Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 54-9107 ISBN 0-87169-040-3 Reprinted 1984 TO THE MEMORY OF MICHAEL IVANOVICH ROSTOVTZEFF CONTENTS PAGE Prefatory Statement and Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xi I. Greek Slavery from Homer to the Persian Wars 1 II. From the Persian Wars to Alexander. Slave Supply and Slave Numbers 5 III. From the Persian Wars to Alexander. Slave Employment and Legal Aspects of Slavery . 12 IV. From the Persian Wars to Alexander. The Social Setting of Polis Slavery 22 V. The Eastern Mediterranean Lands from Alexander to Augustus. Recruitment of Slaves and Numbers 28 VI. The Eastern Mediterranean Lands from Alexander to Augustus. The Delphic Manumissions: Slave Origins, Economic and Legal Approaches 34 VII. The Eastern Area from Alexander to Augustus. Basic Differences Between Pre-Greek and Greek Slavery 39 VIII. Slavery in Hellenistic Egypt. Pharaonic Tradition and Greek Intrusions 46 IX. War and Slavery in the West to 146 B. C 57 X. The Roman Republic. Praedial Slavery, Piracy, and Slave Revolts 63 XI. The Later Republic. The Slave and the Roman Familia 69 XII. The Later Republic. Social and Legal Position of Slaves 77 XIII. Slavery Under the Roman Empire to Constantine the Great. Sources and Numbers of Slaves 84 XIV. The Roman Empire in the West. Economic Aspects of Slavery 90 XV. Slavery Under the Roman Empire. The Provenance of Slaves, How Sold and Prices Paid . 96 XVI. The Roman Empire. Living Conditions and Social Life of Slaves 102 XVII. Imperial Slaves and Freedmen of the Emperors. Amelioration of Slavery 102 XVIII. The Moral Implications of Imperial Slavery and the " Decline " of Ancient Culture .... 118 XIX. In the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire 120 XX. From Diocletian to Justinian. Problems of Slavery 128 XXI. From Diocletian to Justinian. The Eastern and the Western Developments 133 XXII. From Diocletian to Justinian. Leveling of Position between Free Workers and Slaves ... 139 XXIII. Upon Slavery and Christianity 149 XXIV. Conclusion 159 Bibliography 163 Index 174 PREFATORY STATEMENT AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The beginning of my interest in the problems of translations and explanation of three new documents ancient slavery lies many years in the past. The im- written in Aramaic which deal with enslavement prac- pulse behind this attempt to write a comprehensive tice in the well-known Hebrew colony of Elephantine. study of the experience of the Greek and Roman peoples As the discussion of them in chapter III should indicate, with the institution of slave labor and its results in their contents are of unusual importance in establishing antiquity is more recent. It originated in a recommenda- marked contrasts in the fundamental attitude and the tion made by Professor Michael Ivanovich Rostovtzeff procedures of Hebrew and older Semitic slavery as to Professor Wilhelm Kroll of Breslau University compared with those of the Greeks. Awaiting the dis- that I should prepare a synthesis of the history of cussions of the Aramaic scholars which this new mate- Greco-Roman enslavement for the Pauly-Wissowa- rial will inevitably provoke, my treatment of it is only Kroll Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertums- tentative, a mere indication of its importance for the wissenschaft. The resulting article upon Sklaverei slavery problem of the eastern Mediterranean area appeared in 1935 in Supplementary Volume six of that in the Greek polity period. My indebtedness to Dr. invaluable German series. Toward the accomplishment Kraeling for his generosity in making this new material of the primary task I was helped by a grant of money available to me sometime before its publication is very made by the Council of Research in the Social Sciences great indeed. of Columbia University. This is the first opportunity The four chapters upon slave labor and the treat- I have had to make a public acknowledgment of the ment of slaves as these presented themselves in the important assistance which the funds supplied out of eastern Mediterranean area after the conquest of Egypt the resources of Columbia University by the Council and southwestern Asia by Alexander of Macedon (chap- meant to me. The grant enabled me to secure the ters V-VIII inclusive) are quite fully recast and re- services of a small group of capable and enthusiastic written. In them I have tried to approach the problems graduate students, all equipped with the necessary of slave legislation and employment as displaying, in knowledge of the ancient languages, to assist me in the their own way, in an age conspicuously marked by collection of the materials upon Greek and Roman cosmopolitanism and syncretism, the results of accep- slavery which are so widely scattered in the ancient tances and rejections in the field of slave-labor economy. literature and the supplementary evidence of the inscrip- I am fully aware that the ideas there advanced must tions and the papyri. be subjected to further study and will call for discussion The generous idea of bringing up to date the Pauly- and probable revision. Wissowa-Kroll article entitled Sklaverei and present- The account of slavery in the lands of the western ing it in an English version occurred to some of my Mediterranean during the period of the rise of the colleagues in the Department of History toward the Roman republic will be found in chapters IX-XII. It close of my active teaching career at Columbia. The has been added to by numerous details and changed in department supplied me with sufficient funds, out of some of its conclusions. But it did not require a drastic the endowment left to it by the will of the eminent revision of the original treatment as given in the Pauly- Professor William H. Dunning, to secure help in the Wissowa-Kroll encyclopedia. revision and the typing of this new version of the origi- The discussion of the slave systems of the Roman nal article upon slavery written in German. To the imperial world of the first three centuries after Christ American Philosophical Society my indebtedness is appears in chapters XIII-XIX. This has been greatly great for its generosity in providing for the publication extended and deepened, I hope, in its understanding of of this volume. the relation of slave labor to the larger political and The first four chapters of this new synthesis (chap- cultural movements of that time. The final chapters, ters I-IV) cover the history of enslavement practice XIX-XXIV, dealing with slavery in a world of aggres- in the period of the free Greek polities. This will not sive and ultimately dominant Christianity are entirely be found to deviate greatly from the presentation new as contrasted with the brief statement made in the available in the Sklaverei treatment, except in one re- Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll treatment. In the chronological spect. Additional knowledge upon Jewish slavery in a setting of the two and a half centuries from the acces- colony in upper Egypt during the second half of the sion of Diocletian to the death of Justinian two prob- fifth century b. c. has been made available to me through lems projected themselves out of the materials upon the generous and scholarly attitude of Dr. Emil G. slavery. Neither the one nor the other is new; but Kraeling of New Canaan, Connecticut. He supplied each is culturally important and each deserves a re- me, in advance of their definitive publication, with his statement and a new evaluation of precisely what it SLAVE SYSTEMS OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY signified in the setting of the culture of which it was a can history under the direction of my friend, Professor part. John Krout, now Vice President of Columbia Uni- The first of these arises out of the observation of the versity. Professor Geroid Robinson and his group lessening of the space which throughout the previous were interested in the broader aspects of bondage as history of antiquity had separated the free from the represented in the Russian serf system. The students enslaved, both legally and in public esteem, especially enrolled with me dealt with the practices of slavery in in the field of labor. This I have thought of in terms Greek and Roman antiquity. Since his connection with of a levelling process which lowered the legal and social Columbia University began I have had the benefit, also, status of the free and at the same time raised the stand- of many conversations with Professor Richard Morris ing of the slave group. upon contrasts and likenesses between the structure of The second problem has been that of the attitude of American slavery, in which he is well versed, and the Christianity toward the system of slavery. Why did slave institutions of antiquity. Christianity reject, in its internal organization and its The task of reading and assessing the entire manu- membership, the inequalities implicit in the doctrine of script of this study was undertaken by Professor Thomas human enslavement, and still, externally, accept its R. S. Broughton of Bryn Mawr College. I am grateful practice without condemnation ? to him for the meticulous care with which he did this Throughout the entire book it has been a constant and for the scholarly knowledge and judgment which effort on my part to look out of the windows of the enabled me to accept so many of his suggestions.