3/13/12 Buying Slaves at Rome • Expensive– (maybe 400 Gmes avg. daily wage) Slavery at Rome • The sale: – imported slaves have feet whitened with chalk - A true slave society; product of conquest – each slave has placard around neck lisGng aributes and defects – complete physical inspecGon possible - By end of First Century BC, 1 out of every 3 – refund within 6 months unless slave wearing a men living in Italy was a slave parGcular type of hat signaling no guarantee • Why make such an investment? – allows for absentee landowners to run lafundia - Slavery increased as Rome expanded and – slaves worked longer hours than free peasants brought hundreds of thousands of capGves – never called away for military service each year to Italy – status symbol VarieGes of Slave Experience Gladiators • pet slave (owner’s liRle darling; young) • The businessman/bureaucrat – could own his own slaves (kind of): vicarii – had peculium: his money, from which he might eventually buy his freedom • Skilled professional: doctor, teacher… • DomesGc help: maid, hairdresser, gardener… • Agric. labor: “mortal property; arGculate tools” • Mine workers: essenGally a death sentence • Gladiators: fight for popular entertainment 1 3/13/12 Sources of slaves: replacement req. to maintain pop. (100,000/yr Escape for Italy) • Conquest • Different clothing and collars: • Slaves brought in from outside the empire – Eg. “I have run away. Capture me. When you • Voluntary slavery have returned me to my master Zoninus you will receive a reward.” • Houseborn slaves (vernae) • Posters for fugiGve slaves • Enslavement of inhabitants of the empire • Fugi#varius—runaway slave catcher—full-me (brigandage, piracy, abandoned children) job. • Island of Delos huge slave emporium capable of moving 10,000 slaves a day through docks Slave Revolts Atudes toward slaves: • First Servile War: 135-132 BC in Sicily • Debate about “natural slavery” – led by Eunus, a former slave claiming to be a prophet – Aristotle (Greek): and magician “by nature some are free, others are slaves” • Second Servile War: 104– 100 BC in Sicily – A Roman legal definiGon of slavery: – led by Athenion “insGtuGon of the law of naons whereby • Third Servile War: 73– 71 BC mainland Italy someone is against nature made subject to the – led by Spartacus ownership of another.” • Also small groups of fugiGve slave brigands and • ConstrucGon of slave pop. as hosGle: “a man has robbers preying on society in South Italy as many enemies as he has slaves.” • The more Rome conquers, the more violence • But aware of essenGal resemblance between increases at home (by slaves working both for slave & master: -many slaves have skills valued by elite and against their masters) – Stoic philosophy– slaves can be free and vice versa – Saturnalia FesGval = role reversal 2 3/13/12 LeRer from Seneca to his friend “I am glad to learn that you live on friendly terms with your Contrasts with slavery in America slaves. This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself. "They are slaves," people declare." No, they are men. "Slaves!" No, they are friends. "Slaves!" No, they are • Not racially based our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike. • Technical, skilled jobs (doctor, professor, arGsan) That is why I smile at those who think it degrading for a man to an important component of slave labor. dine with his slave. But why should they think it degrading? • No model of a society without slavery It is only because proud eGqueRe surrounds a householder at his dinner with a mob of standing slaves. The master eats • Possibility of freedom (manumission) either more than he can hold, and with monstrous greed loads his belly unGl it is stretched and can no longer do the work of a through purchase or will. belly; so that he is at greater pains to discharge all the food Freed slaves (liber#) = Roman ciGzens, & much of than he was to stuff it down. All this Gme the poor slaves may not speak. The slightest murmur is repressed by the rod; Roman pop. could trace family back to a even a chance sound, - a cough, a sneeze, or a hiccup, - is freedman punished by the lash.” Monument for freedmen (liber#) physicians Spartacus • Leader in Third Servile War (73 – 71 BC) fought in mainland Italy – Escaped with 70 slaves from gladiatorial school in Capua and take cover in forests of Mt. Vesuvius – Besieged by Roman forces but escape using vine- ropes and rout Romans – Joined by thousands of slaves and rout two more Roman armies • Finally destroyed by eight legions under the general Crassus (and reinforcements led by Pompey) 3 3/13/12 Crassus & Pompey end Third Servile War Spartacus as symbol of revoluGon on (led by Spartacus) behalf of the oppressed • Karl Marx on the hero, Spartacus: -Spartacus killed "the most splendid fellow in the whole of -6,000 crucified ancient history" & "[a] great general, noble along Via Appia character, real representave of the ancient proletariat." • Spartakus-Bund (Spartacus-League): forerunner of Communist Party of Germany 4 .