Transcript Rome Intro

Slavery and Early Rome
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Some general remarks and
terms
2. 2.
Rome a true slave society
Rome a ‘true’ slave society only from 3rd
century BCE to reign of emperor Diocletian
(287-305) CE
 Only Roman Italy qualifies NOT all of the
Roman empire.
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Roman Empire c. 117 CE
Roman Italy and its people
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City of Rome –on Italian peninsula, a large
urban center
Urban Roman Society: sophisticated urban elite;
middle-class merchants, craftsmen, etc., large
numbers of slaves and ex-slaves; masses of the
landless and poor;
citizens; Latins, foreigners (peregrini);
Slaves: Urban slaves (familia urbana) Romans
divided slaves into two general groups agricultural slaves (familia rustica)
Roman Italy – landed aristocracy, peasants;
landless rural workers;
Social Organization
Highly hierarchical:
 legal status
 Roman citizen
 Latin (limited citizenship)
 Free foreigner (peregrinus/peregrina/)
 Freed (libertus/liberta – liberti/libertae)
 Slave (servus/serva/servi)
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Census Classes, and voting distribution in the The
Comitia Centuriata:The Centuriate Assembly – based on
wealth
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Free male citizen population divided into 193 centuries on the basis
of wealth
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Equites (knights) = 18 Centuries = 18 votes (included senatorial
elite)
1. 100,000 asses + = 82 Centuries = 82 votes
2. 75,000-100,000 asses = 20 Centuries = 20 votes
3. 50,000-75,000 asses = 20 Centuries = 20 votes
4. 25,000-50,000 asses = 20 Centuries = 20 votes
5. 11,000-25,000 asses = 32 Centuries = 32 votes
Under 11,000 asses , the proletarii = 1 Century = 1 vote
Those below classis 5 = proletarii – did not qualify for military
service – could not supply own armor.
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Social Structure
The Roman elite: 1st census class =
senatorial order and equestrians
 Status based on birth and wealth; wealth
based on land
 Senatorial order – participated in political life
(pursued public career – cursus honorum)
 Equestrian order – same census class – but
did not participate in political life
 Provided financial backing for senators;
involved in large-scale financial ventures
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Roman lower classes
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Included everyone below the senatorial and
equestrian classes
Some freedmen (liberti) although at times wealthier
than equestrian classes – low birth excluded them;
if wealth was not based on land was considered
dishonorable
Augustan legislation: prohibited senators to marry
the daughter of a freedman
Sons of freedmen able to join equestrian ranks – if
they met property requirements, but stigma
remained for some generations
The Patron-Client System
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Roman social structure based on personal relationships
Patron-client system central to social and political life in
Republican Rome. Unequal relationship
Patron (patronus) = Wealthy member of the elite who
provided a client (of lower status) with loans, legal help, other
opportunities and services.
A manumitted slave became freedman and client of his
former master (dominus)
Client (cliens) = Supported his patron by voting for him,
supporting his legislative initiatives, providing other services.
Patron-Client relationship inheritable across generations.
Tendency toward the formation of cliques along gens lines.
Relationship vertical, i.e. senatorial/equestrian patron – had
clients from lower orders, or ex-slave,
clients themselves had their own clients of lower status, and
so on -
Regulations regarding Patron-Client
Relationship
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Ascribed to Romulus:
“the regulations which he then instituted concerning
patronage and which long continued in use among the
Romans were as follows. It was the duty of the
patricians to explain to their clients the laws, of which
they were ignorant; to take the same care for them
when absent as present, doing everything for them that
fathers do for their sons with regard to money and to
the contracts that related to money; to bring suit on
behalf of their clients when they were wronged in
connection with contracts and to defend them against
any who brought charges against them….
continued
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It was the duty of the clients to assist their patrons in
providing dowries for their daughters upon marriage if
the fathers had not sufficient means; to pay their
ransom to the enemy if any of them or of their children
were taken prisoner; to discharge out of their own
purses their patron’s losses in private suites and the
pecuniary fines which they were condemned to pay to
the state, making these contributions to them not as
loans but as thank-offerings; and to share with their
patrons the costs incurred in their magistracies and
dignities and other public expenditure, in the same
manner as if they were their relations. (FIRA I, 3-18)
The Sacred Bond of Patron and Client
going both ways
“If
a patron shall have
defrauded his client, he must
be solemnly forfeited” The XII Tables
450 BCEe
Forfeited (Latin = sacer) a forfeited man
was outside the law and eligible for death
 Later this often meant exile
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During the period of Severus
(193-211 CE)
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The prefect of the city has jurisdiction
over all offenses whatsoever ….He also
shall hear the complaints of needy patrons
concerning their freedmen, especially if
they declare that they are ill and wish to
be supported by their
freedmen..(Justinian, Digest I. xii., xv.3
Republican Political Organization
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Mixed Constitution: monarchic, oligarchic, and
democratic elements (2 consuls, senate, assemblies)
Rome governed by: 1. Elected magistrates. 2. Senate. 3.
People.
Magistrates elected for 1 year term.
All magistracies are collegial, i.e. 2 consuls.
Political life, religious life, military life, and social life are
inseparable.
Intensely competitive and personal; highest office the
consulship; stiff competition for office
The role of Slaves
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Important as labour force in the production of goods:
in Roman Italy slaves major producers of income for
elite: in agriculture, manufacture; trade, as business
agents, managers;
In household, the more specialized slaves were the
wealthier were their owners
MORE important as status symbols
Hierarchical social order; status had to be displayed in
public
Slaves important in displaying wealth and prominence
of Romans; important for political competition
See Wiedemann # 81 (Apuleius, The Golden Ass)
small number of slaves – displays poverty
Slave Ownership
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Everyone who could afford to would have at least 1 slave;
women also slave-owners
Melania the Younger (5th century A.D.) had 8000 slaves which
she manumitted when whe became Christian ascetic
Pudentilla, wife of Apuleius, had several properties in the
eastern Mediterrenean - had about 600 slaves
Livia, Augustus’ wife, had a huge number of highly
specialized slaves: for example, had 6 cubicularii (bedchamber
slaves) in her bedroom alone
Ummidia Quadratilla, grandmother of Pliny’s friend had her
own mime troupe (Pliny Epistulae 7.24)
Petronius fictitious character Trimalchio: Wiedemann # 82
In late Republic the accellerated political competition drove
slave-ownership to new levels: Wiedmann # 83
The nature of the Roman Economy –
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Wealth based on agricultural land
Producing surplus important – to provide security for
years of poor yields, to have food for rural workers on
the estates, to supply their country estates and urban
villas and households and support their lifestyle - to
provide them with otium (leisure)
But did not aim merely at greatest possible profit
Aim was to provide food mostly for household and local
needs, NOT as today produce crops for sale on
competitive world markets with profits reinvested to
increase yields and profit margin even more
Roman Slavery - a Social
Institution
Many slaves not directly involved in
generating income
 Domestic slaves usually consumed wealth not
produced it
 Domestics provided owners with personal
services: cooks, bedroom attendants,
masseurs, purse carriers (pedisequa/us);
nurses for children, etc.,
 Slaves used for display: ostentatious retinues
 Note: Roman Slavery primarily a Social
Institution
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Some Important LatinTerms
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domus = Roman household including parents,
children, slaves, other dependents as well as
property, wealth and reputation of that family
pater = father
mater = mother
paterfamilias = (father of the family), oldest
male with authority over everyone
familia = usually the dependants, primarily
slaves
Dominus/a = master/mistress - position of
owner in relationship to his/her slaves
filius, filia = son, daughter
 servus, serva = male/female slave
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libertus, liberta =
freedman/freedwoman
 patronus, patrona = patron, former
owner of a freed slave, (can also mean
patron of a cliens (client) = socially
inferior follower
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Rome of the XII Tables
The Early Roman Community
And Slavery
Rome of the XII Tables
XII tables, earliest Roman law code;
codified ca. 450 BCE
 Laws are codified customs practiced for
long period of time before being codified
 Customs codified once community had
become too large and complex; problems
could not longer be solved by referring to
past practices
 Laws reflect agricultural society
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Table 5.8
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. If a Roman citizen freedman dies
intestate without a direct heir, to his
patron shall fall the inheritance . . . from
said household . . . into said household.
Table VIII.3
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. . . If a person breaks a bone of a
freeman with hand or by club, he shall
undergo a penalty of 300 asses ; or of 150
asses, if of a slave.
Table 8.14
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14.– In the case of all other . . . thieves caught in the
act freemen shall be scourged and shall be adjudged as
bondsmen to the person against whom the theft has
been committed provided that they have done this by
daylight and have not defended themselves with a
weapon ; slaves caught in the act of theft . . . shall be
whipped with scourges and shall be thrown from the
rock ; but children below the age of puberty shall be
scourged at the praetor's decision and the damage done
by them shall be repaired.
Table 10.6a (sacred law)
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6a.– . . . Anointing by slaves is abolished
and every kind of drinking bout . . . there
shall be no costly sprinkling, no long
garlands, no incense boxes . . .
Table XII
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2a.– If a slave commits a theft or does damage
to property . . . .
2b.– From delinquency of children of the
household and of slaves . . . actions for
damages shall be appointed, that the father or
the master may be permitted either to undergo
assessment of the claim or to deliver the
delinquent for punishment . . .
The XII Tables
The earliest Roman Law code clearly
reflects that slaves were an integral part
of the early Roman community: integrated
into social structure, inheritance laws,
criminal law, religious institutions.
 Reflects long-standing practices
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Slavery in the Later Roman
Empire
Durability of Slavery
Siege of Amida, 369 CE; war
captives
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“among them were many feeble old men
and aged women. When their strength
gave out for various reasons under the
hardships of he long march and they lost
any desire to live, their calves or hams
were severed and they were left behind.”
(Ammianus Marcellinus, History 19.6.2)
Slavery in the 6th century AD
Publication of Justinian Digest in 533 CE
 Massive collection of legal material but
only relevant for that time was included
 Enormous amount of material about slaves
reflects need to preserve the legal
material on slave holding
 Reflects that slavery just as important in
6th century CE as it was in 6th century BCE
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Book 40 of the Digest deals exclusively
with manumission
 Manumission forms: during slave owner’s
life time, testamentary manumission,
conditional release from slavery, how a
slave can make claim for freedom,
 Book 11 has large section on corrupting a
slave
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Later imperial period: colonate – form of
dependent labour lowering status of free
peasants; state factories
 But Slavery remained important
institution in later Empire and continued
uninterrupted into early medieval world
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