Transcript The Familia Rustica

The Familia
the slave household
Familia Rustica and Familia Urbana
General division, not a geographic division but
primarily a legal division based on the type of
work carried out
 i.e. slaves working inside the house such as
cubicularii (bed chamber slaves) were
considered members of the familia urbana
 Agricultural field workers – familia rustica
 Familia rustica considered inferior to familia
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urbana
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Wiedemann # 126
Agricultural Slavery: Sources
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Genre of Agricultural handbooks popular in late
Republican Period: target audience the wealthy
landowning class.
Advice on all matters associated with the
management of large country estates, including
the use and management of slaves
Major hand-book writers:
Columella
Varro
Cato the Elder
How do we evaluate this
type of source?
Are agricultural hand-books a reliable
source for slavery in the country-side??
Do these works have any biases we
have to keep in mind?
limitations
Agricultural andbooks were written by
slave-owning class
 Varro, Columella, Cato wrote handbooks
for Italian estates not for other regions of
the Roman empire
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Wiedemann # 147 Columella
 # 148 Varro
 # 149 Columella
 # 150 Varro
 # 151 Cato
 # 157 Columella
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1.What does the advice in the
handbooks tell us about the
slave-owners?
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Did you notice parallels between the lives
of Roman agricultural slaves and the
experience of slaves in the account of
Frederick Douglass?
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ILS 7367 (Teate Marrucinorum, Italy)
“To Hippocrates, slave and farm-manager
of Plautius, by the farm household to
whom he gave orders respectfully.”
 ILS 8536 (Rome)
 “To the departed spirit of Terentia
Thisbe. Terentia Selicia made this for her
wet-nurse.”
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Landownership and Slavery
Wealth of the Roman elite was based on
agricultural land-ownership
 Surplus production provided land-owners with
otium – leisure - important mark of wealth
 otium essential to pursue education and
participation in public life;
 Large-scale slavery allowed wealthy elite to
become wealthier and the gap between elite and
the poor citizens widen without having to exploit
the labour of free Roman citizens and risking
resistance to military service on which Roman
state relied (Keith Hopkins)
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Latifundia
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New form of farming by wealthy land-owners developed
with conquest of the Greek East and large influx of
slaves into Italy
Many wealthy land-owners accumulated large tracts of
land; seized ager publicus; often swallowed up small
farms of peasant farmers; problems with displaced and
landless; by 2nd century BC – frequent demands for landredistribution used as political tool in crisis and civil wars
of the late Republic
Latifundia worked with large gangs of slaves
Many practiced monoculture: olives, wine, grain, etc., for
maximum profit, often aimed at the luxury market of city
of Rome
Familia rustica versus familia Urbana
Generally agricultural slaves had lower
status than household slaves
 Life on the farm was hard; labour
intensive; exposure to bad weather;
particularly bad off were chain-gang slaves
 Few opportunities for manumission –
peculium unlikely
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