The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (23 page)

Romans of any worth kept slaves at home and on any other holdings. Slaves in the early Republic were children sold into slavery (quite common), people who had fallen into slavery by debt (also quite common), people kidnapped and sold into slavery, or people captured during conquest. The last became a huge source of slaves.

Slaves worked beside their masters in the house, on the farm, and as personal attendants (such as hairdressers) and accompanied children to school or their masters to the baths. A slave might be allowed to have a form of slave marriage, the
contubernium,
but it was not a legal marriage. Partners could be separated and any children were the property of the slave's owner. Slaves could earn money on the side doing other work; with this money they could sometimes save enough to buy their freedom. If they did, they became freedmen and usually clients of their former owners.

In the home, household slaves held different positions and were organized under the supervision of a foreman. Having several slaves to attend you in public was a mark of prestige and status. Some slaves became trusted and valued members of the family, but Roman laws, history, and literature show that even these slaves lived in the condition of the family dog that gets petted when its owners are pleased and kicked when they are not.

Horrible beatings and tortures for slaves were legal and common. Roman literature, for example, portrays upper-class women violently taking out their bad hair days on their slave hairdressers, and dinners upon the slave cooks. Sex (consensual or not)
with slaves was common enough, and obstinate or runaway slaves were branded, tortured, crucified, or thrown to the beasts. It isn't until the Empire (
C
.
E
. 14–476) that castrating male slaves for profit or killing your slave just because you felt like it was made illegal.

 
Lend Me Your Ears
As I said earlier, slaves had the legal status of a chair, or should I say, a hoe? Here are two writers giving advice on good farm practice:

“Concerning implements by which one cultivates the soil: Some people divide cultivation implements into three sets: implements with the power of speech, namely, slaves; implements without the power of speech, namely oxen and such; and implements without sound, such as carts, etc.”

—Varro (116–27
B
.
C
.
E
.),
On Farm Affairs,
1.17.1

“When your oxen get old, sell them . . . do the same with old plows, old tools, and old or sick slaves.”

—Cato the Elder (234–149
B
.
C
.
E
.),
On Agricultural Production,
2

• The Roman household was patriarchal under the absolute rule of the
  pater familias.
  
• Roman family values and structure were the basis for state authority and structure.
  
• Roman upper-class women began to develop an increasing amount of personal freedom and power in the late Republic.
  
• Household and farm slaves made up an integral part of the
  familia.
  They had no status that protected them from cruel or capricious treatment.
  

Chapter 9
 
The Romans Among Themselves

• Roman social and class divisions
  
• The Roman political structure
  
• Law and courts
  
• Roman state cults and officials
  
• The army
  

Now that we've taken a look at the family, let's look outside the family to
apud Romanos
(among the Romans). Roman citizens distinguished themselves by social class and wealth. As Rome grew, the picture became more complex as different kinds of citizens and foreign clients were added to the mix. We'll take a look at that mix in the next chapter. For now, let's concentrate on Roman relations with others whom they recognized as Roman.

Romans were extremely class conscious. Some classes were determined by birth (the patricians and plebs) and others, such as the equites, by wealth. But class distinctions became a bit hard to define. Wealth brought political power, and during the middle Republic, a class of
nobiles
(nobles) was created from patrician and plebeian families who had previously held political office. This class became as exclusionary as those conveyed by birth: In the last two centuries of the Republic, only Cato, Marius, and Cicero (see Chapter 7, “Let's Conquer . . . Ourselves! The Roman Revolution and the End of the Republic”) became “new men” and “ennobled” their families.

The patricians (
patricii
) were formed in the period of the monarchy (roughly 700–509
B
.
C
.
E
.) from clan leaders of Roman and Etruscan families. These
patres
made up the king's advisors and became the foundation of the early senate. They were also the men from whom the priests were chosen.

Patricians guarded their prestige and privileges jealously. In the early Republic (509–450
B
.
C
.
E
.), patricians used their religious and political privileges to limit the plebeians' power and sought to restrict their social mobility by forbidding marriage between plebeian and patrician families. Plebeian families had made inroads into patrician circles early on. Intermarriage with plebeians was allowed in 455
B
.
C
.
E
., and over time, wealthy patricians and plebeians came to have more in common with each other than either did with the less fortunate of their own class.

Many patrician families fell onto hard times in the later Republic and died out. Only about 15 remained by Augustus's time (27
B
.
C
.
E
.–
C
.
E
. 14), and he began a practice of creating new patricians by decree.

No one really knows where the class of
plebs
came from originally. They may have been non-Roman families in the early royal period, or they may have been simply the horde (plebs means, “the many”) under the aristocrats. In either case, by the time of the Republic there were already wealthy and powerful plebeians and plebeian families. The so-called “Conflict of the Orders” resulted from an attempt by the patricians to squeeze the plebeians out of access to political and religious power after the monarchy fell. The plebeians fought back and, through their secession, the formation of the
consilium plebis
and its legislation, came to have political rights commensurate with the patricians by 287
B
.
C
.
E
. By then the wealthy were pretty much a class of their own as far as politics was concerned.

By the third century
B
.
C
.
E
., two powerful classes were emerging that depended on wealth, one technically confined to a political realm, the other technically confined to the world of business.

The first was the class of
nobiles,
men whose families had been elected to the magistracies for at least three consecutive generations.
Nobiles
came exclusively from the upper classes as it depended upon wealth and prestige to maintain a family's ability to produce magistrates and consuls. Moreover, men of such status expected to be engaged in a full-time and unpaid pursuit of civic duties and public service. For this reason, they were restricted to earning their living from land, the only proper way for a Roman noble to maintain wealth.

 
When in Rome
“Into this mess came another greater terror: Latin cavalrymen galloped in with the news that the Volsci were coming with an invasion force to besiege the city. The news—and this is how much the tension had divided one city into two parts—affected the patricians and plebes, when each heard them, very differently. The plebeians were thrilled: They said that divine vengeance for the arrogance of the patricians was at hand. Each man encouraged the other not to enlist for service. Better to perish all together than alone, they said; let the patricians fight, let
them
take up some weapons so that the same people who got the rewards of war also got the dangers.”

—
Livy,
The History of Rome
, 2.24

The
equites
were a class from the property rank of cavalryman in the
comitia centuriata.
After the second Punic War (218–202
B
.
C
.
E
.), equestrian status was given to all free citizens who met the property qualification. The
equites
became Rome's business class doing the public contracts, banking, and tax collecting.

As Rome expanded, the
equites
became wealthy and powerful but were often pitted against the senatorial class. Senators made up the magistrates under whom the
equites
did business in the provinces and who were in a position to pressure them and demand kickbacks. Moreover, the senatorial class made up the juries in which corrupt officials were prosecuted and tended to protect their own. Finally, wealthy
equites
who wanted to enter politics found, for the most part, the ranks of the
nobiles
closed against them getting into high offices. This led to a certain amount of class hostility, which the emperors later exploited by finding qualified men among the
equites
who would be more loyal to them than the senate would be.

 
When in Rome
Fides
means “faith” or “trust” and indicates living according to one's responsibilities, agreements, and pledges.

Romans also developed hierarchical relationships with
clientes,
or clients. Clients were persons of inferior standing who entered into a mutual relationship with a person of higher standing. The latter
became their
patronus,
or patron. Each was obligated to look out for the other's interests. Clients received economic benefits and social protection; patrons expected to receive loyal assistance (such as labor, military support, votes) in return. It was a breach of
fides
for either side to abuse or neglect this relationship.

Patrons sought power and influence by extending and expanding their base of clients. As Rome grew, this kind of relationship was replicated between Rome and conquered states, between powerful Romans and foreign peoples, and between military commanders and their soldiers. The patron/client relationship helps to explain, for example, how commanders such as Pompey the Great (from Rome), could raise entire armies abroad (see Chapter 7).

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Romans in the city made their morning
salutatio
(greeting) a ritual of social prestige and etiquette. Every morning from about 6 to 8
A
.
M
., groups of clients visited the homes of their patrons. For this they received a small basket of food or some money. After the
salutatio,
patrons headed to the Forum. Equites began business; others engaged in the unpaid public service that was their responsibility and privilege. Romans of all classes knocked off work around 2 to 3
P
.
M
. and headed to the public baths to relax, work out, and socialize. Dinner was about five-ish. Invitations to dinner were a mark of social prestige or a reward for a good client from his patron; some people made the morning
salutatio
and getting a dinner invitation somewhat of an occupation in and of itself.