The Roman Guide to Slave Management (12 page)

It is important, though, that you do not allow your female slaves to be exploited for immoral sexual purposes. So whenever I sell a female slave who is still in possession of her looks, I stipulate in the contract of sale that her new owner will not prostitute her. Indeed, the divine emperor Vespasian promulgated a decree which
upheld conditions of that sort, whereby if any woman had been sold on condition that she should not be employed as a prostitute, and she had been so prostituted, then she should become free. He also ordered that if the buyer were later to sell her to someone else without imposing the same condition, she should become free in accordance with the conditions of the original sale, and become the freedwoman of the person who had originally sold her.

Of course, slaves themselves also wish to have sex with each other and many wish to enter into family relationships. It is completely within your power as to whether you allow them such unions. Slaves cannot legally marry but they can be allowed to enter into an informal bond between themselves. Generally, when I am approached by two of my household slaves I agree to such a union as it generates goodwill, whereas a refusal will only result in spite. Marriage-type relations within the household also promote stability. I recommend that you allow them to raise a family. This brings with it a number of advantages. It makes them contented and more likely to work harder to earn their freedom; it provides ‘hostages’, so to speak, making it less likely that their parents will ever try to run away; and, above all, it means that there will be another generation of home-bred slaves to replace them once the parents have been freed or died, slaves who will be a genuine part of the family and not just outsiders bought for money.

Occasionally, however, I do have to refuse to allow the formation of a lasting relationship. This is usually because I consider the union to be between slaves with negative
characteristics or between malcontents who would only use the relationship as an opportunity to foment even greater unrest. In this case, I sell one of the pair to prevent anything going on behind my back. Thankfully, this is rare and perhaps a third of all my slaves are married in the non-legal sense, although if they ever become free their marriages will be recognised in law.

More casual sexual relations are difficult to regulate. There are usually insufficient women to go round in my country estates and so they need to be shared out. I divide off the slave women’s quarters from the men’s quarters by means of a bolted door, so that nothing untoward can go on. This ensures that the slaves do not have children without my approval. Frequent sexual activity weakens the males for their daily work, which in the farm is vigorous and physical. So what I do is occasionally allow the male slaves access to the women’s quarters, not so rarely as to cause discontent and not so frequently as to cause a decline in productivity.

Generally I prefer to manage my slaves’ relationships and assign a longer-term partner to them. This enables me to select pairings that will, in my opinion, work well both practically and in the issue of child-rearing. It is an advantage for all to have children. I grant any slave woman of mine who has given birth to three live sons exemption from work. To a woman who has produced more than three male heirs I give her her freedom. Strangely, the moral of the Aesop fable of the dove and the crow states that ‘the most pitiful slaves are those who beget children in servitude’. I presume this is because they fear that their children will be sold off and the family broken
up as a result. This is something I rarely do except in cases of ill discipline.

Breeding slaves is a useful and profitable exercise but you should bear in mind that it does involve capital outlay and is time-consuming. It is simple enough when dealing with farm slaves. Since they stay on the farm all day all that is required is for a female to be assigned to them. It is more complicated when it comes to shepherds who tend the flocks in the mountain valleys and woodlands. They shelter in makeshift huts and lead a rugged existence. It is therefore advisable to send women along with them for company and to prepare them food, but make sure that they are strong and capable of surviving in such a harsh environment. They often seem to do just as good a job as the menfolk, tending to the herd, fetching firewood, or managing their huts. When it comes to feeding their offspring, I merely remark that they suckle them while they work, carrying logs and babies at the breast at the same time. It just goes to show how soft and contemptible new mothers are today, who lie about for days under mosquito nets to recuperate.

The head-slave – or bailiff or overseer, as you might also call them – should be treated with more generosity when it comes to women as a reward and incentive for their loyalty. He should be given a woman companion not only to keep him company but, as we have seen, as a help to him in the execution of his important tasks. The overseer should be warned not to become intimate with a member of the household without your say-so, and much less with an outsider, since you will want to ensure that his partner is capable of performing this important
role. I like to invite my bailiffs to dine with me to discuss possible partners, as a way of making them feel included in such an important decision for all of us.

When selecting such a woman, who will in effect be the farm’s manageress, you should consider the woman who has shown the greatest moderation when it comes to food, wine, sleep and sex. Also, choose one who seems to have the best memory, who is the most careful in the performance of her tasks, and is most eager to please her master. This is something you can encourage by showing her how happy you are when she has pleased you and likewise how disappointed when she has fallen short. In short, you must train her to want the household to prosper and to feel that she shares in its success. Encourage her to develop a sense of justice by giving greater benefits to slaves who deserve them and not to those who do not. Make it clear to her that good and honest service will bring greater wealth and freedom than will laziness and thieving. She will then become just the kind of woman you can trust in this important position.

Urban slaves are easier to deal with because it is easier to monitor their relationships under your own roof. Spotting a coupling that might prove beneficial and fruitful can almost become something of a parlour game for you and your wife. If you, as the head of the household, behave justly and carefully in this way, you will find that your number of slaves can increase significantly. But you would do well not to rely solely on home-breeding to meet all of your slave requirements. Illness, injury and premature death will always mean that your body of
slaves is being whittled away. It is also useful to bring in some outside blood from time to time to freshen up the stock, as it were, and shake up the slaves you already own and who may have grown too comfortable in their existence. I like to maintain a mix of about half home-breds and half bought in from outside. Yet, for all that, it must be accepted that home-bred slaves are a joy and reflect well on the status of the family. They increase the value of our estates and provide loyal and deferential service. They are living proof of a household that is cohesive and multiplying, in the same way that a well-run state should be.

   COMMENTARY   

Slaves feature repeatedly in the
Interpretation of Dreams
by Artemidorus, which dates from the second century ad, and sometimes in a sexual way. This might suggest that the Roman subconscious was deeply affected by the hierarchical and repressive world around it. But the Romans did not interpret dreams in such a Freudian, internalised or sexualised way. They preferred to see dreams as providing a divinely inspired message concerning the dreamer’s future. In a world where slavery marked the bottom layer of society, prophecies about the future contained references to slavery as part of their dramatic effect. It is interesting that mention is made of slaves having their dreams interpreted. This suggests that some slaves had
sufficient money to consult dream-interpreters, and that they thought it was worth spending on such things. It goes to show that slaves were worried about the future just as free people were. Slaves may have lived in servitude but that did not mean that they were devoid of hope or interest in what might happen to them.

There is plenty of evidence for the sexual abuse of slaves. A combination of the powerful position that the master had over his slaves and their lack of basic rights means that this should not come as a surprise. The fact that the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius was proud of himself for resisting the temptations posed by two beautiful slaves suggests that this is not a course that most masters would have taken. There was little stigma attached in masters having sex with boys and adolescent males: all slaves were there for the master to take advantage of if he so wished, whatever their sex or age. Many masters would have been classified as paedophiles in the modern world. Unwanted slave pregnancies were sufficiently common to joke about (see the
Laughter Lover
, attributed to Hierocles and Philagrius, for various examples). There is a hint of the resentment sexual abuse could cause in Petronius’s
Satyricon
(ch. 57), when a freedman notes that, ‘I bought freedom for the slave woman who had shared my bed, so that no one could wipe his filthy hands on her breast.’ In the same work (ch. 75), Trimalchio says he had as a boy become his master’s favourite for fourteen years, but defends it by saying, ‘I mean, what’s wrong with doing what your master wants?’ That is probably how most masters justified their behaviour, or at least they would have if they had felt the need to.
As they saw it, their slaves were their possessions to be used as they saw fit.

We do not know what slaves themselves thought about such treatment. It is reasonable to assume that sexual abuse will have had a significant negative psychological impact. Modern studies find that victims of such abuse are left demoralised, deferential and unassertive. In ancient dream interpretation (Artemidorus 3.28), it is perhaps not surprising that a mouse signifies a household slave as it lives in the house and is ‘timid’. Suicide attempts were sufficiently common to merit legal opinion, which stated that sellers were obliged to reveal to prospective buyers if the slave had tried to kill him or herself (
Digest
21.1.23.3; 21.1.1.1). Suicide, or attempted suicide, is not in itself a sign of mental illness, but it does point to profound stresses within an individual’s life.

Or perhaps Roman slaves did not experience abuse as abuse. Perhaps they did rationalise it in the way that Trimalchio did. And, if it could be shown that they had no real sense of self, we might assume that they would not have been strongly affected by this kind of treatment. Only someone with a sense of his or her own value can be humiliated and degraded. But the evidence suggests that many slaves had strong views about justice and their own worth. Artemidorus describes how many slaves ‘long for freedom’ and made great sacrifices to acquire it (Artemidorus 2.3). The Delphic manumission inscriptions show that many slaves paid large sums to secure their freedom, often at an uncertain future date, typically on their master’s death. Freedmen tombs often make strong statements of personal achievement and self-worth.