The Roman Guide to Slave Management (26 page)

For many Roman slaves, servitude was a temporary situation. If they worked hard and honestly and served their master well they could reasonably expect to be granted their freedom. What is impossible to know is what percentage of slaves this reasonable expectation might have applied to. It is also unclear how long slaves would have had to have waited for their freedom. It seems clear that domestic slaves were more likely to be manumitted because some of them were in a position to develop a personal relationship with their master. Not all domestic slaves, particularly in the larger households, would have been in a position to do this, as the master would have remained a distant and aloof figure.

Manumission was primarily an urban phenomenon. There are examples of bailiffs being freed in the country but it seems more likely that field labourers were generally worked until they dropped. It is not hard to see why this was the case. The master had minimal contact with them, would benefit little from any services they would subsequently provide as freedmen, and would then have to replace them. Perhaps the best that could be hoped for is that the older farm slaves were allocated to the gentler tasks instead of the back-breaking toil in the fields. Not many are likely to have lived into old age in any case.

The length of servitude that a domestic slave might expect to serve seems to have varied greatly. The few comments that survive suggest anything from five or six years to closer to twenty. One interesting perspective
on this question is provided by the
Oracles of Astrampsychus
. One of the questions comes clearly from the mouth of a slave: ‘Will I be freed from servitude?’ The answers suggest that for most slaves freedom was constantly pushed off into the distance. Of the ten possible answers, five say ‘not yet’, two say ‘after some time’, and another ‘once you’ve paid’, which could be any time but is likely to be some time off given that the slave had to save a lot of money to do this. One gives an outright ‘no’ and advises the slave to ‘be silent’. Only one is optimistic: he will be freed ‘with a good bequest’. This was the life that many slaves lived, one of permanently hoping for a better future And from the master’s point of view it made sense to keep the slaves hanging on for as long as possible to maximise the return from the asset, while the prospect of freedom kept the slave working diligently and honestly.

The details stipulated in the Delphi manumission contracts show that even when such freedom was attained it was often put off for years and was conditional upon continued good service. The various duties which the freedman was often expected to continue to carry out for his former master also show that the divide between slavery and freedom was not, in practice, as clear-cut as we might imagine. That said, it is obvious that many slaves longed to be free and were prepared to go to great lengths to achieve it.

Slavery was a way for Roman society to assimilate large numbers of outsiders into its structure. But the Romans did try to erect some kind of quality control to prevent undesirables from becoming citizens. The
Lex
Aelia Sentia
, for example, prevented any slaves from being freed who had been put in chains as a punishment by their masters or had been branded, or interrogated under torture about a crime they had committed, or had been sentenced to fight as gladiators or against wild beasts. Instead, if their owner manumitted them, they became free men of the same status as subject foreigners. The
Lex Fufia Caninia
of 2
BC
set additional restrictions on the percentage of his slaves that a master could manumit (see Gaius
Institutes
1, 1; 8–55; Suetonius
Augustus
40).

Cicero’s comment that the first six years of Julius Caesar’s dictatorship was equivalent to a full term of slavery can be found at
Philippic
8.11.32. One of Augustus’s most severe punishments was to forbid slaves from being freed for thirty years (Suetonius
Augustus
21).
Digest
38.1 deals with the laws regarding the work obligations of freedmen to their patrons. Claudius bans owners from abandoning sick or old slaves on the Tiber island in Suetonius
Claudius
25. On masters freeing their slaves so that they would receive the state corn dole, see the
Theodosian Code
14.17.6 and Suetonius
Augustus
42. For the gift of a farm to the old nurse, see Pliny the Younger
Letters
6.3. The inscription
ILS
8365 is an example of a tomb being open to the wider members of the household, including slaves and freedmen. The tale of Gaius Melissus is at Suetonius
Grammarians
5.

   
CHAPTER X
   

A
MBITION IS THE INTELLECTUAL
equivalent of body odour. This is the problem with freedmen – they reek of it. Once they have formally been welcomed as Roman citizens, they feel a desperate urge to climb socially. It is not wholly surprising if freedmen who were branded or tattooed as slaves should try to conceal these physical reminders of their servitude by visiting doctors who specialise in concealing the marks by digging them out and burning the flesh so it scars over. But most freedmen go much further. They strive hard for success, far harder, it has to be admitted, than most of the freeborn would care to. It is a blessing that they are prohibited from holding office, for otherwise they would all be frantically clambering up the greasy pole of the political career. So instead, they are forced to fulfil their desire for personal achievement by means of getting rich. But even this they can achieve only in a vulgar manner. For instead of drawing an income from the long-term custody and management of landholdings,
they often try to make their wealth by trade. As a result, they are proverbially rich.

Freeing slaves is always an indulgence. The master, looking back fondly to the many years of honest service which a particular slave has given, will soften and seek to feel that warm glow of approbation which the act of manumission engenders. Like him, we might think that our freedmen would be overcome with gratitude towards us; that they would be keen to reimburse us for our generosity and kindliness; or that there would be nothing they would not do to help us in some small way. We might care to imagine that the slave, once freed, will gladly act with due respect to his master’s superior social position. We would be sadly wrong. For freedmen often do not act as obsequiously as they should. Instead they often have many upstart ideas well above their station, however much it has been improved.

As an example, I give you my freedman Servius. I rewarded him, an educated man, with his freedom and, as is usual practice, he took my name: Marcus Sidonius Servius. Yet no sooner had he been freed from his bonds than he felt able to behave towards me as if he were some kind of equal. He addressed me with familiarity and rarely bothered to turn up to pay his respects in the morning. On one occasion, he even took to interrupting me as I was explaining to him what I wanted him to do with his business venture, for which I was providing financial backing. My temper snapped. I administered a light beating of a few slaps and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his behaviour. You will not believe what happened next. He took me to court. The
cheek of it! He argued that I had dishonoured him as a free man by treating him in this way. Naturally the judge, who is a man whom I have for many years known to possess sound judgement, did not see the matter in the same way. He dismissed the case, saying that it was absurd for a piece of former property to claim dishonour from his former owner. As a former slave, he could never have any honour in the eyes of his former master, so it was impossible to dishonour him.

Sadly, not all freedmen are grateful to you, nor do they all carry out their duties as they should. On several occasions I myself have been forced to go to court to complain about certain of my freedmen. The courts, rightly, condemn such behaviour by freedmen: former slaves cannot be allowed to get away with it. If they behave insolently or abusively, they are generally punished, perhaps even with a period of exile. Or if they have attacked their patron, they will be condemned to hard labour in the mines. The same punishment will happen if they are found guilty of having spread malicious rumours about their patron or incited someone to bring an accusation against him. If they have merely failed to carry out their work duties for their former master, they will usually receive a telling-off only, but be warned that they will be severely punished if they give cause for complaint again. The emperor Claudius went so far as to sell back into slavery any freedman who failed to show due gratitude to their patrons or about whom their former owners had cause for complaint.

The burning ambition that drives these freedmen and their families has seen some rise in society to an almost
phenomenal extent. It does seem scandalous that an ex-slave can, through work or inheritance of their former master’s estate, equal the wealth of the most established landowning families. I have the dubious pleasure of having one of them as a neighbour in Campania, where the fellow has bought a typically ostentatious and overpriced estate. His name is Trimalchio and he invited me over to dinner soon after arriving and, not wishing to seem aloof, I accepted. He spent the entire evening going on and on about how he had earnt it all by his own hard work. ‘I’ve got drive,’ he said. ‘I buy low and I know when to sell high, and I am extremely mean and thrifty.’

He had come as a slave to Rome from Asia as a boy and was used by his master as his favourite for fourteen years. Eventually he managed the whole household and was named as heir by his master, from whom he inherited in due course. As he said, ‘no one is satisfied with doing nothing’, so he decided to go into business. He built five ships and filled them with wine, but they all sank on the way to Rome. He claims to have lost 30 million sesterces but that kind of gross exaggeration is typical of his sort. So he built bigger and better ships and loaded them with wine, bacon, beans, perfumes and slaves. On one voyage he says he made a profit of 10 million sesterces – believe him if you will – and then acquired himself a huge house, many slaves and an estate.