sl.AVE, SLAVERY, M.A\ 



SLAVE, SLAVERY, SLAVK-TRADE. 



Even the poorer citixens had a slave for their household 

 mffir. The wealthier citizen* had at many as fifty slave* to each 

 family, and coma had more. We read of philosopher* keeping ten 

 alarm. There were private slave* belonging to fainiliea, anil public 

 alave* belonging to the community or state. The latter were employed 

 OB board the fleet in the dock* and aneual, and in the construction of 

 public building* and road*. 



Slave* were dealt with like any other property : they worked either 

 on their matter's account or on their own, in which latter case they 

 paid a certain ram to their matter ; or they were let out on hire at 

 errant* or workmen, or tent to terve in the nary of the ttate, the 

 matter receiving payment for their service*. Mine* were worked by 

 slaTet, tome of whom belonged to the lessee* of the mine, and the rett 

 were hired from the great aUre proprietor*, to whom the leateet paid 

 a rent of to much a bead, betide* providing for the maintenance of 

 the slave, which wat no great matter. They worked in chain*, and 

 many of them died from the effect of the unwholetome atmosphere. 

 Kicia* the elder bad loi.in slave* in the mines of Laurium ; others had 

 several hundreds, whom th. y let to the contractor* for an obolut a- 

 day each. At one time the mining slave* of Attica murdered their 

 guard*, took poMeasion of the fortification! of Sunium, and ravaged 

 the turrounding country. (Fragment of Potidonius'e Continuation of 

 Polybius; tee Boeckh'* ' Public Economy of Athens,' b. i. ) The 

 thirty two or thirty-three iron-workers or sword-cutlers of Demos- 

 thenes annually produced a net profit of thirty mime, their purchase 

 value being 190 mime; whilst his twenty chair-makers, whose value 

 wat estimated at 40 mintc, brought in a net profit of 12 mime. 

 (Demosthenes ' Against Apbobus,' i.) 



The ancient* were so habituated to the tight of slavery, that none of 

 the Greek philosophers make any objection to its existence. Plato, in 

 hi* ' Perfect State, desires only that no Ureekb should be made slaves. 



The Etruscans and other ancient Italian nation* had slaves, as is 

 proved by those of Vulsinii revolting againt their masters, and by the 

 tradition that the Bruttii were runaway slaves of the Lucanians. The 

 Campanisns had both slaves and gladiators previous to the Roman con- 

 quest. But the Romans, by their system of continual war, caused an 

 enormous influx of slaves into Italy, where the slave population at last 

 nearly superseded the free labourers. 



The Roman tyttem of slavery had peculiarities which distinguished 

 it from that of Greece. The Greeks considered slavery to be founded 

 on permanent diversities in the races of men. (Aristotle, ' Polit.,' i. 5.) 

 The Romans admitted in principle that all men were originally free 

 (' Instil.,' i., tit 2) by natural law (jure naturali), and they ascribed 

 the power of masters over their slaves entirely to the will of society, to 

 the " jus gentium." if the slaves were captives taken iu war, whom the 

 cocquerois, instead of killing them, as they might have done, spared 

 for the purpose of selling them, or to the " jus civile," when a man of 

 full age sold himself. It was a rule of Roman law, that the offspring 

 of a slave woman followed the condition of the mother. (' Instit ,' i., 

 tit. 8.) Emancipation was much more frequent at Rome than in 

 Greece : the emancipated slave became a freedmau (libertus), but 

 whether he became a Roman citizen, a Latinus, or a Dediticius, 

 depended on circumstances. If the manumitted slave was above thirty 

 years of age, if he was the Quiritarian property of his manumittur, and 

 if be was manumitted in due form, he became a Roman citizen, ((iain*, 

 i. 17.) At Athens, on the contrary, emancipation from the dominion 

 of the master was seldom followed by the privileges of citizenship even 

 to a limited extent, and these privileges could only be conferred by 

 public authority. It is true, that at Rome, under the empire, from 

 the enactment of the Lex /Elia Sentia, passed in the time of Augustus, 

 there were restrictions, in point of number, upon the master's power of 

 freeing his bondmtn and raising them to the rank of Roman citizens ; 

 till in every age there was a prospect to the slave of being able to 

 obtain bis freedom. 



Slaves were not considered members of the community : they had 

 no right*, and were in most respects considered as things or chattels. 

 They could neither sue nor be sued. When an alleged slave cl.-iimed 

 his treedom on the plea of unjust detention, Le was obliged to have a 

 iotector, to sue for him, until Justinian ('Code,' vii., tit. 1, 7, 

 ' De adtertiune tollenda ') dispensed with that formality. Slaves had 

 no connubium, that is, they could not contract a Roman marriage ; 

 their union with a person of their own rank was styled contulwrnium ; 

 and even the Christian church for several centuries did not declare the 

 validity of slave marriages. At last the Emperor Basilius allowed 

 lavr* to marry and receive the bleating of the priest, and Alexius 

 Comnenut renewed the permission A* slaves had no connubium, 

 they bad not the parental power (patria potettat) over their offspring, 

 no tin of blood were recognised among them, except with respect to 

 incest and parricide, which were considered as crimes by the law of 

 nature. Though slave* were incapable of holding property, they were 

 not incapacitated from acquiring property, but what they did acquire 

 belonged to their muter*. They were allowed to enjoy property at 

 their own, - peculium," consisting sometime* of other slave* ; hut they 

 held it only by permission, and any legal proceeding* conn. i-ud with 

 it could only be conducted in the name of the master, who was the 

 ouly legal proprietor. Until the latter period of the republic, slaves, 

 and even freedmeu, were not admitted into the ranks of the army. In 

 case* of urgent public danger, such as after the defeat of Canute, slave* 



wen purchased by the ttate and sent to the army, and if they behaved 

 well they were emancipated. (Livy, uii. 57, and xxiv. 1 4- It!.) 



They wem not, however, denil the rites of burial, and numerous 

 inscriptions attest that monument* were often erected to the memory 

 of deceased slave* by their masters, their fellows, or friends, some of 

 which bear the letters D. M., " Diis Manibus." Slaves were often 

 buried in the family burying-place of their masters. The " sepulchre- 

 tun) " or burial-vault of the slaves and freedmen of Augustus and hi* 

 wife Livia, discovered in 17-ti near the Via Appia, and which has been 

 illustrated by ttianchini and Gori, and another iu the same neighbour- 

 hood also belonging to the household of the early Ctesars, and 

 ing at least 3000 urns, with numerous inscriptions, which have been 

 illustrated by Fabretti, throw much light upon the condition .'ml 

 domestic habits of Roman slaves in the service of great fain 



With regard to the classification and occupations of slaves, the first 

 division was into public and private. Public slaves were those which 

 belonged to the state or to public bodies, such as provinces, municipia, 

 collegia, drcuriic, &c., or to the emperor in his sovereign capacity, and 

 employed in public duties, and not attached to bin honsehold or private 

 estate. Public slaves were either derived from the share of captives 

 taken in war which was reserved for the community or state, or were 

 acquired by purchase and other civil process. Public slaves of an inferior 

 description were engaged as rowers on board the fleet, or in the con- 

 struction and repair of roads and national buildings. Those of a 

 superior description were employed as keepers of public buildings, 

 prisons, and other property of the state, or to attend magistrates, 

 priests, and other public officers, as watchmen, liutors, executioners, 

 watermen, scavengers, &c. 



Private slaves were generally distributed into urban and rustic ; the 

 former served in the town houses, and the others in the country. Long 

 list* of the different duties performed by slaves of each class are given 

 by Pignorius, ' De Servis et eorum apud Veteres Ministeriis,' Amster- 

 dam, lb'74; Popma, 'De Uperis Servorum.' ibid, 1672; and lllair, 'An 

 Inquiry into the State of Slavery amongst the Romans,' Edinburgh, 

 1833, which is a very useful little book. For all the necessities of 

 domestic life, agriculture, and handicraft, and for all the imaginable 

 luxuries of a refined and licentious people, there was a corresponding 

 denomination of slaves. Large sums were occasionally paid for slaves 

 of certain peculiar kinds, some of which we should consider the least 

 useful. Eunuchs were always very dear. A " morio," or fool, was 

 sometimes sold for 20,000 nummi, or about 1601. Dwarfs and giants 

 were also in great request. Marcus Antouius paid for a pair of hand- 

 some youths 200 sestertia, or ItiOu/. Actors and actresses, and dancers, 

 sold very dear, as well as females of great personal attractions who 

 were likely to bring in great gains to their owners by prostitution. A 

 good cook was -valued at four talents, or 772A Medical men, gram- 

 marians, amanuenses, anagnosta?, or readers, and short-hand writers, 

 were in considerable request. -With regard to ordinary slaves, the 

 price varied from 501. to '2(il., according to their abilities and other cir- 

 cumstances. After a victorious campaign, when thousands of captives 

 were sold at once on the spot for the purpose of prize-money, to the 

 slave-dealers who followed the armies, the price sank very low. Thus, 

 in the camp of Lucullus in Poutus (Plutarch, ' Lucullus,' c. 14) tl.ives 

 were sold for four drachmae, or two shillings and svvenpence, a head ; 

 but the same slaves, if brought to the Roman market, would fetch a 

 much higher price. Home- bum slaves, distinguished by the name of 

 " vernse," in contradistinction to ' servi einpti," or " venales," or imported 

 slaves, were generally treated with greater indulgence by their masters 

 in whose families they had been brought up ; and they generally were 

 considered of interior value to the imported slaves, being considered as 

 spoilt and troublesome. The number of slaves born in Roman families 

 appears at ail times to have been far inferior to that of the imported 

 slaves. 



There was a brisk trade in slaves carried on from the coasts of 

 Africa, the Euxine, Syria, and Asia Minor. The island of Delos was at 

 one time a great mart for slaves, who were inrported thither by the 

 Cilician pirates. (Strabo, p. 6b'8, Casaub ) The Illy rians procured nume- 

 rous slaves for the Italian market, whom they bought or stole from the 

 liarKirous tribes in their neighbourhood. But the chief supply of 

 slaves was derived from Asia and Africa. In most countries it was 

 customary for indigent parents to sell their children to slave-dealers. 

 Criminals were also iu certain cases condemned to slavery, like the 

 galley-slaves of our own times. 



Both law and custom forbade prisoners taken in civil wars, especially 

 in Italy, to be dealt with as slaves ; and this was perhaps one reason 

 of the wholesale massacres of captives by Sulla and the Triumviri. In 

 the war between the party of Utho and Vitellius, Autonius, who com- 

 manded the army of the latter, having taken Cremona, ordered that 

 none of the captives should be detained, upon which the soldiers began 

 to kill those who were not privately ransomed by their friends. 



In the later period of the empire free-born persons of low condition 

 were glad to secure a subsistence by labour on the estates of the great 

 landowners, to which, after a continued residence for thirty years, they 

 and their families became bound by a tacit agreement under tin- 

 of Coloni, Rustiei, Adscriptitii, &c. The phrase "servi terra.'," which 

 is applied to them, shows their connection with the soil. They could 

 marry, which slaves could not. Though they bear a considerable 

 resemblance to the serfs and villeins (vifiani) of the middle ages, yet 



