Invisible Romans (24 page)

First of all, there were various ways that a slave could accommodate himself to his circumstances. The simplest was to accept the fate of slavehood and make the best of it. ‘There’s no need to go on wailing. It’s clear enough that you are unhappy. In bad situations it is best to keep your spirits up’ (Plautus,
Prisoners
202). So the guard advises the prisoners of war who have just been sold into slavery. The sentiment is echoed by a saying of Publilius Syrus (Maxim 616): ‘The slave who pulls against the bit makes himself miserable – but he is still a slave.’ Making the most of a bad situation was therefore one accommodation: ‘The slave who serves shrewdly holds a share of his master’s role’ (Maxim 596). This would be easier if the master had some sense and took the advice of the agricultural writers to maintain as positive and reciprocal a relationship with slaves as was practicable.

It might also be easier if the master took a fancy to you, and the relationship developed into something other than just sexual abuse. Illegitimate children of slave owners might not only be loved, but even be bequeathed money: Steia Fortuna, a slave of Publius Steius Felix, inherited one-sixth of his property – she was probably his illegitimate daughter (
CIL
14.1641, Ostia Antica, Italy). Fiction is full of slaves who advanced from sexual favorites to more important roles in the household and, ultimately, to successful lives as freedmen; Hermeros and Trimalchio in Petronius’
Satyricon
are famous examples of this ilk. And many masters had favorites among the slaves. One adopted a slave as his son and set him up in a successful tavern business:

Vitalis, a household slave and also a son of Gaius Lavius Faustus, lies here. He lived 16 years. As manager for the Aprianas tavern, the patrons loved him – then the gods summoned him away. You passers-by, if I ever gave you short measure so that I could add to my father’s profit, forgive me. I ask in the name of gods above and below: take care of my mother and father. Farewell! (
CIL
3.14206.21 =
ILS
7479, Amfipoli, Greece)

Another recalled with affection a favorite little slave girl:

Celerinus the master set up this grave monument to the most unfortunate Valentina, his nursling and dearest delight, daughter of the slave Valentio, his steward, who lived but 4 years. (
CIL
3.2130, Salona, Croatia)

Pliny the Elder gives a real-life example of a slave who was propelled to the heights of wealth through the favor of his mistress:

[Corinthian bronze was famous and dear.] Once in offering for sale a candelabra of this material an auctioneer named Theron threw in as a free bonus a slave named Clesippus, a humpbacked fuller, and a fellow of surpassing ugliness. A wealthy woman named Gegania bought the candelabra for 50,000 sesterces and along with it came the deformed slave. So pleased was she with her acquisitions that she threw a party to show them off. There, just to give the guests something to make fun of, Clesippus came out stark naked. Shameless lust swept over Gegania and she took him to her bed, then soon after included him in her will as an heir. Wildly wealthy at the woman’s death, Clesippus worshiped that candelabra as a guardian god … Their immoral behavior was nevertheless avenged by the elaborate sepulcer Clesippus set up through which the memory of Gegania’s shame lived on above the earth ever after … (
Natural History
34.6.11–12)

Pliny’s story is somewhat unusual for it involves a female master taking a male concubine. Male masters keeping female concubines from among the slaves is much more frequently attested; women could have found a certain security in this relationship, although they were always susceptible to bad treatment either by the master or his wife. And evidently a fair number of such liaisons turned out to be permanent, for they are noted with some frequency in the funerary epigraphy. For example:

This monument is set up to the Gods of the Netherworld and to Septimius Fortunatus, the son of Gaius, and to Septimia his concubine, first a slave and then freed. (
CIL
5.5170 =
ILS
8553, Bergamo, Italy)

Most slaves, of course, did not have long-term sexual relations with their masters. Habits that kept a slave in the good graces of the master included variations on what the master most wanted in a slave: efficient labor, profit, obedience, and faithfulness. Obedience meant control, so whether real or feigned, some level of obedience was the best way to adjust to the situation and avoid punishment. Paul advised Christian slaves to be genuinely obedient, ‘not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers’ (Ephesians 6:6) and so recognized the reality of feigned obedience as well as the desirability (in the slave owner’s eyes) of the real thing. Faithfulness was closely allied. So, again, either genuine or simulated demonstrations of trustworthiness were a fairly sure way to keep on the right side of the master. And flattery was always in order, whether of a master or of a slave overseer. Some might even genuinely love the master they flattered, obeyed, and worked faithfully for. All of this was easier with a kind master, of course. In such a situation it might actually seem preferable to remain a slave than to be freed. The ex-slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus has this observation about the perils of freedom as opposed to slavehood with an enlightened master:

The slave wishes to be set free immediately. Why? Do you think that he wishes to pay money to the collectors of twentieths [tax on manumissions]? No; but because he imagines that hitherto through not having obtained this, he is hindered and unfortunate. ‘If I shall be set free, immediately it is all happiness, I care for no man, I speak to all as an equal and, like to them, I go where I choose, I come from any place I choose, and go where I choose.’ Then he is set free; and immediately having no place where he can eat, he looks for some man to flatter, someone with whom he shall dine: then he either works with his body and endures the most dreadful things; and if he can obtain a manager, he falls into a slavery much worse than his former slavery; or even if he becomes rich, being a man without any knowledge of what is good, he loves some little girl, and in his happiness laments and desires to be a slave again. He says, ‘What evil did I suffer in my state of slavery? Another clothed me, another supplied me with shoes, another fed me, another looked after me in sickness; and I did only a few services for him. But now a wretched man, what things I suffer, being a slave of many instead of to one.’ (
Discourses
4.1.34–7/Long)

The author of
The Life of Aesop
puts it more succinctly:

If you are good to your slaves, no one is going to run away from what is good to what is bad and condemn himself to vagrancy with the prospect of hunger and fear to face. (p. 122/Daly)

A smart master appreciated the hard and diligent work of ‘good,’ i.e. faithful and obedient, slaves and rewarded it. The rewards could be small – presents at Saturnalia, an occasional day off – or large, for example the opportunity to acquire funds with which to buy out the master and become free. The slave’s purse, called his
peculium,
was always technically the possession of the slave’s master, just like everything the slave ‘owned,’ including his very person. But in reality slaves accumulated sums small and large which they could spend on the same range of things free persons did. For example, they could make votive offerings, as this epigraph from pesaro in Italy indicates:

Faustus, the slave of Publius Versennius, paid for a statue and shrine to the god Priapus out of his
peculium. (CIL
11.6314 =
ILS
3581)

Others might spend on material improvements to their lives, or save to eventually purchase their freedom or the freedom of a loved one – or on wastrelry. Slaves of all sorts had a
peculium,
even, if we can believe Plautus, shepherds: ‘The keeper of sheep who pastures another’s flock has a little money of his own put away, upon which rides his hopes’ (
The Comedy of Asses
539). They would use every opportunity to increase this. For an urban slave, the opportunities were great. These ranged from selling his own food, to stealing and selling a master’s possessions on the street, to accepting bribes for contracting the various services needed or for access to the master or mistress of the house, as in this instance:

Right away, then, a person calls, presenting a dinner invitation – and not a clueless house servant, either, and to keep him obliged, you slip him at the least five drachma, smoothly, mind you, so as not to seem awkward. (Lucian,
On Salaried Posts in Great Houses
14)

A slave could also make goods or conduct business on the side, and sell these for his own income. The opportunities for town slaves were much greater because they had both more ‘free time’ and more access to resources and sales outlets. But even on the farm, the overseer (
vilicus)
usually did his own side business, as Columella acknowledges when he warns that an unsupervised overseer is likely to do business for his own benefit because the master is absent (
On Rural Matters
1.8.14).

Slaves were also commonly used as extensions of the master in business dealings. The
peculium
was the great motivator for a slave to be an effective agent, for he could garner money in straightforward and not-so-straightforward ways as he carried out his master’s business, whether that was in trade, moneylending, or artisanry.

The slaves of the Pompeiian Lucius Caecilius Jucundus even had seals to use in business transactions, with their own names. The New Testament story of the faithful slaves clearly illustrates how the system worked. The master went on a journey and left each of three slaves varying amounts of money to manage in his absence. Two slaves invested the money and gave the profit to the master upon his return; the third, fearing repercussions if he invested and lost money, simply buried his allotment. When the master came home, he praised the slaves who had invested well, but was angry with the one who had played it safe. He rewarded the first two, but stripped the third of any further responsibility and, presumably, any hope of advancement within the household (Matthew 25:14–28). So trusted slaves were free to use their entrepreneurial skills to increase the master’s wealth; at the same time these slaves were making network contacts and otherwise positioning themselves for future profit, whether benefiting from added trust from the master or making money ‘on the side’ in various related transactions. One of Trimalchio’s favorite slaves developed resources in just that way. He was young and handsome – clearly an attraction for Trimalchio – but also talented and resourceful:

I kissed the boy not because he is pretty, but because he is trustworthy. He can do division and read books at sight, from what he earns he has bought a suit of Thracian armor, purchased a fancy chair with rounded back, and two braziers from his own money. (Petronius,
Satyricon
75)

While one might question the wisdom of his purchases, he has an education suitable for commerce, and has earned money and purchased objects while still a slave.

Sometimes, as in the parable above, things could go terribly wrong for the master; even more than just failure to invest, the slave might take advantage of the situation to cheat and flee. A Roman legal text (
Digest
14.5.8) tells of one Titianus Primus who appointed a slave ‘to put out loans and accept pledges as security for them.’ However, the slave went further: on his own (using his master’s funds?) he took to taking over debts owed to grain merchants by purchasers and then paying them off at a profit. Accumulating a tidy sum in this way, he absconded. This shows the position of trust a slave could be given, as well as how a slave might take the chance to accrue wealth. The only exceptional thing here is that the slave ran away rather than waiting until he was freed to set himself up in, presumably, financial dealings.

Such a picture should not delude anyone into thinking that the opportunities for most slaves were great. Only a select few would be purchased or chosen to be trained to be agents and so on for the master. But even for the run-of-the-mill slave in a household and for agricultural slaves there were opportunities to accumulate a small
peculium
and with it lighten the burden of slavery somewhat.

Resistance

The constraints and abuses suffered in slavery naturally led slaves to paths of resistance; it was in a combination of accommodation and resistance that slaves were able to achieve their identity, and the mix of the two varied infinitely in the slave community as each slave adjusted to his or her peculiar situation, talents, and psychological disposition. Slave owners fully expected resistance, which they thought of as disobedience, faithlessness, and hostility. Whether in rural or urban settings,
masters were perfectly aware of the (to their minds) negative actions of slaves, and that such actions were endemic.
The Life of Aesop
is full of examples of this sort of self-assertion. Slaves talked among themselves, gossiping, inciting each other to disobedience, talking back to the master if they dared, casting disrespectful glances his way if they did not. Masters might try to mitigate such chatter by having slaves work under close supervision, as Columella recommends, or by encouraging quarreling, as Cato urges, or by punishing slaves who tried to intimidate their masters with threats and hostile gestures, but collusion to get the better of the master could not be stopped. Masters often branded slaves as inveterate liars – and indeed they often were, for lying was frequently a way to try to avoid charges against them, real or false, and the accompanying punishments. As Salvian remarked, ‘Slaves lie in order to escape punishment. Why would anyone wonder that a terrified slave would prefer to lie rather than to be flogged?’ (
On the Governance of God
4.3). Slaves complained whenever they could get away with it, and weeping and wailing in the presence of the master was a standard tactic (Apuleius,
The Golden Ass
9.21), as was the ‘slow-down.’ Slaves could shirk work by skulking around and hiding to avoid notice, going slowly, failing to complete tasks, and doing their assignments poorly. Masters sometimes thought this was due to fatigue or simple laziness – but the tactics are well documented in other societies holding slaves. Feigning illness was another standard recourse: slaves could hope to be allowed to lie abed, or be sent to the ‘sick house’ for a time. Pretending ignorance was also attempted – although it, as the other strategies, could end in a flogging.