Invisible Romans (26 page)

Indeed, it is hard to disentangle a broad description of sex among
the slaves. The masters’ assumption was that slaves, if left to themselves, would turn to dissipation, which included profligate sex among themselves and in brothels (Columella,
On Rural Matters
1.8.9–10). The main factor encouraging a loose attitude toward sexual mores among slaves was that masters male and female were free to treat men and boys, girls and women as available sexual objects who had no justification for or means of resistance to advances. Any right to sexual integrity was eliminated a priori by the very nature of the slave’s enslavement. A slave might strive to maintain that integrity in the face of powerless-ness to resist rape, but for the woman so treated or for the man unable to prevent it, the divorce of sex from its usual context of self-directed recreation, procreation, or profit meant that any social rules governing acceptable sex were extremely weak.

For many, the degradation produced only misery. For the most successful, sex became just another weapon in the arsenal of accommodation or resistance. As I have shown, sexual relations with a master might mean master-slave offspring who would normally be treated better than other slaves, and perhaps even result in a better place in the household for the mother/concubine. In some instances, a master even freed and married such a concubine. For a boy – and here Petronius’ Trimalchio is the fictional example par excellence – the male master’s favor might win long-term benefits, even after boyhood charms faded. A favorite male slave might catch the eye of his mistress, and turn out well. Despite these outliers, the usual slave expectation would have been to be used and cast aside, all a part of the degradation of slavery.

How would this situation have affected the creation and maintenance of long-term ‘marriage’ relationships among slaves? To judge by the evidence of the inscriptions, slaves worked around it. Unable to prevent abuse, impervious to their masters’ degrading views of their sexuality, they still formed lasting bonds.

These bonds produced children – and an epigraphic record that is impossible to distinguish from the expressions of affection and appreciation seen on the gravestones of free persons. The evidence of children is extensive; for example:

To the most unfortunate Pieris, slave of Gavianus, who lived 24 years. What it was proper that a daughter do, her unhappy parents, Anteros and Gallitana, did instead. They set up this monument for themselves – and for their daughter. (
CIL
9.955, Troia, Italy)

To the shades of Primulus, the babe of Sequens and Primula. This is set up to their slave son. (
CIL
13.4199, Hetzerath, Germany)

This is the grave of Martialis age 10, Loveus age 9, and Paternus age 4, slaves in the Laediensian house. Gemellinus slave of Florus set this up to his children. (
Hispania Epigraphica
6.636, Lugo, Spain)

So, too, mention of parents:

To the Underworld Gods. Priscus and Primigenia, his parents, and Theophile, his wife (
coniunx),
set this up to Primitivus, slave of Violentilla, an eye doctor. He lived 18 years, 7 months, and 16 days. (
AE
1953.59, Rome)

And of siblings:

Sacred to the Underworld Gods. Antinoe and Phoebe are two sisters and fellow slaves of the Volusii, Marcus and Aemilianus. Here lie Phoebe who lived 6 years, 10 months, 15 days, and Antinoe, 1 year and 20 days. Phoebus and Rhodope set this up to their most dutiful daughters, and Tertius did as well. (
AE
1984.347, Pagus Interpromium, Italy)

In the following example, grandparents, who along with the father are still slaves, are mentioned, while the mother has gained her freedom:

To the Underworld Gods. Anthus slave of the Marci, his grandfather, Rhoxane his grandmother, Terminalis his father, and Julia Euphrantice his mother set this up to their son, Tiberius Julius. (
CIL
6.35530, Rome)

Of course the children of slaves belonged to the master as slaves themselves. Slaves with children tended to be more cooperative with masters because of a desire not to be separated. In addition, if the master
so chose, a woman could be freed from work or even set free if she produced three to five children. Slaves suffered the same torments of parenthood that the free did, including loss of a young child:

Novesis slave agent and Juventilla set this up to Surisca their most unfortunate daughter who lived well-deserving, but only 2 years and 3 months. (
CIL
3.2126, Salona, Croatia)

And a child and mother lost in childbirth:

To the Underworld Gods. To Candida my well-deserving wife, +/-30 years old, who lived with me +/- 7 years. She was tortured in childbirth for four days and could not give birth. And so she died. Justus her fellow slave set this gravestone up. (
CIL
3.2267, Salona, Croatia)

The breakup of such slave families could only cause great pain and suffering for the slaves involved and for their close friends. There is some evidence of some sympathy on the part of authorities late in the imperial period regarding the separation of slave families through sale. In
AD
334 the emperor Constantine decreed:

Regarding the Sardinian imperial estates, see to it that the new possessors of land which has been distributed to different owners do not separate slave families. For who would tolerate children being taken from parents, brothers from sisters, husbands from wives (
sic
)? Therefore if anyone has dragged off rent families to different owners, compel these separated families to be reunited … Take great care to see that hereafter there be no complaint in the province about the distribution of loved ones among different masters. (
Theodosian Code
2.25.1)

The decree, of course, highlights that fact that rending families was routine. And, indeed, records of sales from Egypt seem to indicate that in most cases owners paid no attention to selling slave couples or families as a unit, and from an owner’s standpoint there is scant reason why they should. Women of childbearing age, children, strong young men:
all met different markets and would normally be sold individually. The rending of families must have been the most dreaded result of being sold.

Social and religious connections

Slaves also developed close attachments through sharing social interaction. Despite the advice of the agricultural writers to keep slaves working from dawn to dusk in order to make them so tired that all else they can think about is eating and sleeping (Columella,
On Rural Matters
1.2.9–10), slaves found time to themselves. If nothing else, the accusations of masters bear witness to this: Columella, for example, complains that urban slaves have far too much free time on their hands. Echoing a commonplace of elite authors, he talks of slaves who have ‘spent a lot of time in frivolous, dissolute activities prevalent in cities. These lazy and sluggish sorts of slaves are usually hanging around doing nothing, idling about the Campus Martius, or in the circus, theaters, gambling dens, low eateries, and whorehouses, and generally daydreaming about them all the time they are not actually there’ (
On Rural Matters
1.8.2). This situation was the result of ‘overstaffing’ in urban conditions. Whereas on the farm slaves could (and the agricultural writers urge this strongly at numerous points) be kept working from dawn to dusk, exhausted so that they didn’t have time or inclination for slacking, city slaves were more for show than for necessity; there were not nearly enough chores to be done to keep the slaves busy, and they were kept for conspicuous display and status as much as for the particular services each provided. Encolpius in his charade at Croton pretends that all his slaves have been killed in a disaster at sea. He says, ‘His recent shipwreck had added to his sadness – he had lost over two million sesterces, but this loss did not affect him nearly so much as the loss of his slaves, for without them he couldn’t even recognize his own high status’ (Petronius,
Satyricon
117). He kept his slave entourage not because they all had important things to do, but because their very presence added to his dignity. Thus on a daily basis many slaves in households indeed had time on their hands to socialize.

Slaves could also look forward to festival days as well as to whatever time they could sequester for themselves in the course of daily duties. Masters were well aware of the value of occasional opportunities for
diversion and letting off steam, both of which helped slaves to live more happily in their menial condition. Columella advises that on holidays a master should reward his slaves with little monetary gifts and associate with them in a friendly way, even eating with them; as early as the writings of Aristotle these strategies had been recommended. To judge from a slave rental contract from Egypt, a slave could expect eight days a year as holiday; the contract states that if more than this number of days is taken, pro rata deductions of rental would be made.

These sorts of festival days presumably varied from place to place, according to local customs. In Rome there were three ‘slave festivals’: the Saturnalia (late December); the Festival of Female Household Slaves (
ancillarum feriae)
(July 7); and the ‘Slaves’ Festival Day’ (
servorum dies festus)
(August 13). The Saturnalia was celebrated widely in the empire while the other two were local festivals; other festivals would have been celebrated elsewhere. In addition, slaves certainly participated in festival life during nonslave-centered celebrations, and at times the holiday would have been very local and even individual – for the spirit (
genius)
of the master, for example, or for the household protective deities (
lares),
or for the dead. During these festival times, slaves could look forward to laxity of rules governing their work and behavior, to better food, to wearing the nicest clothing they had, to socializing – and often to heavy drinking, and general carousing.

Not only social but also religious connections were sometimes broken by sale. But while some religious activities were grounded in local household and family units, others transcended these. In
The Life of Aesop,
Aesop shows piety toward the goddess Isis, an example of worship that transcended the local. Inscriptions give examples of slaves worshiping a wide range of traditional ‘greater gods’ such as Minerva, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, as well as Mithra, Isis, and the Christian deity. Not surprisingly, Fortune figures as an object of devotion as well, and Silvanus is particularly popular; Jupiter ‘The Free’ seems especially appropriate since the dedication appears on Delos, a major slave marketplace:

Marcus Granius Heras, freedman of Marcus, Diodotus Seius, slave of Gaius and Gnaeus, Apollonius Laelius, slave of Quintus, Prepon Alleius, slave of Marcus, Nicandrus Rasennius, slave of Marcus, erected this statue of Jupiter the Free. (
CIL
3.14203.3 =
ILS
9236)

And of course magic and superstitious practices abounded, as they did throughout the culture, slave and free. Columella recommends that the owner be sure that the slave overseer prevent soothsayers and witches (
haruspices
and
sagaes)
from the estate because these folks ‘appealing to empty superstition push ignorant minds first to waste their money, then finally to engage in immoral acts’ (
On Rural Matters
1.8–9). Interestingly, however, the Greek magical papyri do not have a single charm or reference to a magical practice directed particularly at a slave’s situation or needs, except the one quoted above to protect runaways and ones directed at professionals who happened to be slaves, such as charioteers. From New World analogy, I would expect such spells (a curse on an overseer, for example), but none appears. I must assume that slave witches and wizards had their own spells, which, not surprisingly, were not a part of the magical manuals – or, at least, not of the ones that survive. Fortune-telling is another matter, however. As noted, Artemidorus’ dream book has many interpretations related directly to slaves. Clearly the customers Artemidorus has, and anticipates for his son, include slaves as regulars. It is not hard to imagine that less scrupulous ‘professionals’ such as soothsayers would have also done a brisk business among slaves whether in town or in the country. Consultation with them was one popular way to deal with the insecurities of slave life.

Freedom

In the midst of ties and emotions of family, friends, and religion, the slave always feared separation through sale. The fear was real, a constant presence in his life. The best way out was to gain freedom. The desire for freedom consumed slaves. Despite the potential loss of some security, as the guard in Plautus’ play
The Prisoners
(119) says, ‘I’m sure we’d all rather be free than slaves.’ In
The Life of Aesop,
Aesop is constantly asking his master to free him – the master, Xanthus, promises repeatedly, but reneges just as frequently. As I interpret Lucius’ adventures as an ass in Apuleius’ novel to be a palimpsest for a life of slavery, the rose that Lucius needs to eat in order to regain his human form (and, as it turns out, salvation at the feet of Isis) is freedom itself. The
Carmen Astrologicum
gives many castings that indicate that a slave will be freed;
Artemidorus interprets dreams to promise the same thing. There are many inscriptions set up by freed slaves and many references in elite literature to them. In this one, an ex-slave gives thanks for divine help: