{"id":4557,"date":"2019-03-26T22:49:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T22:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2019-03-26T22:49:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T22:49:58","slug":"ex-slaves-in-ancient-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/ex-slaves-in-ancient-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Slaves in Ancient Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This blog post is a companion to Unit XV of our Introduction to Latin Vocabulary course. You can learn more about the course<\/span> here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slavery wasn\u2019t a permanent condition in Ancient Rome. A person born, sold, or captured into slavery had a chance\u2014depending on how kind their master was feeling\u2014of being set free. Many freedmen rose to extraordinary heights of power and wealth, but Roman society ensured that they, and their descendants, would remain marked by their time as slaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Escape<\/span><\/h1>\n

The most immediate means of freedom for a Roman slave was to run away. There were many types of <\/span>slaves<\/span><\/a>, and for many of them it would have been theoretically easy to escape their masters. Highly-skilled slaves, like tutors and accountants, lived practically as members of the master\u2019s family, and even more lower-status slaves, like farmhands, would not have been shackled most of the time. Escape would have been simply a matter of walking away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Staying free, however, would not have been so simple. An escaped slave would have lacked money, connections, and means of transportation. If they were foreign-born\u2014and thanks to Rome\u2019s constant overseas wars, many slaves were\u2014they would have spoken Latin with a suspicious accent. Laws forbade citizens to help runaways, and professional slavecatchers would have been immediately sent after them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Captured runaways (called in Latin <\/span>fugitivi<\/span><\/i>) were treated brutally. They were beaten and whipped upon their return to their master. The letters FUG (for <\/span>fugitivus<\/span><\/i>) were burned into their foreheads with a hot iron, leaving them with a permanent mark. Some had humiliating collars permanently locked around their throats.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Roman slave collar. Image by user Rabax63 from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0<\/p><\/div>\n

The most successful escapes were those in which slaves escaped <\/span>en masse<\/span><\/i>, rising up and killing their masters. On three occasions, called the Servile Wars, these uprisings turned into full-scale rebellions against the Roman state. None succeeded, however: the Roman army eventually defeated each rebellion, and the captives were either crucified or made to fight to the death as gladiators.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Manumission<\/span><\/h1>\n

The only legal means of becoming a freedman (<\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i>) was through <\/span>manumissio<\/span><\/i>, which literally means \u2018release from the hand\u2019. There were three kinds of <\/span>manumissio<\/span><\/i>: <\/span>per censum, per testamentum<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>per vindictam<\/span><\/i>. In <\/span>manumissio per censum<\/span><\/i> a master simply registered his soon-to-be-ex-slave as a citizen in the census. <\/span>Manumissio<\/span><\/i> per testamentum<\/span><\/i> meant freeing a slave in one\u2019s will. <\/span>Manumissio per vindictam<\/span><\/i>, however, was the simplest and most direct form. A <\/span>vindicta<\/span><\/i> was a small staff with which a master would touch the head of his slave: at the instant the <\/span>vindicta <\/span><\/i>touched him, the slave became free.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon being set free, the former slave would put on a cone-shaped felt hat called the <\/span>pileus<\/span><\/i>, which showed that he was no longer a slave, but a <\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

You can see the liberti at left and bottom wearing the pileus, and the vindicta in the hand of the former master to the right. Image by user Ad Meskens from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0<\/p><\/div>\n

Freeing slaves was surprisingly common in Ancient Rome, so much so that laws were eventually passed limiting how many slaves a master could free and how old a slave could be when freed.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Freedom<\/span><\/h1>\n

No doubt <\/span>manumissio<\/span><\/i> was one of the happiest moments in a <\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i>\u2019 life. He did not, however, become completely free. He went from being a slave with a master to a <\/span>cliens with a patronus<\/span><\/a>. Even his name marked him: upon being manumitted, a <\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i> added his former master\u2019s full name to his own, with an additional letter at the end of the name\u2014L., for <\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberti<\/span><\/i> (or <\/span>libertini<\/span><\/i>, which was the name for freedmen as a group) could own property and vote, although they couldn\u2019t run for office. Highly-skilled <\/span>liberti<\/span><\/i>, like those who could read and write and work with numbers, had the opportunity at last to make money for themselves with their talents, and many did. <\/span>Patrician<\/span><\/a> Romans looked down on these new-money <\/span>liberti<\/span><\/i> and made fun of them for their lack of class. A popular ancient novel, the <\/span>Satyricon<\/span><\/i><\/a>, features a party at the house of an enormously rich and disgustingly crass <\/span>libertus<\/span><\/i> named Trimalchio, who\u2019s building himself a gigantic tomb and serves his guests course after course of bizarre, over-the-top food.<\/span><\/p>\n

At least some of the mockery of <\/span>liberti<\/span><\/i> was based in fear. Freedmen who worked for the emperor were vastly more powerful than any senator. One, Tiberius Claudius Narcissus, was the freedman and secretary of the emperor Claudius, and he was believed to have arranged marriages, appointed generals, and ordered assassinations for the imperial family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The tomb of Quintus Calvio Turpio, freedman of Quintus. The inscription indicates that Turpio became a priest of Augustus, and that the tomb was made by Turpio’s own freedmen. You can see the word liberti, spelled LIBERTEI, in the last line. Image by user Romainbehar on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC-Zero<\/p><\/div>\n

All the legal limitations on <\/span>libertini<\/span><\/i> were lifted for their children, who were considered full citizens. But a stigma remained. The poet Horace mentions that the majority of freedmen\u2019s sons were ashamed of their family history. Horace, however, proudly says that he himself has no shame about his freedman father, and his father\u2019s status didn\u2019t end up holding him back. Horace rose to become one of the most famous and admired writers of his day.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ancient Rome was an extremely rigid society, and it was almost impossible to move up in the world if you were born low. There were some lucky examples, as you\u2019ve seen here, but these are the extreme outliers. Most slaves died in slavery, and most <\/span>liberti<\/span><\/i> never became rich.<\/span><\/p>\n

One curious fact about Ancient Rome (and the ancient world in general) is that, despite the large numbers of <\/span>liberti<\/span><\/i> and the knowledge that slavery was an awful thing to endure, there was never even a hint of an abolitionist movement. Nobody wanted to <\/span>be<\/span><\/i> a slave, but nobody wanted to end slavery either. Why do you think that was?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glossary of Latin Terms and Phrases<\/span><\/h1>\n

Fugitivus<\/em>\u2014fugitive slave<\/span><\/p>\n

Libertus<\/em>\u2014freedman<\/span><\/p>\n

Libertini<\/em>\u2014the freedmen class<\/span><\/p>\n

Manumissio<\/em>\u2014the act of granting a slave freedom<\/span><\/p>\n

Vindicta<\/em>\u2014a staff used in a manumission ceremony<\/span><\/p>\n

Pileus<\/em>\u2014the freedman\u2019s hat<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Note: This blog post is a companion to Unit XV of our Introduction to Latin Vocabulary course. You can learn more about the course here. Slavery wasn\u2019t a permanent condition in Ancient Rome. A person born, sold, or captured into slavery had a chance\u2014depending on how kind their master was feeling\u2014of being set free. Many…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":4561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[465054,60854],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4557","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intro-to-latin-course","category-roman-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4563,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}