ROMAN SLAVERY

ANALYZE THE NATURE OF SLAVERY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Slavery was an important social category in the Roman Republics as well as in the reign of Roman emperors. In the 2nd century B.C., the Punic Wars fought in Greece, Macedonia, and Syria, gave a boost to the slave trade and slave labour became very cheap. During the early Roman Republic, debtors were forced to work for wealthy landowners to repay their debts. After this practice was outlawed, the demand for slave labour increased, as it had in Greece. The development following the abolition of nexum in 326 BC caused the internal supply of labour to shrink. This, according to Finley, is one of the preconditions for the growth of large-scale slavery. The aristocracy could now carry on production on its large landed estates, called latifundia, by using slave labour. The Roman aristocracy extracted the surplus from the agrarian production which was produced by the hard labour of slaves and they became very rich. Slavery was already widespread in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The system of slave-based production was prevalent in the Mediterranean region before 326 BC, which made it possible that slave labour might have been present to a limited extent on Roman landed estates in the early republic. The wars which ravaged the Greco-Roman world for 300 years, from Alexanders invasions to the battle of Actium, provided an ideal opportunity for the expansion of the slave trade. The landed estates of the Roman aristocracy in Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Africa opened up prospects. The latifundia in these regions absorbed ever increasing numbers of slaves. It was on the Roman latifundia that ancient slavery reached its fullest development. War and piracy sustained slave-based production on these estates. Slaves were first employed on a large scale in rural and urban production in the Greek states. The potential of this form of labour was fully realized in the Roman economy with the emergence of the latifundia. The reorganization of the empire by Augustus led to the extension of agriculture and of slavery in Spain and Gaul. The latifundia worked by salve labour became the basis of the agrarian economy of the western provinces. As the Romans began to conquer other areas of Italy, the enlistment of peasant farmers into the army increased the demand for agricultural workers. The same wars that sent peasants off to battle provided an endless supply of war captives for the wealthy to use as slaves. The wars of mid to late Republic resulted in the importation of 3-4 million slaves into Italy. By the middle of the 100s B.C., most of Italy had become a slave society. Slave labour became the backbone of the Roman economy, especially in the areas of agriculture, herding, and wine making. The cruel treatment that the slaves received prompted several slave rebellions. Major revolts in Sicily and Italy took years to suppress. In Italy in 73 B.C., Spartacus and thousands of his followers attempted to escape to freedom, but the Romans finally crushed the rebellion with brutal force.

Slavery was an integral part of Roman society. There were 3 main sources of slavery: Warfare Infant exposure Babies would be rescued and then bought up as slaves by their new owner, a practice which caused legal problems of slaves by their new life that they were born free. Reproduction among the slave community As slaves became more valuable, they enjoyed a modest increase in their rights and status. Slaves were assigned plots of land and would live off of the produce while paying their master a certain percentage of that produce. The Roman government passed a law in the middle of the 4th century that prohibited selling an agricultural slave apart from his land. Thus, the slaves were tied to their land the same way a tenant farmer might be. Slaves were allowed to marry free tenants, to acquire property, and to pass their property on to their children. Thus, the position of agricultural slaves in the late empire changed and improved. The Romans used slaves to assist the magistrates in administering public works such as buildings, roads, and aqueducts. Some slaves who worked in the household of emperors rose to positions of greater influence and power. Emperors liked to use slaves in sensitive positions because they were loyal to the emperor alone. Roman law recognized slaves as a form of property. The commonly used term for a slave was serves. It did not provide any kind of protection to the slaves and the masters authority over the slave was tribute. Slaves were commodities, bought and sold in the market in the same way as cattle. They were sold near the Temple of Castor in the forum and were made to stand on a platform for inspection by their prospective owners, who were free to inspect the merchandise to ensure that it was in the top condition. The slave sellers were required by law to inform buyers of any defects or problems. Slave labour was to be found in every sector of the Roman economy. Agriculture, mining, and handicraft production were the sectors in which they were the most numerous. Slaves accounted for as much as 90% of handicraft production. Slaves were also employed as clerks in government offices. The majority of the slaves worked on latifundia. Agricultural slaves, as well as slaves engaged in mining, were often bound by chains. The state apparatus, even in the late empire, rested on slave labour. Slaves provided lavish household services for the rich classes in the Western and eastern parts of the empire. In Italy, Spain and Gaul they remained relatively thick on the ground in the countryside. They did hard work at the latifundia of provincial landowners. But from 3rd century A.D., the slave mode of production began to face a crisis. In the late republic, the Roman Empire was flooded with cheap slave labour. These slaves were put to work on the latifundia of Italy, Spain, Gaul, and the province of Africa. The huge surplus which the aristocracy derived from agrarian production based on slave labour made it fabulously rich. The era of peace and stability ushered in by the Augustan age allowed the Roman ruling class to amass more wealth. The infrequency of Roman wars of conquest meant that fewer people were enslaved. However, slaves continued to be captured in the imperial period, most notably in wars fought by Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan. The Romans had established a professional army, and free peasants were no longer pulled off from the land. Because of this, the role of slavery decreased in importance, but it never completely disappeared. Slaves became rarer and more expensive. With the end of Romes

expansion and conquest of new lands, the empire was no longer taking in large numbers of enslaved captives. When slaves had been very cheap, they were used extensively in agricultural work, making up the workforce of the great latifundia, or plantations, of the late republic and early empire. But as slaves became rarer and more expensive, they tended to be reserved for work that would bestow more prestige on their owners, such as working within the household. Some great landowners continued to use slaves to work their land, but most preferred to lease their lands to poor farmers and collect rent on the produce. The roots of the medieval economy are often seen as originating in the late Roman period. The economy of the late empire saw a shift from slave labor to citizen laborers tied to their land or position. While some scholars have been eager to see this as the transition from slaves to serfs and the beginning of medieval serfdom, the reality is more complicated. In the late Roman Empire, it had become difficult to maintain or keep the slaves because the cost of slaves had become too high due to short supply. The supply was related with the wars and in the 3rd - 4th centuries A.D. the expansion of the empire came to a halt. Their demographic growth became very low because the life conditions of slaves were very oppressive. The Roman State used force to keep a strict control over the slaves. Special care was taken to disperse them and prevent formation of any solidarity among slaves. They had adequate force at its disposal to ensure that slaves did not attempt to free themselves. The values which Roman society as a whole imbibed, through law and in various other ways, served to divest slaves of any kind of dignity. These values taught free persons not to have any sympathy with slaves. As for the slaves, they were humiliated to such an extent that it was not easy for them to be conscious of the fact that they were human beings. The slaves spoke different languages and had no kinship ties. They had no identity of their own and had diverse geographical origins. It is difficult to reconstruct the lives of slaves, since the majority of our literary testimony comes from elite Romans. In spite of the strict control of the state we come across many uprisings and revolts of these slaves. There is evidence of three major slave revolts. The first big slave revolt known as the First Slave War (136- 132 BC) took place in Sicily. The second such revolt on this island occurred in 104 - 120 BC. One of the most serious of slave revolt took place in around 73-71 BC called Spartacus revolt which started in Capua (near modern Naples). All these were ruthlessly suppressed. The slaves were permanently settled by the landlords on their estates and they were given small plots to look after themselves. This was in accordance with the Roman law which had a provision which entitled slaves to own some property called peculium. The earnings of peculium could be used by slaves to engage in economic activities pursued by them. The landlords started to collect surplus produce from these slaves. Secondly, at the same time villages of smallholders and free peasants which had always existed side by side with slaves in the empire fell under the patronage of great agrarian magnates in their search for protection against fiscal exaction and conscription by the state and came to occupy economic position very similar to those of ex - slaves. From the 2nd century A.D. the new category of coloni came into existence. They were originally tenant farmers and it was also applied on those free tenant farmers who did not own their land. They had limited means and were provided seeds and implements by landlords and the coloni in turn handed over a share of produce to the owners. The number of Roman and Italian colonies was also known as colonus. Diocletion

systematized the arrangement by imposing restrictions on the movement from the place where they were registered. In the reign of Constantine new regulations were made to permanently attach the coloni to the soil. These provisions laid down that coloni are transferred with the land if there was a change of ownership. This put an end to the status of a coloni of free tenants who had autonomy to move to other plots as they wished. This situation had led to the emergence of the colonate and simultaneous decline of latifundia. The colonus of the principate a voluntary tenant of land, free to move when his lease expired, became like a serf of the later empire, tied to the land by a hereditary bond. Constantine declared in 332 A.D., Any person with whom a colonus belonging to some other person is found shall not only restore him to his place of origin but be liable for his poll tax for the period. It will furthermore be proper that coloni themselves who plan flight should be put in irons like slaves, so that they may be compelled by a servile penalty to perform the duties appropriate to them as free men. This hereditary character of the bond had become law in 364 A.D. According to this law, the slaves and coloni and their sons and grandsons who had deserted imperial estates to join the army or the civil service should be recalled. These developments in the late Roman society and state show that the free peasant and tenant lost their independence and heralded the beginning of serfdom of Medieval Europe. But the slavery did not completely disappear. It continued in the late Roman society and latifundia also remained in existence in some areas. Even in the 5th century A.D. some big landowners were the owner of thousands of slaves. The slaves were also employed for domestic work, mining and at the lowest levels of the society and state. In no society throughout human history did the use of slaves attain the same magnitude as in ancient Rome. Rome, like Greece, was not just a society with slaves, but was a slave society. Gracco-Roman society during antiquity may be regarded as a slave society because slave labour was employed on a large scale in production.