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III. Slavery as a Social Institution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Whatever our view of the compatibility of Marx’s theories with Weber’s, ancient slavery can be better understood if it is approached primarily as a social category rather than as an economic class. It is the slave’s total rightlessness against his master which makes slavery a ‘peculiar institution’ compared with other forms of dependence. The slave was someone who had lost, or never had, any rights to share in society, and therefore to have access to food, clothing, and the other necessities of physical survival. Typically this was because a slave had been on the defeated side in a war. Roman jurists derived the word servus from servatus. The victors could have killed him: he had no moral claims on them to allow him the means to survive. But the victors had chosen to let him live. Consequently the enslaved captive ‘belonged’ to the individual who had refrained from killing him, or to his community, which generally sold him off to an individual. The fact that he was alive at all was something that the slave owed to his captor, and the fact that he was subsequently kept alive was something he owed to the master who deigned to maintain him as a member of his household. The emotions he was expected to feel towards that master were loyalty and gratitude. Any children the slave might have would inherit this dependence: they would only be alive at all because the head of the household chose to bring them up, feed, clothe, house, and train them, rather than let them die (of course he had a similar right to let his own newborn children live or die).

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Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 19: Slavery , 1987 , pp. 22 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

Notes

1. Digest 1.5.2 (= GARS 1).

2. Vogt, J., ‘The Faithful Slave’, Ancient Slavery, pp. 129-46Google Scholar.

3. I know of no full-length study of exposition and infanticide in the classical world. See Hopkins, K., Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 225f.Google Scholar

4. Harris, W. V., ‘Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade’, MAAR, 36 (1980), 117–40.Google Scholar

5. O. Masson, ‘Les noms des esclaves dans la Grèce antique’, Actes du colloque 1971, 9-23; Solin, H., Beiträge zur Kenntnis der griechischen Personennamen in Rom (Comm. human. Litt. 48, Helsinki, 1971)Google Scholar; Pflaum, H. G., ‘Sur les noms grecs portés par les Romains et leurs esclaves’, REL 51 (1973), 48–54.Google Scholar

6. Dem. 21.47 (= GARS 183); Harrison, A. R. W., The Law of Athens I (Oxford, 1968), ch. 6.Google Scholar

7. Antiphon, Death of Herodes 47f. (= GARS 181); Isocrates, Pan. 181 (= GARS 182).

8. E.g. in the Gortyn Code (GARS 3), or at Rome in the Twelve Tables (GARS 188).

9. For Greece, e.g. Lysias 4.12ff. (= GARS 177); for Rome, cf.Brunt, P., ‘Evidence given under Torture in the Principate’, Savigny-Zeitschrift, röm. Abt. 97 (1980), 256-65Google Scholar.

10. Liebs, D., Bollettino dell’Istituto di Diritto Romano III 22 (1980/82), 147-89Google Scholar; Schumacher, L., Servus Index. Sklavenverhör und Sklavenanzeige im republikanischen und kaiserzeitlichen Rom (Wiesbaden, 1982)Google Scholar.

11. AE 1971, No. 88.

12. Cf. Justinian, Inst. 1.8.2, quoting a rescript of Antoninus Pius (= GARS 226).

13. Vedius Pollio: Seneca, Dial. 5, De Ira 3.40 (= GARS 190); Dio Cassius 54, 23.1ff. Hadrian: Galen, Diseases of the Mind 4 (Kühn 5117) (= GARS 198).

14. Astin, A. E., Cato the Censor (Oxford, 1978), App. 12 Google Scholar. Claudius: Digest 40.8.2; Suet., Claud. 25.2; Dio 60(61), 29.7 (= GARS 203 & 204). Pliny, Ep. 6.3, provided for one of his nurses in her old age (= GARS 136). Cf. A. Chantraine, ch. V n.9 below.

15. Plutarch, Moralia 70 E.

16. As argued by Bradley, K. R., Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire. A Study in Social Control (Brussels, 1984)Google Scholar.

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18. Theophr., Char. 21, the mikrophilotimos. For blacks in the ancient world, ch. II n. 15 above.

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23. For parallels in other societies, cf. Patterson, op. cit. (ch. I, n. 6), chs. 8-10. On service as a temporary phase between childhood and marriage, cf.Kussmaul, A., Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Goody, J., ‘Slavery in Time and Space’, in Watson, J. L. (ed.), Asian and African Systems of Slavery (Oxford, 1980), pp. 16-42Google Scholar.

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27. Chantraine, H., ‘Zur Entstehung der Freilassung mit Bürgerrechtserwerb in Rom’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 59–67.Google Scholar

28. Dio. Hal. 4.24 (= GARS 69).

29. Bradley, K. R., Slaves and Masters, p. 95 Google Scholar; see his discussion in ch. Ill and Appendix D. The ultimate integration of ex-slaves is illustrated by the rise of their sons to high office: e.g. the brutal senator Larcius Macedo (Pliny, Ep. 3.14 = GARS 209). Cf.Gordon, M. L., ‘The Freedman’s Son in Municipal Life’, JRS 21 (1931), 65–77.Google Scholar

30. Hopkins, K., Conquerors and Slaves, ch. 3Google Scholar; Calderini, A., La Manomissione e la condizione dei liberti in Grecia (Milan, 1980)Google Scholar.

31. Duff, A. M., Freedmen in the Early Empire (Oxford, 1928 Google Scholar; repr. 1958); Treggiari, S., Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar; Fabre, J., Libertus (Rome, 1981)Google Scholar.