Slavery in the Roman Empire by R.H. Barrow;

Author:R.H. Barrow;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2022-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

IN THE SERVICE OF STATE AND TOWN

Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum.

Vergil, Georgics, i v. 3.

Tu quoque, legiferis mundum complexa triumphis,

Foedere communi vivere cuneta facis.

Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo, i. 77.

THAT the State should possess slaves is not surprising; war, after all, was the affair of the State, and the captives might well be State property. What is surprising is the remarkable use made of public slaves under the Empire and the extraordinary social position occupied by them.

Before the Empire all ‘public slaves ‘—servi publici—were the property of the State and were controlled by the magistrates as the servants of the Senate. When, however, the Emperor used his own slaves and slaves bought by the fisc to staff an imperial civil service, ‘public slaves,’ though often performing similar duties, were technically distinct, each class belonging to each element in the diarchy. If the ‘public slaves’ tend to become obsolete1 or to mean merely ‘slaves of the Emperor’ — servi Caesaris—or slaves of a municipality, it is only in accordance with the general drift of things from diarchy to the supreme control of the Emperor. Two further distinctions must be made. ‘Public slave’ came to mean before the Empire a slave of the State employed in its many offices, and the term implied a given occupation and often social position ; a captive of war held by the State prior to sale, or a freedman becoming the property of the State under the Lex Aélia Sentia, a.d. 4,2 was not a ‘public slave’ unless the State decided to employ him in some capacity or other. Secondly, ‘public slaves’ belonged strictly to the State, i.e. the Senate and People of Rome. But it was common1 for towns to possess slaves of their own, just as any ‘universitas’ could possess slaves ; but these slaves of towns differ in certain important points from the slaves of the State, and need separate consideration.

1 Mommsen can find no trace of servi publici outside the capital after the foundation of the Empire, D.P.R. i. 362. 2 Cf. Gaius, i. 27. The methods by which the State acquired these slaves varied. Conquest provided some, though always fewer ; early in the first century proscriptions and confiscations provided others ; at other times the actor publicus (himself a slave) was commissioned to buy from the market or from private owners;2 occasionally a gift was made by individuals: Augustus, for example, thus gave up the slaves whom he had inherited from Agrippa.3 One method of recruiting this class is conspicuously absent—that of birth—and for the good reason that the State possessed no women slaves, and therefore no slave children,4 since the child took the status of the mother.

That the social and legal status of these slaves was superior to that of private slaves is clear from the evidence.5 It is probable that they frequently married freed or free women;6 for example, Epagathus was a servus publicus ad Juturna, i.e. he was employed on the aqueducts ; he married Attia Felicitas, a free woman; their daughter was called Attia Epagatho.

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