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Industrial Slavery in Roman Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

William Linn Westermann
William Linn Westermann
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

From the earliest period the communities of the Latin tribes of central Italy and of the remaining Italiots made use of a few slaves as herdsmen, field hands, and probably as domestic servants to meet the simple demands of their small-farm life. No doubt these slaves were employed also in the household weaving of wearing apparel, in the fabrication of those offensive and defensive weapons needed in the wars with their neighbors, and in the production of the tools required for the still simple operations characteristic of Italian farming of that time. Enslavement appears in the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which can safely be dated about 450 B.C. There is no mention of slaves in the two early treaties between Rome and Carthage, as given by Polybius. Livy tells us very briefly of the imposition of a five per cent tax upon manumissions, which was passed in 357 B.C. if we may trust the statement and accept his dating of it. The picture of early Roman slavery as gained from these few primary data, and from literary sources even less trustworthy, is that of a simple agricultural use of a slave population whose numbers were relatively small. This would hold true down to about 352 B.C.

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Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 1942 , pp. 149 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1942

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References

1 A discussion of these requirements which is notably sensible, will be found in an article by Besnier, R. in Revue Historique de droit franfais et Stronger, XIII (1934), 437–439. For the restriction of household production upon the latifundia of Italy in the second century B.C. to lighter goods, seeGoogle ScholarGummerus, Hermann, “Der römishche Gutsbetrieb als wirtschaftlicher Organismus” in Kilio Beiheft 5 (1906), especially pp. 34–49, 68Google Scholar.

2 Polybius, III, 22, 4-13 and 24, 3-13. It is unnecessary to enter into the complicated problem of the dates of these treaties. In my judgment the earlier would fall in the later fifth century against the positive date of 508 B.C. as given by Polybius, the second in the later part of the fourth century B.C.

3 Livy, VII, 16, 7. Cf. XXVII, 10, 11.

4 Cf. , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, “Sklaverei1,” ReolencychpSdie der klossischen Altertums-wissenschaft, Supplementband, VI, 948Google Scholar.

5 The references to the slaves of the Sicilian cities and the Greek towns of lower Italy in the time of Dionysius I of Syracuse are given in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclo-piidic, Supplementband, VI, 948–949Google Scholar.

6 Typical references for the use of slaves in warfare during the Hannibalic war, both by the Romans and by the Carthaginians, are for the Romans: Livy, XXI, 45, 7; 46,10; XXII, 57, 11; XXIII, 35, 7; XXIV, 11, 3; 14, 3 and 18, 12; XXV, 1, 4; 6, 21; XXVI, 47, 3; XXVII, 38, 10; XXXIV, 6, 12; for the Carthaginians: , Appian, Bell. Ext. VII, 9, 57; VIII, 2,9; and Dio in Zonaras, IX, 12Google Scholar.

7 The references for the numbers of persons enslaved by the Romans after the capture in war in the third and second centuries B.C. are given in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Real-encyclopddie, Supplementband, VI, 949–954Google Scholar.

8 , Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3d ed.), II, no. 543, lines 29–34Google Scholar.

9 Frank, Tenney in his Economic History of Rome (2d ed.; Baltimore, 1927), 111–118, minimizes the increase in production and the changes in the production system at Rome i n the third and second centuries B.C., granting, however, that there was a shift toward the use of slaves. This he regarded as the only significant change.Google ScholarToutain, Jules in his Economic Life of the Ancient World (New York, 1930), 234–239, presents in brief form a sounder view of the gradual growth of industrial activity at Rome in this period.Google ScholarCf. , Rostovtzeff. Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 19–22, for the second century B.CGoogle Scholar.

10 Polybius. X, 17, 9-10.

11 Ibid., X, 17, 14-16.

12 Livy, XXVI, 47: cum spe propinqua libertatis si ad ministeria belli enixe operam navassent.

13 For the complaints openly made in the Roman Forum against the drafting of slaves engaged in agricultural production, see Livy, XXVI, 35: servos agriculturos rem pub-licam abduxisse, nunc ad militinm parvo acre emendo, nunc remiqes impcrando. The outstanding instances of enslavement of the inhabitants of the larger cities captured or retaken after revolt during the First and Second Punic Wars are collected, with the references, in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopddie, Supplementband. VI, 949–950Google Scholar. Similar figures for the second and first centuries B.C. are to be found ibid.. 951-969.

14 , Plutarch, Cato Major, XXI, 7Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., XXI, .5. Cato was, in no sense, a slave trader. See , Scalais in Muste Beige, XXXI (1927), 95Google Scholar.

16 Gummerus, Hermann, “Römischer Gutsbetrieb” in Klio, Beihejt 5, Leipzig 1906, 42,68ffGoogle Scholar.

17 Idem, “Industrie und Handel,” in Pauly-Wisspwa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, IX, 1451-1454.

18 See , Varro, Libri rerum rusticarum, I, 18–19Google Scholar.

19 The reference again is to the exemplary study, “Industrie und Handel,” of Gum-merus in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, IX, 1454–1455Google Scholar.

20 Johnson, Jotham, Excavations at Minturnae, vol. II, Inscriptions. Part I. Republican Magistri (Philadelphia, 1933). See also his article upon Minturnae inGoogle Scholar, Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopädie, Supplementband, VII, 458–494Google Scholar.

21 According to Nock, A. D. of Harvard University in his review of Johnson's publication in American Journal of Philology, LVI (1935), 86–91, all of these officials may have belonged to one groupCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 , Cato, de agricultura, 135.Google ScholarCf. Gummerus, H., “Römischer Gutsbetrieb,” in Klio, Beihejt 5, p. 44Google Scholar.

23 , Orosius, Historiae, V, 9Google Scholar.

24 At Cales there was also a thriving pottery industry. See Klio, Gummerus in, Beiheft 5, p. 41 and his discussion of the Cales relief-ware of the period 250-150 B.C. inGoogle Scholar, Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, IX, 1450Google Scholar. Barrow, R. H., in his Slavery in the Roman Empire (1928), 99, makes a passing gesture only toward the use of slave labor in “manu-factoring” in Italy, which was so important under the EmpireGoogle Scholar.

25 The time is not given exactly by , Plutarch in Crassus, 2, 3–7. But the course of his political and business development, as indicated by Plutarch, definitely places it in these years.Google ScholarCf. Gelzer, M. in Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, XIII, 299Google Scholar. These builders are called τεχνίται, ρΧτέπτονες and οίκοδόμος

26 , Plutarch, Crassus, 2, 6–7.In the Synkrisis, or Comparison, between Nicias and Crassus, § 1, Plutarch condemns the business of acquiring property at fire-sale prices; but he speaks no word of blame against the trade-school ideaGoogle Scholar.

27 In his excellent study of “Slave Education in the Roman Empire” in Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXXI (1940), 264, note 4, S. L. Mohler suggests this idea. He does not, however, distinguish the manual training of the builders from the higher skills taught in the business management schoolGoogle Scholar.

28 , Frontinus, de aquae ductthus, § 96Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., §§98, 105, 116. For this development, see Kornemann's, Ernst article curotores in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, IV, 1784–1787Google Scholar, and Halkin, Léon, Les Es-claves Publics chez les Romains, 79–85Google Scholar.

30 Cassius Dio, LIV, 2, 4, and LV, 26, 4.

31 Dragendorff, Hans in Gnomon, X (1934), 356 ff. and inGoogle ScholarFestschrift August Oxé (Darmstadt, 1938), 5. In a personal letter to me Dragendorff wrote: “Die Relieftopferei in Arezzo drängt sich zusammen in die Zeit des Augustus und Tiberius, etwa 25 v. Chr.-25 n. Chr.” The export distribution of the Arretine ware outside of Italy covered the entire Roman Empire, including the Aegean area and Palestine. For the eastern area seeGoogle ScholarIliffe, J. H., “Sigillata Wares in the Near East,” in Quarterly of the Department of Archeology in Palestine, VI (1936-1937), 4–53, andGoogle ScholarOxe's, August comments upon this article in Germania, XXI (1937), 135–137 (Korrespondenzblatt der römisck-germanischen Kommission des deutschen archäologischen Jnstituts)Google Scholar.

32 See the list of the pottery owners given by Oxé, August, Arretinische Reliefgefässe vom Rhein (Frankfurt, 1933), 111–112, andGoogle Scholarcf. Dragendorff, Hans in Festschrift August Oxe, 8Google Scholar.

33 In the Minturnae inscriptions published by Johnson, Jotham, Excavations at Minturnae, this is even more apparent. Five of the slaves who appear as heads of the cult organizations belonged to a firm of concessionaires for pitch-making and four to a firm of salt-extracting concessionaires. They definitely were slaves of the business organizations concerned, not of the individual membersGoogle Scholar.

34 , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopädie, IX, 1454–1513. The largest number of slaves known to have worked in any single pottery shop in Italy is 58; but these were not all working together at one time. See Gummerus, idem, 1487-1488. Nor can we tell how many of them were apprentices and firers.Google ScholarPark, M. E., The Plebs in Cicero's Day (1918), 82, note 1, seems to assume that the number cited as belonging to any single factory owner represents the number he owned at a given timeGoogle Scholar.

35 Bloch, Herbert, “I Bolli laterizi e la storia edilizia romana,” parts II and III, Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale del Governaiorato di Roma, LXV (1937) and LXVI (1938)Google Scholar.

36 See Rostovtzeff, M. I., The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), 55Google Scholar.

37 , Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 1941), 74–75Google Scholar.

38 The freedman, Felix, a brother of Pallas, rose to the high position of procurator of Judaea and was married to two queens, possibly to three as Suetonius states in Claudius, 28,1. Cf. Dio Cassius, LX, 17, 8 for the alleged venality of these ex-slaves.

39 See Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, , Realencyclopädie, VGoogle Scholar, 1579 and 2710, s.v. Doryphorus and Epaphroditus. , Suetonius, Nero, 37, 3, reports that Nero threatened the Roman Senate that he would some day do away with that body entirely and hand over the conduct of the republic and its provinces and the command of the army to the Roman knights and his freedmenGoogle Scholar.

40 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, VI, 8470. For the imperial slaves and freedmen in general, seeGoogle ScholarFriedlander, L., Sittengeschichte Roms (10th ed., Leipzig, 1921–1922), I, 35–74;Google ScholarMattingly, Harold, The Imperial Civil Service of Rome (Cambridge, 1910), 31–43;Google ScholarHirschfeld, Otto, Die Verwaltungsbeamten des romischen Koiserreiches (Berlin, 1905), 471–474; andGoogle ScholarStrack, Max L. in Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 112 (1914), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 The best study known to me of the adaptation of the teachings of the Middle Stoa t o the traditional acceptances of the Roman ruling aristocracy is that of Kaerst, Julius in Neue Jahrbücher fur Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung, V (1929), 653 ff. See alsoGoogle ScholarPohlenz, Max, “Antikes Fuhrertum” in Neue Wege sur Antike, II Reihe, Heft 3, Berlin, 1934Google Scholar.

42 , Cicero, de officiis, I, 13, 41, following Panaetius. Panaetius did no t free himself from the old Greek aristocratic idea of labor as common and vulgarizing. SeeGoogle ScholarPohlenz, Max, “Antikes Fuhrertum” in Neue Wege zur Antike, II, Reihe, 3, p. 141Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., II, 7, 24. In books I and II of de officiis Cicero transmitted the precepts of Panaetius quite closely. See Philippson in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realcncyclopäddie, II Reihe, VII, 1172Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., Ill, 23, 89, and compare Seneca de beneficiis. III, 18, 1. See Fowler, Harold N., Panaetii et Hecatonis Librorum Fragmenta (diss. Bonn, 1885), 53–60, andGoogle ScholarLichy, Johannes, de servorum condicione quid scnserit L. Annaeus Seneca (Minister, 1927), 35Google Scholar.

45 Fowler, W. W. in his Social Life at Rome (New York, 1909), 208, note 1, long since pointed out that no Latin poet of the late republic shows any real sympathy for slavesGoogle Scholar.

46 , Seneca, de vita beata, 24, 3. This is an argument against Hecato's view that deeds of kindness can only occur between persons of equal status in lifeGoogle Scholar.

47 , Seneca, epistulae morales, 47, 1Google Scholar.

48 , Petronius, Satyricon, 71, 1Google Scholar.

49 Note the angry reaction of a freedman to the ridicule of the aristocratic Ascyltus, in the Satyricon, 57.

50 On the obsequium et operae read Duff, A. M., Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford, 1928), 36–49, and the more specialized study ofGoogle ScholarLambert, Jacques, Les operae liberti (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar.

51 Philips, Ulrich, Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston, 1937), 216–217Google Scholar. Indirectly pertinent to the problem of the effects of urbanization upon the slave system are the following observations in Deep South by Davis, Allison, Burleigh, B and Gardner, Mary R. (Chicago, 1941), 479Google Scholar, referring to present conditions in our Southern States: “Money … causes white middle-class and lower class storekeepers to wait upon colored patrons deferentially. It thereby increases the difficulties of adjusting caste … to manufacturing and commercial economies.”

52 From the handicraft shops of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., we have some evidence to support the belief that about thirty slave workmen would constitute a fairly large shop. See , Demosthenes, or. 27, Against Aphobus, I, 9 and 24. This would be a good guess for the size of the Italian shops. Actually we have no evidence on this point for the shops in Italy. See Gummerus inGoogle Scholar, Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie, IX, 1487Google Scholar.

53 For a deep and penetrating analysis of the Roman humanitas as an aristocratic class ideal, see the address of Reitzenstein, Richard, Werden und Wesen der Humanität im Altertum, Feier Rede, University of Strassburg, 1907Google Scholar.

54 These are assembled in the article “Sklaverei” in , Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realen-cyclopddie, Supplementband, VI, 1041–1046Google Scholar.

55 In sending back the fugitive slave, Onesimus, to his master, the Christian Philemon, the Apostle Paul wrote (Epistle to Philemon, 16) that he should be received, “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord?”