ROSS S MARSHALL THE GLORIES OF ROMAN SLAVERY Week-10 Essay

FALL 2019 Hist 111, Garfinkle

Slavery is the most fun and interesting topic to discuss when phalanxing through the

myriad of opportunities found in Roman society. Using the application for slavery as your

wedge of intrusion and hopeful rise in status you may pry open the lid of Pandoras’ Privy and

peep into every aspect of your Roman society for your betterment in education or for

fulfilling the worse of your desires, or both. First, you must define and classify Roman

slavery and then next, expose “the good stuff” and the inappropriate or “better stuff,” and

pick whichever is the most significant.

Now, remember, Roman slavery is a form of “free labor” and considered necessary for

the State and for private Roman economists (1), which sometimes offers compensation for

the opportunist. It is, without doubt, an open door to many good utilitarian jobs, and for the

pornea-epicurean, Elagabalist freedom in all the sexual deviancy, sadistic pleasure and other

forms of human abuse restricted by the finest Lucian Discourses preserved by Stobaeus. Free

labor comes from only a few sources so carefully chose your avenue. Nevertheless, fain not,

your chance exceeds that of the expensive Plebeian and Proletariat (2). Also, your employer

obtains slaves from foreign war captives (3), from citizens who lose their citizenship (4) and

from corvee contracts with volunteer workers (5). If you are a foreign soldier fleeing a battle,

yet desiring slavery, you could get caught by the Roman Military. Pleading for clemency

might stay your execution and gain you employment. For the Tiro (6), if you are one and

dissatisfied being a Valerian footstool, you may perform an act of treason and beg for the

same clemency as above. A citizen, though not excluding Military personal could perform

other acts of capital crimes. Rape, parricide, homicide, adultery, libel, robbery, forgery, and

larceny, relinquish citizenship and military status and offers enslavement by desperate

Dominus if, by luck, you escape Poena cullei or Damnatio ad bestias as food for circus

entertainment. For those of you more talented, a few calumnious ballads about Caesar barked

in a public square would suffice in getting you new shackles and a career change, if not
crucifixion (7). With Roman slavery and new opportunities, you must consider the highest

risks for the best of odds. You could rejoice in this new life of slavery by racking up a

humongous debt with a local vender and then masquerade in a peplos and chlamys at a local

Graecostadium while hoping the Fates grace you with a corvee contract (8) from a rich

Patrician and not a rope around your neck.

Slavery can be fun for those who don’t take torture and sexual abuse to serious.

Nevertheless, avoid the mines (9), for here are better jobs to do in every other aspect of

Roman society with benefits gained from waste management. You have the bacchanalian

culinary services with the added entertainment of floral deluges, where you may binge, with a

breathtaking lack of moderation, on all the leftover Sabine olives, wine, camel heels, parrot,

coxcombs, venison, pheasant, thrush, rabbit, goose liver, brain-stuffed sausages, peacock,

flamingo, caviar-stuffed crayfish, cranes, ostrich, ham, legumes, vegetables, and an array of

seafood from sea urchins to red mullet, bass, bonito, and snails uneaten by the departed

guests (10). There is also the linen industry of spinning, weaving and tailoring with its

leftover cloth and all the clothing left from the above banquets. For those rural, there is

agriculture with its free food grains and vegetables and animal husbandry with its leftover

meats, fowl, and dairy products. The benefits of slavery do not stop with these vocations. For

the narcoleptic, there are quiet and restful positions as Cato’s estate guards, and when not

propped against a door there is laying down (11). The bread and circuses offer some 31 well

paid gladiatorial parts, with the Bestiarius (12) bringing the greatest uproar with audiences,

while the openings for Bestia are innumerable. For those of exceptional Adonissen dynamics

and physique, there is the gladiatorial favorite of treading upon the pond of the Flavian

Amphitheatre as net-swinging Retiarius! (13) For the least sporty and “dual-spirited” there is

the theatrical of a satirical Gladiatrix and fighting as a retiarius tunicatus (14). If these duties

are not available, one could submit to a more elegant Satryconean position as a delicati for

fun and passionate pleasures when not performing asinine Luciusian zoomorphic
transformations (15). If esteemed for excellency in the above arts, you might find some

upward social mobility in the Dominus’ entourage in the next fanfare at Pompeii.

The great historical significance of Roman slavery is that it did not just advance and

speed up Roman imperial expansion, make Patricians rich nor raise the personal status of

individuals, but that it lasted hundreds of years with little complaint until some few Sparticus’

rocked the boat about the mid-First Century BC. With an adieu, Rome’s slavery continued

with little interruption for the vast life-time of her existence and benefited not only the

Roman State but also those involved in her slave labor that otherwise would be unemployed

and at a disadvantage.

(1) Class Lectures, Week-10. On Roman Slaves. Supplemented by Online source: Ancient
History Encyclopedia.
https://www.ancient.eu/article/629/slavery-in-the-roman-world
(2) Online source: Maria Milani. Ancient Roman Jobs.
https://mariamilani.com/ancient_rome/ancient_roman_jobs.htm
(3) Ibid. Class Lecture, Week-10. And, Brophy, James M. Perspectives from the Past. Diodorus
Siculus: On Slavery in the Later Republic. Volume-1, (Edition 4), 2009. Pg. 225.
(4) Online Source: Development of Roman Citizenship:How to Gain or Lose Citizenship.
https://romancitizenshiprights.weebly.com/how-to-gain-or-lose-citizenship.html
(5) Online Source: Merriam Webster Dictionary; under Corvée Has Roman Roots
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corv%C3%A9e
(6) I.e. Lowest rank in Roman Military.
(7) Smith, R. E., The Classical Quarterly: The Law of Libel at Rome.Vol. 1, No.
3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1951), pp. 169-179. I.e. Death penalty according to The Twelve Tablets.
(8). See footnote 4.
(9) Brophy. Diodorus on Slavery. P. 225.
(10) Martyris, Nina. The Lavish Roman Banquet: A Calculated Display Of Debauchery And
Power.
Online Source: The Salt - What's On Your Plate.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/05/20/712772285/the-lavish-roman-banquet-a-calculated-di
splay-of-debauchery-and-power
(11) Brophy. Plutarch: “Lives” p. 223.
(12) I.e. A Gladiator who specializes in fighting beasts.
(13) I.e. A Gladiator styled on a fisherman with net and trident.
(14) I.e. Effeminate Gladiator, dressed in female attire.
http://www.imperium-romana.org/history-of-gladiators.html
(15) Brophy. Apuleius, The Golden Ass.
.