The realities of slavery
In Plutarch's day Rome had been the predominant political power in the ancient Mediterranean world for roughly 500 years, and was to remain so for three centuries more. Throughout this span of time Rome was a slave-owning society, acquiring its slaves through its wars of conquest and through trade beyond the borders of its empire.
In Rome and Italy, in the four centuries between 200 BC and 200 AD, perhaps a quarter or even a third of the population was made up of slaves. Over time millions of men, women, and children lived their lives in a state of legal and social non-existence with no rights of any kind. They were non-persons - notice that in Plutarch's story the slave does not even have a name - and they couldn't own anything, marry, or have legitimate families.
'... slavery was a brutal, violent and dehumanising institution ...'
Their role was to provide labour, or to add to their owners' social standing as visible symbols of wealth, or both. Some slaves were treated well, but there were few restraints on their owners' powers, and physical punishment and sexual abuse were common. Owners thought of their slaves as enemies. By definition slavery was a brutal, violent and dehumanising institution, where slaves were seen as akin to animals.
Few records have survived from Roman slaves to allow modern historians to deduce from them a slave's perception of his or her life of servitude. Rome produced no slaves-turned-abolitionist such as the African-Americans Frederick Douglass or Harriet Jacobs.
Instead the evidence available comes overwhelmingly from people such as Plutarch, who represented the slave-owning classes. But that evidence does show that Roman slaves managed to demonstrate their opposition to slavery in various ways.
Published: 2003-08-19
Bookmark with:
What are these?