Slaves within the Roman household were in a unique situation compared with other slaves in the Roman Empire. The basic foundation of the system was the same in that slaves had to perform their duties and the master always had complete authority over them. However, the household slaves maintained a close proximity to their masters, unlike the agricultural, mining or public slaves, who often never had contact with the master. The result of this personal contact was that the masters and slaves in the household shared a more reciprocal relationship, and close friendships often developed between the masters and the slaves.
Slavery was a universal institution in the Roman Empire by the first century CE, and there were about two million slaves within the Empire by the beginning of the first century.1 During the imperial period the slave supply was maintained primarily by domestic slave breeding, although the buying and selling of slaves in the market still existed. This meant that, on the whole, the slave population was a native population—the slaves shared the same language and culture as the masters. A master could own any number of slaves, from merely one up to several thousands, though only the extremely wealthy owned more than a few hundred.
There were no sources available that were written by slaves; all of the primary source material was composed by freemen, usually slave owners. Nevertheless, most of these writers were not attempting to justify the slave system, because by the first century slavery was a commonly acknowledged institution. Even those who wrote on the moral issues of slavery, such as Cicero and Seneca, did not claim that the institution should be abolished. Instead, they merely commented on the proper way to treat slaves. This would suggest that these writers were not trying to present a false, or biased, view of slavery—they were merely describing events as they saw them. Therefore, the documentation on slavery left by the ancient authors is probably fairly accurate and can be used to gain a sense of what it was like to be a slave in the Roman Empire during the first century. From this evidence, it is apparent that the circumstances of slaves who belonged to the city household were quite different from the circumstances surrounding the other categories of slaves, such as the rural, public, mining and gladiator slaves, and thus the experiences of household slaves were not representative of the Roman slave system as a whole.
Three groups utilized the Roman house—family, guests and the slaves. Amongst these three groups were two axes of differentiation, that of grand/humble and that of public/private.2 Whereas the family and the guests maintained the grand status, slaves were considered humble, meaning they were of low social rank. Slaves were inferior in status and were considered the property of their master. According to Caius, “slaves were in the power of their masters; in all nations the masters had the power of life and death over the slaves.”3 However, in the household it was in the master’s best interest to treat his slaves humanely. If a slave was mistreated, he could run away, threaten to kill the master, steal from the master or intentionally work poorly. The master could respond by punishing or killing the slave, or by selling the slave. However, beating the slave could hinder his ability to perform his duties, resulting in a bad investment for the master. Killing or selling the slave required even more effort from the master, who would then have to go through the trouble of replacing the slave he lost. In addition, the household slaves were representatives of the master, performing various tasks and errands in the master’s name, both within the house and within the city. The slaves were in regular contact with any guests visiting the house, and the slaves’ appearances could be viewed as a direct reflection on the master.
Though the slaves were humble in status, their position was somewhat different on the public/private axis. Whereas any guests in the house were seen as public, and therefore outsiders, the slaves shared with the family the distinction of the private classification; they were insiders. In order to perform their duties, the slaves had to be omnipresent in the house. Slaves presented living barriers to accessing the master, by performing duties from answering the door to guarding the more intimate areas of the house. In Petronius’ Satyricon, Trimalchio’s visitors had to gain the approval of one of his slaves before they were allowed to enter the dining room.4
Although slaves had access to the entire household and were seen regularly by the guests, certain areas of the house were hidden from general view. In the richest houses, servile areas were reserved strictly for low status activities, such as cooking and washing. These areas were usually only accessible down long, narrow corridors.5 Access to the slaves’ personal quarters was also hidden from visitors. In more modest houses, it was less clear where the slaves resided. Possibly, they inhabited the upper floor of the house, which would have achieved the level of invisibility that the master desired. However, just because the slaves’ quarters were off-limits to guests did not necessarily mean that the quarters were shabby or unsanitary. Pliny describes his slaves’ quarters in the following manner:
the rest of this wing is reserved for the use of my slaves and freedmen, but most of the rooms are elegant enough to house guests…at the end of the terrace is a suite of rooms. When I am there I feel that I have got away from the rest of the house…for in this way I don’t disturb my slaves’ enjoyment and they don’t interrupt my work.6This comment proves enlightening on several counts. First, not only did Pliny provide exceptional rooms for his slaves, but he also showed consideration for his slaves when he was concerned that he not disturb them from their amusements. Second, the comment reveals that there was a profound lack of privacy within the Roman house. Pliny had to retreat to a secluded suite of rooms in order to have any privacy from the rest of the household. The slaves were omnipresent, sometimes to the extent that they slept outside the door to the master’s chamber in case they were needed during the night.7 This lack of privacy and close proximity of the slaves necessarily led to a degree of physical intimacy between them and their masters. This physical intimacy may have also contributed to an emotional intimacy between the masters and the slaves, which would affect the way the slaves were treated.
Slaves in the household performed a wide variety of tasks and fulfilled many roles. Slaves held positions such as pedagogue, water carrier, treasurer, goldsmith, chamberlain, reader, secretary, wetnurse, caterer, midwife, doorkeeper, baker, masseuse, doctor, cupbearer, musician and gardener.8 Slaves were expected to perform their duties efficiently and without complaint. If for some reason the slave did not meet expectations, then the master had to determine the cause of the poor performance. Seneca advises:
if a prisoner of war suddenly thrown into slavery keeps some traces of freedom and does not jump at the idea of performing degrading and laborious tasks; if he is slow because he is unfit and does not keep up with his master’s carriage; if in the midst of his daily duty he falls asleep; if after being transferred from the city with its holidays to the farm with its hard work, he either refuses to work on the farm or does not tackle it energetically; in all these cases we should find out whether the slave cannot do the work or simply will not do it.9It was generally acknowledged that the work and expectations of a town slave was easier than that of most slaves. Though Seneca’s comment implies that city household slaves were sometimes transferred to work on the farms, in reality it was probably a rare occurrence. The domestic slaves were considered not suited for farm labor because they became too accustomed to the pleasures of city life.10
In return for the slave’s labor, masters were only obligated to provide their slaves with the basic necessities of life—food, clothing and shelter. However, most masters recognized the correlation between good treatment and good performance in the household. Slaves on the farms or in the mines were rarely, if ever, in contact with the master or the master’s acquaintances, so they could be beaten and disfigured without arousing any unwanted attention. However, the household slaves were regularly in contact with guests and business acquaintances, so masters were more likely to use positive reinforcement with them so as not to gain a poor reputation, and to avoid slaves making a scene in front of guests.
Various incentives were employed to ensure proper behavior amongst the household slaves. The slaves could be promoted within the household, they generally worked fewer hours and were usually allowed personal indulgences, such as the ability to marry, have personal possessions, earn wages (the peculium), and acquire some education.
Technically, slaves were not permitted to marry. Any evidence of slave marriage was therefore an indication of a concession by the master. Their were in fact many references to slave marriage in the sources,11 which indicated that the masters thought it would be to their own benefit to allow their slaves to marry. Slaves who were permitted to have families felt more a part of a community and were therefore more likely to be satisfied in their position. Also, the slave had stronger motivation to behave properly, because if the master became angry and sold him, he would then be separated from his family.
Most of the household slaves were also given a salary, the peculium, with which they could purchase what they pleased. In the Gospel of Matthew, a parable describes a servant who both owed his master money, and was himself owed money by another slave.12 Even though this is a parable, in order for it to have been effective it had to have been based on commonplace occurrences. The peculium was an important indulgence, because it made the possibility of manumission seem more probable, because the slaves were sometimes allowed to purchase their own freedom.13 Therefore, the slave would be more likely to behave and continue to earn his peculium in the hopes of saving enough to purchase his freedom.
Though some slaves saved their peculium, hoping to purchase their freedom, others spent it on various possessions. This allowed for another show of good will from the masters—that of allowing the slaves to make their own wills. Although slave wills were not upheld by the law, Pliny explains why masters would honor the wills anyway.14 Being able to dispose of their possessions as they chose gave the slaves a sense of legacy and personal control, and it encouraged a feeling of community amongst the slaves.
Another benefit that the household slaves received was education. Primarily, it was a necessity that slaves who held certain positions within the household be educated. Obviously, pedagogues had to be well educated because they were responsible for teaching the masters’ children. Similarly, treasurers, secretaries and readers, at minimum, needed to have knowledge of reading, writing and numbers. Other slaves, though they may not have had any formal education, did learn skilled trades, which could have been valuable in finding work if and when they were manumitted. Examples of skilled tradesmen from Livia’s household included midwives, goldsmiths, caterers, musicians and gardeners.
Household slaves with adequate education
and/or training, who behaved properly, had the possibility of being promoted
to a more prestigious position during the course of their service to the
master. Apuleius describes a servant whose master had entrusted him as
the overseer of two entire households.15
Promotion was particularly common within the Imperial household. Bradley
describes a slave who started out as an administrator in Emperor Tiberius’
household, who eventually set him free.16
The same man later accompanied Caligula on his travels north in 39 CE,
and became a secretary in charge of the emperor’s accounts under Vespasian’s
rule.
Most of the examples of slave privileges
described above were allowed because they were in some way advantageous
to the master as well. However, there were also some prominent men of the
first century who spoke of the moral obligation to treat slaves with kindness.
Cicero states that “we must behave justly even towards the lowest kinds
of people.”17 Similarly,
Seneca encourages the humane treatment of slaves by advising masters to
control their anger. He writes:
it is strange that we should think it a good thing to send a poor unfortunate slave to prison. Why are we so anxious to beat him at once and break his legs? We should wait until our anger has cooled off before fixing a punishment. For we punish by sword and execution, chains, imprisonment and starvation a crime that deserves only a light beating.18It is important to note that neither Seneca nor Cicero were objecting to the institution of slavery. Neither did they dispute the punishment of slaves; they only insisted that the punishment be a just one, appropriate to the circumstances.
Even though the masters allowed their household slaves special privileges, this never meant that the masters relinquished their control over the slaves. For example, Petronius describes a household where the slaves were forbidden to leave the premises without permission from the master, under penalty of one hundred lashes.19 This was not considered unusual by masters or slaves, because it was considered completely natural for the master to have that kind of authority, and the punishment was not considered cruel. However, there were instances where the master attempted to abuse his control over the slaves. However, this behavior usually resulted in more harm to the master than to the slave. Seneca describes an excellent instance of a master who humiliated himself when he tried to abuse his control over a slave. He relates an incident that occurred while Augustus was dining with Vedius Pollio:
one of his slaves had broken a crystal cup. Vedius ordered him to be seized and to be put to death in an unusual way. He ordered him to be thrown to the huge lampreys which he had in his fish pond. Who would not think he did this for display? Yet it was out of cruelty. The boy slipped from the captor’s hands and fled to Caesar’s feet asking nothing else other than a different way to die—he did not want to be eaten. Caesar was moved by the novelty of the cruelty and ordered him to be released, all the crystal cups to be broken before his eyes, and the fish pond to be filled in.20This event is significant because it illustrates that, at least within the household, abuse of control by the master was discouraged. In this instance, the slave boy was forgiven and the master was humiliated by Augustus. In addition, the cruelty of the lamprey pond earned Vedius a poor reputation among the citizens. Seneca says, “could anyone have been more hated, even by his slaves, than Vedius Pollio?”21
It is clear that within the household it was to the mutual benefit of the masters and slaves that the slaves be treated justly. If a master was especially cruel, there was the threat of the slaves conspiring to kill him, which was exactly what happened to ex-praetor Larcius Macedo.22 However, the slaves also had proper motivation to avoid harming their master, because the penalty for murdering a master was that all the slaves in the entire household were put to death.23 Excessive abuses of control and cruelties had the potential to harm both the masters and the slaves, so it was best to try to avoid the situation entirely. Positive reinforcement was less risky and still benefited both parties—the work got done and the slaves were content.
The constant, intimate contact between masters and slaves, combined with the more lenient treatment of the slaves, resulted in a complex variety of relationships between the masters and slaves within the household. The relationships ranged from friendship and familial connections to sexual relationships.
Cicero is an example of a master who developed friendships with his slaves. He expressed extreme distress concerning the death of Sositheus, his reader,24 and he shared a deep friendship with Tiro, a former slave. He says that he “jumped for joy”25 when Tiro was manumitted, and thereafter maintained regular contact with him. Their friendship was so strong that Cicero said that he could not bear the loss of Tiro’s company,26 and spoke at length of their mutual affection for each other.27 Suetonius also describes a friendship that existed between a slave, Gaius Melissus, and his master, Maecenas.28
Masters also sometimes developed familial bonds with their slaves, especially with their nurses. A nurse’s duties involved intimate contact with the child, and once the child had matured, the nurse often remained with him as a personal servant.29 This bond often resulted in masters presenting gifts to their nurses in the form of tangible items such as money, and also in the form of manumission. Pliny spoke of a farm worth 100,000 sesterces, of which he made a gift to his old nurse,30 and epitaphs indicated the frequent manumission of nurses.31 These familial bonds were not limited to masters and nurses, however. Seneca, when writing on the importance of forgiveness and controlling anger, suggests that a person belonging to the household should be forgiven based on the ties of family.32
Sexual encounters were another aspect of relationships that had the potential to create strong bonds between the masters and slaves. Petronius’ Trimalchio was a former slave who acquired enormous wealth for himself, demonstrating the social mobility available to a well-motivated slave. Trimalchio brags that he got his start in the following way: “I was my master’s mistress for 14 years, for there’s nothing wrong in doing what your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time.”33 This account suggests that sexual relationships between masters and slaves were not only common, but could often continue for years.
Sexual relationships between masters and slaves could sometimes have a damaging effect on the household. In certain circumstances the effect was mild, such as when Juvenal advised an unhappy husband to take a slave boy to bed in order to escape from his nagging wife.34 Under other circumstances, when the bond was particularly strong, the effect could be disastrous. Pedanius Secundus was murdered by one of his slaves, probably because the slave was jealous of Pedanius’ sexual relationship with another slave.35
The kind treatment and various types of close bonds between masters and slaves caused the slaves to feel a strong sense of loyalty toward their masters. A slave’s evidence was acceptable in court only if it had been obtained under torture,36 and Cicero details a case where the slaves “were vigorously questioned under every form of torture” to get them to testify against their master, yet the slaves endured the torture, remaining loyal to their master.37 Another example of slave loyalty is described by Tacitus, who recounts a case where a slave who had been freed in his master’s will was so distraught over his master’s death that he threw himself on the funeral pyre instead of accepting his freedom.38 Suetonius’ account of Gaius Melissus relates that his master offered him his freedom, yet he was happy in his circumstances and therefore chose to remain a slave.39
One of the strongest motivations for a slave to obey his master was the possibility of manumission. Manumission was not a vain hope, but a real possibility, as most domestic slaves in the Empire were manumitted around the age of thirty. It is possible that the slaves would have been manumitted at an even earlier age, but the law stated that a manumitted slave could not become a full Roman citizen unless he was at least thirty years old.40
Two methods of manumission were employed during the Roman Empire—manumission by the rod and manumission by the will. Manumission by the rod involved a legal ceremony that took place in the presence of a praetor, where the slave was touched with a rod and declared free. Manumission by the will simply meant that the master, in his will, declared that the slave was to be free.
Manumission by the will was a common occurrence. Sometimes the master would pay the five percent tax that was charged for all manumissions,41 and sometimes the master even named his slaves as heirs, as was the case with Gaius Longinus Castor.42 Manumission by the will was so common, in fact, that a law, the lex Fufia Caninia, was passed in 2 B.C. limiting the number of slaves that could be freed in a will. A master who owned 1-10 slaves could manumit as many as half his slaves; if he owned 11-30 slaves, he could manumit one third the number; if he owned 31-100 slaves, he could manumit one fourth; if he owned 101-500 slaves, then he could manumit one fifth. One hundred slaves was the maximum number of slaves that could be manumitted in a will.43 Slaves who were not manumitted in their masters’ wills could become the property of a new master, as was the case with Trimalchio’s cook, who was left to him in a will.44
However, not all slaves had to wait for their master to die to be manumitted. It was to the master’s benefit to manumit some of his slaves while he was still alive, because a slave who was freed while his master lived became his former master’s client.45 The more clients a master had, the greater was his prestige. As common as manumission was, it probably would have been even more prevalent had the laws not been so strict on the issue. The laws were strict at least in part because Augustus was concerned that the large number of manumitted slaves would contaminate the true Roman bloodline, and he therefore tried to make it hard for slaves to gain their freedom, and even harder for them to gain full Roman citizenship.46 Still, despite all of Augustus’ efforts, the evidence indicates that manumission continued to be a frequent practice.
In conclusion, the evidence presented is not meant to portray household slavery as a comfortable or desirable occupation. However, it was unique when compared to the other forms of slavery in the Roman Empire. As long as both the master and slave worked within the framework of slavery, in that the slave did his duties and acknowledged the master’s authority, the household slaves had a unique opportunity to form lasting and complex relationships with the masters. In addition, in many cases the household slaves were able to live lives that paralleled that of their masters. They were able to have money and own possessions, conduct business, have families and learn valuable skills that they could use to find a job if and when they were manumitted.