Runaway Slaves in Ancient Rome: Laws, Punishments | Early European History And Religion

Home | Category: People, Marriage and Society

SLAVE RESENTMENT IN SICILY

Diodorus Siculus wrote: “Because of the superabundant prosperity of those who exploited the products of this mighty island, nearly all who had risen in wealth affected first a luxurious mode of living, then arrogance and insolence. As a result of all this, since both the maltreatment of the slaves and their estrangement from their masters increased at an equal rate, there was at last, when occasion offered, a violent outburst of hatred. So without a word of summons tens of thousands of slaves joined forces to destroy their masters. Similar events took place throughout Asia at the same period, after Aristonicus laid claim to a kingdom that was not rightfully his, and the slaves, because of their owners' maltreatment of them, joined him in his mad venture and involved many cities in great misfortunes. [Source: Diodorus Siculus (wrote 60-30 B.C.), Bibliotheke Books 34/35. 2. 1-48]

“In like fashion a each of the large landowners bought up whole slave marts to work their lands; . . . to bind some in fetters, to wear out others by the severity of their tasks; and they marked all with their arrogant brands. In consequence, so great a multitude of slaves inundated all Sicily that those who heard tell of the immense number were incredulous. For in fact the Sicilians who had acquired much wealth were now rivalling the Italians in arrogance, greed, and villainy. And the Italians who owned large numbers of slaves had made crime so familiar to their herdsmen that they provided them no food, but permitted them to plunder.

“The Italians who were engaged in agriculture purchased great numbers of slaves, all of whom they marked with brands, but failed to provide them sufficient food, and by oppressive toil wore them out .. . their distress. Not only in the exercise of political power should men of prominence be considerate towards those of low estate, but so also in private life they should — if they are sensible — treat their slaves gently. For heavy-handed arrogance leads states into civil strife and factionalism between citizens, and in individual households it paves the way for plots of slaves against masters and for terrible uprisings in concert against the whole state. The more power is perverted to cruelty and lawlessness, the more the character of those subject to that power is brutalized to the point of desperation. Anyone whom fortune has set in low estate willingly yields place to his superiors in point of gentility and esteem, but if he is deprived of due consideration, he comes to regard those who harshly lord it over him with bitter enmity.”

If a Slave-Owner Is Murdered by His Slave, Should All the Household Slaves Be Killed?

The Murder of Pedanius Secundus by Tacitus (b.56/57-after 117 A.D.): relates to the murder of a slave-owner by his slave, possibly because of jealously, and a discussion by the Senate on whether all the slaves in the house should be killed. Tacitus wrote: “Shortly afterwards, the city prefect, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by one of his own slaves; either because he had been refused emancipation after Pedanius had agreed to the price, or because he had contracted a passion for a catamite, and declined to tolerate the rivalry of his owner. Be that as it may, when the whole of the domestics who had been resident under the same roof ought, in accordance with the old custom, to have been led to execution, the rapid assembly of the populace, bent on protecting so many innocent lives, brought matters to the point of sedition, and the senate house was besieged. [Source: “The Annals,” Book 14, “Tacitus” Vol. V of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus, 1937]

“Even within its walls there was a party which protested against excessive harshness, though most members held that no change was advisable. Gaius Cassius, one of the majority, when his turn to speak arrived, argued in the following strain:"I have frequently, Conscript Fathers, made one of this body, when demands were being presented for new senatorial decrees in contravention of the principles and the legislation of our fathers. And from me there came no opposition — not because I doubted that, whatever the issue, the provision made for it in the past was the better conceived and the more correct, and that, where revision took place, the alteration was for the worse; but because I had no wish to seem to be exalting my own branch of study by an overstrained affection for ancient usage. At the same time, I considered that what little influence I may possess ought not to be frittered away in perpetual expressions of dissent: I preferred it to remain intact for an hour when the state had need of advice. And that hour is come to day, when an ex-consul has been done to death in his own home by the treason of a slave — treason which none hindered or revealed, though as yet no attacks had shaken the senatorial decree which threatened the entire household with execution. By all means vote impunity! But whom shall his rank defend, when rank has not availed the prefect of Rome? Whom shall the number of his slaves protect, when four hundred could not shield Pedanius Secundus? Who shall find help in his domestics, when even fear for themselves cannot make them note our dangers? Or — as some can feign without a blush — did the killer avenge his personal wrongs because the contract touched his patrimony, or because he was losing a slave from his family establishment? Let us go the full way and pronounce the owner justly slain!

“"Is it your pleasure to muster arguments upon a point which has been considered by wiser minds than ours? But even if we had now for the first time to frame a decision, do you believe that a slave took the resolution of killing his master without p179 an ominous phrase escaping him, without one word uttered in rashness? Assume, however, that he kept his counsel, that he procured his weapon in an unsuspecting household. Could he pass the watch, carry in his light, and perpetrate his murder without the knowledge of a soul? A crime has many antecedent symptoms. So long as our slaves disclose them, we may live solitary amid their numbers, secure amid their anxieties, and finally — if die we must — certain of our vengeance amid the guilty crowd. To our ancestors the temper of their slaves was always suspect, even when they were born on the same estate or under the same roof, and drew in affection for their owners with their earliest breath. But now that our households comprise nations — with customs the reverse of our own, with foreign cults or with none, you will never coerce such a medley of humanity except by terror. — 'But some innocent lives will be lost!' — Even so; for when every tenth man of the routed army drops beneath the club, the lot falls on the brave as well. All great examples carry with them something of injustice — injustice compensated, as against individual suffering, by the advantage of the community."

“While no one member ventured to controvert the opinion of Cassius, he was answered by a din of voices, expressing pity for the numbers, the age, or the sex of the victims, and for the undoubted innocence of the majority. In spite of all, the party advocating execution prevailed; but the decision could not be complied with, as a dense crowd gathered and threatened to resort to stones and firebrands. The Caesar then reprimanded the populace by edict, and lined the whole length of road, by which the condemned were being marched to punishment, with detachments of soldiers. Cingonius Varro12 had moved that even the freedmen, who had been present under the same roof, should be deported from Italy. The measure was vetoed by the emperor, lest gratuitous cruelty should aggravate a primitive custom which mercy had failed to temper.”

Runaway Slaves in Ancient Rome

It is presumed many slaves ran away. Determining how many is pretty much impossible. But there is clear evidence it happened. Escaped slaves had to go through great lengths to hide their identity and live the life of outlaws, knowing that organized bands of slave hunters were trying to find them. A fugitive slave was a criminal, for he had stolen himself — a highly-valued thing.

The runaway was also guilty of setting a bad example to his fellow slaves; and, worst of all, runaway slaves often became bandits, and they might find a Spartacus to lead them. There were, therefore, standing rewards for the capture of fugitivi.The fugitivus was brought back in shackles, and was sure to be flogged within an inch of his life and sent to the quarries for the rest of his miserable days. Besides this, he was branded on the forehead with the letter F, for fugitivus, and sometimes had a metal collar riveted about his neck. One such collar, preserved at Rome, says in Latin, "I have run away. Catch me. If you take me back to my master Zoninus, you'll be rewarded".

Keith Bradley of the University of Notre Dame told the BBC: A runaway slave could “try to escape, either to return to an original homeland or simply to find safe refuge....The greatest modern historian of ancient slavery, Moses Finley, has remarked, 'fugitive slaves are almost an obsession in the sources'. This suggests that the incidence of running away was always high. |::| [Source: Professor Keith Bradley, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]

“To deal with the problem, the Romans hired professional slave-catchers to hunt down runaways, and posted advertisements in public places giving precise descriptions of fugitives and offering rewards for their capture....There is no way of knowing how many Roman slaves successfully escaped slavery by running away. But it was possible. And it helped that skin colour was no impediment. |::|

“The great orator Cicero can be heard grumbling in his correspondence about a slave named Dionysius, who was well-educated enough to have supervised Cicero's personal library and who must have been relatively well-treated. He ran away anyway. Cicero used all his considerable influence to find the man, but to no avail: Dionysius slipped away across the Adriatic and is last heard of well out of Cicero's reach - somewhere in the Balkans. |::|

“Running away was less dangerous than rebellion, but it was still a hazardous enterprise. Slave-catchers apart, Roman law forbade the harbouring of fugitives, so slaves on the run were always in danger and if caught could be savagely punished. To many therefore it must have made sense not to risk life and limb by running away, but to carry out acts of wilful obstruction or sabotage that harmed slave-owners' interests at minimal risk to themselves.” |::|

Runaway Slave Lawlessness in Sicily

slave collar

Diodorus Siculus wrote: “With such licence given to men who had the physical strength to accomplish their every resolve, who had scope and leisure to seize the opportunity, and who for want of food were constrained to embark on perilous enterprises, there was soon an increase in lawlessness. They began by murdering men who were travelling singly or in pairs, in the most conspicuous areas. Then they took to assaulting in a body, by night, the homesteads of the less well protected, which they destroyed, seizing the property and killing all who resisted. [Source: Diodorus Siculus (wrote 60-30 B.C.), Bibliotheke Books 34/35. 2. 1-48]

“As their boldness grew steadily greater, Sicily became impassable to travellers by night; those who normally lived in the country found it no longer safe to stay there; and there was violence, robbery, and all manner of bloodshed on every side. The herdsmen, however, because of their experience of life in the open and their military accoutrements, were naturally all brimming with high spirits and audacity; and since they carried clubs or spears or stout staves, while their bodies were protected by the skins of wolves or wild boars, they presented a terrifying appearance that was little short of actual belligerence.

“Moreover, each had at his heels a pack of valiant dogs, while the plentiful diet of milk and meat available to the men rendered them savage in temper and in physique. So every region was filled with what were practically scattered bands of soldiers, since with the permission of their masters the reckless daring of the slaves had been furnished with arms.

“The praetors attempted to hold the raging slaves in check, but not daring to punish them because of the power and influence of the masters were forced to wink at the plundering of their province. For most of the landowners were Roman knights in full standing, and since it was the knights who acted as judges when charges arising from provincial affairs were brought against the governors, the magistrates stood in awe of them.”

Diodorus Siculus wrote in “Book 34/35. 3. 8, 11: “The runaway "Syrian slaves cut off the hands of their captives, but not content with amputation at the wrist included arms and all in the mutilation.There was a certain Gorgus of Morgantina, surnamed Cambalus, a man of wealth and good standing, who, having gone out hunting, happened upon a robber-nest of fugitive slaves, and tried to escape on foot to the city. His father, Gorgus, chancing to meet him on horseback, jumped down and offered him the horse that he might mount and ride off to the city. But the son did not choose to save himself at his father's expense, nor was the father willing to make good his escape from danger by letting his son die. While they were still pleading with one another, both in tears, and were engaged in a contest of piety and affection, as paternal devotion vied with a son's love for his father, the bandits appeared on the scene and killed them both.”

Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Rome

Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “It is not the purpose of the following sections to catalogue the fiendish tortures sometimes inflicted upon slaves by their masters. They were not very common, for the reason suggested in, and were no more characteristic of the ordinary correction of slaves than lynching is characteristic of the administration of justice in our own states. Certain punishments, however, are so frequently mentioned in Latin literature that a description of them is necessary in order that the passages in which they occur may be understood by the reader. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]

flagellum

“The most common punishment for neglect of duty or petty misconduct was a beating with a stick or a flogging with a lash. The stick or rod was usually of elm wood (ulmus); the elm-rod thus used corresponded to the birch of England and the hickory of America, once freely used in flogging. For the lash or rawhide (scutica or lorum) was often used a sort of cat-o’-nine-tails, made of cords or thongs of leather.Another punishment for offenses of a trivial nature resembled the stocks of old New England days. The offender was exposed to the derision of his fellows with his limbs so confined that he could make no motion at all—he could not even brush a fly from his face. A variation of this form of punishment is seen in the furca, which was so common that furcifer became a mere term of abuse. The culprit was forced to carry upon his shoulders a heavy forked log, and had his arms stretched out before him with his hands fastened to the ends of the fork. This log he had to carry around in order that the other members of the familia might see him and take warning. Sometimes to this punishment was added a lashing as he moved painfully along. |+|

“Less painful and degrading for the moment, but even more dreaded by the slave, was a sentence to harder labor than he had been accustomed to perform. The final penalty for misconduct on the part of a city slave for whom the rod had been spoiled in vain was banishment to the farm, and to this might be added at a stroke the odious task of grinding at the mill, or the crushing toil of labor in the quarries. The last were the punishments of the better class of farm slaves, while the desperate and dangerous class of slaves who regularly worked in the quarries paid for their misdeeds by forced labor under the scourge and by having heavier shackles during the day and fewer hours of rest at night. These may be compared to the galley slaves of later times. The utterly incorrigible might be sold to be trained as gladiators.” |+|

“The minor punishments were inflicted at the order of the master or his representative by some fellow slave called for the time carnifex or lorarius, though these words by no means imply that he was regularly or even commonly designated for the disagreeable duty. Still, the administration of punishment to a fellow slave was felt to be degrading, and the word carnifex was often applied to the one who administered it and finally came to be a standing term of abuse and taunt. It is applied to each other by quarreling slaves, apparently with no notion of its literal meaning, as many vulgar epithets are applied today. The actual execution of a death sentence was carried out by one of the servi publici at a fixed place of execution outside the city walls.” |+|

Severe Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Rome

Harold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “For actual crimes, not mere faults or offenses, the punishments were far more severe. Slaves were so numerous and their various employments gave them such free access to the person of the master that his property and very life were always at their mercy. It was indeed a just and gentle master that did not sometimes dream of a slave holding a dagger at his throat. There was nothing within the confines of Italy so much dreaded as an uprising of the slaves. It was simply this haunting fear that led to the inhuman tortures inflicted upon the slave guilty of an attempt upon the life of his master or of the destruction of his property.” [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]

When offenses were more serious, bits of bone, and even metal buttons were attached to stick or floggong lash “to tear the flesh, and the instrument was called a flagrum or flagellum. It could not have been less severe than the knout of Russia, and we may well believe that slaves died beneath its blows. To render the victim incapable of resistance he was sometimes drawn up to a beam by the arms, and weights were even attached to his feet, so that he could not so much as writhe under the torture. In Roman comedies are references to these punishments, and the slaves make grim jests on the rods and the scourge, taunting each other with the beatings they have had or deserve to have. But such jests are much commoner than the actual infliction of any sort of punishment in the comedies. |+|

“For an attempt upon the life of the master the penalty was death in its most agonizing form, by crucifixion. This was also the penalty for taking part in an insurrection; we may recall the twenty thousand crucified in Sicily and the six thousand crosses that Pompeius erected along the road to Rome, each bearing the body of one of the survivors of the final battle in which Spartacus fell. The punishment was inflicted not only upon the slave guilty of taking his master’s life, but also upon the family of the slave, if he had a wife and children. If the guilty man could not be found, his punishment was made certain by the crucifixion of all the slaves of the murdered man. Tacitus tells us that in the reign of Nero four hundred slaves were executed because their master, Pedianus Secundus, had been murdered by one of their number who had not been detected. The cross stood to the slave as the horror of horrors. The very word (crux) was used among them as a curse, especially in the expression (I) A.D. (malam) crucem. |+|

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated October 2024