CMS 206
Roman Civilization
Week 12 Class 1 Lecture
Reminders
- The Final study guide has been posted.
Lecture
Houses
Inhabitants
The Roman House
- When we talk about housing in Roman culture, we are necessarily
talking about a topic as complex as housing in modern, western culture. The
'Roman House' changed significantly over time, across economic classifications,
and between urban and rural areas.
- We are aided immeasurably in our study of Roman housing
by a tragedy of immense proportion. In the year 79 of the common era, Mt.
Vesusivius erupted and its ashes literarly drowned the inhabitans of the city
of Pompeii and the town of Herculaneum (near modern Naples). One bizarre effect
of the eruption was the preservation of the sites in the condition they existed
at the time of the eruption. The ashes hardened to a form of tufa stone and
the towns were abandoned until the 18th and 19th centuries when 'gentlemen'
scholars, grave robbers and art thieves began to tunnel through the tufa to
the original site. Pliny the Younger, whose uncle and adoptive father, Pliny
the Elder, died assisting in rescue efforts during the eruption, was an eyewitness
(from a safe distance) and wrote an extraordinary description of the event
in two letters (#1,
#2)
to his friend Tacitus.
- Because the volcanic ash preserved the ruins of the towns
so well, archeologists and scholars have been able to learn an extraordinary
amount of information about the nature of life
in wealthy, Roman provincial towns and cities. There is some risk in taking
Herculaneum and Pompeii as emblematic of Roman life, however. Herculanum was,
culturally speaking, a Greek town; Pompeii, a Samnite. Although Roman had
exercised political control of the region since the fourth century, B.C.E.,
both Herculaneum and Pompeii joined the Social Wars on the side of the rebels.
It was not, for example, until Rome's victory in the Social Wars that Herculaneum
adopted the typical Roman municipal style of government and Pompeii began
to adopt Latin as its daily language. Thus, more than offering us a vision
of 'typical Roman life,' these towns offer us the best vision we have of the
process of 'Romanization' on the Italian peninsula.
- With this cautionary note in mind, however, let us begin
to generalize about Roman houses. First, the general layout or floor
plan of the house: The Romans, and modern scholars,
believe that the most important influence on their residential architecture
was Etruscan. We happen to know a lot about Etruscan houses because the Etruscan's
built their tombs to mimic the design of their homes. Etruscan houses often
were laid out as a set of rooms around a courtyard. Romans adopted this layout,
but roofed the courtyard, except for an area at the center of the roof which
they left open (think of skylights) for air and sunshine. The rectangual hole
in the roof was called the compluvium ('rain hole'). Around the 2nd
century B.C.E., the Romans began building basins (called the impluvium
- 'where the rain goes'), some quite elaborate (with mosaic flooring and sculpture
in the center) directly beneath the compluvium. The room which had originally
been a courtyard was called the atrium.
- The atrium, in the homes of the elite, was one
of the most important, if not the most important room in the house. It was
usually the largest room as well. To understand the atrium, however,
you also have to understand what archeologists call the "axial"
layout of the house. The rooms in the houses were place along an imaginary
axis or line. Rooms led into each other along this line. The rooms themselves
were often flanked by other rooms that ringed the atrium and other
household centers.What is most striking about this layout, however, is that
the sight line from the street through the house was open, and thus visable
to the street. So, if you entered a Roman house, you would follow the following
progression of rooms:
- entrance at street - a gate, usually open during
daylight hours. The entrance was narrow, and the outside of the house
usually was let out as retail space (tabernae).
- the door - again, usually open during daylight hours
and attended by a ianitor. (There might also be a narrow
covered passage, called a fauces (immediately after the
door), leading into
- the vestibulum - which functioned as
our vestibules (places to be greeted and take your overcoat or cloak off)
- the vestibulum led directly into the
atrium, centered around the compluvium, which
usually contained the family Larium (shrine to the family
Lares). The back of the atrium, often up a few stairs, opened
out into 3 rooms. Those on the right and left, called the alae
(wings), served as reception rooms which opened directly into the atrium
and flanked the
- tablinum in which were kept family
records and imagines (wax busts of famous ancestors dragged
out for family funerals). The tablinum may have begun life as the
'master bedroom' of the Roman house in simpler days. By the second century
BCE it was the 'official' owner's office. Thus, any passerby had a direct
sight line from the street to and through the atrium to the owner's
office. The tablinum, moreover, typically opened on its rear wall
into the back half of the house as well. One price members of the Roman
elite paid, gladly, was constant public scrutiny.
- To the right of the right hand ala was another
passage way (again, called a fauces) which led to the back half
of the house. The centerpiece of this part of the house was the
- oeci - or (peristyle) garden. The garden
was ringed by a covered colonnade. Sometimes the center of the peristyle
might include a fishpond or swimming pool instead of a garden. The peristyle
itself was surrounded by rooms (bedrooms and dining rooms). Behind these
rooms would lie servants quarters, kitchens, etc. Depending on the size
of the lot, the floorplan could continue indefinitely, with gardens leading
to rooms leading to other gardens.
Pictures of Roman Houses, Furniture and Interior
Decoration
Houses:
- House of Sallust at Pompeii - collection
of pix
- House of Pansa at Pompeii
- House of Livia
- House of the Gilded Cupids
- Nero's Domus Aurea (in Rome)
- House of Vetii
- House of the Faun
Furniture & Interior Decoration
Upper
stories of houses
Inhabitants
-
Roman Names
- The Roman familia was part of a larger
unit of social organization that developed very early in Roman history.
This unit, which we would call a "clan" the Romans called a gens.
Every male citizen's name included his family "clan" name (nomen
or nomen gentilicium) which usually fell second in the
appellation (and always ended in "ius"): e.g.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero / Gaius Julius
Caesar / Gaius Marius
- Cicero, accordingly, was from the Tullian clan,
Caesar was from the Julian clan and Marius was from the Marian clan.
- As Rome developed, clans often came to include
large numbers of familiae. While technically related, over
time these familiae grew quite distinct in their social idenity.
It became important for familiae within a gens to be
able both to distinguish themselves and to indicate their clan identity.
Thus, Romans developed the cognomen, which is
the third word in an appellation.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, belonged to the family
of the Cicerones who were of the Tullian clan.
- Gaius Julius Caesar belonged to the Caesares
who were of the Julian clan.
- Gaius Marius and Gaius Pompeius, on the
other hand, belonged to clans that were sufficiently small and/or
undistinguished enough that they didn't need cognomines
to distinguish different families within the clan.
- A Roman might also aquire a cognomen when
other Romans wanted to honor his accomplishments. Publius Cornelius
Scipio, for example, was called Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
after he defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202. Gaius Pompeius, after enjoying
a string of military victories in the east, took to calling himself
Gaius Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great). Lucius Cornelius Sulla (note,
same gens as Scipio Africanus) called himself Felix
(Lucky) after he defeated Cinna on his return from the Mithradatic
wars. Nobody objected. After Octavian became princeps, the
Senate voted him the honorific name of Augustus (hallowed one).
Cognomines that quickly became party of a familia's name and
lost these connotations themselves betray earlier informal uses. "Cicero"
in Latin, means "chickpea" but we don't know how that branch of the
Tullian clan became known as the cicerones. Scaevola, means
"lefty." That cognomen was awarded when a member of the Mucian clan
offered to burn his right hand off and then fight Roman enemies with
his left. Hence forth, sons of that family were known as Mucius Scaevola.
The cognomen "Rufus" means "red head and "Brutus" meant "dummy."
Like "chickpea" they were cognomines that clearly had strongly
evocative associations when first used, but lost this aspect over
the centuries.
- The first name in the appellation was the praenomen.
This was the name, like our first name, that identified members within
a family. It was only used by those on close terms with each other.
A rival or even supporter or even a friend, would never call Cicero,
"Marcus." There were only 20 praenomines in use during most of the
Republic (which seems a bit limited to us). The tria nomina
(three part name) was the hallmark of Roman citizenship and was hauled
out by Romans on particularly formal occasions. The names of Roman
male citizen's also included their "tribal" name (the tribe in which
they were registered to vote), but was only used to register their
birth, in the census and in inscriptions. Romans, like us, also had
"nicknames," which they referred to as signa, and which
they did not formally record.
- When a Roman citizen was adopted, he took the
name of his adopted father. Gaius Julius Caesar, for example, adopted
his nephew, Gaius Octavius, in his will. The adoptee had the option
(often chosen) of turning his birth father's nomen into an
adjective and adding it to his name as an extra cognomen. Thus,
Octavius became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. This practice
creates a gutwrenching nightmare when studying certain families. Lucius
Aemilius Paullus, for example, permitted Publius Cornelius Scipio
to adopt his son. That son, became Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus,
and was himself honored with the additional cognomen "Numantianus,"
after defeating the city of Numantia and completing Roman control
of Spain. In theory, this well-handled Roman could have called himself
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus Numantianus. Fortunately
for us, he had no children.
- Slaves, when freed, also adopted their master's names.
As slaves they typically only had one name, a praenomen (e.g.,
Tiro). When freed, they would usually take their former master's praenomen
and nomen and turn their own praenomen into a cognomen.
Thus, Cicero's slave, secretary and editor, became Marcus Tullius
Tiro when Cicero finally freed him. Because the praenomines of slaves
did not overlap with those of citizens, it was alway easy to tell from
the servile origins of a familia.
- The naming system for women was far simpler than
that for men. While originally Roman women did have praenomines
these fell into disuse by the second century BCE. A woman's name was the
simple the female form of the family's nomen. Cicero's daughter
was Tullia. Scipio's daughter was Cornelia. If a family
had more than one daughter, they were referred to each with nouns or adjectives
reflecting the order of birth: Cornelia maior, Cornelia minor (the older
and younger); Tullia prima, Tullia secunda, Tullia tertia (the first,
second and third). In public, people would refer to a woman by her name,
and the possessive form of her father's name: Tullia Ciceronis - Tullia,
the daughter of Cicero. Married women had the option, but not obligation,
of adding the possessive form of their husband's name as a cognomen. Cicero's
wife would have been called Terentia Ciceronis.
Roman
Naming Conventions
- The head of a Roman family was the paterfamilias
(father of the family). The familia for which he was responsible
and overwhich he excercised his authority included not merely what we would
recognize as the nuclear family, but also, slaves and freedmen. Sometimes
all of these (as well as close personal friends, clients, tame philosophers)
would live within the domus (the family house). By the same token,
married adult sons and daughters and friends, freedmen and clients might
live in separate residences.
- To become a paterfamilias a Roman man had to
a) be a citizen; and b) his father had to die. Until a father, died he exercised
patriapotestas (paternal power) over his sons unless he formally
chose to free them of his authority by an arcane legal ritual that resembled
the ritual for manumission of slaves. On a father's death, his son's were
said to be sui iuris . Sons, like slaves, for example, could own
nothing in their own name (with the exception of a peculium - or
allowance) and could incur no debts or enter into any contracts without
their fathers' consent. Similarly, in theory, a father had a ius necandi
"right of life and death," not merely over his slaves, but also over his
children.
- While there are a few famous Roman stories about fathers
who excercised this right to kill their sons, in fact, almost all appear
to be more myth than history. From a practical point of view there are a
number of reasons why father's didn't kill their sons. First, at least among
the elite (for whom we have the best evidence), it seems that a significant
number (30-40%) of sons had lost their fathers by the time they were teenagers.
Second, even if your father was still alive by the time you were old enough
to rebel, the odds were he was often away on military or diplomatic service
for Rome. So dads simply weren't home often enough to give rise to wholesale
slaughter of sons. More importantly, Romans valued greatly the idea of pietas
- devoted duty, to the familia.
- Pietas meant that sons were unlikely to want
to do the kinds of things that would inspire a father to kill them and fathers
were unlikely to want to kill their sons. The familial sentiment of Roman
family culture was not unlike ours - fathers and sons were praised and admired
for their relationships of affection and devotion. Even though the law granted
the father the right of killing his children, Romans would have looked aghast
at the act (as the mytho-historical examples suggest). Cicero's relationship
with his son is probably typical of the reality. Cicero was devoted to his
son (and nephew), worried endlessly about his education and spoiled him
quite a bit. Marcus junior appears to have been not a bad sort, if a bit
of a party animal, who simply didn't have the stuff to rival his father's
accomplishments (who did?). The letters between father and son (and Tiro,
Cicero's secretary who intervened when Cicero grew exaspertaed with young
Marcus) reflect sentiments, concerns and conflicts that probably would sound
quite familiar to American families today.
-
Roman Women
- The experience or Roman women varied widely as a
function of class, status, region, and time in history of Roman empire.
In the case of Christian and Jewish women, their religious identities
probably implied a different social experience than that of other contemporary
Roman women.
- Generally speaking Roman women enjoyed a gradually
increasing sphere of legal and economic rights and social autonomy
during the course of Roman history. - Women never had direct political
rights in Rome (or most other places until the 20th century).
- Most of our literary texts are from elite sources
- so we have best evidence of the life of Roman women of the social,
political and economic elite. However, we should not assume from this
that we have a historical understanding of the lives these women lived.
Most of the Roman writers whose works have survived were deliberately
and admittedly writing from a political and or moralizing point of
view. Women, in their accounts, were more symbols in an ideological
discourse than actual historical figures. When women are used symbolically
in ideological discourse, moreover, the gender constructs of the society
in which they live are inherently, but rarely explicitly at play.
For example, one of the ways that Tacitus is able to use gender in
his critique of Augustus, is to write about Augustus' wife, Livia.
Tacitus' depiction of Livia (e.g., murdering
her stepsons and husband) is of a woman
run amok with power (Senator's literally grovelled in her presence).
Because, in an ideal patriarchal world, Roman women weren't supposed
to have that kind of power, there was, Tacitus suggested without having
to say it, something terribly wrong with Augustus. He couldn't control
his wife - in which case he was weak or feminine (not a good Roman
man). Or he wouldn't control his wife - in which case he was perverse
(not a good Roman man).
- So, one thing our male elite sources about women
tell us is what men thought the proper role of women was. This is
far different than telling us what the actual social experience of
women was. For example, Cicero one wrote "Our ancestors established
the rule that all women, because of the weakness of their intellect,
should be under the power of guardians." A lovely piece of sexist
nonsense we might say today. What is interesting about this statement
however, is the fact that we know from his letters that Cicero was
fanatically devoted to his daughter, Tullia, who, in his estimation,
was extraordinarily intelligent and quite literate (an estimation
that his contemporaries seem to have agreed with) and apparently a
family member with whom Cicero enjoyed philosophical and literary
discussions. Similarly, Cicero's wife, Terentia, who was a bit of
a shrew, held the purse strings in the marriage, managed family investments
quite well, and Cicero seems to have lived somewhere between awe and
terror of her. So when Cicero is writing in his books for all the
world to read, he sounds like a bit of a pig. But when he's living
his private life, it sounds like he was perfectly happy to acknowledge
the liteary acumen of his daughter and financial acumen of his wife
- a regular 21st century guy.
- We shouldn't be surprised at this apparent conflict
between what folks say about how they live their lives (their ideology)
and how they live their lives (praxis). We do it ourselves
- Americans pride themselves, for example on their democracy, but
voter turnout at elections is appallingly low. Americans decry the
invasions of privacy perpetrated by photographers against Princess
Diana, but eagerly buy People and National Enquirer, magazines devoted
to gossip about the private lives of celebraties.
- Because of this understandable gulf between ideology
and praxis, therefore, we know quite a lot about what male writers
of the Roman elite thought women should be. What we find when examine
these accounts is series of polarized images, or negative and positive
ideals: the chaste, devoted wife vs. the self-interested (and therefore
opposed to her husband's interest), sexually indiscriminate (and therefore
threatening of the husband's ability to know his son was his own and
perpetuate the family), powerful or power mongering virago. A paragon
of Roman womanly virtue, for example, was Lucretia. Accordingy to
Livy,
during the reign of the last Roman king, Tarquin the Proud, Roman
forces were engaged in a rather boring siege. Wives of the young princes
entertained them with banquets and drinking parties, at which a young
prince named Collatinus went on at great lengths about how perfect
his young wife, Lucretia was. To prove the point, the rather drunken
youth saddled up and rode to the home of Collatinus. There they found
Lucretia, in marked contrast to the brazen wives of the other princes
and officers, quietly spinning wool with her handmaidens. Well of
course, Sextus, the son of Tarquin the Proud immediately fell passionately
in love with her. He came back on his own a few days later. Lucretia
graciously received him as a friend of her husband deserved. But that
night he crept out of the guest room and into her chamber and raped
her (telling her that if she cried out, he would say he had discovered
her sleeping with a slave). After Sextus left, Lucretia sent for her
husband and father, and told them what happened, begging them to avenge
her honor. They promised and told her that of course this was not
her fault and she shouldn't feel guilty. But Lucretia responded `It
is for you,' she said, `to see that he gets his deserts: although
I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty;
no unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia's example.'
Then she drove a dagger in her heart and died. The defenders of Lucretia's
honor then formed a conspiracy against the Tarquins, drove them out
of Rome and established the Republic.
- Pliny the Younger similarly describes Arria,
the wife of Caecina Paetus, as a woman of extraordinary devotion to
her husband. [The virtue seems to have run in the family. Pliny
wrote a similar letter praising Arria's grandaughter, Fannia.]
Paetus had been involved in an unsuccessful rebellion against Claudius
and was summoned back to Rome from Illyria under guard. Arria, who
had accompanied him to Rome, begged the soldiers to let her accompany
her husband and attend to his needs (just as they might allow Paetus
a slave). They refused, so she hired a fishing boat and followed the
naval war ship carrying her husband back to Rome. In Rome, she scorned
the widow of her husband's co-conspirator who had offered evidence
about the conspiracy to the government in order to save her own skin,
with the words, Am I to listen to you who could go on living after
Scribonianus died in your arms?' When it became clear that Paetus
would be sentenced to death, the only honorable option left for the
man was suicide. When he hesitated in the act, Arria took the dagger
from his hands, plunged it into her breast, and said, 'Look Paetus,
it doesn't hurt." Poor Paetus had not option at this point but to
follow suit.
- What is interesting about Pliny's praise of Arria,
however, is that he claims these acts of devotion and self-denial
were not here best claim to fame. Instead, Pliny says, Arria should
be remembered for the way she tended her husband and son when they
were sick. Both were grieviously ill. Arria spent all her time going
from one sick room to another. The son died. She was grief stricken,
but knew if her husband learned of his son's death, it could kill
him. So, even as she arranged the funeral, she pretended the son still
lived while she was nursing her husband. This according to Pliny,
was Arria's greatest moment.
- In contrast to these iconic Roman matrons (matrona
was the title given to respectable Roman married women), are portraits
like that Petronius provides of the Widow
of Ephesus. Like Arria, the Widow begins
the tale determined to follow her dead husband to the grave. She sneaks
into the catacombs, planning to starve herself to death. But, instead,
on meeting a soldier charged with watching the graves, she begins
a passionate affair. When a family of recently crucified criminal
is able to take advantage of the soldier's distraction to retrieve
the body, the soldier stands in real danger for his his dereliction
of duty. The Widow saves the day by permitting him to dig up the body
of her dead husband and substitute it for the snatched body.
- Juvenal, in his Sixth
Satire, similary decries the duplicity
of women and their failure to live up to Roman ideals of matronly
behavior. For Juvenal, the golden age when women embraced their fecundity,
remained chaste and loyal to their husbands, and deferred to their
husband's authority are long gone. Therefore, the narrator of Juvenal's
poem advises his addressee - Do
Not Marry. Women of today (about 120
CE) love to have affairs, - what's worse, with actors and gladiators!
The modern woman's lust, moreover, according to Juvenal, is the least
of her sins. Girls with big dowries dominate and manipulate their
husbands (who admittedly marry them for their money) in decisions
concerning the household, tyrannize the slaves, get involved in politics,
read Latin literature and Greek philosophy, instigate feuds and disputes
that end up in court, and even perform gladiatorial exercises. They
drink and indulge in sybaritic dinner parties that degenerate into
orgies. Despite their litery pretensions, modern wives a wildly superstitious
and spend fortunes on fortune-tellers, astrologers and quacks. If
she is unfortunate enough to get pregnant, she hires an abortionist.
Conversely, if she needs a child to satisfy her husbands need for
an heir, she'll buy a foundling and pass it off as his. If she somehow
actually manages to conceive and bear a child, she'll begin plotting
against her husband to kill him off early and ensure her son's inheritance.
- One suspects that real women lived their lives
somewhere between the ideals of Arria and Lucretia and the horrors
whom Juvenal and Petronius described. But by comparing the 'depictions
of "good" and "bad" matrons, we can get a sense of what Romans valued
in their women and why:
- The Good Wife
- chaste
- loyal and subservient to husband
- produces heirs
- devotes herself and her time to the domus
- is a unavira (a 'one man woman')
who does not remarry on husband's death (cf. Cornelia, mother
of the Gracchi)
- The Laudatio
Turiae and the Laudatio
Murdiae, like Pliny's letters
on Arria and Fannia, present an idealized portrait of a 'good'
Roman matron.
- The Bad Wife
- sexually indiscriminate
- disloyal if not threatening to her husband
- dominates rather than obeys her husband
- avoids having children; but if she has
them, puts their interests above her husband's
- active outside the domus, a tyrannt
within it
- Sallust
describes Sempronia, a supporter of Catiline, as the paradigmatic
"bad" Roman matron.
- Note that all these descriptive features
of women relate to the domus and familia. Unlike
men, women cannot publicly compete for honor or repupation easily.
They do not go to war. They cannot run for office or speak before
the courts. As a consequence, a woman's honor could only be described
in terms of her husband and children. The honor of a man, in contrast,
was much more varied. Cicero was a lousy soldier, but a great
orator and politician. Marius was a lousy politician, but a great
soldier.
- While there were exceptions to the general
rule, by and large the Romans understood them as extraordinary
women caught up in extraordinary events. For instance, Livy
tells us that during the 2nd Punic War, Rome had passed a law
(Oppian law, 215 BCE) which forbade women to display
wealth or luxury in public. The women were happy to oblige, but
the law stayed on the books long after the war ended. When the
Senate finally got around to revoking the law, Cato the Elder
objected. Women poured into the streets, blocked the roads leading
to the Curia and generally put up such a fuss that Cato got nowhere.
The very fact that they did so, Cato thought, was reason enough
to keep the Oppian law on the books and restrain women.
- Similarly, Hortensia, the daughter of Hortensius,
a great Roman orator and friend and rival of Cicero, was reknowned
for making a public speech in Rome. The triumvirs Antony, Octavian
and Lepidus, in need of money, intended to tax some of the wealthiest
women in Rome. The women of Rome first sought the intercession
of the wives of the triumvirs, but getting little luck there (Antony's
wife kicked them out of her house), they gathered in the forum
and designated Hortensia to speak in their behalf. According to
Appian,
Hortensia cleverly argued that the very absence of women from
public, political life in Rome should shield them from this kind
of action.
- But if we women have not voted any of
you public enemies, if we did not demolish your houses or
destroy your army or lead another army against you; if we
have not kept you from public office or honour, why should
we share the penalties if we have no part in the wrongdoing?
Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in pubic office
or honours or commands or government in general, an evil you
have fought over with such disastrous results? Because, you
say, this is a time of war? And when have there not been wars?
and when have women paid taxes? By nature of their sex women
are absolved from paying taxes among all mankind.
- The next day the triumvirs (although incredibley
miffed at the ladies) significantly lowered the number of women
who would be subject to the tax and instead increased taxes on
wealthy men.
- Women, before they married, were subject to the
patriapotestas of their fathers (like their brothers). When
a woman married, the question of who would exercise legal authority
over her (husband or father) was resolved in one of two ways. A father
and husband might decided that the marriage would be cum manu,
in which case the husband assumed all the legal rights of the
father over his wife. A woman who married cum manu ceased
to be a legal member of her family of birth. It was as though she
were adopted into her husband's family. She no longer was an intestate
heir of her parents (they could still leave her money, but they had
to do so explicitly in their wills). Moreover, if she died, her dowry
did not return to her father, but became part of her husband's estate.
Romans believed that all their marriages originally were cum manu,
but over time they began to practice marriages sine manu.
- In a marriage sine manu, the wife
remained a member of her family of birth. If her father died without
a will, she would be recognized as an heir of his estate. If she died,
her father would receive her dowry back (each of her surviving children
would get 20% of it). Certainly by the time of Augustus, the overwhelming
practice of Roman marriage was sine manu - however, it appears
that this type of marriage was practiced by Romans for as long as
(or almost as long as) marriage cum manu. In theory, marriage
cum manu gave the husband greater authority over his wife (patriapotestas,
ius necandi) than a marriage sine manu (a husband could
only kill his wife in circumstances involving adultery). In reality,
it is unlikely a husband under either type of marriage (particularly
among the elite) would kill his wife absent the most unusual circumstances
and a thorough discussion of the matter in the family concilium.
The important difference between these kinds of marriage (again particularly
for members of the elite) was the different effects each had on patterns
of inheritance and transmission of wealth across generations.
- Roman marriage law seems amazing modern from
our perspective. All that was required for marriage was the consent
of both parties and the agreement of both parties to treat the relationship
as a marriage. The question of a woman's consent, however, should
be thought about in two ways. Legally a girl was subject to her father's
patriapotestas. Clearly, it was difficult for impossible for
her to marry without his consent. But, what was the legal content
of her consent? Could a father compel a daughter to marry against
her will? In fact, by the early empire, it was illegal for him to
do so. In addition to this legal guarantee (admittedly late in the
history of Roman marriage), was the concept of pietas. Just
as Roman society and culture rewarded and praised bonds, attitudes
and actions of devotion between father and son, so too, did Rome esteem
affection between fathers and daughters. These social forces, probably
as effectively as legal protections, prevented fathers from abusing
their authority over their daughters. A least among the elite, moreover,
the practice of marrying girls at a young age (12-16), probably minimized
potential conflicts over marriage.
- No ceremony was required for a Roman marriage.
The relationship, moreover, was not regulated by the state in any
fashion until the time of Augustus (e.g., no trip to city hall for
a certificate). In practice, Romans did have betrothal and marriage
ceremonies (but they were not required to make the relationship legally
recognized). Similarly, no lawyers or courts were required for divorce.
One party to the marriage simply had to inform the other that he/she
had withdraw his consent to the relationship. For the action to be
legally binding, he/she had to take public steps to make this withdrawal
of consent legally cognizable (e.g., move out). But typically, a "Dear
John/Jane" letter was how divorced was accomplished. If a wive's adultery
was the reason for the divorce he was entitled to keep 1/6 of her
dowry (no reciprocity if the husband was a cad). If the marriage had
children (who were legally members of the husband's family), the husband
retained 20% of the dowry for each child. Our sources, because they
represent only the members of the elite, probably over-emphasize issues
of betrothal, dowry and divorce. For ordinary Romans, who didn't have
huge dowries or political dynasties to maintain, divorce may have
been a far less frequent occurance.
- In theory, as Cicero noted, Romans kept their
women subject to some man's supervision. If a woman's father died
and she was not married, courts appointed a tutor, whose consent
was necessary for the woman to remarry or enter into financial transactions.
[The great exception to this practice were the Vestal Virgins,
who were legally exempt from tutelage]. Typically, a father or
husband in his will would name a tutor. If he hadn't, the courts typically
appointed her nearest male relative (brother, cousin, etc.). In practice,
however, tutores, increasingly through the course of Roman
history became nothing more than a mere formality (can you imagine
saying no to Cornelia, mother of the the Gracchi?) and were eventually
abolished.
- In fact, many women never got the opportunity
to deal with the problem of managing their tutores. Death in
childbirth was very common. If a woman did survive the rigours of
childbirth she would, as a rule, increasingly obtain respect and authority
within her home. Particularly among the elite, it was unlikely that
an adolescent bride's opinion would be much deferred to. Twenty years
later, however, when her husband stood a good chance of already having
died or at least having spent months at a time abroad, a Roman matron
would exercise considerable influence within the home and over her
sons.
- One of Augustus' efforts at reform involved the
passage of two
legislative programs concerning the
family (18 BCE - lex Julia de aduleteriis and 9 CE - lex
Pappia Poppaea). Augustus wanted to encourage Roman citizens both
to marry and to have more children (mothers of three or more children
were given legal privileges like excemption from tutores; fathers
were given benefits as well). Augustus' laws also explicitly made
formal social conventions that frowned on members of the senatorial
class marrying slaves and freedpersons. Finally, Augustus passed laws
on adultery. Under these laws a third party could bring a husband
or wife to court and claim that a) the wife had been cheating; and
b) the husband had knowingly winked (arguably a form of pimping).
Romans by and large hated Augustus' legislation and ignored it whenever
they could. Interestingly enough, the first defendent in an Augustan
adultery suit was Julia, Augustus' own daughter. He was compelled
to send her into exile in order to uphold his own law (the same scandal
that sent Ovid into exile).
- Augustus' legislative programs have to be viewed
as part of his overall construction of the principate. Romans
had long hated the notion of a rex but had also suffered a
century of intermittent civil war. When Octavian ceased sole power
in Rome he had a challenge on his hands. He couldn't emulate the example
of his uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar. Nor could he believe
that Sulla's example of one man rule was worth emulating. So Octavian
set about creating a monarchy that pretended not to be a monarchy.
He claimed he was simply a Roman senator of great auctoritas and
sought to invoke Roman precedent for all of his constitutional innovations.
His marriage and adultery legislation is interesting because it represents
the first time the Roman state had assumed the authority to
tell Roman families how to conduct their business. As such,
it represents a real increase in the authority of 'government' in
Rome. However, because Augustus pitched his program as reforming legislation
that sought to restore the "family values" of Rome's ancestors,
he appeared to be doing something conservative, not radical. Augustus,
moreover, used the image of his family to undergird the power of the
principate. On the one hand, he presented himself to Rome as the "father
of his country." The example of a father's authority could explain
by analogy the new power of the princeps in public affairs.
Just as a son ought to defer to his father, a citizen ought to defer
to the princeps. Augustus' own family, moreover, was Rome's
guarantee against te renewal of civil war. He would, his monuments
and statuary promised, provide an heir, and a peaceful transition
of power when he died (just as a father's death did not threaten the
continued existence of his family). To Romans, exhausted by civil
war, this was a welcome promise indeed.
-
Roman Slaves
- When studying Roman slavery we are faced first with
two challenges that preceed the historical problems the subject poses.The
first is a moral challenge. We live in a world that condemns the practice
of slavery. If we impose, a priori, the moral reasoning of our age upon
the Roman period, we will in all probability fail to understand the complexity
of the experience of both slave and owner. Conversely, if we suspend moral
judgment on the Roman practice of slavery, we risk ignoring the historical
fact of the barbarity of the practice and the brutality of the experience
for both slave and owner. I don't have an answer on how to resolve this
challenge. However, it does seem to me that if I can maintain a state
of constant unease when considering the topic, I am doing a better job
than if I simply ignore the moral issues, or refuse to consider the historical
issues because I am appalled by the evidence.
- The second challenge we face comes the fact that
Eurpeans and Americans practiced slavery until quite recently in our own
history. What we know of slavery tends to come from this history. The
Roman slave trade, however, was quite different from the European. The
Roman practice of slavery, moreover, was far more complex and varied than
the American. So while it sometimes makes sense to compare the recent
Western history of slavery to Roman (e.g., plantations and latifundia),
the comparison can be misleading.
- The identity and experience of a Roman slave varied
depending on the period of Roman history in which she lived, her place
of birth, and the tasks to which she was assigned. Moreover, her experience
of life depended largely on the personality of those that owned and/or
supervised her. Thus, like all the various actors in the Roman scene,
we are better off trying to compose a picture of slavery as a social institution,
than focusing on the experience of individual slaves about whom we happen
to have historical evidence. Consider these two examples.
- Cicero had a slave named Tiro. Tiro was Cicero's
secretary, confidant, right-hand man, editor, and after Cicero's death,
the publisher of a number of Cicero's speeches (and thus, although you
may not yet believe me, we are substantially indebted to the man). He
also wrote a biography of Cicero, a book on grammar and a book on philosophical
questions. He also invented a type of shorthand. Cicero, his brother and
his children were very close to Tiro. When Tiro was ill, Cicero worried
and fretted over him like a nervous hen. Cicero's son, Marcus, wrote to
Tiro whenever he was in hot water with the old man, suggesting a relationship
we would find more between an indulgent uncle and nephew, rather than
that between a young lord and family slave. In 53 BCE, Cicero freed Tiro.
On the occasion, his brother Quintus wrote Cicero a letter of congratulations:
"I am truly grateful for what you have done about Tiro, in judging his
former condition to be below his deserts and preferring us to have him
as a friend rather than a slave. Believe me, I jumped for joy when I read
your letter and his. Thank you, and congratulations." [Tr. K. Bradley,
Slavery and Society at Rome]. Scholars believe that Tiro may have
turned 50 on the day he was freed.
- Tiro's experience should puzzle us. If Cicero and
his family felt that way about Tiro, how could Cicero not have freed him,
and not a heck of a lot earlier than 53 BCE? How could Quintus so admire
Tiro, but find his legal status a barrier to friendship? How could Quintus'
admiration not lead to a recognition that every slave's humanity deserved
respect? On the other hand, if you grew up in a world where the social
institution of slavery was normal, even normative, how could one recognize
the human dignity of any slave?
- The second example I want you to consider comes from
the Roman Digest, the compilation of laws, legal problems and legal reasoning
created for the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, CE. The Digest
includes the analysis of Ulpian, one of the greatest legal scholars in
Roman history, who lived three centuries after Tiro. Ulpian was considering
a legal problem posed by the Roman law that required the seller of slaves
to warrantee that the slave was free from any disease or defect. Could,
Ulpian ask, a seller give such a warrantee for a slave whose tongue had
been cut out? Or was the slave inherently defective? One scholar said
no. Horses whose tongues had been cut out, after all, could not be warranteed,
he argued. If a horse couldn't, then a slave couldn't. Ulpian doesn't
explicitly contradict this scholar, but his analysis seems to suggest
that if the slave could be useful, than the warrantee could be granted.
He does say that slaves who stammer, lisp, ramble or rave can be warranteed.
Ulpian never stops to consider the implications of the analogy between
the tongueless slave and horse. What is more, his matter of fact treatment
of the question indicates that Romans were this sadisitic and brutal to
slaves often enough that the questions was one a good legal scholar should
consider, and not consider odd.
- The practice of slavery.
- From the period beginning with the end of the
2nd Punic War through the fourth century CE, slave ownership was widespread
throughout the Roman citizenry. Romans owned slaves on a variety of
scales. A 2 BCE law, for examples, regulates the number of slaves
a master could free in his will. This law divides slaveowners into
groups who owned 1-2, 3-10, 11-30, 31-100, 101-500 and 501 or more
slaves. Slave owning was a part of Roman culture from Rome's earliest
days (and the legal concepts and procedures necessary to effectuate
slavery were already well developed by the beginning of the Republic),
but was not practiced on a massive scale until the wars of imperial
expansion.
- The practice of slavery in peninsular Italy varied
dramatically from other regions in the Roman empire (Italy imported
slaves, largely via warfare). By the time of the principate, scholars
believe that 30 to 40% of the total population of Italy was enslaved.
In the century between Cicero and Tiberius, Romans needed 100,000
new slaves per year to satisfy manpower needs. Compare this to the
record of American slave holders who averaged about 30,000 new slaves
a year (with peaks of 60,000 at the height of the regime).
- The economics of Roman slavery are different
than those of other slaves societies (e.g., U.S., Brazil). While Romans
understood that they could make money using slave labor, the mere
fact of owning slaves was a mark of social distinction. Particularly
among the Roman elite, slave owning was a social prestige making venture
as much as, if not more than a financial profit making venture. We
know for example, that the Empress Livia employed slaves in more than
fifty separate functions in her household, and that these functions
seem often duplicative to us (separate slaves to keep hens and cocks,
a third slave to fatten them up). Thus, while we need to understand
the legal and financial aspects of Roman slavery, it is even more
important to understand slavery as a social institution predicated
on the exercise of authority of an empowered person over a disempowered
person.
- Romans brought their slave society mentality
to every part of the empire they created. They frequently encountered
slavery already in practice in the regions of the Mediterranean they
conquered (e.g. Greece). When they discovered societies that did not
practice slavery, it was a phenomonen they commented upon. When the
Essenes, a Jewish sect at the end of the Republic, renounced the practice
of slavery, the Romans thought they were bizarre. Romans, in fact,
assumed slavery was a universal social practice (and it was certainly
widespread in the ancient Mediterranean).Slavery, accordingly, became
a social institution embedded in every part of the world that the
Romans came to dominate.
- The legal status of slaves:
- Slaves were property. Owners exercised dominium
over slaves. Dominium was the absolute right to dispose
of and control the use of a piece of property. Interestingly
enough, the authority of a pater over persons in his
family was most frequently described as potestas (not dominium).
Legally, slavery was conceived of as a kind of death. Romans deemed
citizens who did not return from battle as 'dead' because a captured
citizen who survived battle would most certainly become an enemy slave.
Thus, his will was read and his marriage formally ended, because the
citizen was 'socially' dead to the Roman world.
- Similarly, the Romans legally conceived of the
slaves they owned as cut off from all the rights and rituals of human
society. Slaves could have no family. In practice, slaves formed relationships
and had children. But they had no legal authority to protect these
relationships. If you were a slave who had borne or fathered a child,
the child was not yours. Similarly, while owners frequently
gave slaves a peculium (an allowance), the slave had no right
to it and had to surrender it on demand. The peculium was simply
a device which permitted an owner to use his property more efficiently.
Note that the legal theory here sounds very rigid (like the pater's
ius necandi) and that social practice was much more flexible.
- A slave by definition had no honor or dignity.
The essence of being a slave was the inability to protect one's body.
While every citizen had the right to trial and appeal before they
suffered physical punishment, a slave was defined by the absence of
such a right and expectation. An owner could beat and abuse slaves
(and it could not legally be considered assault) and compel sex from
slaves of either sex (and it could not be considered rape). [Romans
did not deal well with the notion that female citizens slept with
male slaves, however.] If someone had sex with a slave without
the owner's permission, however, the owner could sue that person for
trespass.
- The inviolability of the citizen's body was a
very important concept in the complex of ideas that constituted Roman
identity. One of Cicero's most telling charges against Verres, the
corrupt govern of Sicily, is that he beat citizens (something only
a tyrant would do). One of the most surprising aspects of St. Paul's
identity was his Roman citizenship. He was able to protect himself
from abusive treatment by local authorities with the simple assertion
"civis Romanus sum."
- The mere experience of a state in which an individual
could not protect his own body from abuse was inherently and permanently
degrading. Thus, even if your owner treated you quite well, Romans
believed that you were degraded simply by being subject to another
man's ability to treat you poorly if he chose.
- A child born of a slave woman was a slave (the
legal status of his father being irrelevant) and the property of the
slave woman's owner.
- The supply of slaves:
- There is an unbreakable link between Rome's experience
as militaristic, expansionist empire and its experience as a slave
society. From the time of the Punic Wars until decision in the early
principate to limit the geographical boundaries of Rome's domain,
Romans obtained slaves in massive numbers by conquering other political
entitites. After a successful battle a Roman commander might ransom
captive soldiers back to family and friends. More typically, captives
were sold wholesale to dealers who followed the army. The dealers
paid the generals and arranged shipment of the slaves back to Italy
(or numerous other ports with active slave sale and distribution centers),
saving commanders a lot of logistical problems. Alternatively, a commander
might distribute a captive population among his men, one to two slaves
a soldier, as a form of a bonus.
- Once Rome decided to stop conquering the world,
they needed an alternative source of slaves. The answer was homegrown
slaves. These were called "vernae." Among slaves, it appears
that being a verna had some status [cf. distinctions between
field and house slaves in the American south], and Roman slave
owners tended to believe that vernae, who had known no other
estate but slavery, were more easily managed. Some Romans (e.g. Cato
and Crassus) turned the art of raising, training and selling vernae
into a business enterprise. Owners would talent spot the young children
of slave women, select some to be educated and/or trained for specific
crafts (e.g., literary secretary or linen weaver), and then sell them
at a considerable profit.
- Another source of slaves was foundlings. Abandonment
was a common method of birth control. It was not unheard of for childless
couples to take a foundling, raise it and adopt it as their own child.
However, it was equally, if not more common, for Romans to take foundlings
and maintain them as slaves [which they had every legal right
to do].
- The Romans also traded for slaves. We know, for
example, that a great portion of the Roman wine sold in Gaul was paid
for in human currency (as many as 15,000 a year). One aspect of Gallic
and German slavery that the Romans found interesting was the willingness
[at least from the Roman point of view] of individuals to
sell themselves into slavery to pay off their own debts. European
tribes also sold their war captives to Roman slave traders and merchants.
Finally, the practice of piracy provided a steady supply of slaves.
Pirates would routinely kidnap individuals from seized ships and sell
them into slavery. Similarly, they could attack coastal towns and
villages and sell the population wholesale into slavery. Finally,
they often worked with gangs based on the mainland. The gangs would
attack and seize the towns, turn them over to the pirates who would
arrange the sale of captives in ports with slave merchants, and split
the profits with the gangs.
- Slave merchants sold their products in forum
markets subject to the regulation of aediles. They had to warrantee
the health of the slave and inform prospective purchasers of any problems
in the history of the slave (tendencies to fight or run away, for
example). The relevant information was written on a label hung from
the slave's neck. New slaves (who were considered easier to train
than previously owned slaves) had their feet dusted with chalk. Prospective
buyers inspected their purchases, who stood chained on a raised platform,
as they would livestock.
- The lives and jobs of slaves:
- enslavement meant a sudden and complete rupture
of all familial bonds
- transportation to a completely alien existence
- language
- custom
- often urban environment after tribal existence
- The working life of slaves depended greatly on
the economic status of the owner. A citizen who could only afford
one or two slaves, probably used them for all sorts of purposes. Conversely,
a very wealthy Roman, could afford slaves trained for specific tasks
(a paedagogus, musician or weaver, for example).
- The experience of slavery also depended heavily
on the general type of labor to which a slave was assigned. Slaves
assigned to mines and galleys lived under a certain sentence of death.
Slaves sold to gladiatorial schools might live longer (and some could
even fight their way to freedom). Farm slaves (familia rustica)
were subject to the authority of bailiffs (vilici, usually
themselves slaves) who managed the agricultural estates of wealthy
Romans. Farm work could be physically demanding and the personality
of the overseer often determined the field hand's experience of his
life and work. Farm slaves not merely performed the range of field
work that agriculture implies, but some would also specialize in engineering
and mechanical side of the job as well. A slave who made ploughs,
for example, would rarely use them himself. The familia rustica
might also include children of slaves born in the families city home,
who had been sent to the country to be reared. Whether they would
remain on the farm or be recalled to the city would be determined
at a later stage in their lives. Slave children worked as much as
their elders, pruning vines, harvesting fodder, etc.
- Household slaves of elite families in Rome (familia
urbana) probably enjoyed the greatest standard of living and the
most complex social experience. However, slaves routinely enjoyed
food, clothing and living space of significantly lower quality than
free members of the familia. The distinction was even greater
for slave members of the familia rustica. As we saw with Livia,
members of the Roman elite could subdivide work within the household
to an astonishingly minute scale. One consul kept a slave whose only
job was to brush the consul's teeth. Large slaveholding urban homes
tended to have a hierarchical organization of slave labor and manage
the labor almost the way one thinks about managing a business today.
Because of the complex organization of the household, it was possible
for slaves to progress from one job to another requiring greater training,
skill, etc. Conversely, slaves could be punished by a sudden demotion
or banishment to the farm.
- Slaves might also be trained in the arts and
crafts and work in industry. Relatively few Roman industries were
large scale (armories, tile making, pottery), but it was not uncommon
for Romans to own workshops manned by slaves who could copy manuscripts
or craft jewelry, woven and died cloth, and other specialty items.
Slaves with such unique and profitable skills probably enjoyed a greater
standard of living and easier relations with their owners than those
who could merely offer physical labor to a bailiff on a farm 100 miles
from the owner's notice.
- The resistance of slaves:
- Roman citizens lived in persistent fear of slave
rebellion articulated with an urgency far greater than the evidence
of actual resistence seems to support. This appears to be a characteristic
of slave societies (true in Brazil, the American South, etc.).
- mass and individual suicide were not isolated
responses to enslavement.
- There are recorded instances of slaves killing
masters. While Romans sometimes explained these cases in terms of
the cruelty of the owner's treatment, they never developed the notion
that owners had any legal obligation to treat slaves humanely. No
cruelty inflicted by an owner was a crime. Any injury inflicted by
a slave upon his owner was a henious crime (no matter what the reason)
that had to be responded to with swift, certain and brutal punishment.The
traditional Roman practice had been to slaughter all slave members
of a familia when one had assaulted an owner.
- The few examples we have of large scale slave
uprisings (e.g. Spartacus) suggest that given the opportunity, vast
numbers of slaves were happy to embrace rebellion. Tens of thousands
of slaves joined Spartacus in a rebellion that lasted two years. Crassus
eventually crushed the rebellion and crucified the survivors, and
Romans never suffered a rebellion on that scale again. However, slaves
continued to resist enslavement by other means.
- In all slave societies we know of, slaves individually
and in small groups routinely resisted their owners by dramatic (suicide,
an act slave owners found particularly wicked, murder, running away)
and subtle means (work slowdowns, petty sabotage). Owners were well
aware of this resistance and much as southern American slave owners
complained of the laziness and rascality, inherent in the 'nature'
of the slave, so too did the Roman slave owner. Running away was far
easier for Roman than American slaves because Roman slavery was not
linked to racial identity. Thus a slave who ran away had a shot at
"passing" in free society. Runaways who were recaptured were usually
branded to prevent a reoccurance. [***]
Slavery
in the Roman World / Roman
Slavery / Roman
Slave Trade /Roman
Slavery & Slave Revolts / Slavery
& Christianity /
Legal
status in the Roman world / translated
primary sources on Roman slavery
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