Ancient Roman civilization was a slave society in which a significant portion of the human population were slaves. While actual slave figures are not available, one estimate applied to the late Roman Republic, not long before the imperial age, is two million slaves, or 35 percent of the population, a percentage well above the accepted minimum portion of the population considered to constitute a slave society.
This figure is likely a conservative estimate, for by the time of the emperors Claudius and Nero the slave population was enormous, estimated as high as 60 million.
Status of Roman Slaves
Slaves provided an economic underpinning for society. They were the major labor force, costing only the minimum to house and feed them to the extent necessary for work. They were also expendable.
Slaves had no legal rights, although some fortunate few enjoyed certain privileges, depending on their assigned place in the household or estate. In all cases slaves were personal property in the same way as automobiles, farm animals and other tangible possessions are personal property today.
As such, slaves were subjects of sale, hire, loan, testamentary dispositions, and gifts. By law they were not "human." Slaves were in every sense considered and routinely treated as subhuman.
Slave owners had the absolute power of life and death over their slaves and the many degrees of disposition and degradation in between.
Slaves had little recourse under the law for maltreatment by owners. There was available only the concept of sanctuary, or asylum, by which a slave, if he could get there, could appeal to a representative of the Roman authorities for intercession with the slave's owner. He might also seek a safe harbor at one of the temple sites, which were publicly recognized as such.
However, it may be imagined that such legal mechanisms were not often utilized with success in a society whose laws in practice favored the elite over the disadvantaged.
Manumission of Roman Slaves - Methods of Obtaining Legal Freedom in Ancient Rome
Surviving legal documents indicate that manumission was fairly common in first-century Rome. Freeing a slave could occur in various ways.
A slave owner could manumit a slave in his last will and testament. During the slave owner’s lifetime the slave might be freed by a voluntary declaration of the master, by marriage, by adoption, or by purchase of the slave "for freedom" through a religious temple.
In all cases, however, the agreement of the master always had to be obtained for legal emancipation. The master had to appear with the slave before a Roman official for a legal ceremony of liberation.
For slaves aged thirty and older, the slave emancipation ceremony became relatively casual in the Roman empire, as indicated by the Roman jurist, Gaius: "Slaves over thirty can usually be set free at any time, so that they are manumitted for instance when the praetor or proconsul is en route to the baths or the theater."
As a control on the slave population, though, more formality and stringent rules applied to freeing slaves under age 30. Such petitions could be presented only on fixed days of court.
Although there were informal methods of declaring manumission, ultimately there would need to be witnesses and official recognition by the Romaan government, and the slave had to be present with the master for freedom to be legally mandated and recorded.
Status of Roman Freedmen
Freedmen-- persons once slaves who were manumitted -- often remained attached in service to their former owners. Just by virtue of being freed, former slaves were not immediately absolved of all obligations to their former owners, who now were called the freedmen's "patrons."
Typically, the freed former slave would continue to be bound to his patron by responsibilities called operae, similar to contractual obligations. This could be beneficial to both parties. The slave would not be immediately out in the cold and would have a dramatically improved social status. As well, his former owner would continue to have the benefit of the freedman’s services.
Even with such restrictions as operae that might attach to freedmen's situations, slaves clearly preferred manumission, by which they would become fully human in the eyes of both society and the law, and be eligible to achieve Roman citizenship with its attendant legal rights.
Sources:
Bradley, K.R., Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire (Brussels: Latomus, 1984).
Buss, Septimus, Roman Law and History in the New Testament (London: Rivingtons, 1901).
Linda Ashar - Linda C. Ashar is a lawyer, educator, horse breeder, freelance writer, and artist. Her 25-year law practice in Avon, Ohio, focuses on ...
