Hard bargaining at the slave market, what do you get…
by Michael Lambert
September 2022
Hard bargaining at the slave market, what do you get…
by Michael Lambert
September 2022
Down at the Forum… Every town in the Empire has a Forum. Past the temples with their rows of columns, a plaza with statues to this-or-that deity paid for by local grandees, wall-plaques recounting past local history, now take a side street. The street is lined with shops
There are the smart shops that sell fool’s gold for the real thing, the tavern with wine, taken with hot water, and around the corner is a small open square with a raised, wooden stage along one wall. Beneath the stage, from the gloom, you see the detritus of cast-off clothing; a leather belt, one sandal…and so forth…torn, shoved, pushed, discarded against an up-right post supporting the stage. Where is the original clothing wearer?
Rome started as a settlement on marshy ground surrounded by seven hills. A river meandered through the lowland past the hills. Out of this un-promising geographical setting, the Romans came to dominate the Italian Peninsula through relentless expansionism. Sicily was Rome’s first overseas colony
Yes, Roman engineers-built roads, bridges, and aqueducts to transport water for crops and people, but the economy remined agrarian. To sustain the existing social-economic structure required labour, and the best source of labour was the slave. As time went on, the demand for slaves grew. The Licinio-Sextian rogations of 367 BCE were designed to redress the growing problem of Roman aristocratic landowners versus costs for plebian small-holders. One involuntary effect of high costs was the displacement of the free labourer
Great slave-marts, such as Side and Delos, were able to handle hundreds of slaves in a single day. With the fall of Carthage and Corinth, even greater numbers of persons were available as slaves to meet the demand of wealthy Romans. If not the Roman army, then the publicani the tax-collectors, roamed lucrative areas such as Asia Minor to kidnap. Names of slaves, such as; Ephesius, Lydus, Syra, Thessala tell from whence populations were taken
The slaves are brought in and stand in a line on the raised stage. A sign is hung from each neck. The sign proclaims the qualities of the person (why you should purchase this man or woman as opposed to another). The mango, the dealer or to be vulgar, the slave-monger has written on the sign, ‘Nubian, very strong, doesn’t eat much, not a troublemaker’; ‘Gaul, baker, able to work, blind in one eye’ or ‘Greek, speaks several languages, teacher of philosophy, recites verse at banquets’
The assembled crowd doesn’t believe what is written on the signs, ‘Virgin, daughter of Dacian prince, good bed-warmer’ gets attention. The mango rips the loin cloth off a tall, blond, young male. He is a barbarian. From where…the Rhine, the Danube, the Dacia…?
None on the stage betray their emotions. Rebellion or anger will be rewarded with multiple blows to the head-and-shoulders
The mango knows his product or better phrased; he knows what his customers prefer. The slave market varies its product for special market days: muscular slaves for hard labour; another day, young boys for work at banquets, or a special day reserved for dwarves or persons possessed of physical peculiarities
The crowd is watchful. The naked barbarian is still wearing apparel, a headband. Someone shouts, ‘Take the band off!’ The crowd want to know if either fug or fur is branded on his forehead. There is a brand, not fur for thief, but fug for fugitivus. You purchase the barbarian, you affix an inscribed collar around his neck: tene me ne fugiam, fugio, Hold onto me so I won’t be able to escape, I’m running away
Slaves are found throughout the Roman Empire. Those sent to work on a large agrarian estate are referred to as familia rustica. The wealthy owner may already have a thousand or more slaves toiling under the harsh authority of a former slave. While those sent to work in an urban setting, familia urbana may actually have the slim chance of manumission
A slave working in an urban sweatshop, his lot is slightly less onerous than his country counterpart whose condition is described as ergastulum, a lifetime prison. A farm animal is an instrumentum semivocalis, while a slave is an instrumentum vocalis. The difference is speech!
There is a third group of slaves who work for the emperor, referred to as the familia Caesaris. They have a basic education and know how to read and write. They are found throughout the state’s public administration and finances
All slaves share the same fate of toil, endless toil