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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Main Argument: Slavery was a fundamental part of Roman society, and Bradley lays down its various fundamental aspects. As a slave society, Rome cannot be understood without considering slavery, and what it was like to be a slave at Rome.
Historiographical Engagement: Mostly primary sources, both from Rome and from other slave societies.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples
- Slavery was a complex institution
- Slavery was a social institution, i.e. it must be approached in terms of the social relationship between master and slave
- Evidence is varied, and regional variation possible, even likely
- The actual experience of slaves is very difficult to recover
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples
- At the height of the empire (last and first two centuries BCE and CE), "many people of lesser rank and fortune, perhaps even those of minimal wealth, could also own at least a small number of slaves" (11). Rome was thus a 'slave society,' meaning that Roman society and culture were shaped by the peculiar institution (which was much less peculiar in Rome than in the American South), although the economic aspect of slaveowning was less important. Slavery (which was a state of living death, more or less) "was at no time an incidental feature of Roman social organization and at no time an inconsequential element of Roman mentality" (29).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples
- Slave supply: enslaving prisoners of war; natural reproduction among slaves; infant exposure; beyond the empire; piracy (i.e. taking up pirate captives as slaves). Older view that Republic = wars of slavetaking and principate = slave breeding is untenable.
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves filled every conceivable occupation in Roman society (except that of soldier), with a huge range in their relative social statuses and comfort: "the diversity of slave jobs and slave statuses in Roman society served to disperse, not to unite, the slave population, which should never be conceived of as a solid, undifferentiated monolith" 72-73). This particularistic work regime probably had the benefit of encouraging slaves to identify with their individual occupations and thus incentivize production [recall the Roman stereotype of slaves as lazy and shiftless]. It also provided them with a place in a community, that of the familia.
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves were kept in what owners judged to be "adequate" physical conditions, but this degree of material security was matched by psychological insecurity, and the degree of material security was often wildly variable and never crossed over into plenty.
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples "Roman slaves reacted to slavery with a variety of strategies that can only be regarded as strategies of resistance intended, to one degree or another, to ameliorate their lives and to reduce the hardships of servitude" (125). Therefore, "resistance had a structural, and elemental, place in the history of slavery at Rome" (131), and "those who made up the Roman slave populations, in all its diversity, were concerned with improving their lives as individuals or as members of small groups through whatever means of self-help they could find" (130).
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples Bradley looks at philosophical views on slavery and socks it to Christianity, and deservedly so: "the possibility of significant amelioration that Christianity's egalitarian principles theoretically created was closed off by its failure to develop any new intellectual perspective from which slavery might be viewed in a critical light" (153). Thus, from the slave perspective, Christianity actually changed things for the worse.
Chapter 8: Argument, Sources, Examples Manumission and torture remained constant in Roman slavery, which in any case was not a developmental but a steady-state institution.
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves were subject at all times to indignity, violence, and caprice, and the fact that it was possible for freedmen to rise high in Roman society does not render the institution any less brutal.
Critical assessment: By and large this book does what it says on the tin, with the added bonus of refusing to be deceived by romanticism about the Romans and their slaveowning practices. It also does a nice job of bringing out the fact that, although slaves shared the same legal status, they were in fact of vastly differing classes--i.e. the slaves in the familia Caesaris versus agricultural laborers, for example.
Further reading: Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World; Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves
Main Argument: Slavery was a fundamental part of Roman society, and Bradley lays down its various fundamental aspects. As a slave society, Rome cannot be understood without considering slavery, and what it was like to be a slave at Rome.
Historiographical Engagement: Mostly primary sources, both from Rome and from other slave societies.
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples
- Slavery was a complex institution
- Slavery was a social institution, i.e. it must be approached in terms of the social relationship between master and slave
- Evidence is varied, and regional variation possible, even likely
- The actual experience of slaves is very difficult to recover
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples
- At the height of the empire (last and first two centuries BCE and CE), "many people of lesser rank and fortune, perhaps even those of minimal wealth, could also own at least a small number of slaves" (11). Rome was thus a 'slave society,' meaning that Roman society and culture were shaped by the peculiar institution (which was much less peculiar in Rome than in the American South), although the economic aspect of slaveowning was less important. Slavery (which was a state of living death, more or less) "was at no time an incidental feature of Roman social organization and at no time an inconsequential element of Roman mentality" (29).
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples
- Slave supply: enslaving prisoners of war; natural reproduction among slaves; infant exposure; beyond the empire; piracy (i.e. taking up pirate captives as slaves). Older view that Republic = wars of slavetaking and principate = slave breeding is untenable.
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves filled every conceivable occupation in Roman society (except that of soldier), with a huge range in their relative social statuses and comfort: "the diversity of slave jobs and slave statuses in Roman society served to disperse, not to unite, the slave population, which should never be conceived of as a solid, undifferentiated monolith" 72-73). This particularistic work regime probably had the benefit of encouraging slaves to identify with their individual occupations and thus incentivize production [recall the Roman stereotype of slaves as lazy and shiftless]. It also provided them with a place in a community, that of the familia.
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves were kept in what owners judged to be "adequate" physical conditions, but this degree of material security was matched by psychological insecurity, and the degree of material security was often wildly variable and never crossed over into plenty.
Chapter 6: Argument, Sources, Examples "Roman slaves reacted to slavery with a variety of strategies that can only be regarded as strategies of resistance intended, to one degree or another, to ameliorate their lives and to reduce the hardships of servitude" (125). Therefore, "resistance had a structural, and elemental, place in the history of slavery at Rome" (131), and "those who made up the Roman slave populations, in all its diversity, were concerned with improving their lives as individuals or as members of small groups through whatever means of self-help they could find" (130).
Chapter 7: Argument, Sources, Examples Bradley looks at philosophical views on slavery and socks it to Christianity, and deservedly so: "the possibility of significant amelioration that Christianity's egalitarian principles theoretically created was closed off by its failure to develop any new intellectual perspective from which slavery might be viewed in a critical light" (153). Thus, from the slave perspective, Christianity actually changed things for the worse.
Chapter 8: Argument, Sources, Examples Manumission and torture remained constant in Roman slavery, which in any case was not a developmental but a steady-state institution.
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Slaves were subject at all times to indignity, violence, and caprice, and the fact that it was possible for freedmen to rise high in Roman society does not render the institution any less brutal.
It is a historical, objective reality that slavery was an evil, violent and brutalizing institution that the Romans themselves, across a vast interval of time and space, consciously chose to maintain, for which they themselves were responsible, whose justification they never seriously questioned and for which no apology or exoneration can now be offered. Slavery for the Romans was not a peculiar institution but the standard by which all else in society was measured and judged: it was a way of thinking about society and social categorization. To recognize this is not to depreciate the successes of elite culture or even to assign blame; it is only to bring into proper historical and intellectual focus the incalculable degree of human misery and suffering those successes cost, and to guarantee that a sanitized and distorted version of the past does not prevail. (181)
Critical assessment: By and large this book does what it says on the tin, with the added bonus of refusing to be deceived by romanticism about the Romans and their slaveowning practices. It also does a nice job of bringing out the fact that, although slaves shared the same legal status, they were in fact of vastly differing classes--i.e. the slaves in the familia Caesaris versus agricultural laborers, for example.
Further reading: Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World; Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves