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Beginning
with foreign wars, e.g. 1st Punic War (various Sicilians), Romans had
very many slaves. The Institution existed already, in Justinian's
Institutes defined as: "An institution of the law of nations (ius
gentium) by which, contrary to nature, a person is subject to the
dominion of another". Capture of Romans recognized as possibility
Ways to Become a Slave:
*
By another power in war (not necessarily recovered)
*
By another country with which Rome has no official relations
But not by pirates/brigands = legally a free person
Caesar was ransomed; poorer people killed or sold
*
A Roman taken as slave
who doesn't return, regarded as dead from date of capture
who does return, usually granted postliminium
Slaves could be any kind of person: Italian, Greek, Gaul, German, etc.
and could be better educated than owners: some were professionals:
doctors, teachers, cooks, farm overseers. By the end of first century
BC, perhaps 2-3 million slaves in Italy - 35-40% of the total estimated
population of the peninsula
Professional slave-catchers existed and scams existed involving free
persons and fraudulent sales. The praetor's edict was logical if harsh:
a free person who takes a price for himself = sold.
Offspring: slave, if free woman or slave is mother, unless there is a statute
Arescusa will be free after 3 children
She has one, then triplets, the last born is free (Justinian's Digest 1.5.15)
Offspring of free father free if male, not if female
Law later changed to make all offspring slaves in any union involving a slave
Law tended to make profit maximum for owner, loss minimum
Humane treatment not really a concern, but logical - Slaves were
property; it's best for heirs not to abuse property. Slaves were
people who could act; it's best for society (& owner) to control
their actions. Limitation of liability for slave's actions usually
limited to person of slave. Punishments very harsh
VALERIUS MAXIMUS, Memorable Deeds and Sayings, VII.vi.1: `For during
the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) the Roman youth of military age
having been drained by several unfavorable battles, the Senate, on the
motion of the consul Tiberius Gracchus (consul in 215 and 213), decreed
that slaves should be bought up out of public moneys for use in
repulsing the enemy. After a plebiscite [(a vote of the Consilium
Plebis] was passed on this matter by the people through the
intervention of the Tribunes of the Plebs, a commission of three men
was chosen to purchase 24,000 slaves, and having administered an oath
to them that they would give zealous and courageous service and that
they would bear arms as long as the Carthaginians were in Italy, they
sent them to the camp. From Apulia and the Paediculi were also bought
270 slaves for replacements in the cavalry... The City, which up to
this time had disdained to have as soldiers even free men without
property added to its army as almost its chief support persons taken
from slave lodgings and slaves gathered from shepherd huts.'
Slave revolts also feared; several examples in Roman history
Sicilian revolts
135-132 BCE farm workers (Shelton No. 219; Diodorus)
104-101 BCE another revolt of farm workers
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