Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Ancient Roman Slavery: The Cruel Reality Behind The Empire | Dr. Emma Southon

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Ancient Roman Slavery: The Cruel Reality Behind The Empire | Dr. Emma Southon · The Smart Cookies podcast

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  and then people will start to make bids and ask
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  questions and inspect them in the way that they
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  would inspect like a prize cow basically like
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  they will strip them naked they will ask some
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  questions they will ask the auctioneer questions
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  about them like are they obedient what skills
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  do they have do they have what have they done
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  in the past um if They will kind of poke and
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  prod them and look at their teeth. And then there
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  will be a bidding for them. And then there are
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  the private markets can get. we have like one
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  reference to private markets for um beautiful
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  boys um and how kind of gropey they could be
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  um this is gonna get rough yeah exactly i'm trying
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  to make this as unhorrible as possible dr emma
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  southern is a roman historian author known for
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  her ferociously witty and extremely readable
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  books such as agrippina empress exile hustler
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  whore a fatal thing happened on the way to the
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  forum and her very latest servus how slavery
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  made the roman empire a cheerful topic we're
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  going to be discussing today emma welcome to
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  the pod thank you so much for having me uh yeah
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  i've gone um i like to go happy one sad one happy
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  one sad one so this is um before we descend into
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  the grim world of roman slavery i just want to
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  clarify something real quick i was checking out
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  your website before the interview and the last
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  sentence in your about section really caught
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  my eye. It goes like this. Mostly, I just truly
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  love and hate the Romans and want to write about
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  them forever. As love can be a bit boring. Tell
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  me about the hate. I love to hate them, I think.
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  I think that... so horrible um like even their
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  good things are always tinged with horror um
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  in a way that is what really attracts me to them
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  and like the gap between their self understanding
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  as like the most civilized people who have ever
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  existed and the most beloved by the gods who
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  have ever existed and like the stuff that they're
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  actually doing on a day -to -day basis like gladiatorial
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  games and like having monkeys as pets and um
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  like child sex slaves and like the relentless
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  like their approach to government is an approach
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  that is like how much can we get out of this
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  place as quickly as is humanly possible um and
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  like just everything they do is tinged with so
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  much blood and kind of suffering and they're
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  like yeah and we're brilliant at it um that i
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  just i think that they're the people that i would
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  probably least like to have a dinner party with
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  like i wouldn't want to meet really, except maybe
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  Pliny the Elder, I wouldn't want to hang out
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  with any of them because their perspective on
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  the world is so horrifying. But I find the horror
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  and the kind of nastiness of them to be so fascinating
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  that I just can't stop looking at it. I think
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  it's the same way that I really like horror movies.
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  This episode is probably not going to help in
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  the PR department. No. By the way, hating is
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  completely encouraged on this podcast. So if
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  you want to take like 20 minutes to roast Cicero
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  or something, please go ahead. I love roasting
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  Cicero. It's so fun to roast Cicero. I read so
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  many of Cicero's letters. I just recently read
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  a biography of Cicero. And he's just... So funny
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  in his letters. I recently learned that he wrote
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  to every single member of the Senate, so 600
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  people except two, in order to specifically ask
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  them to vote for him to have a triumph after
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  a minor victory against the Persians. And so
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  he hand wrote 600 begging letters. It's so pathetic.
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  And that was just, everybody was cool with that?
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  Nobody's like, why are you sending me this stupid
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  letter? I think everyone thought it was quite
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  cringe. And he never got his triumph. Okay, makes
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  sense. So cringe did exist in ancient Rome. Yeah,
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  no, you could definitely be cringe in ancient
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  Rome. And Cicero was it very frequently. Damn,
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  I gotta read that biography. Yeah, it's very
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  good. All right. So I have a lot of historians
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  on the podcast. Whatever the period or the place,
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  whether it's like Ming Dynasty China or medieval
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  Poland, I always ask my guests, what was life
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  for an average person living through those times
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  like? I think my lovely listeners... must be
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  sick of me by now like can this doofus change
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  the record already we get it you're for the little
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  guy what a badass anyway unless we're talking
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  about world war ii like i did recently with katya
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  hoya where there's loads of diaries and personal
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  records available the vast majority of historians
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  usually tell me we just don't know we can tell
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  you what it was like to be the pharaoh but we
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  can't tell you what it was like to be an egyptian
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  farmer outside of some really vague or obvious
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  stuff. So I started to realize pretty quickly
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  that the history I know and was taught in school
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  is basically the history of the elites of kings
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  and emperors and magnates. The rest is a bit
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  of a blank canvas. However, with your book, Servus,
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  you decided to flip that narrative completely.
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  But since they seem practically invisible in
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  written sources, what kind of information could
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  you find about the lives of Roman slaves? So,
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  yeah, you'll never get the kind of, like, in,
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  like. internal detail of what it is like on a
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  day -to -day basis that you get for like emperors
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  and senators you'll never get like 600 600 letters
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  no you'll never get 600 letters which is a real
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  shame um but what you can get is fragments and
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  what you have to do to put together something
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  is to put together tiny fragments from lots of
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  different spaces um so The first thing is that
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  you can read those sources that we have that
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  are written by elite people against the grain.
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  You can like read between the lines and you can
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  see the things that they're accidentally saying
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  that they don't realize they're saying. So, for
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  example, the letters, we have letters between
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  the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his former tutor
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  and advisor, a guy called Fronto. And they talk
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  all the time about the. scribes that they're
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  dictating their letters to the messengers who
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  are waiting to take their letters the fact that
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  they've just missed a messenger or the one left
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  and they still had a letter for them and from
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  that they don't realize what they're saying they're
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  just complaining usually um but what they're
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  telling us is about the the existence of and
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  the kind of a brief fragment of the experience
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  of being the people who make those letters possible
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  so that there are they're not writing their letters
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  they're dictating them and there's somebody and
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  so Marcus Aurelius says oh my throat really hurts
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  because I've had to dictate 30 letters today
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  um you're like yeah and I bet that the guy who
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  was writing those letters down his hand really
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  hurts as well um and then Fronto claims like
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  oh I was gonna sorry I didn't send you a letter
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  today but the messenger left before I gave him
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  the letter and I'm really annoyed and you're
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  like oh well that messenger just like got bored
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  or whatever and had to run off to get to his
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  next appointment and you're okay so there's a
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  network of messengers that are moving around
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  um and very often it's in these complaints but
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  in the sources you can see against the backdrop
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  of it. You can see these lives. So my favourite
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  one is from one of Seneca's letters where he's
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  writing about, the letter is about getting old.
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  It's one of his moral letters about coming to
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  terms with being an elderly man. But he tells
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  a little anecdote about being in one of his villas
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  and being apparently, I think, very rude to some
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  poor guy. And he's walking past a door and there's
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  a door kind of. keeper a door guard and he goes
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  oh who's this guy that you've got from absolutely
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  no like he looks like he's on the verge of death
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  who did you like he does not look well where
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  did you dig him up from like one old disgusting
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  man and like really kind of goes in quite hard
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  on how he looks like he's on the verge of death
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  and the doorkeeper who's enslaved says oh do
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  you not remember me we grew up together um i'm
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  i'm felix we i'm the son of the uh steward And
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  we grew up together. We used to play. Do you
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  not remember when you gave me presents when we
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  were children? And the point of the story from
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  Seneca is that he's like, oh, wow. Don't get
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  old. Yeah, we've really got old. But through
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  that story, and then he kind of moves on to talking
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  about his own like ailing body. But through that
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  story, you can see, oh, there's this guy who
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  was born into slavery. His father was enslaved.
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  He's grown up. like playing with Seneca, but
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  he has remained in slavery. He's now the same
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  age as Seneca. So he's in his seventies and he's
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  still enslaved. He's still working in this space.
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  And now he has this kind of low effort doorkeeper
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  job. And every so often Seneca comes by and calls
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  him ugly. And so you can kind of read against
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  those sources and see little fragments of what
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  lives are like. And then they do leave bits of
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  themselves behind. So there's lots of epigraphy
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  of enslaved and formerly enslaved people. So
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  tombstones, there's columbaria, which are like
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  collective cemeteries, like where you can pay
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  a fee and you can be buried in this cemetery.
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  Or you can have your ashes put in a little niche
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  and then people can come and visit you. Where
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  you can see like entire families who have all
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  been commemorated together in slavery, where
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  they've had children, got married. And... Also
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  graffiti from Pompeii. God bless Pompeii. Because
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  there's so much graffiti all over it, which loads
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  of it is in private houses. So you can see people
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  in private houses, like talking to each other.
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  So they leave little messages and they're all
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  on the walls of inns. And very often they will
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  identify themselves and say like, Severus, the
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  slave of whoever is in love with the... um the
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  baker's slave whose name is iris and she's not
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  interested in him and you see these back and
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  forths so that one is like um and then somebody
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  says whoever wrote this is is is a terrible person
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  and it shouldn't be making fun of people who
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  are more handsome than them um which presumably
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  is um and then the original person comes back
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  and is like uh it's not my fault that iris doesn't
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  fancy you basically and you can see these like
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  conversations happening of enslaved people like
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  basically making fun of each other or there's
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  poetry that's written on the walls there's and
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  so you don't get the kind of full biography like
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  you can write a full biography of Seneca you
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  can write a full biography of Cicero you can't
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  really write a full biography because even for
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  the what you might call elite enslaved people
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  like imperial freedmen like Pallas and Callistus
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  I thought you were going to say Spartacus or
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  something yeah even for Spartacus who is like
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  probably the most famous like if you're gonna
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  pull an enslaved person um there are like three
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  different versions of his life before he breaks
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  out of the um uh the gladiatorial school um and
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  then they don't have anything in common at all
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  the only thing that they agree on is that he's
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  thracian and then one version is like oh he was
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  a roman ally and he fought and then he was captured
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  and he was actually very civilized and it wasn't
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  his fault at all and he should never have been
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  enslaved and he should never have been in the
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  gladiator school and the other version is that
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  he was allied with the Romans and then betrayed
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  them and then became a bandit and killed loads
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  of Romans. And he was in the gladiator school
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  because he was a bad man who had been punished
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  for banditry and murder. And you're like, well,
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  that's two different people. So even when people
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  are writing about enslaved people, they're not
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  putting that much effort into getting details
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  correct. So we just can't tell. full stories
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  of their lives. But we can look at little fragments
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  and see in all sorts of places what it was like.
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  And then you've got the archaeology. So we have
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  bodies that have died in chains. We have bodies
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  that have died wearing collars. So in the Christian
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  period, it became really common to put collars
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  on people instead of tattooing them. And we find
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  bodies with these collars on. 45 something like
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  that um with their name and their owner And if
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  they have committed a crime, what their crime
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  was. And you're like, OK, so that is like a little
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  fragment of a person's story there that you have
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  this woman who is known as adulterer, who is
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  found in Tunis wearing a collar that says that
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  she tried to run away. So she's attempted to
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  escape slavery. She has been caught. She's been
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  brought back. She's punished. And then when she's
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  worn that for the rest of her life and died with
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  it and then. 2 000 years later we've kind of
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  found her and you have this tiny fragment of
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  what her life was so it's it's fragments and
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  it's you can't be as narrative as you can be
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  but um if you kind of stitch it all together
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  then it's astonishing how much you can find about
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  the many different experiences of slavery i see
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  um so like you said you don't have like a full
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  biography available But you do have a fragment
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  of like there's 30 messengers waiting for Marcus
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  Aurelius to finish a stupid letter. Yeah, exactly.
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  And from that you can gleam. Okay. Just to provide
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  some wider context, were the Romans unusual in
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  their practice of slavery or was that pretty
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  much the norm in the ancient world? It is the
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  law of the ancient world is considered to be
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  kind of the law of nations, the Romans call it,
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  that slavery is practiced by pretty much everyone.
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  What the Romans do is do it on a scale that nobody
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  else does. And they embed it in every part of
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  their life in a way that nobody else does. Like
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  none of the other ancient Mediterranean societies,
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  they have the empire that is like as big or as
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  long lasting. And two, they don't tend to have
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  enslaved people in bureaucratic roles and religious
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  roles. agricultural roles and teaching roles
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  and like all of the many, many different places
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  that you find them, they tend to have like domestic
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  slavery and kind of the real grim kinds of slavery.
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  Whereas Rome is just like, is there a problem?
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  Can a slave fix it? Chuck a slave in there. And
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  then just kind of plug virtually every manpower
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  gap apart from the army with enslaved people
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  to a degree that's honestly quite... If it wasn't
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  so horrifying, it would be impressive. Besides
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  being the son Marcus Aurelius never had and thus
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  pissing off Commodus, how did one become a slave?
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  Pissing off Commodus is probably a good way.
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  I'm sorry. I'm glad you had to reference. That's
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  all I have. So one way is to be condemned. So
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  you can piss somebody off. Usually you have to
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  do something really, really bad because it's
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  seen as a form of capital punishment. So it's
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  like an alternative to being executed. You could
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  be condemned to like be a gladiator or to be
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  executed in the arena or something or to the
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  mines. Most commonly they are captured. So a
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  lot, certainly in the early period of Rome and
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  in the Republican period, are captured in war.
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  And that's considered to be the fundamental way
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  that service is supposed to mean a person who
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  is saved. So they have been saved from death
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  by a general and now they're in a kind of limbo
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  in between life and death. So being captured
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  in war or in a siege or in any kind of warfare
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  is considered to be the most common way. By the
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  time you get to the late Republic, certainly,
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  most people are probably being born into it because
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  the form of slavery they practice is that enslaved
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  women who have children give birth to enslaved
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  children and children are enslaved in the womb.
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  So a lot of people are born into it. You can
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  also be kidnapped and sold into slavery. which
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  happens at various times. So they have pirates
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  and bandits who will go around and just... kidnap
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  you and sell you which um and there's lots of
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  laws about like what to do if you've been kidnapped
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  and you can get to a magistrate and how to get
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  out of slavery if you're not really these are
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  captured by a bunch of pirates he was um he was
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  but he was he's high level and they knew it so
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  they don't apply ransom him um because like Basically,
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  what happens if you're a pirate or a bandit,
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  if you kidnap somebody, you want the most amount
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  of money out of them. And if they're an elite
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  person, you get way more money out of them. But
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  if you're not an elite person, if they've captured
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  an enslaved person, if they've captured just
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  a random guy who's trying to walk to see his
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  parents or whatever, and his parents have no
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  money, no one's got any money, then they may
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  as well sell him. 100 denarii and get something
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  and sell him to a factory or to a chain gang
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  or something and make some money out of him.
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  So that is, we don't know how common that is,
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  but it definitely happened. It caused a lot of
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  problems in the law codes. Would it be fair to
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  say then that slavery was kind of considered
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  more of a circumstantial misfortune than a lifelong
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  destiny? For example, during the transatlantic
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  slave trade, Your race pretty much determined
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  whether you were going to be a slave or not.
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  Not so in Rome, right? No, they do not have this
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  idea that there is such a thing as a natural
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  slave. And they believe that slavery changes
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  a person and makes them servile. But it is just
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  an accident of fate, basically. And then depending
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  on what kind of philosophical outlook you want
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  to have. But it can happen to anybody. They believe
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  that nobility of soul or nobility kind of should
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  protect you from it. But in general, it could
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  theoretically happen to anybody. And it is the
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  process of slavery that then stains people afterwards.
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  So it kind of changes you psychologically. It
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  changes you psychologically, like changes your
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  soul to a certain extent because you have to
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  bend your will to others and that affects your
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  rationality. So they believe it changes you and
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  that you can therefore be discriminated against.
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  But they also think it can happen to anybody.
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  Like you can just be unlucky enough to have the
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  gods let you become a slave. And there is nothing
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  that a human can do about it. And there's also
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  no like... They have some kind of weird racial
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  feelings about certain races that they think
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  make better slaves than others. So they think
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  or that puts people from certain races in better
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  positions. So like you'd never have a Thracian
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  teacher, but you want a Thracian like... Gladiator.
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  A Thracian gladiator or a Thracian litter bearer.
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  Very popular. And a Greek teacher. Yeah, exactly.
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  So your race is going to determine probably where
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  you end up in slavery, but it's not going to
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  be like, oh, well, we only enslaved Christians
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  or we only enslaved Britons or Gauls or whatever.
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  They're perfectly fine to enslave everybody and
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  have it be like, oh, well, the gods weren't on
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  your side today. Recently, I interviewed Professor
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  Anthony Spolforth, who wrote this amazing book,
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  What the Greeks Did for Us. And I asked him,
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  since the Greeks were famous for their philosophy,
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  which includes ethics, did they ever have any
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  qualms about the institution of slavery? And
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  his answer was pretty definitive. I think he
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  just said, in short, no. What about the Romans?
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  Did they express any sort of... Not a single
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  one. Okay, that's taken care of. That was easy,
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  yes. The only thing that I could find that suggested
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  anything is that there is this one letter from
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  Seneca where he's talking about how he thinks
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  people should be nicer to their domestic slaves,
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  basically. He thinks that they shouldn't just
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  beat them for sneezing, which is apparently quite
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  a radical take in his social circle because he
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  really has to defend it. it's often hailed as
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  like a a piece of humanist literature like it
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  comes up a lot with people who like stoicism
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  of like oh look the romans are all right like
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  well this he's really happened to defend this
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  don't people like beat people for sneezing take
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  um but towards the end he says obviously everyone's
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  going to come at me and accuse me of trying to
• 22:01
  abolish slavery um but i'm absolutely not and
• 22:05
  i would never um and that's like the only um
• 22:10
  example that you find that anybody might even
• 22:12
  have mentioned it and it's to say what a ridiculous
• 22:15
  thing i would never suggest that all i'm saying
• 22:16
  is maybe remember that they're people as well
• 22:19
  okay this is going to be in line with uh yeah
• 22:24
  with with the atmosphere a horrible question
• 22:27
  but what did buying a slave in ancient rome look
• 22:30
  like uh it looks um actually we have some fairly
• 22:35
  clear descriptions of what it looks like um it
• 22:38
  looks very similar to buying an animal in ancient
• 22:41
  rome so um a lot of purchasing is done in uh
• 22:46
  auctions um and there are big slave markets and
• 22:50
  then there are private auction houses for like
• 22:52
  luxury luxury slaves um and so the person is
• 23:00
  kind of They're a bit like used car salesmen.
• 23:03
  Like they really try to clean them up. And there's
• 23:05
  a lot of talking about how to like, how to try
• 23:11
  to buy an enslaved person and see through the
• 23:14
  things that slave dealers have done. So like
• 23:18
  they've cleaned their teeth and they've brushed
• 23:20
  their hair and they've like exfoliated them.
• 23:22
  So they've got lovely skin and stuff. And they
• 23:25
  try to cover up any defects. as they call them
• 23:29
  um and so Seneca says oh no you obviously you
• 23:32
  have to strip her you have to strip them naked
• 23:34
  so they'll get up onto the podium the auctioneer
• 23:37
  will say like this is what we've got they have
• 23:40
  to say they're kind of age range and they have
• 23:44
  to say where they're from so they have to say
• 23:45
  their race and that's in the law it's like you
• 23:48
  have to give this information about their race
• 23:51
  and any background that they have and then people
• 23:54
  will start to make bids and ask questions and
• 23:57
  inspect them in the way that they would inspect
• 23:59
  like a prize cow basically like they will strip
• 24:02
  them naked they will ask some questions they
• 24:05
  will ask the auctioneer questions about them
• 24:07
  like Are they obedient? What skills do they have?
• 24:11
  What have they done in the past? If they will
• 24:16
  kind of poke and prod them and look at their
• 24:18
  teeth and then there will be a bidding for them.
• 24:24
  And then there are the private markets can get.
• 24:30
  we have like one reference to private markets
• 24:33
  for um beautiful boys um and how kind of gropey
• 24:37
  they could be um this is gonna get rough yeah
• 24:40
  exactly i'm trying to make this as unhorrible
• 24:43
  as possible i asked yeah yeah um but they are
• 24:48
  the the only accounts that we have are from the
• 24:52
  perspective of people who are buying um and they're
• 24:55
  often talking about how to make sure you know
• 24:59
  what you're buying like how to see through the
• 25:02
  lies get scammed yeah exactly how to not get
• 25:04
  scammed um the there is this one satire that's
• 25:08
  about philosophy actually and it's about a satire
• 25:11
  about philosophical schools um called philosophy
• 25:14
  for sale um which is takes like the uh form of
• 25:19
  a slave market but it has all of these philosophers
• 25:21
  coming out and then the auctioneer tries to sell
• 25:24
  you the philosophy so a stoic comes out and then
• 25:26
  a cynic comes out and um an epicurean comes out
• 25:30
  and but basically they the auctioneer is like
• 25:34
  here's what we've got this is all the good things
• 25:36
  about them look how great this is the stoics
• 25:38
  yeah i see it okay and not a black not a bad
• 25:42
  plot it's very funny to be fair um and then the
• 25:46
  um and then the buyers will kind of poke and
• 25:49
  prod at the philosophies and be like oh well
• 25:51
  what about this paradox what about that paradox
• 25:54
  um and the cut but the setup is that that it's
• 25:58
  a kind of adversarial between the auctioneer
• 26:01
  and the buyer and then the person has just stood
• 26:04
  there like they can't do anything and they're
• 26:06
  going to be poked there's uh they they have a
• 26:08
  little sign around their neck that has like the
• 26:11
  relevant information their name if they have
• 26:13
  a name um and yeah and it's it's quite a grim
• 26:17
  experience for them it's like exceptionally dehumanizing
• 26:21
  um and they are just Yeah, treated exactly the
• 26:26
  same as stock. And then the lore about it is
• 26:29
  like the Adar's edict on buying slaves and livestock.
• 26:34
  And like what you need to know about slaves and
• 26:39
  livestock. And then it talks about slaves way
• 26:40
  more because there's a lot more problems with
• 26:43
  buying human beings. But it is, it's grim reading.
• 26:48
  What about the pricing system? Did a slave cost
• 26:52
  as much as a house, as much as a... I don't know,
• 26:54
  a horse? How did that work? It's quite varied,
• 26:58
  actually, because it depends on age, race, what
• 27:04
  you're buying them for. whether they're male
• 27:07
  or female, their background, and also what the
• 27:11
  market's like at the time. So it gets real cheap
• 27:13
  at times of war to buy like an able -bodied man.
• 27:16
  Because the market is flooded with slaves. But
• 27:19
  the prices vary. It's about, I'm trying to remember,
• 27:23
  we've got quite a lot of contracts of the sale
• 27:27
  of children. And that it seems to be kind of
• 27:32
  600 to 800 denarii for a child under 10, should
• 27:36
  you wish to purchase one. And then much later
• 27:41
  in the empire, we have the edict of Diocletian,
• 27:46
  where he tries to combat hyperinflation by setting
• 27:50
  the top prices for everything. So he just listed
• 27:56
  everything he could think of and set like a maximum
• 27:58
  price for it. Didn't work, weirdly. But the maximum
• 28:02
  price for a man, I think it's a man between 16
• 28:07
  and 30, is 30 ,000 sesterces. Which is quite
• 28:14
  a lot of money. What is that, like a million
• 28:17
  euro in today's money? So I think if I'm remembering
• 28:21
  correctly, it's an average wage for a kind of
• 28:25
  unskilled Roman would be seven denarii a day,
• 28:28
  or seven sesterces a day, sorry. And a sesterce
• 28:35
  is like a pound, I guess, a euro. So it's like
• 28:39
  a fair amount of money for... a healthy bodied
• 28:43
  man in the like late third early fourth century
• 28:47
  and then you have every price in between um like
• 28:50
  the most expensive ones go for millions um and
• 28:54
  they're like luxuries or yeah you mentioned a
• 28:58
  luxury slave before what what is that and i hope
• 29:02
  you're not going to say boys again i am going
• 29:04
  to say boys again i'm so sorry um but uh very
• 29:08
  beautiful boys um boys who have been uh castrated
• 29:13
  eunuchs um are considered because they're basically
• 29:18
  They're basically conspicuous consumption in
• 29:20
  its most pure form. Like these are people who
• 29:22
  are purchased to be useless and to be beautiful
• 29:25
  or interesting. So you see. People with dwarfism,
• 29:31
  people with gigantism, people with microcephaly.
• 29:34
  Domitian has a guy with microcephaly, like a
• 29:37
  very small head. Anybody, people with humpbacks
• 29:41
  are considered to be like, they will fill their
• 29:46
  houses with basically people for entertainment
• 29:51
  who are enslaved and considered, and their purpose
• 29:55
  is just to... be around it's like owning a tiger
• 29:58
  um but it's a person so there's a story in plinny
• 30:02
  about marcus uh mark anthony um getting scammed
• 30:07
  buying uh some luxury slaves because he tries
• 30:10
  to buy some very beautiful twins um and he pays
• 30:15
  like 250 000 sesterces excuse me So he pays like
• 30:19
  250 ,000 sesterces for them and he gets them
• 30:22
  home. And then he discovers that they are not
• 30:24
  twins. They do not even speak the same language.
• 30:27
  They are just two young... Scammed. Scammed,
• 30:30
  exactly. He did not do his due diligence. He
• 30:34
  hadn't even spoken to them. Like, this is how,
• 30:37
  like... little effort he was being he's paid
• 30:39
  out this huge amount of money he's got them home
• 30:41
  he's found out that they're not twins like one
• 30:43
  of them is from like Syria and one of them is
• 30:46
  from Gaul and they just happen to look very very
• 30:49
  similar and he goes back and complains and the
• 30:51
  guy is like oh well if you think about it it's
• 30:53
  actually even better that you got these two guys
• 30:55
  that look so similar and they're not even twins
• 30:58
  and he won't give him his money back but um But
• 31:02
  he basically paid a quarter of a million sesterces
• 31:07
  in order to have two very, very beautiful twins
• 31:11
  that he was just going to bring out at dinner
• 31:12
  parties. So that's the luxury slave market. It
• 31:16
  is either very beautiful or somebody with some
• 31:18
  kind of physical ailment or deformity or difference
• 31:23
  that can be fascinating to the Romans. I started
• 31:26
  thinking about the TV show Rome. hbo's rome yeah
• 31:30
  and there's a scene where attia gives a slave
• 31:33
  with an outrageously big penis to somebody yes
• 31:37
  and yeah so it's like oh that's not real come
• 31:39
  on that that wasn't real but you're telling me
• 31:41
  come It might well be real, yes. There's certainly,
• 31:45
  if you read Marshall, then there's a lot of talking
• 31:51
  about the size of enslaved men's penises and
• 31:54
  how desirable they are. Okay, so definitely a
• 31:57
  thing. I was totally wrong. Okay. And some of
• 32:00
  them are not adults. And yeah. Here we go again.
• 32:04
  Yeah, it's quite unpleasant. But there is a lot
• 32:08
  of, you know, not. as fictional as you would
• 32:11
  like it to be. This is what I'm talking about.
• 32:14
  I hate the Romans, but I'm like fascinated by
• 32:17
  the horror of it. Now I'm kind of figuring out
• 32:20
  like why all the people who just say they just
• 32:23
  love the Romans. All kind of shitty people, like
• 32:26
  Elon Musk or something. Yeah, they're all the
• 32:29
  worst people because they're all like, actually,
• 32:30
  I would also quite like to have a person that
• 32:34
  I just keep in my house. With an outrageously
• 32:38
  big penis. Yeah, exactly. And I just like, they
• 32:41
  can't do that. So they have to buy like Maseratis
• 32:44
  or whatever. Yeah, or Twitter. But they would
• 32:49
  like to. Okay, we've come to the point in this
• 32:52
  podcast when I have to ask you, what was everyday
• 32:55
  life really like if you were a roman slave and
• 32:58
  understand there was a world of difference like
• 33:00
  you already said between working in the mines
• 33:01
  or being a personal tutor for some annoying patrician
• 33:05
  trust fund kid but you can you can talk about
• 33:08
  both of these please don't let me stop you uh
• 33:11
  yeah so there is a huge world of difference um
• 33:13
  and the I'd say the two major different types
• 33:18
  are you have the kind of slavery that brings
• 33:21
  you into contact with free people in urban environments
• 33:25
  a lot, which in a hierarchy of slavery is going
• 33:30
  to be slightly better. There's a hierarchy of
• 33:33
  slavery. There is definitely a hierarchy of slavery.
• 33:36
  And the Romans are quite keen on... creating
• 33:39
  hierarchies within slavery as well um because
• 33:42
  they're very very good at um creating kind of
• 33:47
  inter -class competition between enslaved people
• 33:50
  in order to prevent them from getting together
• 33:53
  and slaughtering everybody. And so they like
• 33:57
  to promote competition and promote hierarchies
• 34:02
  within slavery so that it gives everybody something
• 34:05
  to be working towards and somebody else to resent.
• 34:09
  And so like the peak to an extent is urban slavery
• 34:16
  in the elite household or urban slavery in the
• 34:19
  imperial service or within public service. So
• 34:27
  all of the people who do the census, all of the
• 34:29
  people who run the aqueducts and make sure that
• 34:32
  all of the paving is getting done, they're all
• 34:36
  enslaved as well. In those situations, you are
• 34:40
  a representative of... your dominus the person
• 34:44
  who owns you and so there is an incentive for
• 34:47
  them to keep you fed keep you housed reasonably
• 34:52
  well um keep you um looking good because otherwise
• 34:58
  they look like a miser basically um which is
• 35:02
  like the worst thing that a roman can be um and
• 35:05
  there's potential for you to gain quite a lot
• 35:08
  of power within those situations you can if you
• 35:10
  enter a position where you are for example the
• 35:14
  like valet of a senator or an equestrian or if
• 35:20
  you are a hairdresser of his wife or if you are
• 35:24
  the guy who is in charge of the household accounts
• 35:28
  then you can be quite powerful and you can genuinely
• 35:31
  like within that setting have quite a lot of
• 35:35
  wealth and influence. The other side of it is
• 35:42
  um any kind of rural or agricultural or um non
• 35:48
  -urban really slavery is going to be very very
• 35:51
  different because there's no face -to -face time
• 35:54
  with the person who owns you uh which means that
• 35:58
  your chances of getting any rewards like of being
• 36:01
  paid like given any money being given any special
• 36:04
  clothing being given any bribes um basically
• 36:09
  nil um you're also considered to be uglier um
• 36:12
  like there's a real thing that you take your
• 36:14
  pretty slaves to the uh city um to have the good
• 36:18
  looking ones there and you send the funny looking
• 36:20
  ones like the ones who've got like a wall eye
• 36:23
  or whatever i would i would i would totally be
• 36:25
  in the mine like they send those off um like
• 36:29
  they're very cruel in terms of power any special
• 36:40
  treatment any even kind of decent food you're
• 36:42
  going to be living a very rustic life in those
• 36:46
  situations um rustic meaning that's a is that
• 36:50
  a euphemism it means that you're probably going
• 36:54
  to be wearing like whereas if you are the um
• 36:59
  so there's a thing called a dispensator who is
• 37:02
  like a head accountant. He's kind of like the
• 37:07
  CFO of the household, but he has to be enslaved,
• 37:09
  so they're always enslaved. They are going to
• 37:12
  be wearing coloured fine linens and wool and
• 37:17
  silks. They are going to be being given presents
• 37:20
  all the time. They're probably going to own quite
• 37:23
  a few of their own kind of sub -slaves who...
• 37:28
  like work for them um they're gonna have a lot
• 37:31
  of face time with the person who owns them um
• 37:35
  and they are almost certainly going to be freed
• 37:38
  if not during their lifetime then when their
• 37:40
  dominus dies um and so that's like the most privileged
• 37:45
  enslaved position um if you are like the person
• 37:49
  who is in charge of running one of the estates
• 37:54
  owned by the same person in like I don't know,
• 37:57
  North Africa, or they own an estate in Turkey,
• 38:01
  like Silesia, then you're never going to see
• 38:04
  them. You're probably spending your time wearing
• 38:06
  like rough hewn wool that is like... like tunics
• 38:11
  that are chucked together as quickly as possible
• 38:13
  um there's you're not going to have access to
• 38:16
  like delicious falernian wine and imported dates
• 38:20
  you're going to be eating whatever you can take
• 38:23
  off of the land which isn't being sold um and
• 38:26
  you're probably going to be living in a hut um
• 38:28
  and hoping that no one ever comes to see you
• 38:31
  basically um and it's going to be a very very
• 38:34
  very different experience and then if you're
• 38:37
  in the mines you have no chance like no one ever
• 38:39
  if you're in the mines you're there because you're
• 38:41
  never going to be freed um you're going to be
• 38:43
  abused constantly um and you're like the lowest
• 38:48
  of the low of the low you probably didn't live
• 38:50
  very long no most of the testimony for the mines
• 38:55
  comes from christians christians were sent to
• 38:57
  the mines loads um and yeah no they're like this
• 39:00
  is horrific uh we're the work is awful uh we're
• 39:04
  tortured constantly and sometimes they uh cut
• 39:07
  off one of our legs and blind us before they
• 39:09
  send us here just so that it's even like deliberately
• 39:12
  even worse um and so like if you have been sent
• 39:17
  to the mines then you have no hope like that
• 39:18
  is the the end of the line What was the ratios?
• 39:23
  What percentage of slaves were the countryside
• 39:26
  slave? Do we know anything about that? Most of
• 39:29
  the slaves were probably in the mines and on
• 39:31
  the farms, right? Probably agricultural slavery
• 39:34
  is much more common than the urban slavery. But
• 39:39
  the evidence, because urban slavery, if you're
• 39:44
  there, then you're literate. You'll probably
• 39:46
  have more money. In the source material, they're
• 39:48
  massively overrepresented. They're in epigraphy,
• 39:53
  like tombstones, in the writing on the walls.
• 39:56
  We have so many more of the urban than we do
• 40:01
  of the... I don't think we have any cemeteries
• 40:05
  or anything for rural estates. A lot of it's
• 40:09
  obviously not been... to the extent that Rome
• 40:15
  and the other big kind of cities have. But it's
• 40:18
  still, they're so underrepresented that we genuinely
• 40:21
  don't know how many of them there were or what
• 40:24
  their proportion was. People like to have a big
• 40:26
  guess, but they're having a big guess. And the
• 40:31
  guesses kind of vary enormously based on whatever
• 40:35
  your starting assumption is. But it's probable
• 40:38
  that what we're seeing is... even within enslaved
• 40:43
  people, we're seeing still the fraction of the
• 40:46
  elite most of the time in the source material.
• 40:50
  And they're not that representative of the people
• 40:53
  who spent all of their time growing and reaping
• 40:57
  wine and grain in order to feed Rome. By the
• 41:03
  way, a couple of minutes ago, you said something
• 41:04
  that I'm still thinking about. You said that
• 41:07
  some slaves themselves owned other slaves. Yes.
• 41:11
  What in the world was going on there? This is
• 41:13
  what I'm talking about with hierarchy. My mind
• 41:15
  is spinning. Yes. And this is like a really weird,
• 41:18
  it's quite complicated legal instrument that
• 41:20
  the Romans have. It's called peculium. They love
• 41:24
  a law and they love it to be complicated. And
• 41:26
  if it involves contracts and they're so happy.
• 41:30
  Another reason to hate them. Basically, the only
• 41:36
  way that I've come up with to describe this is
• 41:39
  a peculium is basically like pocket money for
• 41:41
  children. It allows enslaved people to control
• 41:45
  property that they do not own. given formally
• 41:52
  given the control of any kind of property which
• 41:57
  can be for rural people it can be that they have
• 42:00
  like a small pot of land and a sheep and a couple
• 42:02
  of apple trees um and then that can go all the
• 42:05
  way up to at the um top of the tree you have
• 42:10
  uh enslaved people who control lots of other
• 42:15
  enslaved people who control kind of full businesses
• 42:17
  like they might have a full apartment building
• 42:20
  that they control that they are allowed they
• 42:23
  can you know they control the rents of and they're
• 42:25
  in charge of it um or and you know and sometimes
• 42:29
  you see people who have like huge peculiar these
• 42:32
  are all always imperial ones um but they own
• 42:35
  like massive silver bowls and things like that
• 42:38
  um and so they can be quite extensive and the
• 42:42
  way that romans allowed this to happen is that
• 42:45
  although they could control it they did not own
• 42:47
  it so in the same way that you might give a child
• 42:51
  like five euro a week as pocket money for like
• 42:54
  doing their chores or for doing their homework
• 42:57
  and then they can spend that five euro on whatever
• 43:00
  they want to spend it on so they can go and buy
• 43:01
  sweeties or they can save it up if they want
• 43:03
  to save up for a ps5 um but if they do something
• 43:08
  really bad or if they just or if they stop doing
• 43:11
  their chores then you can as a parent you can
• 43:13
  take it away from them like you can take away
• 43:15
  their ps5 even if they think they pay for it
• 43:18
  with their own money you can take away their
• 43:20
  sweeties if you don't want them to eat it like
• 43:22
  they control it and they can decide what to do
• 43:24
  with it but they don't own it like mom and dad
• 43:27
  own it um and so and it's exactly the same with
• 43:30
  the perculium they can control it they can um
• 43:33
  save it up if they want to try and save for their
• 43:36
  freedom or they can buy things or they can um
• 43:39
  do whatever but if they misbehave if they piss
• 43:44
  off their person who owns them then it can be
• 43:47
  taken away And it is always conditional. And
• 43:52
  it is always, it is never ownership. It is always
• 43:54
  controlling. And so it's a very clever way that
• 43:58
  the Romans are able to give enslaved people an
• 44:01
  outlet for their own like autonomy. Like they
• 44:05
  have something that they can work with and they,
• 44:08
  that they feel like they are building up or they
• 44:11
  feel like they are, you know, making decisions
• 44:14
  about. And it also creates these hierarchies.
• 44:19
  So you will have one... So again, divide and
• 44:22
  conquer and crushing any sort of solidarity they
• 44:24
  might have cultivated. And it also creates class
• 44:27
  conflict between the enslaved and the free poor
• 44:30
  who did in the Roman past, like during Spartacus'
• 44:34
  rebellion, the free poor join in because they
• 44:37
  fucking hate the Romans as well. But once you
• 44:41
  have enslaved people who are your landlord...
• 44:45
  If you are an average Roman person who has moved
• 44:49
  to Rome to try and make it and you live in a
• 44:52
  kind of crappy little one -bedroom apartment
• 44:53
  and the person that you're paying your extortionate
• 44:56
  rent to is an enslaved person, then that really
• 45:00
  kind of breaks your ability to feel any kind
• 45:03
  of solidarity with them. And everybody gets to
• 45:07
  hate each other. because everybody gets to be
• 45:09
  jealous of each other for having something that
• 45:10
  they don't. And so it's very, very clever way
• 45:13
  of controlling everybody. Devious. Yes. And making
• 45:16
  people feel like they're getting something out
• 45:18
  of it. Like, oh, I have. And then you have something
• 45:20
  to lose as well. So if you have, even if it's
• 45:23
  just a sheep or even if it's just, you know,
• 45:25
  the right to have to be married or a little bit
• 45:30
  of savings that you're saving up to maybe buy
• 45:32
  yourself a particularly nice pair of shoes, then
• 45:35
  you have something to lose. which can be used
• 45:38
  as a threat to like, oh, I can take it away from
• 45:41
  you if you don't do this immediately. You said
• 45:45
  that the Romans were like law nerds. Were there
• 45:47
  any sort of like legal boundaries between a dominus
• 45:51
  and his slave when it came to like sexual exploitation?
• 45:54
  Okay, maybe not sexual. We already said that.
• 45:56
  But what about violence or like killing your
• 46:00
  slave? It becomes illegal to kill an enslaved
• 46:04
  person that you own under... So pretty late.
• 46:09
  Yes. So it is a Christian thing. So I think it's
• 46:12
  315. And he has this very detailed law that's
• 46:16
  like, you can no longer beat them to death. You
• 46:19
  can no longer set fire to them. You can no longer
• 46:21
  poison them. You can no longer push them off
• 46:22
  cliffs. You can no longer hang them. You're like,
• 46:24
  oh, wow. Like, this is very specific. It hadn't
• 46:28
  even occurred to me that people might be poisoning.
• 46:31
  I wonder why. Yeah. The history of the Roman
• 46:38
  imperial period could be told as the history
• 46:42
  of emperors trying to control the use of violence
• 46:49
  inside the household to an extent, because you
• 46:52
  do gradually see extensions of law into... preventing
• 46:59
  extremes of abuse. So you have Hadrian, for example,
• 47:05
  who has a re -script about if you... The one
• 47:11
  woman is brought to him because she's torturing
• 47:13
  people in her household and he censors her. But
• 47:16
  what happens to the enslaved people is they just
• 47:19
  get sold to somebody else. So the punishment
• 47:21
  is for the torturer. is that they lose their
• 47:25
  property basically um and then a bit later on
• 47:29
  i think it's marcus aurelius but it might be
• 47:31
  um antoninus pious um but one of those antonine
• 47:36
  empire again kind of repeats the same thing and
• 47:38
  says like if enslaved people can flee to a statue
• 47:43
  in the forum um and a statue of the emperor and
• 47:47
  like ask for help um if they feel that they're
• 47:49
  being abused um and There are laws which come
• 47:54
  in, again, in the Antonine period that say, oh,
• 47:57
  you can't just hand enslaved people over to be
• 48:04
  killed in the arena anymore unless you've run
• 48:08
  it past a magistrate, basically. So you used
• 48:11
  to be able to just, if somebody in your household
• 48:15
  annoyed you, you could take them off and say,
• 48:17
  well, I'm just going to give you over and you're
• 48:20
  going to be fodder for the arena now. um and
• 48:23
  but now that you can't you have to pass that
• 48:26
  through somebody officially and you can't just
• 48:29
  be doing it for any old reason anymore and so
• 48:31
  if the magistrate is like yeah go ahead just
• 48:35
  yeah see this is it does feel like that immediately
• 48:39
  kind of opens the door for like legitimate reasons
• 48:41
  for feeding people to lions and illegitimate
• 48:44
  reasons for feeding people um but the These are
• 48:48
  very gradual over like hundreds and hundreds
• 48:51
  of years and they do expose the ways that people
• 48:54
  were like being horrific, like horrifically abusing
• 48:58
  people and using execution and using poisoning
• 49:04
  people, setting people on fire. throwing people
• 49:06
  off of buildings, beating people to death on
• 49:11
  purpose as a form of punishment right up until
• 49:14
  the Christian period and well into it. And then
• 49:18
  making something illegal obviously doesn't stop
• 49:19
  it. It just means that you can prosecute people
• 49:21
  for it. Okay, since life was pretty brutal for
• 49:28
  most slaves, how did they cope with their horrible
• 49:32
  existence? Do we know anything about that? They
• 49:35
  seem to have coped in the way that a lot of people
• 49:37
  coped. They build small dreams, I think. What
• 49:42
  you see, one of the things that I love... Damn,
• 49:45
  don't listen to this episode before bed. Yeah,
• 49:48
  no, it's quite sad. Hopefully people don't listen
• 49:50
  to this as they fall asleep. I'm so sorry for
• 49:52
  the dreams. Yeah, this is a breakfast episode.
• 49:58
  Yes, so the thing that I like a lot is that you
• 50:02
  see people... dreaming of freedom um but you
• 50:06
  also see family a lot and I think that family
• 50:09
  is a coping mechanism for a lot of people um
• 50:12
  who are in kind of average slavery so one of
• 50:15
  the things that I love in the Columbaria so these
• 50:21
  um spaces where people have paid to be commemorated
• 50:26
  alongside people they know, alongside people
• 50:28
  they're connected to. So some are associated
• 50:29
  with guilds and some are associated with big
• 50:32
  families. So everybody in there was owned by
• 50:35
  or formerly owned by the same aristocratic family.
• 50:38
  So the Stateli is one, which is the family of
• 50:42
  Messalina. And the Volusi is another one who
• 50:47
  are a very ancient family. And then there's the
• 50:48
  ones of Livia. the imperial family and what you
• 50:52
  see is people calling each other husband and
• 50:55
  wife so falling in love and marrying each other
• 50:59
  um which is something they're not allowed in
• 51:01
  law like in law they're not married and technically
• 51:05
  like husband and wife are legal terms which are
• 51:08
  not supposed to apply to them but they're obviously
• 51:10
  using them in this way that means something more
• 51:13
  than just the law it means they're married and
• 51:15
  they love each other and they've got married
• 51:17
  for no reason other than they like each other
• 51:19
  um because there's no arranged marriages for
• 51:23
  the good of the family in slavery um and then
• 51:27
  they have children and then they love those children
• 51:29
  and sorry this is depressing again but the way
• 51:33
  you see that love is when those children die
• 51:35
  usually um when children die at quite a high
• 51:41
  rate um obviously in the ancient world um and
• 51:45
  you see them spending money that they have to
• 51:48
  write um often quite emotional epitaphs and stories
• 51:56
  about enslaved children who are two or three
• 51:59
  or five years old or 13 years old um or even
• 52:04
  adult children like you find people mourning
• 52:07
  their sons who died at like 26 or 27 years old
• 52:10
  or their daughters who died at 16 and like they're
• 52:13
  these connections that persist through slavery
• 52:18
  um where they have built family within it and
• 52:22
  then you can see friendships as well so you see
• 52:25
  people who are commemorated by various friends
• 52:29
  from across the household so you'll see like
• 52:31
  a doorkeeper who his friends who are uh a valet
• 52:38
  and a guy who's in charge of the dining room
• 52:41
  and oh that's nice yeah a little party yeah and
• 52:44
  like they've obviously been friends who have
• 52:47
  spent time together in this household they're
• 52:50
  all in different parts of the house um and when
• 52:53
  one of them died the rest of them clubbed together
• 52:56
  to make sure that he would be remembered which
• 52:58
  is so important in roman religion to like continue
• 53:01
  into the afterlife and to have a place where
• 53:03
  people could come and light a candle for you
• 53:05
  um And so you like the human connections that
• 53:09
  you see between people and like their desire
• 53:11
  to to do that for each other, to remember each
• 53:14
  other, to have a space where they can go and,
• 53:17
  you know, and express their love even after death.
• 53:21
  It's kind of heartbreaking that you can only
• 53:23
  see it in tragedy. You can't see their birthday
• 53:26
  parties and you can't see their moments where
• 53:31
  they were happy together. But you can see. that
• 53:34
  they were happy together because they were so
• 53:36
  sad when each other died that they made these
• 53:40
  sacrifices to come together. The ones that I
• 53:44
  really like are the ones where it would be like
• 53:46
  a father commemorating a child because fatherhood
• 53:50
  theoretically does not exist in slavery. Motherhood
• 53:54
  exists because that's undeniable, but there's
• 53:59
  no legal or formal recognition of fatherhood
• 54:02
  in... slavery at all um but obviously there is
• 54:06
  like people know who their kids are and people
• 54:08
  know who their dads are um and sometimes you
• 54:12
  will find that they couldn't afford it by themselves
• 54:15
  they didn't have enough money to pay for the
• 54:17
  stone to pay for someone to carve it to pay for
• 54:20
  the space for the stone to be put in and so they've
• 54:23
  got a friend who has given up their you know
• 54:34
  prima um and you're like okay so this is a community
• 54:37
  like together who have come together to to make
• 54:41
  us to to show love for one another um and i think
• 54:44
  that that is what kind of the beautiful part
• 54:47
  of it um which is that no matter what there is
• 54:50
  always this this human community this human love
• 54:53
  for one another to make the best and to make
• 54:55
  like joy in even horrible circumstances um and
• 55:00
  to be hoping always um that Yeah, that I think
• 55:05
  is beautiful. And that's what you can see is
• 55:07
  how they cope is that they refuse to be completely
• 55:11
  enslaved. Like the Romans, the enslavers want
• 55:16
  slaves who are slaves, who have no will of their
• 55:20
  own, who have nothing of their own that does
• 55:22
  not entirely focused on the will of the dominants.
• 55:26
  And they go, no, I would also like to be in love
• 55:29
  and have some children. And that's what I care
• 55:31
  about the most. If I was a good person, we would
• 55:34
  end this podcast on this hopeful note, but I'm
• 55:36
  not. So I'm going to keep asking you questions
• 55:39
  about horrible stuff. It'd be unrepresentative
• 55:44
  if we ended it there. Totally. Let's be professional.
• 55:49
  By the way, what happened if you ran away? You
• 55:52
  mentioned a woman, that the remains of a woman
• 55:56
  were found and she had to wear... like some sort
• 55:59
  of a slave caller for the rest of her life. What
• 56:01
  usually happened in that scenario if you ran
• 56:03
  away and then you were discovered? If you are
• 56:06
  captured, then they're impressively terrifying
• 56:11
  at capturing people who leave slavery. They do
• 56:14
  not like it. The entire thing is so big. If you
• 56:19
  ran to Persia or something, I don't know, like
• 56:22
  to North Africa, how did they catch you there?
• 56:25
  They didn't have the internet. I don't get it.
• 56:27
  There was no Palantir in Rome, or was there?
• 56:30
  There kind of was, and it was the army. And the
• 56:34
  army and a very impressive and very fast messenger
• 56:39
  network across the empire that would send messages
• 56:44
  and... also a legal system which made it compulsory
• 56:48
  like mandated that everybody and every part of
• 56:52
  the roman government had to um drop everything
• 56:56
  to hunt for enslaved people basically um and
• 57:00
  they could burst they could search property they
• 57:02
  could burst into houses they could no property
• 57:05
  was off limits for searching um and the army
• 57:10
  is kind of everywhere like there are garrisons
• 57:12
  all over the place and getting past them is very
• 57:15
  challenging so what would happen if somebody
• 57:16
  ran away um or escaped is the a notice would
• 57:22
  be written up which said gave a description of
• 57:25
  them basically and said it's a 16 year old boy
• 57:27
  his name is alex eminus he's got curly hair and
• 57:31
  a lisp and a slightly wonky nose um and That
• 57:35
  would be circulated to everyone in the area.
• 57:37
  So every garrison, every magistrate, every small
• 57:40
  town council, and they would be responsible for
• 57:45
  keeping an eye out. If that person was then caught,
• 57:48
  which they often were, because sometimes you
• 57:51
  can see like really extensive searches that go
• 57:54
  on. So Cicero. has a librarian who escapes and
• 57:58
  he manages to talk his way onto a boat out of
• 58:01
  Italy and turns up in Croatia where he meets
• 58:05
  one of Cicero's friends and persuades him that
• 58:09
  he has been freed. So in what must have been
• 58:13
  the most terrifying conversation of his life,
• 58:15
  he persuades Cicero, the guy's like, what are
• 58:18
  you doing here Dionysus? And he's like, oh, I
• 58:20
  was freed. And he then... starts moving out of
• 58:27
  Croatia as soon as he possibly can basically
• 58:29
  but for two years afterwards every time some
• 58:34
  a new legion goes over or a new governor goes
• 58:37
  over or a new command so Julius Caesar sends
• 58:40
  some troops over um at one point um he will send
• 58:44
  a letter that says and I also want to add this
• 58:46
  on like find this guy onto your mission so as
• 58:49
  they're going through um You know, that's not
• 58:53
  Roman over in that area at that time, but he's
• 58:58
  like basically like on it. And then he himself
• 59:01
  goes to try and find somebody in Cilicia, somebody
• 59:06
  who's legged it from Atticus's estate. And so
• 59:11
  they will send the army to find people. And if
• 59:14
  they do find them, which they did, because some
• 59:17
  of them didn't get very far. And some of them
• 59:22
  didn't try to get referred. I feel like you have
• 59:24
  the same thing as me. You'd be like, get out
• 59:26
  of the empire, like find a line. Yeah, just go
• 59:29
  to China. Let's go. But a lot of people are like,
• 59:31
  they don't want to go that far. So there's one
• 59:33
  guy who escapes from Vitellius, who becomes emperor
• 59:37
  later on. And he escapes from Rome, but he only
• 59:42
  goes to Naples. So it's not very far. And he
• 59:47
  thinks that he can get away with it, but he's
• 59:48
  found, he's caught. And what they do is they
• 59:50
  tattoo the face. um so up until the christian
• 59:55
  period and afterwards um christians don't like
• 59:58
  tattooing because it destroys the body for the
• 1:00:00
  resurrection so christian owners use the collar
• 1:00:04
  um but um polytheistic people who don't care
• 1:00:09
  about bodily resurrection will they tattoo the
• 1:00:11
  face and it's like big massive tattoos disfiguring
• 1:00:15
  the whole face we think from what it says on
• 1:00:18
  the collars that it says something like if found
• 1:00:22
  return me um and it will have like the name of
• 1:00:26
  the um the person that owns them across the face
• 1:00:29
  but it is like extremely disfiguring um they
• 1:00:33
  can also be given capital punishment obviously
• 1:00:35
  so um being sent to the gladiators or being sent
• 1:00:40
  to the arena is fairly common um they can be
• 1:00:43
  sent they can be put into chains there's prisons
• 1:00:47
  um so they can be imprisoned and put in chains
• 1:00:49
  um which we have some of um but there's a lot
• 1:00:53
  of ways that they can punish them and then there's
• 1:00:55
  torture which is something that they use a lot
• 1:00:57
  just to bring everything real down um they tend
• 1:01:00
  to use torture for getting information or for
• 1:01:03
  um trying to force people to do something rather
• 1:01:08
  than punishing things that have already been
• 1:01:11
  done. But they do use, if you've read any of
• 1:01:16
  their like hagiographies of early Christian saints
• 1:01:18
  and martyrs, then you get lots, they're very
• 1:01:21
  detailed about the use of burning pitch racks.
• 1:01:27
  All the things that you imagine when you imagine
• 1:01:29
  medieval torture, basically the Romans were doing
• 1:01:31
  it as well. Flogging with a thing called a flagellum,
• 1:01:34
  which is a kind of cat o' nine tails with brass
• 1:01:37
  beads on the end or with hooks to rip the skin
• 1:01:40
  off. Like they love to think up new ways to torment
• 1:01:45
  people. But fire, pitch, wheels, racks are very
• 1:01:50
  common. So, yeah, so a lot of incredibly... horrific
• 1:01:56
  physical torture um and then tattooing which
• 1:02:00
  is also pretty terrible when you uh mentioned
• 1:02:04
  that scissor or slave escaped first to Croatia
• 1:02:06
  since I'm from the Balkans I was like let this
• 1:02:08
  be his safe haven do you know what he's never
• 1:02:11
  it was not to be he's never recaptured as far
• 1:02:13
  as we know oh he made it he makes it yes so he
• 1:02:17
  what a ledge yeah it is his safe space because
• 1:02:21
  they so he makes it to the Balkans and hopefully
• 1:02:24
  lives like a beautiful life in In Belgrade. In
• 1:02:29
  Belgrade. You know what? They're actually a beautiful
• 1:02:32
  place to have life, like on the sea. Didn't like
• 1:02:37
  some emperor retire also in Croatia or something?
• 1:02:41
  Yeah. And he was growing cabbage and he didn't
• 1:02:44
  want to come back. That's Diocletian, yeah. Right.
• 1:02:47
  With his massive... Not a bad place. I mean,
• 1:02:50
  yeah, exactly. A gorgeous place to be. So hopefully
• 1:02:52
  he lived like a beautiful life out in the Balkans,
• 1:02:55
  like basking in the... Like Adriatic sunshine.
• 1:03:00
  All right. Just a couple of questions left. On
• 1:03:04
  a sort of a macro level, which I believe you
• 1:03:06
  also write in the book, at one point slaves were
• 1:03:09
  propping up about 30 % of the entire Roman economy.
• 1:03:13
  So I'm wondering, what was there left to do for
• 1:03:16
  the working class Roman citizens who weren't
• 1:03:19
  slaves? Managerial stuff, mostly. So the 30 %
• 1:03:25
  is an estimate based on the fact that we know
• 1:03:27
  that it's an economy that can't live without
• 1:03:29
  slavery. And that's basically the kind of minimum
• 1:03:34
  amount that it can have been really for that
• 1:03:37
  to work. But managed basically. the free poor
• 1:03:44
  and the kind of free middle classes are doing
• 1:03:47
  the stuff that enslaved people aren't allowed
• 1:03:49
  to do so enslaved people can't make contracts
• 1:03:51
  so anything that involves like the actual managerial
• 1:03:54
  stuff um is being done by free people or freed
• 1:03:58
  people um they have they can't own stuff so basically
• 1:04:02
  they are the Not entirely, but they are the grunt
• 1:04:07
  work of the empire, essentially. And then the
• 1:04:11
  managerial, organisational... strategic side
• 1:04:16
  like the c -suite stuff is being done white collar
• 1:04:19
  yeah exactly a lot of the white collar stuff
• 1:04:22
  not so much it's interesting how little bureaucracy
• 1:04:25
  is done by freed people so apart from the when
• 1:04:29
  the imperial kind of bureaucracy gets really
• 1:04:32
  going and equestrians get into it in like the
• 1:04:35
  third century um most of the imperial white collar
• 1:04:39
  stuff and the stuff that is the the paperwork
• 1:04:42
  of Empire or the paperwork of any of it is being
• 1:04:45
  done by enslaved people because it's tedious.
• 1:04:48
  But the managerial stuff. And then we do see,
• 1:04:53
  it's rare because it's really hard to see professions
• 1:05:00
  outside of enslaved people, which is interesting.
• 1:05:04
  But we do see things like, there's a moment when...
• 1:05:08
  So Vespasian is building the Colosseum and somebody
• 1:05:13
  invents a new type of crane that will save loads
• 1:05:16
  of time and save loads of manpower. And they
• 1:05:18
  offer it to him and he says, no, I have people
• 1:05:21
  that I need to employ, like I need to be seen
• 1:05:23
  to be employing people. And so he's obviously
• 1:05:26
  employing free labor there. So there are people
• 1:05:29
  who are laboring for a wage. And in Diocletian's
• 1:05:33
  edict, you can see that there are free people
• 1:05:36
  doing. who are being paid to do work at various
• 1:05:40
  points. And I'll tell you another place that's
• 1:05:44
  actually super useful for this kind of thing
• 1:05:45
  on a kind of micro scale is Egypt because we
• 1:05:50
  have loads of papyrus from Egypt, which has saved
• 1:05:54
  lots of everyday contracts. And we have family
• 1:05:59
  archives of like census documents and archives.
• 1:06:01
  And we can see that. free and enslaved people
• 1:06:05
  are working alongside each other so like there'll
• 1:06:07
  be an apprenticeship contract for a free person
• 1:06:09
  to learn to be a scribe um and he will have been
• 1:06:15
  working alongside enslaved people who were also
• 1:06:17
  learning to be scribes so they are kind of working
• 1:06:19
  alongside one another um and then we don't really
• 1:06:23
  know what like the calculation is as to whether
• 1:06:25
  you employ a freed one or or you know an enslaved
• 1:06:28
  person or a free person but um They're just they're
• 1:06:32
  much harder to see because they're significantly
• 1:06:37
  less proud of themselves for having a profession
• 1:06:40
  or doing something. And so they don't we don't
• 1:06:44
  have that kind of corpus of free like person
• 1:06:48
  professional epigraphy where people are saying,
• 1:06:52
  like, I am a slave and I am a hairdresser. We
• 1:06:57
  don't have free people who say they're a hairdresser.
• 1:07:02
  Again, in contrast to the Confederate South,
• 1:07:05
  for example, manumission was much more common
• 1:07:07
  in Rome, right? Besides beating everybody to
• 1:07:11
  a pulp in the Colosseum, how could you get your
• 1:07:13
  freedom? You could get your freedom. You had
• 1:07:16
  to earn your freedom or purchase your freedom.
• 1:07:21
  So you could save up. And if you had a dominus
• 1:07:28
  who was willing to let you, then you could purchase
• 1:07:30
  it. um you could also the best way to do it was
• 1:07:36
  basically to be very close to the person who
• 1:07:39
  owned you um and they would then give it to you
• 1:07:42
  either as a kind of promotion or as a a gift
• 1:07:46
  for good work what you see a lot of is people
• 1:07:50
  being freed in wills um so when it's like no
• 1:07:55
  bother to the person who owns you when they're
• 1:07:58
  not going to lose your labor anymore um you see
• 1:08:01
  people being free so the will will say you know
• 1:08:04
  and i also give like as part of my estate i give
• 1:08:07
  my freedom to x y and z for their great service
• 1:08:11
  um or basically or it can be given as a as a
• 1:08:16
  present essentially for very good service or
• 1:08:19
  for very for excellent um Slaving, I guess. I'm
• 1:08:23
  trying to think of a way of saying that. It is
• 1:08:27
  essentially the only place that we see where
• 1:08:30
  it's different is in the Imperial service, where
• 1:08:34
  there are thousands and thousands and thousands
• 1:08:36
  and thousands of people who are doing. bureaucratic
• 1:08:41
  work so like they're all of the people who are
• 1:08:43
  in charge of getting and making and paying for
• 1:08:46
  the costumes for spectacles and then a whole
• 1:08:49
  other department of people who are in charge
• 1:08:51
  of the sets for theatres and a whole other set
• 1:08:57
  of people who are in charge of paying the stone
• 1:09:00
  quarries to get the stone for building a new
• 1:09:03
  temple so there's thousands of them and what
• 1:09:06
  you see there is a career progression where freedom
• 1:09:09
  seems to be part of the promotion to management
• 1:09:13
  um so if you get promoted into a management position
• 1:09:17
  you're almost certainly going to be freed as
• 1:09:19
  part of it um and that is the you still have
• 1:09:23
  to pay for it And there's a whole department
• 1:09:26
  that's in charge of processing the payments for
• 1:09:29
  manumission. But it seems that it is something
• 1:09:34
  that you can literally work towards because obviously
• 1:09:37
  the emperor doesn't know who the hell is doing
• 1:09:40
  all of that paperwork. And he's never met anybody
• 1:09:43
  from the department for tiles. It can come down
• 1:09:50
  through levels and you can basically earn it
• 1:09:54
  as a form of promotion, which is probably the
• 1:09:58
  most hopeful way and the least arbitrary because
• 1:10:04
  a lot of the, oh, I'm doing it because I like
• 1:10:07
  you. I'm doing it because I'm feeling good about
• 1:10:10
  it in my will. or any of the other reasons are
• 1:10:14
  very arbitrary, like very dependent on how anyone
• 1:10:17
  feels. And you have no chance if you're in the
• 1:10:18
  mines. Yeah, exactly. You're not close to the
• 1:10:20
  Dominus. Or if you're just like, yeah, like a
• 1:10:22
  woman who's in charge of sheep in Gaul, then
• 1:10:27
  like you've got no chance. But if you... If you
• 1:10:31
  work in the imperial administration, then you
• 1:10:35
  could potentially work towards promotion. You
• 1:10:38
  might still find that there's no room for promotion
• 1:10:40
  this year because we've not got the budget, but
• 1:10:42
  you still could work towards it. And what usually
• 1:10:46
  happened next? Did you get to live out your happy
• 1:10:48
  ever after with lots of parties and wine and
• 1:10:50
  friends who never ever mentioned your once basically
• 1:10:52
  property under the Dalmatian sun? I would hope
• 1:10:55
  that a lot of people managed to get it so that
• 1:10:59
  nobody ever mentioned it. Technically, you become
• 1:11:01
  a third type of person. You become a freed person.
• 1:11:03
  So Roman law says that there are free, slave,
• 1:11:06
  and people who were formerly enslaved, which
• 1:11:09
  means there's a kind of stain on you. If the
• 1:11:13
  person who owned you was alive, then you become...
• 1:11:15
  their client and so you maintain a kind of relationship
• 1:11:19
  with them of obligations where you owe them work
• 1:11:24
  and you owe them your attention basically so
• 1:11:28
  if they're a senator you have to like go to all
• 1:11:31
  of their speeches and applaud really loudly or
• 1:11:33
  you have to look after them when they're sick
• 1:11:36
  and it they're supposed to have the same obligations
• 1:11:40
  to you as well, that you're not supposed to be
• 1:11:42
  able to fall into destitution. But it's an obligation
• 1:11:48
  and it's not one that's necessarily legally enforced
• 1:11:51
  that hard on one side over the other. You have
• 1:11:55
  to be very, very grateful as well. They're always
• 1:11:57
  talking about the possibility of re -enslaving
• 1:11:59
  people who aren't grateful enough for their freedom.
• 1:12:03
  uh and it is always something that can be thrown
• 1:12:07
  at you so in an ideal world you'll have lots
• 1:12:10
  of friends who never mention it again but um
• 1:12:12
  it is always something that somebody can bring
• 1:12:16
  up and say um oh well what do you know you're
• 1:12:19
  a slave um and it is um i've said it's kind of
• 1:12:25
  similar to being a woman in patriarchy like you
• 1:12:28
  can be allowed like a a certain amount of freedom
• 1:12:31
  and you can be allowed all kinds of things and
• 1:12:32
  I can be allowed to write this book and talk
• 1:12:34
  about it but it is very possible for at any point
• 1:12:36
  anyone who dislikes me to just go what the fuck
• 1:12:38
  do you know you're a woman um and there's nothing
• 1:12:41
  I can like yeah I am like and the fact that you
• 1:12:44
  hate me for that technically isn't my problem
• 1:12:46
  but it also is something that I can't like that's
• 1:12:50
  you hating me for that not my situation but that's
• 1:12:54
  what can be thrown at a formerly enslaved person,
• 1:12:56
  a freed person. And it's them telling you that
• 1:12:59
  they hate you for something that you can't change
• 1:13:01
  about yourself that diminishes you somehow, not
• 1:13:05
  them. And so it is always something that can
• 1:13:08
  be a weapon against them. And you get really
• 1:13:11
  fierce, like horrible pieces written about freed
• 1:13:16
  people, like Petronius' Satyricon with Trimalchio's
• 1:13:19
  Feast about this inappropriate... freed person
• 1:13:25
  who has so much money but no taste because he
• 1:13:29
  is uh he's he has the tastes of a thousands of
• 1:13:35
  words about how disgusting this poor guy is um
• 1:13:38
  or there's poems that are just awful about like
• 1:13:42
  freed people um daring to walk around rome as
• 1:13:48
  if they are as good as the free um wearing a
• 1:13:51
  toga and you're like well yeah he has the citizen
• 1:13:53
  like he has the right to rotate and so they they
• 1:13:56
  exist in this situation where there is people
• 1:13:58
  are going to hate them for what they were um
• 1:14:01
  and for what they are. And there's almost nothing
• 1:14:04
  that they can do about it other than try to see
• 1:14:09
  it as somebody else's problem. Which is why probably
• 1:14:13
  running away and just living outside of Rome
• 1:14:15
  in beautiful Dacia is the best way. Last question.
• 1:14:21
  At the beginning of our conversation, I was egging
• 1:14:22
  you on to hate on Cicero. But as pretentious
• 1:14:26
  and pompous as the man apparently could be. He
• 1:14:29
  had one redeeming quality, and that was his slave,
• 1:14:32
  Marcus Tullius Tyro, who was some sort of a genius
• 1:14:35
  polymath or something. Can you tell us about
• 1:14:38
  him? Because I believe that's a pretty lovely
• 1:14:40
  story. That's not going to be horrible at all.
• 1:14:41
  Oh, you say that. Having actually read the thing
• 1:14:44
  that I said, I've developed a conspiracy theory,
• 1:14:48
  an evidence -less conspiracy theory that is going
• 1:14:51
  to be my headcanon for Tyro. So Tyro is his secretary.
• 1:14:57
  And they're very close. And there are points
• 1:15:01
  at which Tiro gets sick and Cicero pays quite
• 1:15:04
  a lot of money for him to go and get medical
• 1:15:07
  care in Greece. Although he always frames it
• 1:15:12
  as like, I can't live without you. It's never
• 1:15:15
  like I'm really worried. about you and your desires
• 1:15:19
  it's always like i can't possibly be expected
• 1:15:20
  to write my letters without you like i how am
• 1:15:24
  i supposed to be able to think about philosophy
• 1:15:26
  when you're not here but he does um and then
• 1:15:30
  when cicero dies when cicero is uh is assassinated
• 1:15:34
  during the prescriptions uh tiro makes sure that
• 1:15:39
  all of cicero's 600 letters. His many, many letters,
• 1:15:44
  his many, many big treatises on things. He edits
• 1:15:48
  them and he publishes them and he makes sure
• 1:15:51
  that they are kept in circulation after Cicero's
• 1:15:54
  death. He's declared an enemy of the state by
• 1:15:58
  the prescriptions. So technically his writings
• 1:16:00
  could have fallen out of publication. And it
• 1:16:03
  is Tiro who kind of tends to his legacy and makes
• 1:16:06
  sure that they're published. My conspiracy theory
• 1:16:08
  is that if you really... If you read his letters,
• 1:16:10
  he comes across as such a whiny little baby who
• 1:16:15
  can't make up his mind about anything, who is
• 1:16:18
  so pompous, who refers to himself repeatedly
• 1:16:22
  as the father of the country, who is always bringing
• 1:16:26
  up... He just comes across as such a... pompous
• 1:16:32
  fool that so tiro tiro was like we're gonna publish
• 1:16:36
  everything this piece of shit ever wrote and
• 1:16:38
  he's gonna bury himself i feel like maybe his
• 1:16:41
  own word it was like a little bit a little act
• 1:16:43
  of like when he was picking the letters that
• 1:16:45
  he was going to publish he's like and i'm gonna
• 1:16:46
  slip in this one where he says that he wrote
• 1:16:48
  to every single member of the senate and i'm
• 1:16:50
  gonna just to like balance out his reputation
• 1:16:53
  a little bit just to make sure that he doesn't
• 1:16:56
  come across as like the perfect statesman like
• 1:16:59
  he does in his writing But just so my conspiracy
• 1:17:03
  theory is that Tiro just got a little bit of
• 1:17:05
  revenge. For the fact that he was enslaved by
• 1:17:10
  Cicero and had to spend so much time like following
• 1:17:13
  him around and writing down all this stuff. But
• 1:17:16
  he does have, he has kind of like this ideal
• 1:17:18
  elite life. Basically, he's very close to Cicero.
• 1:17:22
  He is taken everywhere that Cicero goes. When
• 1:17:24
  he goes to be governor of Sicily, when he goes
• 1:17:27
  over to Turkey, wherever he travels, Cicero is
• 1:17:31
  with him. He gets cared for because he is important
• 1:17:34
  to Cicero and Cicero feels. he can't work without
• 1:17:37
  him. He's then freed. He gets to have this access
• 1:17:42
  to a very powerful statesman, which gets him
• 1:17:45
  favors and things. And you can see in their kind
• 1:17:48
  of letters backwards and forth that they exchange
• 1:17:52
  kind of genuine affection and with Cicero's brother.
• 1:17:55
  And then he's freed and he chooses to, that his
• 1:17:59
  duty is to protect Cicero's letter. Like he does
• 1:18:01
  have some affection for him. He does love him
• 1:18:04
  and he does. Without him, we don't know whether
• 1:18:07
  we would have had the sheer amount that Cicero
• 1:18:09
  wrote, which is so useful and so funny. But so
• 1:18:14
  he lives this kind of ideal enslaved life. And
• 1:18:18
  then he gets to die as a free man, which is with
• 1:18:22
  and also Cicero's dead. So he doesn't even have
• 1:18:23
  to hang out with him anymore. And which is, you
• 1:18:26
  know, that's the ideal situation. That's as good
• 1:18:28
  as it gets. And it still involves being like
• 1:18:32
  there's these letters where. where Quintus, Marcus's
• 1:18:37
  brother, is writing to him. He's like, oh, I'm
• 1:18:39
  lashing you in my mind for not writing to me.
• 1:18:42
  And you're like... That's quite a terrible thing
• 1:18:44
  to say to somebody, actually. Like in a BDSM
• 1:18:47
  sort of sense? No, in like, I'm whipping you
• 1:18:51
  for your disobedience. Sweet lord. I wouldn't
• 1:18:55
  say that to my friends, personally. There is
• 1:18:59
  still this... You know what, I'm going to start
• 1:19:00
  using this with my friends now. Yeah, just drop
• 1:19:02
  them a text. You're late for lunch, I'm lashing
• 1:19:04
  you in my... I can't believe you call me a ninja
• 1:19:06
  turtle, I'm lashing you in my... Totally. Yeah,
• 1:19:10
  and you're just like, okay. Even the ideal isn't
• 1:19:14
  perfect. And what he wanted was freedom more
• 1:19:18
  than anything, and he got it. So you do get these
• 1:19:21
  stories of people who get out, and they're so
• 1:19:24
  proud of themselves that they got out and were
• 1:19:27
  able to achieve something, to achieve manumission
• 1:19:31
  and to become a free person, to become a Roman
• 1:19:33
  citizen, which is the best thing you can be in
• 1:19:35
  the Roman Empire, and to be the most protected
• 1:19:38
  and the most important person in the empire.
• 1:19:42
  It's a magnificent achievement. And I don't think
• 1:19:46
  it was as common as a lot of people think it
• 1:19:48
  was, just because I don't think that people would
• 1:19:50
  boast about it to the extent that they do and
• 1:19:52
  be as proud of it as they do. That they did manage
• 1:19:56
  to get out of slavery, which presumably at some
• 1:19:59
  points felt like that was never going to happen.
• 1:20:03
  We did manage to end this conversation on a hopeful
• 1:20:06
  note after all. How very masterful of us. I did
• 1:20:09
  my best. Emma, thank you so much for this wonderful
• 1:20:12
  chat. Where can people get the book? Find bookstores
• 1:20:15
  everywhere. Find bookstores everywhere. So in
• 1:20:17
  the UK, it's called Service. In the US, it's
• 1:20:20
  called Not Built in a Day. It's out May 21st
• 1:20:24
  in Europe. June 30th in North America, and then
• 1:20:30
  various translations coming at various points
• 1:20:33
  next year as well. And you can find all of the
• 1:20:36
  links for all of them at emmasouthern .com or
• 1:20:39
  I'm on Instagram at emmasouthern. All right.
• 1:20:43
  Thanks again. Thank you so much. Thank you so
• 1:20:44
  much for listening. Please subscribe to the podcast
• 1:20:46
  on YouTube, follow and rate on Spotify and Apple
• 1:20:48
  Podcasts. It really does. Help. Also, feel free
• 1:20:51
  to support me on Patreon. Yes, yes, this is a
• 1:20:53
  one -person podcast. I do everything by my little
• 1:20:54
  old self. You'd be surprised at how much work
• 1:20:57
  gets poured into this, the editing, the emailing,
• 1:20:59
  the preparation, the clips, etc. I have no team,
• 1:21:03
  no real ads, no marketing, but you can help by
• 1:21:06
  hopping on Patreon and finding the Smart Cookies
• 1:21:08
  podcast on there. Like I always say, giving me
• 1:21:13
  your money, of course. And then last but certainly
• 1:21:15
  not least, I have to thank my existing patrons.
• 1:21:17
  Without you, there is no Smart Cookies podcast,
• 1:21:19
  which makes you not just absolute legends, but
• 1:21:22
  also actual producers of this show. So eternal
• 1:21:26
  gratitude and thanks go to... Thank you so much.
• 1:22:01
  Honestly, I'm super touched.