Five Thousand Years of Slavery

by Marjorie Gann

  To the owners, the very fact that people were slaves proved that they were inferior. It did not matter what the slave thought, felt, or had done before enslavement. Most people shared the opinion of the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle, who wrote, “A man who is able to belong to another person is by nature a slave (for that is why he belongs to someone else).”

  A far less common point of view was heard in a comic play by the writer Philemon, who had a character say, “Though one is a slave, he is a man no less than you, master; he is made of the same flesh. No one is a slave by nature; it is fate that enslaves the body.” Although some people questioned whether slavery was a natural condition, no one tried to end the practice.

  Owners expected slaves to devote themselves to their work, submit to their masters’ wishes, be loyal to them, and make them feel superior. Many slaves were so hungry for human attachments that they became the faithful servants their owners wanted. One man who had been enslaved by a Roman for forty years said:

  I did all I could to gratify my master, who was an honorable and worthy man. And in the house I was dealing with people who would have liked nothing better than to trip me up. But in the end I came out on top, praise be to my master! Now, that is real merit, because to be born free isn’t very hard at all.

  Most slaves found their situation more difficult. They had no control over where they worked or what their owners might do. Owners could punish them with branding, burning, flogging, tattooing, and maiming, for minor misdeeds or none at all.

  Tools for Any Task

  Some slaves did not have human owners; they were owned by the state. In Athens, for example, city slaves worked as inspectors of weights and measures, heralds, accountants, executioners, and scribes. But most slaves were seen as possessions of an individual. The average Greek home had three slaves and wealthy households had about fifty, including ten or twenty female slaves who did household chores like fetching water, sewing, tending children, and cleaning. Even a chore that sounds simple, such as serving food, could be humiliating; some serving women were forced to wear a device called a throat choke to prevent them from sneaking any of their master’s food.

  The Romans had far larger households, and because they frowned on all manual work, they needed far more slaves. A modest household might have just two or three slaves, but a moderately rich family might own four hundred or more. One Roman slave owner took eight hundred personal slaves and shepherds with him when he went to war. The general who fought Spartacus owned approximately twenty thousand slaves.

  If they needed advice on how to choose and manage slaves, ancient slave owners could turn to instruction books. One writer suggested that they feed their slaves well to keep them from stealing, provide more food for harder work and less if slaves were too ill to work, sell slaves when they became old, and give them just a shirt, cloak, and wooden shoes every two years. Another writer recommended separating slaves from the same nation to prevent them from talking and possibly fighting.

  Though many slaves were highly skilled, their owners usually got the credit for their work. A wealthy Greek politician, for example, used slaves in the Olympics in 416 BCE. He had seven chariots entered in one race, but he hadn’t devoted years of his life to grueling preparation and training. Instead, slaves had built the chariots, groomed and trained the horses, and even helped build the stadium for the event. And it was the politician’s slaves who risked their lives driving the chariots when the dangerous competition began. When the chariots proved victorious, however, the medals and prize money all went to their owner – not to the slaves.

  Sometimes the only job a slave had was to be a status symbol, like jewelry or fashionable clothes. Free men and women flaunted their wealth by taking slaves with them when they appeared in public, even if they were just making a social visit to a neighbor. The poet Horace did not even acknowledge his slave’s presence when he wrote, “I am accustomed to walking alone,” although a few lines later he made it clear that his slave was with him.

  Wealthy women depended on slaves to bathe them, clothe them, do their hair, and accompany them when they left their homes. This wall painting shows ladies of Pompeii, in today’s Italy, with their slave hairdresser.

  Photo Credit 2.3

  Most slaves were not status symbols but laborers doing exhausting, dangerous jobs. One of the worst places to work was in the mines. At the silver mine in Laurion, near Athens, Greece, as many as thirty thousand men and women, weak and strong, slaved in the mine pits and processing areas. The conditions were horrible. The historian Diodorus Siculus shows a sensitivity to their misery that is unusual for his time:

  The workers in these mines produce incredible profits for the owners, but their own lives are spent underground in the quarries wearing and wasting their bodies day and night. Many die, their sufferings are so great. There is no relief, no respite from their labors. The hardships to which the overseer’s lash compels them to submit are so severe that, except for a few, whose strength of body and bravery of soul enable them to endure for a long time, they abandon life, because death seems preferable.… No leniency or respite of any kind is given to any man who is sick, or maimed, or aged, or in the case of a woman for her weakness, but all without exception are compelled by blows to persevere in their labors, until through ill-treatment they die in the midst of their tortures.

  Humans for Rent

  In Greece and Rome, as in Mesopotamia centuries earlier, owners could rent out their slaves. Sometimes the work was harsh – miners were often owned by one person and rented by another. Other slaves had easier lives. In Greece, slaves who were hired out, particularly in cities, lived apart from their owners, often because the owners’ houses didn’t have room for them. These slaves were sometimes called paybringers because they brought income to their owners. We can still see the paybringers’ beautiful handiwork in buildings, mosaics, leather goods, and vases that have survived. Paybringers were allowed to keep a little of the money they earned. A stone mason who worked with his slaves on the Acropolis in Athens was paid for his own work and given a share of his slaves’ pay as well. Other paybringers were bankers, shop and factory managers, and captains of trading vessels.

  A pottery storage jar shows a Greek slave (seated on the right) holding a sandal. On the left, the shoemaker, who may also have been a slave, is cutting the leather around the woman customer’s foot.

  Photo Credit 2.4

  The Rule of Law

  Workers today expect to have rights under the law. The only rights the slaves had were those their owners felt like giving them, and owners could change their minds on a whim. If an owner broke a promise to a slave, the slave could do nothing about it. The law was overwhelmingly on the owner’s side.

  The leaders of Rome, known as the consuls, issued the Law of the Twelve Tables, which laid out the basic laws of the land. These included such penalties as the enslavement of people in debt, and a fine for breaking someone’s bone. The fine for breaking a free person’s bone was twice that for breaking a slave’s bone. Some laws addressed the punishment of slaves who had committed crimes. Masters could punish slaves as they chose, but they did not want the punishment to reflect badly on their own reputation. A Roman poet wrote that a woman who scratched her hairdresser or stabbed her with a needle did not make herself attractive.

  Spartacus’s heroic escape has been celebrated in books and even in movies. Despite threats of branding and crucifixion, countless other slaves whose names we will never know also tried to run away. When they ran off, Roman owners advertised rewards for their capture, consulted oracles, astrologers, and dream interpreters, got help from public authorities, and even hired professional slave catchers. For those who escaped while serving in a war, freedom might depend on who won. Sometimes, the peace treaty said that fugitives and deserters would be handed back to the side they had abandoned.

  The greatest punishment was reserved for a slave who killed a master. About two thousand years ago, a slave killed a se
nior Roman official. The law said that the official’s other four hundred slaves must be killed. Freedmen – people who once had been enslaved but had been freed – protested the penalty, and the Roman senate debated the issue. Most senators voted in favor of death for all the slaves, and Emperor Nero ordered that the savage punishment be carried out.

  A Path to Freedom

  It is hard to imagine how slaves felt when they heard that somebody they knew had been freed. Owners had different reasons for freeing their slaves, but they often held out the possibility of freedom as a way to make slaves work hard. Manumission – the freeing of slaves – could only happen if the owners agreed. Some slaves managed to raise money to buy their freedom. They usually worked in places like stores or workshops, where they could try to save up tips, presents, or payments for the things they made. Greek slaves who had not saved enough could borrow from loan clubs formed by the slaves themselves. We know of slaves in Rome who invested in their masters’ business and in time owned land, a house, or even a business of their own.

  Roman masters even made financial provision for slaves before freeing them. In return, the ex-slaves were tied to their masters, who had become their patrons. Typically ex-slaves were expected to pay ceremonial calls on their patrons every day, and sometimes to pay them from their earnings. Some former slaves continued to serve their previous masters in almost the same way they had when they were slaves. In Rome ex-slaves were citizens. In Greece they were not; they were a class apart, neither slaves nor citizens.

  On rare occasions, an extraordinary slave would be freed out of gratitude for his work. One of these, Pasion, became one of the richest men in Greece. He had served two bankers and had been so good at his work that he had been promoted to the position of chief clerk. Later, when he was freed, he continued to work for the bankers. Pasion was so successful that he gave the government money when it was needed. In turn, he was rewarded with citizenship. When he retired, he turned the bank’s management over to his own slave, whom he then freed.

  Owners sometimes granted freedom to a slave who was near death so that the person could die with dignity as a freed man. They might also bequeath freedom to their slaves in their wills, to show, when they themselves died, that they had been good masters.

  Any children born to freed slaves would also be free, but children born while the parents were slaves would remain slaves unless they could buy their own freedom. And that, unfortunately, was rare. Most Greek and Roman slave owners never gave up control, and their slaves never became free.

  CHAPTER 3

  SAINTS AND VIKINGS: EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

  Most slaves are buried in unmarked graves, their names forever lost to history. But one former slave is honored with festivities every year on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

  He was born Patricius in Britain around the year 390 CE, at a time when the land was part of the Roman Empire and its official language was Latin. Patricius – or Patrick – grew up surrounded by slaves on his wealthy parents’ estate. Irish pirates raided his home when he was not yet sixteen years old, capturing him and carrying him off to Ireland. He went from being the privileged son in a comfortable home to being a slave tending sheep. Patrick spent day after tedious day on the lonely hills, cold, hungry, and with only the sheep for company. His family in Britain were Christian but had not been very religious. In Ireland, however, Patrick began to pray.

  When he was twenty-one years old, Patrick escaped. He traveled about two hundred miles (300 km), until he came to a ship. Its captain first refused to give him passage back home but later relented. Back in Britain, Patrick dedicated himself to his faith, eventually becoming a bishop in the Church. In about 430, the Church returned him to Ireland. Patrick converted thousands to Christianity and fought against the enslavement of Christians with a passion drawn from his own experiences. (Though the Church did not oppose all slavery, it was against the enslavement of Christians by non-Christians.) He especially condemned the enslavement of women, who “suffer the most,” he said, enduring “terrors and constant threats.”

  When the British king Coroticus invaded Ireland, he and his men slaughtered many newly baptized Christians and captured people of all ages. Patrick tried to ransom the slaves, but Coroticus merely laughed at his efforts. Patrick’s hands were tied; he could neither fight Coroticus nor talk him into freeing his captives. He tried persuasion of a different type. Since many of Coroticus’s soldiers were Christians, Patrick wrote a letter to be read aloud to the king and his men. “You … murder them and sell them to an outlandish race which does not know God,” he wrote. He hoped the men would convince their king to free the captives. No documents exist to tell us whether he was successful.

  Today the Catholic Church reveres Saint Patrick as the apostle of Ireland, and people in many countries – Catholic and non-Catholic, Irish and non-Irish alike – wear green on St. Patrick’s Day to honor this former slave.

  This statue of Saint Patrick – the one-time slave shepherd – stands in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. The lamb represents Christianity, and the snake on his staff refers to the belief that Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.

  Photo Credit 3.1

  THE MEANING OF “SLAVE”

  Originally, the words for “slave” in most European languages came from the word servus, which meant “slave” in Latin. But during the Middle Ages, those words were applied not to slaves but simply to people of the lowest classes. Meanwhile, the largest group of slaves purchased by Europeans came from the Slavic lands – the parts of Europe north and west of the Black Sea, including today’s Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, and Bulgaria. The ethnic name “Slav” was soon applied to all slaves: slav in English, esclave in French, esclavo in Spanish, escravo in Portuguese, schiavo in Italian, and Sklave in German. As for those words derived from servus, they came to mean the class of serfs, the peasants in the feudal system of the Middle Ages.

  Raiders from the North

  For another thousand years or so after Patrick’s death – in a period known as the Middle Ages – slavery continued in Europe, and being Christian was no guarantee of being spared. The threat of captivity persisted in Europe until the nineteenth century.

  Some three hundred years after the Irish captured Patrick, other marauders – Vikings – stormed the coasts of Ireland and Britain. The Vikings came from Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark). Among them were expert boatmen, traders, adventurers, and settlers, but also bandits, kidnappers, and murderers who terrorized the people they encountered on shore.

  The Viking era was launched in the spring of 793 with a murderous attack on Lindisfarne, a monastery perched high atop a small rocky island off the coast of northeastern England. When an English churchman heard about the ferocious raid, he wrote:

  … never before has such an atrocity been seen in Britain as we have now suffered at the hands of a pagan people. Such a voyage was not thought possible. The church of St. Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishings, exposed to the plundering of the pagans.

  The Vikings were after the church’s gold and bejeweled treasures, including the beautifully decorated biblical text known as the Lindisfarne Gospels. Along with the loot they took captives to become slaves.

  Even though they were Scandinavians themselves, the Vikings showed no mercy when it came to raiding Scandinavian villages and enslaving their own people. They rampaged right across Europe to Russia. They were not the only slave traders doing such terrible work: in Wales, traders sold their own countryfolk to the Vikings. There were probably others who turned against their own people for profit.

  What was it like to be captured by Vikings? An eleventh-century German historian described a Viking raid in lands that now include parts of the Netherlands and Germany:

  At that time a fleet of the pirates whom our people call Ascomanni landed in Saxony and devastated all the coastland of Frisia and Hadeln. And, as they went up the mouth of the El
be River, they fell upon the province.… The victorious Swedes and Danes completely destroyed the whole Saxon troop. Captured there were the margrave [governor] Siegfried, Count Dietrich and other distinguished men whom the barbarians dragged to the ships with their hands tied behind their backs, and their feet shackled with chains. After that the barbarians ravaged the whole province with impunity.

  The Vikings sometimes freed captives – for a price. The abbey of St-Denis, in France, spent an immense sum as ransom for its abbot – more than the Church had paid the Vikings earlier that year to keep them from burning the city of Paris.

  AN EARLY EFFORT AT FREEDOM

  Slavery was accepted under Catholic Church law in the Middle Ages, but the law frowned on sending Christians as slaves to serve pagans. Around 850 in northeast Germany, a band of pagans captured Christians and held them as slaves. Some of the captives fled to neighboring Christians for refuge. Rather than help them, the neighbors bound them in chains, sold some to pagans and others to Christians, and enslaved the rest themselves.

  The Archbishop Anskar (or Ansgar) objected to keeping Christians enslaved. He traveled to the noblemen in charge to get these captives freed, and to ensure that they would not be captured again. Today, the archbishop is known as Saint Anskar, the Apostle of the North.

  The Image of Slaves

  People through the ages have justified taking slaves by telling themselves that they were not quite human. The Vikings described their slaves in such ugly terms that it seemed to give them an excuse for treating them terribly.

  Scandinavian slaves were known as thralls, and wherever they lived, and wherever they had come from, they were forever outsiders. The thralls left no record of how they felt about their lives, but the sagas and eddas, the epic poems of the time, have survived, and they give us a vivid picture of how free people felt about thralls.