This volume on slavery in the Roman world contains eighteen papers in French or Italian, originally delivered at the twentieth French–Italian epigraphic conference at Poitiers in 2014. The focus of the conference was on the relationships between slaves and their masters, and all the contributions adhere to the theme in one way or another. Working predominantly with inscriptions, as each author does, brings the advantage of often being able to include new discoveries in the discussion. On the other hand, not every aspect of the chosen theme is easily studied through the epigraphic medium, due to the potentially problematic nature of the ‘relations’ or ‘relationships’ between slaves and masters/mistresses. Such relationships cannot but involve highly emotional aspects, and genuine sentiments expressing latent or repressed tensions are rarely if ever captured in the often formulaic and usually lapidary epigraphic texts, even when, or especially when, they were formulated by the slaves and freedmen themselves. This is not to deny that the volume contains many interesting contributions, both in the form of new discoveries that relate to the lives of slaves and freedmen, and in the form of comprehensive studies of already known texts. In addition, the French term ‘relations’ in the title covers legal and financial relationships, which are easier to investigate in inscriptions. The content is divided into three parts, with four contributions under the heading ‘Le monde servile et le droit’, five in the section on ‘Le monde servile face aux hommes, aux dieux, à la mort’ and the longest section, ‘Études régionales’, comprising nine chapters, all on discoveries from Italy including Sardinia.
In the first part, D. Mulliez discusses the relations between owners and slaves as documented in the manumission records from the sanctuary at Delphi during the period c. 200 bce – c. 100 ce. Some 1,400 slaves are named in an almost equal number of texts, which received a synthetic treatment in R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, Not Wholly Free. The Concept of Manumission and the Status of Manumitted Slaves in the Ancient Greek World (2005). Mulliez harbours some reservations about the work, but gives no details and instead promises to return to the topic (p. 13). The paramone process of manumission employed at Delphi (where the term was paramona) first assigned the slave to the service of a deity, eventually to become wholly free. Mulliez uses several examples to show how masters continued to require services of their manumitted slaves who lived under paramone conditions. These demands seem to have become more exacting during the Roman period, perhaps as a result of the greater difficulty of purchasing slaves on the market as the pax Romana took hold. There were less piracy and fewer wars of conquest, and thus the supply dried up.
E. Incelli discusses how inscriptions can contribute to our understanding of the modalities of manumission. He laments that recent works neglect the topic, and takes a quote by P. Erdkamp as his starting point: ‘The epigraphic record shows no real difference between one form of manumission and another’ (P. Erdkamp [ed.], The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome [2013], p. 71). Erdkamp is undoubtedly right in this claim, as anyone realises who has pondered how to separate freed slaves who were cives Romani from those who merely had Junian Latin status. Incelli's main interest is to show that there are a few inscriptions that provide some information about how slaves were manumitted. An inscription from Rome refers to the master's slaves as quos testamento manumisero and quem in statu libertatis reliqui (AE 1945, 136). This shows that the owner was aware of two legal ways in which manumission could occur (and would lead to full citizenship): by testament or by bestowing the condition of statu liber onto the slave. He/she would gain freedom only after having performed certain defined tasks for a certain time on behalf of the heir (Gai. Inst. 2.200). Other inscriptions similarly document that slave owners had knowledge of Roman law.
F. Luciani, the author of a 2011 dissertation on slaves owned by towns in North Italy, devotes his chapter to investigating how Roman towns employed their slaves and what services they required from their liberti. In ‘La désignation de la posterité’ N. Laubry investigates the meaning of the formula libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum, which was very common in Latin epitaphs. According to Laubry, behind this gift of burial space to the master's freedmen and their descendants, an apparent act of kindness and generosity, lies the wish to guarantee the upkeep of the tomb and the performing of funerary rites far into the future, by individuals who carried the same nomen as the first owner of the tomb. The formula was intended to keep alive the memory of the original dominus and patronus.
In the first contribution of the second part C. Hamdoune discusses the verse epitaph of Salvius, a slave owned by King Juba II of Mauretania (CIL VIII 21303 = CLE 1245: … hunc Libuae genuit tellus …), adding epigraphic parallels of verses written for slaves and some further references to slaves owned by foreign kings. C. Landrea presents a brief survey of some slaves owned by several members of the powerful Valerii Messallae from c. 100 bce to c. 100 ce. The subject of the contribution by A. Alvar Nuño is a Greek tabella defixionis directed at a Roman woman Clodia Valeria Sophrone and expressing the hope that she will be unable to acquire the slave woman Politoria. Included is a useful list of eighteen curse tablets from Western Europe of which slaves are the authors. Turning the tables, one is reminded of P. Ripat, ‘Cheating Women: Curse Tablets and Roman Wives’, in K.B. Stratton and D.S. Kalleres (edd.), Daughters of Hecate. Women and Magic in the Ancient World (2014), pp. 340–64, where it is argued that, when tabellae defixionis show free women cursing other women, the victims are often slaves with whom the matrona’s husband was having an affair.
A more trusting relation between owner and slave is reflected in the study by S. Antolini and S.M. Marengo, which focuses on dedications erected by slaves to their master's genius and in some cases also to local institutions. Among the noteworthy novelties is an inscribed ossuarium, the two inscriptions of which are analysed by G.L. Gregori and G. Bianchini. The receptacle contained the remains of three individuals, named Chrestus, Primigenius and Arescusa, all are assumed to be slaves, since each person is cited only by cognomen. Perhaps they were fellow slaves, or did they form a nuclear family (pp. 149–50)? The inscriptions are unusually wordy and well worth the authors’ detailed discussion of the emotions and the ideology behind the phrases and themes encountered.
The longest section, containing regional studies, begins with a useful survey by A. Buonopane and G. Cresci Marrone of some 340 women who appear as patronae of freed slaves in North Italy (the Augustan regions X and XI). C. Zaccaria, in ‘Fidelissimus servus’, charts the presence of slaves at Aquileia in both official and private activities. A problematic inscription from Eporedia (CIL V 6785), which appears to mention some slaves, is the subject of G. Mennella's contribution. F. Cenerini discusses a handful of funerary monuments from the Augustan Regio VIII, in which slave children appear to be mentioned; the focus is on children aged seven or younger. While the identification of status is sometimes difficult, there does not seem to be much difference in the way in which young slave and freeborn children are represented. This is less of a surprise, since emotional ties surely explain why slave children were commemorated in the first place. In G.L. Gregori's second contribution a new inscription from Rome is presented, an epitaph for L. Modius Nicephorus domnulus optimus et carissimus, who lived to the age of six and was commemorated by his tata L. Modius Urbanus. The term domnulus, here encountered for the first time, ought to mean ‘little master’, but was Urbanus therefore an ex-slave (probably freed by Nicephorus’ father) who acted as childminder? Gregori leans towards this interpretation.
M.L. Caldelli studies the relations between slaves and masters at Ostia. The 80 inscriptions that provide substance for the topic of ‘relations’ present a fairly tranquil situation. Slaves in another large Italian town, Capua, are the subject of L. Chioffi's contribution. Emotional epithets are rare in the dozen or so epitaphs discussed; the most interesting phrase, amans domini opseq(u)ens amicis (CIL I2 1593 = X 4167; late-republican), gives the chapter its title. M. Silvestrini publishes some new inscriptions from Tarentum, mostly epitaphs. The servile status of the individuals cited is not always ascertained, since they carry the tria nomina. In the final contribution M.B. Cocco discusses slavery in Sardinia based on both literary and epigraphic evidence. The bibliography covers almost 40 pages, and extensive indexes conclude this interesting and useful volume.
