This collection of seven papers focuses on slavery in the Roman world and originated in 2007 at a round table between members of the Mainz and Anglophone scholarly traditions. The papers primarily discuss legal and economic aspects of Roman slavery, although some consider evidence from classical Athens and modern societies. The lack of a formal introduction, however, means that the reader is left to his or her own devices to contextualise these contributions within broader discussions of slavery and in relation to one another. Rather than an interconnected volume, the book feels like an assemblage of interesting, but not necessarily related, essays.
In ‘Municipium rusticum sive urbanum: the Slave Chapter of Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices’, B. Salway opens with an overview of the discovery and modern interpretation of this chapter of the Edict. He then presents a new edition of the Latin text that integrates recent discoveries at Aphrodisias and Iasos. His meticulous work demonstrates that previous readings had incorrectly interpolated a reference to eunuchs in the list of slave prices, paralleling Justinianic valuations of slaves. Salway's new reading clarifies the categories and prices of slaves, demonstrating that the Edict valued slaves strictly by gender and age, not by employment.
E. Lo Cascio's thought-provoking contribution, ‘Thinking Slave and Free in Coordinates’, interrogates the data and methods used for the demography of the Roman world and its slave population. Lo Cascio examines previous assessments of the size and order of magnitude of the slave population, a key factor in debates about the sources of slaves. He places the proportion of slaves at well below 10% for the entire Empire, based on his analysis of the effects of a larger percentage on both enslaved and free populations (p. 28). He supports that estimate with parametric modelling of the relationship between productivity, subsistence and the costs of labour, shown graphically. The graph illustrates a key point: the closer the cost of free labour is to subsistence, the less economic logic the use of enslaved labour makes. Lo Cascio argues that this model ‘seems to make sense of the economic and social development of the Roman Empire’ (p. 30). The response by other historians of the demography and economy of the Roman Empire should prove interesting.
L. Schumacher, ‘On the Status of Private actores, dispensatores, and vilici’, examines the legal status of those who held these positions. Schumacher argues that all three were necessarily slaves, as legally valid transactions could only be carried out in the presence of both parties or their slaves as agents. While his legal argument seems clear, his examination of the evidence, composed largely of funerary inscriptions, is problematic. He interprets a single name as an enslaved individual and two names as a freeborn or freed individual, despite acknowledging J.-J. Aubert's evidence to the contrary (p. 33). He tends to read the inscriptions as pure text, devoid of context. In the case of CIL 6.9346 and 6.28024 (pp. 39–40), consideration of context indicates that the texts may have differed not in time of creation, as he assumes, but in location within a tomb. Finally, given the discussion of informally freed slaves later in this volume, Schumacher's binary interpretation of legal status seems rigid.
In ‘The Slave in the Window’, P.J. Du Plessis provides a careful reading of Roman legal sources, specifically the jurists in the Digest, and reveals the juristic and socio-economic contexts of law of urban tenancy, particularly the use of a tenant's goods (invecta et illata) as security. Du Plessis sets out legal terminology, key texts and the reasoning of the jurists clearly, making his analysis accessible to those unfamiliar with his sources. He focuses on the use of slaves as invecta et illata, examining the interplay between legal theory and the execution of law. Du Plessis finds that the use of slaves as security pledges raised concerns in Roman jurists about the value, treatment and behaviour of the slave, indicating their awareness of the socio-economic implications of the laws. Possibly as a result of such concerns, he notes that Roman practice shifted over time to the use of slaves as pledges without possession by the creditor, as pledges with possession placed all legal responsibility for the slave on the creditor.
M. Crawford analyses the prices in the Attic Stelai (415 b.c.), the auction of the goods confiscated from those found guilty of impiety, and the price edict of Diocletian (a.d. 301) in ‘From Alcibiades to Diocletian: Slavery and the Economy in the Longue Durée’. Through comparing prices within each list, Crawford finds that the prices of slaves in relationship to the prices of other commodities varied little between Athens in the fifth century b.c. and the Roman Empire in the fourth century a.d. While he notes some problems inherent in these texts, such as the size of measurement units, he treats both sets of prices as maxima (p. 62), ignoring the means by which they were determined. Prices realised at an auction are not necessarily equivalent to market value, a problem in the evidence that Crawford mentions only in passing as ‘the excitement one might feel at owning a hetaira who had once belonged to Alcibiades’ (p. 62). One wishes here for a broader discussion of the possible differences between prices realised at an auction versus those set out in a governmental edict.
J. Carlsen, ‘Recruitment and Training of Roman Estate Managers in a Comparative Perspective’, uses epigraphic and textual evidence to examine the role of the vilicus, the agricultural estate manager. Despite an emphasis in Cato, Columella and Varro on the moral qualities and professional skills necessary in a good vilicus, Carlsen finds that their recruitment and professional training was haphazard at best, illustrating the divide between ideology and practice. The contrast between descriptions of the ideal manager and the complaints about his actual performance is not limited to Roman sources, as Carlsen finds similar discussions in sources from the ante-bellum American South and Russia before 1865, two societies that also employed enslaved or forced agricultural labour. While these similarities might seem to be derivative or rhetorical, he argues convincingly that they reveal real commonalities in the role of estate managers, particularly the tensions between the demands of landowners and the resources and training of managers.
In ‘Peculium, Freedom, Citizenship: a Golden Triangle or Vicious Circle? An Act in Two Parts’, R. argues for a more nuanced understanding of the legal and socio-economic aspects of manumission in Roman society. She divides her discussion into two parts: first, an analysis of legal evidence for the role of peculium in ex testamento and inter vivos manumissions and, second, the economic significance of informal and formal manumission. Her analysis of the legal sources reveals that both ex testamento and inter vivos manumissions, despite their different mechanisms, presumed the payment of peculium by slaves to masters as part of the transaction. R. finds that peculium and manumission were not a ‘generous gift’, but a means for Roman masters to control the enslaved socially and economically through a series of steps to full freedom, especially informal manumission as Junian Latins (p. 119).
The volume provides an interesting and well-edited compilation of legal and economic studies of Roman slavery. A formal introduction, however, might have considered issues not raised by the contributions themselves. Although it is never explicitly stated, four of the papers rely on evidence from the Later Empire including the jurists, the Price Edict of Diocletian and the Justinianic Corpus Iuris Civilis. To what extent does this affect our analysis? Roman slaves seem adult and male, with a few exceptions, in these contributions. Do gender and age matter? Salway's reading of the Price Edict demonstrates clearly that they did to the Romans, and one wishes for a consideration of the sweat of those brows as well.
