Part 940

After the Romans became masters of Sicily the island was filled rapidly with slaves, of which a vast number were being continually acquired in the Roman wars of conquest. Most of these slaves were employed as shepherds and herdsmen on great estates, the owners of which gave little attention to them, simply exacting in the most merciless fashion a satisfactory product. The result was that the latter, half perishing from hunger and cold, were driven to desperation, and a frightful rising among them broke out, B. C. 133. It began at Enna, and its leader was a Syrian called Eunus, who pretended to supernatural powers. The inhabitants of Enna were massacred, and that town became the stronghold of the revolt. Eunus crowned himself and assumed the royal name of Antiochus. Agrigentum, Messana and Tauromenium fell into the hands of the insurgents, and more than a year passed before they were successfully resisted. When, at last, they were overcome, it was only at the end of most obstinate sieges, particularly at Tauromenium and Enna, and the vengeance taken was without mercy. In Italy there were similar risings at the same time, from like causes, but these latter were quickly suppressed. Thirty years later a second revolt of slaves was provoked, both in southern Italy and in Sicily,—suppressed promptly in the former, but growing to seriousness in the latter. The Sicilian slaves had two leaders, Salvius and Athenio; but the former established his ascendancy and called himself king Triphon. The rebellion was suppressed at the cost of two heavy battles.

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 48, and book 6, chapter 55._

ALSO IN: _G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, chapter 9._

SLAVERY: Start--------

SLAVERY: Ancient. Among the Oriental races.

"From the writings of the Old Testament a fairly distinct conception can be formed of slavery among the Hebrews. Many modern critics hold the picture presented in the Book of Genesis, of the patriarchal age, its slavery included, to be not a transcript of reality, but an idealisation of the past. Whether this is so or not, can only be properly decided by the historico-critical investigations of specialists. Although the Hebrews are described as having shown extreme ferocity in the conquest of Canaan, their legislation as to slavery was, on the whole, considerate and humane. Slaves were not numerous among them, at least after the exile. Hebrew slavery has naturally been the subject of much research and controversy. The best treatise regarding it is still that of Mielziner. Slavery in the great military empires, which arose in ancient times in anterior Asia, was doubtless of the most cruel character; but we have no good account of slavery in these countries. The histories of Rawlinson, Duncker, Ranke, Ed. Meyer, and Maspero, tell us almost nothing about Chaldean, Assyrian, and Medo-Persian slavery. Much more is known as to slavery, and the condition of the labouring classes, in ancient Egypt, although of even this section of the history there is much need for an account in which the sources of information, unsealed by modern science, will be fully utilised. While in Egypt there were not castes, in the strict sense of the term, classes were very rigidly defined. There were troops of slaves, and as population was superabundant, labour was so cheap as to be employed to an enormous extent uselessly. It may suffice to refer to Wilkinson, Rawlinson, and Buckle. It does not seem certain that the Vedic Aryans had slaves before the conquest of India. Those whom they conquered became the Sudras, and a caste system grew up, and came to be represented as of divine appointment. The two lower castes of the Code of Manu have now given place to a great many. There was not a slave caste, but individuals of any caste might become slaves in exceptional circumstances. Even before the rise of Buddhism there were ascetics who rejected the distinction of castes. Buddhism proclaimed the religious equality of Brahmans and Sudras, but not the emancipation of the Sudras."

_R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc., pages 128-129._

ALSO IN: _E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations._

SLAVERY: Among the Greeks.

"The institution of slavery in Greece is very ancient; it is impossible to trace its origin, and we find it even in the very earliest times regarded as a necessity of nature, a point of view which even the following ages and the most enlightened philosophers adopted. In later times voices were heard from time to time protesting against the necessity of the institution, showing some slight conception of the idea of human rights, but these were only isolated opinions. From the very earliest times the right of the strongest had established the custom that captives taken in war, if not killed or ransomed, became the slaves of the conquerors, or were sold into slavery by them. … Besides the wars, piracy, originally regarded as by no means dishonourable, supplied the slave markets; and though in later times endeavours were made to set a limit to it, yet the trade in human beings never ceased, since the need for slaves was considerable, not only in Greece, but still more in Oriental countries. {2912} In the historic period the slaves in Greece were for the most part barbarians, chiefly from the districts north of the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor. The Greek dealers supplied themselves from the great slave markets held in the towns on the Black Sea and on the Asiatic coast of the Archipelago, not only by the barbarians themselves, but even by Greeks, in particular the Chians, who carried on a considerable slave trade. These slaves were then put up for sale at home; at Athens there were special markets held for this purpose on the first of every month. … A large portion of the slave population consisted of those who were born in slavery; that is, the children of slaves or of a free father and slave mother, who as a rule also became slaves, unless the owner disposed otherwise. We have no means of knowing whether the number of these slave children born in the houses in Greece was large or small. At Rome thy formed a large proportion of the slave population, but the circumstances in Italy differed greatly from those in Greece, and the Roman landowners took as much thought for the increase of their slaves as of their cattle. Besides these two classes of slave population, those who were taken in war or by piracy and those who were born slaves, there was also a third, though not important, class. In early times even free men might become slaves by legal methods; for instance foreign residents, if they neglected their legal obligations, and even Greeks, if they were insolvent, might be sold to slavery by their creditors [see DEBT: ANCIENT GREEK], a severe measure which was forbidden by Solon's legislation at Athens, but still prevailed in other Greek states. Children, when exposed, became the property of those who found and educated them, and in this manner many of the hetaerae and flute girls had become the property of their owners. Finally, we know that in some countries the Hellenic population originally resident there were subdued by foreign tribes, and became the slaves of their conquerors, and their position differed in but few respects from that of the barbarian slaves purchased in the markets. Such native serfs were the Helots at Sparta, the Penestae in Thessaly, the Clarotae in Crete, etc. We have most information about the position and treatment of the Helots; but here we must receive the statements of writers with great caution, since they undoubtedly exaggerated a good deal in their accounts of the cruelty with which the Spartans treated the Helots. Still, it is certain that in many respects their lot was a sad one. … The rights assigned by law to the master over his slaves were very considerable. He might throw them in chains, put them in the stocks, condemn them to the hardest labour —for instance, in the mills—leave them without food, brand them, punish them with stripes, and attain the utmost limit of endurance; but, at any rate at Athens, he was forbidden to kill them. … Legal marriages between slaves were not possible, since they possessed no personal rights; the owner could at any moment separate a slave family again, and sell separate members of it. On the other hand, if the slaves were in a position to earn money, they could acquire fortunes of their own; they then worked on their own account, and only paid a certain proportion to their owners, keeping the rest for themselves, and when they had saved the necessary amount they could purchase their freedom, supposing the owner was willing to agree, for he was not compelled. … The protection given to slaves by the State was very small, but here again there were differences in different states. … It would be impossible to make a guess at the number of slaves in Greece. Statements on the subject are extant, but these are insufficient to give us any general idea. There can be no doubt that the number was a very large one; it was a sign of the greatest poverty to own no slaves at all, and Aeschines mentions, as a mark of a very modest household, that there were only seven slaves to six persons. If we add to these domestic slaves the many thousands working in the country, in the factories, and the mines, and those who were the property of the State and the temples, there seems no doubt that their number must have considerably exceeded that of the free population."

_H. Blümner, The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, lectures 2-3, third course (volume 2)._

SLAVERY: Among the Romans.

Slavery, under the Roman Empire, "was carried to an excess never known elsewhere, before or since.

See ROME: B. C. 159-133.

Christianity found It permeating and corrupting every domain of human life, and in six centuries of conflict succeeded in reducing it to nothing. … Christianity, in the early ages, never denounced slavery as a crime; never encouraged or permitted the slaves to rise against their masters and throw off the yoke; yet she permeated the minds of both masters and slaves with ideas utterly inconsistent with the spirit of slavery. Within the Church, master and slave stood on an absolute equality."

_W. R. Brownlow, Lectures on Slavery and Serfdom in Europe, lectures 1-2._

SLAVERY: Mediæval and Modern.

SLAVERY: Villeinage. Serfdom.

"The persons employed in cultivating the ground during the ages under review [the 7th to the 11th centuries, in Europe] may be divided into three classes:

I. 'Servi,' or slaves. This seems to have been the most numerous class, and consisted either of captives taken in war, or of persons the property in whom was acquired in some one of the various methods enumerated by Du Cange, voc. Servus, volume vi. page 447. The wretched condition of this numerous race of men will appear from several circumstances.

1. Their masters had absolute dominion over their persons. They had the power of punishing their slaves capitally, without the intervention of any judge. This dangerous right they possessed not only in the more early periods, when their manners were fierce, but it continued as late as the 12th century. … Even after this jurisdiction of masters came to be restrained, the life of a slave was deemed to be of so little value that a very slight compensation atoned for taking it away. If masters had power over the lives of their slaves, it is evident that almost no bounds would be set to the rigour of the punishments which they might inflict upon them. … The cruelty of these was, in many instances, excessive. Slaves might be put to the rack on very slight occasions. The laws with respect to these points are to be found in Potgiesserus, lib. iii. cap. 7. 2. and are shocking to humanity.

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2. If the dominion of masters over the lives and persons of their slaves was thus extensive, it was no less so over their actions and property. They were not originally permitted to marry. Male and female slaves were allowed, and even encouraged, to cohabit together. But this union was not considered as a marriage. … When the manners of the European nations became more gentle, and their ideas more liberal, slaves who married without their master's consent were subjected only to a fine. …

3. All the children of slaves were in the same condition with their parents, and became the property of their master. …

4. Slaves were so entirely the property of their masters that they could sell them at pleasure. While domestic slavery continued, property in a slave was sold in the same manner with that which a person had in any other moveable. Afterwards slaves became 'adscripti glebæ,' and were conveyed by sale, together with the farm or estate to which they belonged. …

5. Slaves had a title to nothing but subsistence and clothes from their master; all the profits of their labour accrued to him. …

6. Slaves were distinguished from freemen by a peculiar dress. Among all the barbarous nations, long hair was a mark of dignity and of freedom; slaves were for that reason, obliged to shave their heads. …

II. 'Villani.' They were likewise 'adscripti glebæ,' or 'villæ,' from which they derived their name, and were transferable along with it. Du Cange, voc. Villanus. But in this they differed from slaves, that they paid a fixed rent to their master for the land which they cultivated, and, after paying that, all the fruits of their labour and industry belonged to themselves in property. This distinction is marked by Pierre de Fontain's Conseil. Vie de St. Louis par Joinville, page 119, édit. de Du Cange. Several cases decided agreeably to this principle are mentioned by Muratori, ibid, page 773.

III. The last class of persons employed in agriculture were freemen. … Notwithstanding the immense difference between the first of these classes and the third, such was the spirit of tyranny which prevailed among the great proprietors of lands … that many freemen, in despair, renounced their liberty, and voluntarily surrendered themselves as slaves to their powerful masters. This they did in order that their masters might become more immediately interested to afford them protection, together with the means of subsisting themselves and their families. … It was still more common for freemen to surrender their liberty to bishops or abbots, that they might partake of the security which the vassals and slaves of churches and monasteries enjoyed. … The number of slaves in every nation of Europe was immense. The greater part of the inferior class of people in France were reduced to this state at the commencement of the third race of kings. Esprit des Loix, liv. xxx. c. ii. The same was the case in England. Brady, Pref. to Gen. Hist. … The humane spirit of the christian religion struggled long with the maxims and manners of the world, and contributed more than any other circumstance to introduce the practice of manumission. … The formality of manumission was executed in a church, as a religious solemnity. … Another method of obtaining liberty was by entering into holy orders, or taking the vow in a monastery. This was permitted for some time; but so many slaves escaped by this means out of the hands of their masters that the practice was afterwards restrained, and at last prohibited, by the laws of almost all the nations of Europe. … Great … as the power of religion was, it does not appear that the enfranchisement of slaves was a frequent practice while the feudal system preserved its vigour. … The inferior order of men owed the recovery of their liberty to the decline of that aristocratical policy."

_W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., notes 9 and 20._

ALSO IN: _A. Gurowski, Slavery in History, chapters 15-20._

_T. Smith, Arminius, part 3, chapter 5._

See, also, DEDITITIUS.

SLAVERY: England. Villeinage.

"Chief of all causes [of slavery] in early times and among all peoples was capture in war. The peculiar nature of the English conquests, the frequent wars between the different kingdoms and the private expeditions for revenge or plunder would render this a fruitful means whereby the number of slaves would increase on English soil. In this way the Romanized Briton, the Welshman, the Angle and Saxon and the Dane would all go to swell the body of those without legal status. In those troubled times any were liable to a reduction to slavery; the thegn might become a thrall, the lord might become the slave of one who had been in subjection under him, and Wulfstan, in that strong sermon of his to the English [against Slavery—preserved by William of Malmesbury], shows that all this actually took place. It was at the time of the Danish invasion and the sermon seems to point clearly to a region infested by Danes, a region in which was the seat of Wulfstan's labors, for he was Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023. Wulfstan's graphic picture does not seem to be corroborated by the evidence of the Domesday Survey. Mr. Seebohm's map shows that in the west and southwest there appears the greatest percentage in that record; that in Gloucestershire nearly one fourth of the population, twenty-four per cent., were in a state of slavery; that in Cornwall, Devon, and Stafford the proportion was only one to every five; in central England about one to every seven; in the east, Essex, Surrey, Cambridge and Herts one to every nine; in East Anglia and Wessex one to every twenty-five, while in the northerly districts in Nottinghamshire one to two hundred is given, and in York, Rutland, Huntingdon and Lincoln no slaves at all are recorded. From this it is evident that the Danish invasion was less serious from this point of view than had been the original conquest. Domesday records the social condition 500 years after the settlement, and many influences, with Christianity as the primary, were at work to alter the results of that movement. The main inference to be drawn is that the continued warfare along the Welsh marches replenished the supply in the west, while in the east the slave element was rapidly decreasing and in the north, notwithstanding the Danish invasion, there was rather a commingling of peoples than a subjection of the one by the other. A second cause was the surrender into slavery of the individual's own body either by himself or a relative. This could be voluntary, the free act of the individual or his relatives, or it could be forced, resulting from the storm and stress of evil days: This surrender was one of the most unfortunate phases of the Anglo-Saxon servitude and indicates to us the growing increase of the traffic in slaves; and the personal subjection was largely the outcome of that which was common to all peoples, the demand for slaves. {2914} Even as early as the time of Strabo, in the half century following Cæsar's conquest, the export of slaves began in Britain and before the Norman Conquest the sale of slaves had become a considerable branch of commerce. The insular position of England, her numerous ports, of which Bristol was one of the chief, gave rise during the Saxon occupation to a traffic in the slaves of all nations, and we know that slaves were publicly bought and sold throughout England and from there transported to Ireland or the continent. It was the prevalence of this practice and the wretched misery which it brought upon so many human beings, as well as the fact that it was against the precepts if not the laws of the church, that led Wulfstan, the Wilberforce of his time, to bring about the cessation of the slave trade at Bristol. From this place lines of women and children, gathered together from all England, were carried into Ireland and sold. … Besides this sale into slavery for purposes of traffic, which as a regular commerce was not prohibited until after the Norman conquest, many seem to have submitted themselves to the mastery of another through the need of food, which a year of famine might bring. A charter in the Codex Diplomaticus tells us of those men who bowed their heads for their meat in the evil days. Kemble thinks that such cases might have been frequent and Simeon of Durham, writing of the year 1069 when there was a dreadful famine in England, which raged particularly in the north, says that many sold themselves into slavery, that they might receive the needed support. … Even so late as the so-called laws of Henry I, such an act was recognized and a special procedure provided. … In addition to all those thus born into slavery or reduced to that condition in the ways above noted, there was another class made up of such as were reduced to slavery unwillingly as a penalty for debt or crime: these were known as 'witetheowas' or 'wite-fæstanmen.' … The legal condition of the slave was a particularly hard one; as a thing, not as a person, he was classed with his lord's goods and cattle and seems to have been rated according to a similar schedule, to be disposed of at the lord's pleasure like his oxen or horses. … They had no legal rights before the law and could bear no arms save the cudgel, the 'billum vel strublum,' as the laws of Henry I call it. Yet the position of the slave appears to have improved in the history of Anglo-Saxon law. … Hardly any part of the work of the Church was of greater importance than that which related to the moral and social elevation of the slave class. Its influence did much to mitigate their hard lot, both directly and indirectly."

_C. McL. Andrews, The Old English Manor, page 181-188._