101. Enormous Alien Population in Rome. The “Græcules.”—Rome, as already discovered, is a city with an enormous cosmopolitan population, and in that population is a sadly large proportion of drones, parasites, and selfish purveyors to the vices or luxuries of the rich. The influx of aliens, of course, impresses one at every turn, be the visit to obscure Mercury Street or to the famous Old Forum. “The Syrian Orontes (quoting lines of Juvenal hackneyed already) has long since poured into the Tiber, bringing its lingo and its manners, its flutes and its timbals, and its coarse girls who hang around the Circus.”

A large fraction of these invaders, however, are not confessed Orientals, but olivine-featured, nimble creatures of very Levantine morality who like to be called “Greeks.” The poet, just cited, has other familiar lines deriding their suppleness, servility, and willingness for any shift promising favor or reward. The self-same adventurer is ready to be “grammarian, orator, geometrician, painter, trainer, rope-dancer, augur, doctor, or astrologer,” or if you bid “‘Græculus’ to mount to heaven—why, to heaven he’ll go!’” They squeeze out tears or split with laughter at a sign, and, of course, they readily sell themselves for any well-paid villainy.

Do these creatures prosper? If so, Roman citizenship comes next. They change their names, assume the toga, and their sons or at least their grandsons will be borne along in their high litters toward the Senate House. There is another large group of “Conscript Fathers” who, Calvus angrily tells Gratia, are only crude Celts from Spain, Gaul, or even distant Britain. Another group can only speak Latin with a pronounced North African accent. There is even a certain dark-skinned “Julius” (a good Roman name surely), who wears his broad purple stripe proudly enough, but who,—every one swears,—was born far up the Nile in Egypt—“How did he get the Emperor’s favor!” At first thought, therefore, Rome seems one of the most democratic cities socially in the world.

102. Strict Divisions of Society. The Régime of Status.—But closer acquaintance discloses the fact that Roman society is utterly undemocratic. Wealth to be sure can surmount many barriers, but even a hundred-million sesterces plus imperial patronage cannot quite do everything. The whole Roman Empire is founded not on the basis of human brotherhood and equality, but on “piety.” “Pious Æneas” is the hero of the national epic poem. But what in fact is this piety? Not the rendering of due homage to the gods merely, but the bestowing of exact justice upon every man according to his status—the great stratum in society in which the law has placed him, and whence he can neither rise nor fall without important formalities. Are you brought into court? Instantly the question is, “What are you?” And on that answer, regardless of guilt or innocence, your fate will largely depend.

The Roman Empire in reality is essentially a régime of status—giving to every man a certain social and legal due. This accent on status has been increasing ever since Augustus founded his dominion; and it will intensify even more rapidly down to the very end of the Empire.

In the 1,500,000 odd people in Rome, there are these six well-defined social classes, each with a distinct legal condition: I. Slaves; II. Freedmen; III. Free Provincials; IV. Ordinary Roman Citizens, or “Plebeians”; V. Equites; VI. Senators. In Rome the third class, of course, is necessarily small, being made up solely of visitors and resident aliens, some of whom, if notables from such free allied towns as Athens, enjoy excellent protection and privileges. Nearly all the freedmen are technically Roman citizens but are still under certain civil and social disabilities. The Plebeians, Equites, and Senators are all reckoned officially as “majores,” persons with superior legal rights, however much the two upper orders may scorn the one inferior. Socially, however, there are many cross sections, with the upper slaves of rich noblemen despising the petty tradesmen, who wear moth-eaten togas, and the higher “Cæsarians” (slaves at the imperial palace) have been known to patronize equites and even senators.

103. Vast Number of Slaves. Universality of Slavery.—The slaves, however, are always officially at the bottom of the human ladder. Their number is great, making up close to half, if not quite half, of the population of Rome. They are not required to wear a special dress.[56] Some years ago it was proposed to order this in the Senate, but the motion was voted down: “It would be dangerous to show the wretches how numerous they really were.” Ordinarily they go about in sad-colored tunics and long cloaks like most of the common citizens, or else they wear some bright livery devised by their masters.

Only a few of these unfortunates have Italian countenances and can speak Latin without some foreign accent. Plenty of alien adventurers, it is true, drift to Rome as willingly, but probably the great bulk of the cosmopolitan multitudes everywhere observable, even if free at present, come to Latium involuntarily—as slaves imported to wait on the masters of the world.

Almost no one has questioned the rightfulness and necessity of slavery. Seneca, indeed, has written that no man can be enslaved beyond a certain point—his body is his master’s, but his mind is his own. Horace has written grandiloquently “Who is truly free? The wise man alone; who is stern master of himself.” This sounds well but does not alter the practical results of a situation wherein, for example, all farm implements are solemnly classified in the handbooks under three heads: I. Dumb tools—plows, mattocks, shovels, etc.; II. Semi-speaking tools—oxen, asses, etc., that can bellow or bray; III. Speaking tools—slaves useful as farm hands.

104. Power of Master over Slaves.—Until very lately, before Hadrian’s time, these “Speaking Tools” have had rather less legal protection than may be granted to horses by the “humane” legislation of later civilization. The reigning Emperor, however, a remarkable innovator, and tinctured with the Stoic philosophy, has lately issued an edict that a slave cannot be killed outright by his master without some kind of consent by a magistrate.

Every owner of human bipeds has probably grumbled that “discipline is now made impossible,” but the new law is of little practical help to the slave. His master can still order a punishment so brutal that death is certain, and if he should murder a servant, slave witnesses can give no valid testimony, and almost no citizen will turn traitor to his class and prosecute. Half of Rome, therefore, continues in the absolute power and possession of the other half.

105. The City Slaves and the Country Slaves.—Calvus and Gratia have a familia of about one hundred and fifty slaves in their city house. Scattered upon their villas there are always at least as many more, but between the city slaves and the rustic slaves there is a great gulf fixed. The first class utterly despises the latter. The city slaves are mostly soft-handed ministers to their owners’ luxuries. The country slaves are toiling farm hands often under extremely severe discipline. When the master, attended by a great retinue from his town house, sojourns at a villa, squabbling and even fights between the two contingents are extremely probable. Let a serving boy become too insolent, or a tiring maid fail in her duty—the master or mistress can simply order, “Send him or her to the villa!” The wretch will then beg instead to be flogged in sheer mercy. Banishment to the rustic slave colony seems a mere death in life.

106. Purchasing a Slave Boy.—In any large city familia, the purchase of new slaves to replace vacancies caused by death or otherwise is an everyday occurrence. Very lately a new errand boy was wanted by Calvus, who could not condescend to purchase such a menial in person; and he left the task to a competent freedman, Cleander. The latter conscientiously went through the great slave bazaars near the fora and especially along the Sæpta Julia, the great porticoes lining the Via Lata.

Here any quantity of human bipeds were on sale as in a regular cattle market. There were numbers of little stalls or pens with crowds of buyers or mere spectators constantly elbowing in and out, and from many of them rose a gross fleshly odor as from closely confined animals. At the entrance to these pens notices, written on white boards with red chalk, recited the nature of the slaves inside, and sometimes the hour when they would be sold at auction. Every nationality was represented among these vendable commodities—Egyptians, Moors, Arabs, Cilicians, Cappadocians, Thracians, Greeks and alleged Greeks, Celts from Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and a good many Teutons, fair-haired creatures from beyond the Rhine. They were of both sexes and of all ages, but with youths and grown-up girls predominating. As Cleander went about he heard a crier announcing that a new coffle of Jews was just being put on sale, the results of the latest success of the Emperor’s generals in capturing one of the last rebellious strongholds in Palestine.

107. Traffic in the Slave Pens.—It avails not to dwell on the hideous brutality and degrading character of many of the scenes. The slave-dealers were men counted the scum of the earth socially, but the vast gains from lucky speculation in human flesh drove many shrewd scoundrels into the trade. At last Cleander found the stall he desired. Several boys from the Black Sea region were about to be knocked down. They did not seem so very miserable. Truth to tell their barbarous parents had probably sold them in way of regular trade, and the boys looked forward to entering a fine Roman familia as a great adventure.

The lads stood in line on raised stones, stripped almost naked and with white chalk on their feet as a token that they were for immediate sale. Cleander and other would-be purchasers examined them as they might so many cattle; felt of their muscles, examined their teeth, and made them converse enough to be sure they could speak fair Greek and a little Latin. Another buying agent was accompanied by a physician to give the proffered merchandise a regular physical examination, and Cleander in his turn interrogated the selling clerks very specifically: “Did they warrant the health of a certain boy, especially his freedom from fits? Was he thievish? Was he prone to run away? Did he get despondent and attempt suicide?”[57]

One ill-favored youth was standing with a tall felt hat on his head. That implied he was being sold “as is,” without the least warranty; “An incorrigible thief” went the whisper, and the great welts on his back betrayed repeated whippings. If the sellers failed, however, to “cap” their chattels, they had to answer all queries truthfully, and take back the slave if he developed various defects within six months. Such a liability, however, was hard to enforce. A slave trade involved all the points of shrewdness, hard bargaining, and smooth prevarication of the proverbial horse trade.

108. Sale of Slaves.—At last a bell rang. A boy whom Cleander had inspected approvingly was stood on a higher block. The glib auctioneer began his patter to the little group before him: “The lad’s clear-skinned and well-favored from head to foot, a well-bred fellow carefully trained for good service. Has a smattering of Greek learning—you can educate him for a secretary if you want to. He can also sing a bit at dinners—not professionally, but enough to make you jolly over your wine.—All this is sheer and simple truth. You’ll wait long for another such bargain. Just one point (with a deprecatory smirk) I am obliged to warn about—once he did have a lazy fit, and hid himself for fear of a lashing,—Well, he’s yours for a mere 8000 sesterces.” [$320.][58]

“Take 2000,” stolidly retorted Cleander, naming the standard price for male slaves of no extra qualities. Counter bidding and much chaffering followed. All ended when “Crœsus” (slaves were often given fancy oriental names) was knocked down to Cleander for 4000 sesterces ($160), a very fair bargain if the youth had not been praised too extravagantly. On the same errand the freedman also purchased for his master a stout Gaul, needed as an expert muleteer on one of the farm villas,—such a fellow if at all capable was well worth the 6000 sesterces asked for him.

The next day, however, it was announced by Gratia that she required a first-class lady’s maid, a girl not merely versed in all toilet mysteries, but comely to look upon should she have to appear with her mistress in public. Such damsels commanded a high price, and Gratia and Calvus together condescended to do the shopping. Along the Sæpta Julia they visited special booths, from which vulgar idlers were carefully excluded, and where human chattels of the superior grades were shown to bona fide purchasers.

The dealer whom they visited had handsome slave boys to act as statuesque cup bearers and worth up to 100,000 sesterces ($4000) apiece; he also had a truly competent physician at the same price; a good private schoolmaster; two very expert dancers, and a remarkably fine cook just thrown on the market by a bankrupt ex-consul. Girls fit for kitchen service could be had in the common stalls as cheap as 1000 sesterces ($40); but Gratia and her husband had to pay a round 25,000 ($1000) for a truly pretty little Greek, who was a dexterous hair-dresser and who could read aloud to her mistress with a good Attic accent.

109. Size of Slave Households (Familiæ). Slave Workmen.—Thus the familia of the Calvi has been made up. People complain that owing to the surcease of great wars the supply of cheap slaves fit for farm service is running down. Great landowners are actually being driven to fall back on free hired labor or a system of tenantry; but kidnapping, the sale of children by their barbarian parents, the ceaseless petty wars in Africa, Asia, and along the Rhine, as well as the sale of slaves born and bred on the Roman farms or mansions themselves[59] keep up a sufficient supply for domestic service.

The very poor plebeians are, of course, slaveless and servantless, and plenty of small tradesmen or minor officials get along with only two or three slaves-of-all-work; but it is impossible to be a “somebody” and to exist in Rome without at least ten slaves. The social ladder and the size of the familiæ ascend together until we find senators and very rich equites who boast many more than two hundred in their city houses alone. “How many slaves has he got?” is the regular formula for asking “What’s his fortune?” In Augustus’s day there was a very wealthy freedman who owned 4116 slaves, although the majority of these were scattered on his numerous farms; but well known is the story of Pedanius Secundus, City Præfect under Nero: One of his slaves murdered him, and by the harsh old law making the entire familia liable for the killing of its master by one member, all of the slaves in his Roman mansion, almost 400 in number, were actually put to death, although his farm slaves were spared.

There are many slaves, however, in Rome that are not strictly servants. They act as craftsmen and tradesmen of every kind, sometimes hired out by their masters to contractors, sometimes working on their own account. Custom, though not law, entitles them to a part of their earnings; this is their peculium (“special property”) and only a very harsh owner will deprive them of it. Indeed it is clearly understood that an intelligent slave cannot be expected to do his best without a personal incentive. You can even find savings banks and really large commercial enterprises run by slaves, often put in positions of great trust, but such persons undoubtedly have an understanding about being manumitted if they are faithful and successful.

110. Division of Duties and Organization of Slave Households.—In Calvus’ house as in every other great mansion one is impressed with the multitude of attendants. The master, mistress, and their friends are dependent on every kind of menial service. Before Calvus rises from bed, he is massaged every morning by an expert masseur, and some of his more effeminate friends insist on having not walking sticks but handsome slave boys of convenient height always at hand, on which to lean as they move about. In a well-ordered mansion, indeed, it seems needless really for the master to do much more than feed himself and draw his own breath—the servants can do all the rest for him!

A familia of one hundred and fifty slaves, such as Calvus’s, requires a semi-military organization. Everything should run smoothly. At the head of all are the upper slaves, proud, arrogant beings with their own body servants, the commissioned officers of the army. The procurator (sometimes a freedman), who does the purchasing and outside business; the dispensator, who manages the storerooms; the atriensis, who acts as general chamberlain, and especially the silentarius, who enforces “silence” and general discipline form the heads of this category. They are often petty tyrants, and the newcomer Crœsus will have far more to fear from their harshness than from Calvus, who will hardly know him by sight.

The staff at large is carefully split up into decuriæ (squads of ten) each under its special chief. There are the house cleaners, the table retinue, the kitchen force, the chamber boys and maids, the keepers of the wardrobes, the master’s valets, the mistress’s maids, the special attendants of Calvus’s children, the litter bearers, the corps of messengers—each forming a separate contingent. The master, too, has several secretaries, expert copyists and readers, and a librarian. There are several slave physicians although their duties are largely confined to the familia; the masters will call in fashionable free professionals for their own serious ills. The two sexes are about equally divided, and a great many slaves are respectably if informally married,[60] although a familia is anything but a school of social virtue.

111. Discipline in a Well-Ordered Mansion. Long Hours of Idleness.—In such a mansion the master and mistress have little acquaintance with the lower run of the human beings over whom they possess absolute power. Calvus, however, knows his upper servants, his favorite valets, and his first secretary, and being a genuinely kindly man has come to esteem them and trust them familiarly; and it is the same between Gratia and her confidential maids.

The other slaves they treat fairly humanely, all things considered, but absolutely impersonally—their presence is to be taken for granted like articles of furniture, and their personal problems are ignored. In the peristylium there is always posted a bulletin board informing the slaves of the nights when their master is going out to dinner, and although Calvus does not imitate certain very haughty individuals by trying to give all his orders through signs and never addressing a menial, it is good breeding to speak to ordinary slaves as seldom and then as curtly as possible, just as one should not waste words addressing a yoke of oxen.

Roman house-slaves have their sorrows but they need not ordinarily fear two mortal evils—hunger, or overwork. They have, of course, their own dining quarters and are kept on sufficient, if simple rations of meal cakes, salt, oil, common wine, and a little fruit. Butcher’s meat they seldom touch, except as the kitchen staff get the leavings from the banquets, although the upper servants naturally fare more sumptuously.

As for slaves’ working hours, they are absurdly short. Every servant has some limited appointed task. When that is finished nothing else is expected of him, and to require other duties would not merely make the master unpopular with his servants, it would stamp him before his equals as an extremely mean and sordid man. Thus, on very many days, Calvus’s six litter bearers have absolutely nothing to do. On the many nights that he and Gratia dine out the great kitchen staff is concerned mainly with the dice-box. The boudoir maids are usually idle from the time their mistress is dressed until she must dress again for dinner. All this makes for gossiping, gaming, and for the worst kinds of busy idleness.

112. Inevitable Degradation Caused by Slavery. Evil Effect upon Masters.—Are these “speaking tools” very miserable? Calvus’s familia is not exceptional in that a tolerably kindly relation often exists between owner and owned. The Stoic philosophy is making its impression, and there are plenty of theoretical arguments that “a slave is also a man” and entitled to humane treatment. A master or mistress who is habitually cruel is frowned on socially as might be a man accustomed to abuse his horses.

Nevertheless, the status of a slave is always morally degrading. He feels himself a mere chattel. Whatever he enjoys, he enjoys merely on suffrance. Any sort of iniquity is condoned in his mind “if the master orders it,” and he is likely to be honest and faithful more through the fear of harsh punishment than because of any high ethical motives.

On the other hand just because slavery has perforce its brutal, soul-destroying elements, it is almost equally evil for the master. It is seldom good for a man to have the lives often of hundreds of fellow beings in his power; or to be relieved of every possible kind of honest exertion by a swarm of officious menials. Furthermore, slavery being inevitably so brutal, masters often live in terror of a mutiny by the brutes themselves. “So many slaves, so many enemies,” is a standard maxim; not always true, but true enough to excuse many horrid practices.

The slave revolt led by Spartacus in 73 B.C. is now half forgotten in history, but that rebel gladiator had later several almost as successful imitators. Every now and then something happens which makes senatorial blood run cold. Only in Trajan’s day there was one Lagius Macedo, an ex-prætor, a cruel and overbearing master, indeed, who was beaten to death by his slaves while he was bathing at his Formiæ villa. The wretches were all crucified, of course, but (as wrote Pliny the Younger just after it happened): “You see what we masters are exposed to; and nobody can feel safe because he’s an easy and mild master; for it’s sheer villainy, not premeditation, that prompts our murder.”

Another danger, especially under evil emperors, comes from the incessant presence of slaves at the most private affairs of their lords, their willingness to tattle, to assist informers, and often to help ruin their masters outright in return for freedom and reward. “The tongue is the worst part of a bad slave,” runs a familiar saying, and even an honest and high-minded man must shudder at the idea of having all his intimate doings passed on to delight his enemies.

113. Punishment of Slaves.—Under these circumstances, and with so many slaves who are undoubtedly by origin and nature unreliable if not incorrigible, every large house has its small private dungeon, and also a low-browed wolfish creature who serves as jailer and official “whipper.” Even in Calvus’s house he finds occupation, for in so large a familia some luckless boy or maid is often caught loitering or pilfering, and gets a dose of the many-lashed scourge—at the orders of the upper-slave managers.[61] Under-slaves, indeed, think nothing of a lashing beyond its mere pain; there is no disgrace, it is all part of one’s lot in life.

There can be much worse things than this in many houses. Servilia, one of Gratia’s acquaintances, often beats her tire-women cruelly with the flat of her bronze mirror for the most trivial offenses. Ambustus, the new ædile, lately ordered a boy to get one hundred stripes merely for being slow in bringing hot water. The rich widow Lepidia so enjoys having her slaves flogged, that she makes the whipper actually do his pitiless work in her dressing room, while she is reading the “Daily Journal” (Acta Diurna, see p. 282) and having her face rouged. Many a slave has been whipped to death because of some small folly which sent his master or mistress into a rage, and noblemen have been known to keep huge flesh-eating carp in their fish ponds, and to toss in a recalcitrant slave occasionally to improve the flavor of the fish, although such actions disgust all decent people.

114. Branding of Slaves. Ergastula—Slave Prisons.—If a slave’s offense is too great to be rewarded by a mere whipping, and yet does not provoke the death penalty, there are plenty of intermediate punishments. Toiling around Calvus’s atrium is an ill-favored lad with the scars of branding barely healed on his forehead: “FVR” he is marked “Thief”)[62]. He is taking the place of another youth who, to cure extreme laziness, has been sent for a month to the “mill gang”—chained to the great lever which turns the grist mill and forced to toil all day like a hard-driven ass—an excellent cure for idleness.

This fate is not so bad, however, as what befell one of the eques Pollio’s valets, a bright clever lad, who foolishly became too pert to his master. In a fit of anger Pollio ordered, “Give him six months in the ergastulum.” The soft-handed boy was, therefore, not merely shipped off to severe farm labor, itself utterly repulsive, but was obliged to work in the fields in a chain-gang along with the very scum of slave-criminals; always in fetters, lashed by brutish keepers themselves slaves, and confined at night in underground prisons (ergastula) that were mere kennels.

115. Death Penalties for Slaves. Pursuit of Runaways.—If a slave really deserves death, there are, of course, two standard methods of capital punishment, both very degrading as well as fearful. Everybody knows about crucifixion with its hours and perhaps days of hideous agony; but more common and nearly as painful is death on the furca.[63] The victim’s head is placed at the opening of two “V”-shaped beams and his arms tightly lashed upon them; then the professional floggers strike the wretch with their loaded whips, the leaden balls worked into the thongs making them a terrific weapon, until death comes as blessed relief. It has been a long day since there has been an execution at Calvus’s house, but some years ago a Spanish boy who murdered an upper-servant perished thus under the lash. There is, however, a much simpler way of disposing of criminal slaves, one bringing a certain return to their masters,—namely, to sell them to the givers of public shows to train as gladiators or merely to set in the arena to give sport to the bears or lions.

Of course, under such conditions slaves will often try to run away. They seldom really succeed, however, unless they are persons of marked intelligence and can make off with considerable money. The Roman Empire is one vast police unit, unattached strangers are everywhere scrutinized carefully and when a slave disappears a reward is promptly offered. Only now a crier has gone down Mercury Street, with a crowd after him, as he proclaims: “Disappeared from the public baths, a boy aged about sixteen. Free and easy habits. Curly hair. Good-looking. Answers to name of Giton. A thousand sesterces to anybody haling him back to Aulus Sulpicius near the Temple of Ops, or to anyone who will betray his whereabouts!”[64]

If Giton is retaken, he can thank the gods if he is merely flogged almost to death, and is not also given a year in the ergastulum.

Naturally slaves can only testify in court by their master’s consent and under torture, although the reigning humane Emperor has just issued a decree limiting its use to the last resort. Hadrian, also, contrary to the usage in Nero’s day, has ordained that if a man is murdered by his slaves, only the slaves near the actual scene of crime are to be tormented, and he has actually banished a certain matron, Umbricia, for “abusing her slave girls most atrociously for trivial reasons.” All this perhaps dimly foreshadows a new day; but what human chattel can wait to see the abuses of slavery whittled down by the law across the centuries?

Have the slaves along Mercury Street any nearer hope? Possibly. The other day many of them saw in the front benches of honor at the Circus a man of dignity. His hands glittered with sardonyx rings; his lacerna was of Tyrian purple; his shoes were scarlet, his hair reeking with costly essences; a great train bowed and cringed to him. But his forehead was covered with “numerous white patches like stars”; “sticking plaster,” everybody whispered, to cover up the FVR once branded on his countenance. He was an ex-slave, an exalted freedman, who, a couple of decades before, had stood on the auction block, but now was a mighty power in Roman high finance.