Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

or compulsory labor. Rome (in common with the American South) had the rarer and stronger institution of “chattel” slavery. That is, not only were some human beings com pelled to labor or follow the orders of others, but they were actually subject to the laws that governed property of other types. In principle, parts of the law of persons could have been applied at the same time. In fact, as we will see, the “thing”ness of Roman slaves stayed constant over the cen turies, but their “person”ness varied. Before turning to the details of the legal situation, it will be helpful to say a few words about the broader historical context, and in particular to note some differences from the kind of slavery more famil iar to us from American history. The original ancient slaves were captives taken in war. The slaves taken in Rome’s earli est wars would have been ethnically and linguistically simi lar to their new owners. As the empire grew and new captives became more obviously “foreign,” they came from across the Mediterranean basin and did not necessarily resemble one another. Some even came from places (say, Greece) with more “high culture” than Rome and were recognized for it. You might even buy a skilled tutor for your children. Moreover, for reasons to be noted, many of these slaves and/or their descendants were eventually integrated into the citizen body. Thus, while no one in Rome seems ever to have questioned the general idea of slavery, it lacked the kind of racial or other “natural” basis claimed for it in the modern American case. Slavery was usually recognized as a matter of individual (mis)fortune.

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