The hard life of serfs in Russia is a resort compared to the fate of slaves in ancient Rome. Yes, there are tyrants in our history. Take, for example, Saltychikha or recall the generally accepted practice of flogging slaves in the backyard and chaining in pads. However, from the sophistication of the punishments of slaves in the greatest state of antiquity in a normal person, the hair on his head stands on end.
How in ancient Rome became slaves?
Everyone who knows the history of the Eternal City knows that Roman citizens made up a negligible fraction of the total population. The bulk of the mass accounted for slaves. According to the laws, the lender could convert his borrower into debt slavery. A free woman, convicted of a slave, became a slave. And finally, convicted criminals were handed over to the executioners, only gaining the status of a slave.
The main source of slave power was war of aggression and robbery. Captured foreigners, regardless of their social status, became slaves, whom the inhabitants of ancient Rome considered the lower race, called barbarians and gladly bought from slave traders. With such an attitude, the punishment of a slave was extremely inhuman and was often synonymous with torture and execution. For example, one gentleman ordered the attendant to be burned alive in the furnace because he washed it with too warm water.
Even a simple artisan had at least 2-3 slaves, and senators and military leaders up to several thousand. According to scientists, slaves performed at least 150 functions in the owners' house and were ruthlessly punished for every fault. State-owned slaves were employed in public works, for example, cleaning cesspools, building water pipes, or serving in magistrates. But despite the type of activity, for the most part the attitude towards slaves was the same everywhere, and the punishments of slaves in the photo of old engravings look cynical and inhuman.
A slave is an animated property that owns a speech
These were considered slaves in ancient Rome. The word "man" was not applied to slaves. In the view of the Roman nobility, these were rude creatures, devoid of feelings and needs, suitable only for fulfilling the whims of the owners or renting out to other masters.
The unfortunate worked from morning to night, received food of terrible quality, which was barely enough to not starve to death. They tried to sell sick slaves on the cheap, and if they could not, they drove them to the “island of Aesculapius”, where they were to die.
In ancient Rome, the arbitrariness of the masters and overseers reigned, and what is most terrible - there was no code that defined specific criminal acts and the punishments of slaves provided for them. In fairness, the primitiveness of the judicial system affected all people who committed crimes, but the free citizens did not feel the terrible arbitrariness and lawlessness that the slaves were subjected to.
Crimes and Punishments
How many duties - so many offenses, therefore, slaves were punished literally for everything, often using preventive measures. For example, in bakeries, millstones were worn around the neck of slaves so that hungry workers would not eat flour or dough.
In hard work, exhausted slaves were driven with sticks and lashes and brutally beaten if they could not cope with their duties. Even crippled people were forced to continue working until they fell dead. The punishment for a slave could be the execution for accidentally broken kitchen utensils, food eaten without permission, or if he crossed the road to a convoy of temple priestesses.
The murder of his master was considered a terrible crime. Then not only the guilty was punished, but all the slaves belonging to this master were killed.
Another man could be killed for fun, because he is a slave, which means personal property. In the dungeons of the noble nobles languished unhappy, allegedly convicted by the owner of terrible sins, which required punishment - a death sentence. In the midst of a feast for the amusement, the slave's guests were brought and exponentially chopped off his head, and this was the lesser of the evils that the slaves of ancient Rome had to experience.
Home tyranny
Gentlemen, unashamedly, often cracked innocent slaves, and the housewives, in a bad mood, pricked their half-naked servants with long needles. Special devices were used for flogging: whips with knots and leather lashes. Particularly guilty persons were shackled in foot, hand or neck shackles, burned the stigma on their foreheads, and could be put on a chain instead of a watchdog.
Punishment of the slave by the master in anger could spill over into self-mutilation. The gentleman could completely break a slave's bones with impunity or coat his head with tar and tear off a scalp. Look up at the owner’s head to get another eunuch, as a young slave was immediately snarled. If it seemed to the master that the slave was too talkative, the tongue was pulled out to the unfortunate. And it happened that the slave became unnecessary, or the owner saw in him the opportunity to earn.
Weaning
In the heyday of the slave trade, one of the methods of punishing slaves in ancient Rome was the sale of objectionable. Tired of tormenting with a rebellious slave, a young man could be profitably sold to a gladiatorial school. There the slave was waiting for an even worse fate than in the master's house. Many young people became participants in deadly battles with their own kind and shows with wild animals.
Beautiful young men and women were sold to brothels, where they were used in such a way that it was scary to think. Some were sent abroad or exiled to mines and quarries, where slaves continued to bring income to the owners with hard work.
If the slave was not lucky enough to witness the master’s crime, the slave was sent to the dungeons to testify. There, within the framework of the judicial system, he was ordered to be tortured on special machines and savage machines, since it was believed that only under torture would a slave be able to tell the truth.
Doomed to death
Almost every person, having become a slave or born in captivity, understood that an imminent and premature death awaited him. The people of Rome demanded bread and circuses, and one of the most popular entertainments of this brutal era was public executions.
Finding the sentenced was not difficult. As for the indicative punishments for slaves, the list is impressive and frightening:
- beatings to death with sticks, stones and whips;
- grinding with millstones;
- decapitation;
- sawing in half;
- cutting off the nose, ears, lips and limbs;
- torn to pieces by a crowd, animals and predatory fish;
- burning on bonfires and in stoves;
- burial alive;
- hanging on a hook and crucifixion on the cross;
- drowning in a leather bag;
- dropping off the Tarpean rock.
The more painful the execution and the longer the person suffered, the greater the excitement of the crowd.
Not only gentlemen were atrocious against slaves, but also descendants of freedmen. For example, the Lead Pollion, for the slightest offense, without trial, threw slaves into a cage with moray eels.
But this position of slaves could not last forever.
Change for the better
The grave existence and cruel punishments of slaves inevitably led to rebellion. A major threat to Rome was the uprising of Spartacus, however, after bloody battles, the rebellion was crushed - 6 thousand captured slaves were crucified on the Appian Way.
The authorities, taught by bitter experience, began to take measures to protect the rights of slaves. By order of Emperor Hadrian, anyone who tortured a slave to death or sold into a brothel was threatened with criminal punishment. His son, Antoninus Pius, imposed a ban on the sale of children and abolished the slavery of debtors. And Emperor Constantine the Great issued a decree according to which the deliberate murder of a slave was equated with the murder of a free citizen.
Which slaves lived well?
Judging by the monstrous methods of punishing the slaves of Rome, it seems that the free citizens of the empire are a gathering of sadists and maniacs. However, the most inhuman reprisals were not widespread and mostly related to the reign of cruel tyrants: emperors Caligula and Nero.
But where vice reigns, there is always a place for virtue. In ancient Rome there were educated and decent slave owners who were able to see in a slave not a thing, but a person. Such masters of their slaves did not punish, but educated, trained and gave them freedom. A vivid example of this is Mark Tullius Cicero and his slave Tyrone, who was the secretary, biographer and friend of the famous Roman politician and philosopher.