The Roman Guide to Slave Management (19 page)

If there is perhaps an objection to the use of evidence obtained from slaves, it is not that it has been obtained via torture – which is necessary for there to be any possibility that the truth might emerge – but that it comes from men who are generally morally worthless. This is certainly the case when their evidence is put against that of free men. It hardly seems right that the words of a slave should be believed instead of those of a free man. Moreover, slaves will certainly have done many wicked things in their lives whereas the free man will have done his best to serve the state in a variety of capacities.

It is true that in the past some owners went too far in torturing their slaves in order to try to force them to reveal the so-called truth. A woman called Sassia was once trying to fabricate evidence that her son Cluentius had murdered his stepfather, Oppianicus. She therefore
tortured three slaves, whose names were Strato, Ascla and Nicostratus, but they withstood the ordeal. Not a woman to be resisted, she tried again, using tortures of the most exquisite cruelty. Witnesses were unable to bear the sight. In the end even the torturer was worn out. Furious, Sassia demanded that the torturer press on but one of the witnesses complained that he feared the interrogation was now being performed not so much to discover the truth as to make the slaves say something untrue. The other witnesses agreed and together they left. But she continued to pursue the slaves. Eventually, the slave Nicostratus died, and she had Strato crucified after having his tongue cut out to prevent him from incriminating her.

In those days, Sassia had every right to torture her slaves to help her find out the truth of what had happened. But she pursued them with a vigour that would no longer be permitted now that our great emperors have chosen to involve themselves in the relations between a master and his slaves. As we have seen, masters can no longer just kill their slaves for no good reason. Slaves have the right to appeal to a magistrate and also have rights of asylum against abusive masters. And as I’ve mentioned before, they can also take refuge before a statue of the emperor.

Most shockingly, even one of our own emperors abused the use of torture to obtain evidence from slaves to secure the condemnation of their masters. So Domitian, whenever he wished to fill up the state coffers and line his own pocket, would target certain super-rich individuals. But finding himself unable to secure their prosecution in legal ways, he would charge them with high
treason. He would then torture the household slaves (for which he did not need the master’s permission because of the severity of the charge), to ascertain so-called facts about their owner’s anti-imperial conspiracies. In fact, he often did not bother with the torture. He just encouraged and bribed the slaves to reveal what their masters had allegedly been up to. In doing so, he did in fact reveal that he had no better morals than a slave himself.

   COMMENTARY   

The routine torture of slaves in legal proceedings is, to the modern reader, one of the most shocking abuses. But the Romans saw such treatment as completely normal. Slaves were too unimportant and morally weak to be relied upon to tell the truth. Torture was seen simply as a way of getting at the truth and so was both sensible and served the cause of justice. The fact that slaves had few legal rights meant that they were liable to the roughest kind of treatment. In fact, their lack of social status was seen as requiring rough treatment to make sure that they acted properly and told the truth.

The Romans did realise that evidence obtained under torture needed to be treated with caution. Plenty of examples attest to slaves lying to get the pain to stop. But such examples did not, in their eyes, reduce the benefit of the practice as a whole. Also, the Romans did not resort to torture lightly. It was used in the later stages of
a criminal investigation once it had been established that a crime had been committed and there was insufficient alternative evidence to gain a conviction by other means.

The laws concerning the murder of masters by slaves were especially harsh. Killing all those who were present generated intriguing legal questions but also made sure that household slaves had a vested interest in revealing any kind of plot that other slaves might have been hatching under the same roof. It also made sure that slaves were more likely to come to their master’s aid in any attack on him. Examples of master-murder are actually remarkably rare in the surviving Roman sources. It is hard to know how this should be interpreted. It might suggest that master-slave relations were not as conflictual as we might imagine. Or maybe it simply reflects the fact that the brutal laws successfully terrorised the servile population into leaving their owners well alone. Or it might be that our sources only record a few celebrated cases, when in reality master-murder was more common, especially among the non-elite population.

Slaves owners had once had the right to treat their slaves as they wished, which included torturing them. The story about Sassia shows that some went to extremes, even though this episode is recorded because of its uniqueness. Various emperors restricted this right so that masters had to justify their actions. Slaves were also given the legal right of appeal against abusive treatment. In common with other imperial legislation concerning slaves, this should probably not be interpreted as emperors wishing to improve the conditions of the servile population. As emperors came to be more and
more involved in all aspects of life, people simply looked to them to give guidance on what limits there should be in the treatment of slaves.

The laws about the torture of slaves can be found in
Digest
48.18. The legal discussion about the technicalities of which slaves should be executed when their master is murdered can be found in
Digest
29.5. On the restriction of the rights of owners to execute slaves, see
Digest
18.1.42 and
Theodosian Code
9.12.1. For Augustus circumventing the restriction against torturing slaves to give evidence against their masters, see Dio Cassius 55.5. On the torture of slaves even to incriminate their masters in cases of treason, see
Theodosian Code
9.6. The story of a lover wanting to spare his jointly owned slave from torture comes from Lysias 4. The story of Sassia is in Cicero’s speech
In Defence of Cluentius
.

   
CHAPTER VII
   

A
SLAVE’S FATE IS TO WORK
. It is a life of toiling to keep his master happy. The slave must be ever watchful to the needs of his master, his family or his representatives. But being a slave is not all sweat and labour. It is only right that there should be some time for relaxation and silly entertainments. This is prudent, if only to ensure that your slaves maintain their morale and so can carry out their hard work. For a contented slave is a productive slave. Conversely, those slaves who have sunk into misery will hang about aimlessly, always trying to shirk the work that has been allotted to them. Or they will just whinge constantly. It is the festival of the Saturnalia that gives them the best opportunity to let off steam.

The Saturnalia date back to ancient history, but they celebrate the time when Saturn ruled the world in a golden age of equality. Then neither rank nor social hierarchy existed. Slavery and even private property were unknown, and all men owned everything in common.
The festival starts on 17 December and lasts for several days. In olden times, one single day was deemed sufficient but now, in our age of leisure and softness, greater licence is permitted. It is a time of great excitement and you will find all Rome at fever pitch. A public feast is held at the temple of Saturn and shouts of ‘Io Saturnalia’ fill the air. The common people get carried away. They go around revelling, singing frivolous and obscene songs, doing so even in the streets and the marketplaces, which would on a normal day be a practice that would signal disgrace and ridicule for a rich man and insanity for a poor man. Their feasting is dissolute and their dancing licentious. The feast reflects the fact that this is a time of plenty for all, not just the elite whose jaws are always at Saturnalia. This is more than a mere holiday. It is when the whole world is turned upside down. All that is normally seen as good behaviour is reversed, so that it is seen as proper to be blasphemous, coarse, dirty and drunken. There are spectacles held in the theatres and amphitheatres, pageants in the streets, and comic shows in the marketplace. A whole range of itinerant entertainers, jugglers and snake charmers fill the forum. People go about telling jokes about the city officials. The crowd ridicules everything, including the gods, and even mocks the emperor, swearing and laughing at his statues.