Nielsen-Sigismund, H. 2013 - Slave and Lower-Class Roman Children
Introduction: A Little Girl Called Passia
In March 139 CE, in Alburnus Maior, Maximus, son of Bato, bought a girl of about six years of age. The seller was Dasius, son of Verzo. (CIL III, pp. 936–9: Cautio de puella empta).
The contract of sale mentions the girl was empta sportellaria. This has led some to assume she was a foundling.
Sportellaria is an adjective of the noun sportella, meaning small basket. Thus, the translation of empta sportellaria would be “basket bought.”
Infants could be abandoned in baskets. Plautus’ comedy Cistellaria can be translated as “The Basket Girl.”
The girl was called Passia but could be called by any other name. It was stated she was healthy and of good behavior and could be returned to the seller if not.
The language used in the contract is strictly formulaic (Dig. 21.1.1.1, Ulpian).
Passia was treated as property. If lucky, she would not be treated too badly, would work hard but be fed and clothed, and perhaps survive to adulthood and enter into a contubernium (common law marriage) with a male slave and start a family, giving birth to little vernae (slaves born in the master’s household) (Rawson 1974; Treggiari 1981; Sigismund-Nielsen 1991; Rawson 2010).
If not fortunate, she might be worked to death.
Her conditions in life depended entirely on her owner’s whims.
Passia perhaps was a foundling. Passia could have been born free, exposed, taken up, and raised as a slave.
There has been a debate over the frequency of infant exposure in the ancient world (Corbier 2001). It happened and is referred to in the sources.
Few discussions seem concerned with how the children were treated. Most scholars are interested only in the legal and linguistic aspects of these contracts of sale (e.g., Camodeca 2006).
Abandoned Children
Clues about the lives of children such as Passia can be drawn from Suetonius's work about rhetors and grammarians.
“It is of assistance because it follows the lives and careers of men who were usually born at the lower levels of society but who nevertheless were able to pursue a career and to climb socially as well as economically.”
Marcus Antonius Gnipho was a freeborn exposed boy from Gaul who had been raised, educated, and eventually manumitted by his Nutritor (Suet. Gram. et Rhet. 7.1).
Gaius Melissus was another freeborn child who had been exposed as a baby, ob discordiam parentum (because of disagreement between his parents), and who benefitted from the care of the man who raised him (Suet. Gram. et Rhet. 21.1).
Melissus was given as a gift to Maecenas; his mother tried to reclaim him, without luck. He preferred to remain a well-treated slave of Maecenas (Evans Grubbs 2010: 298). He was soon freed and put in charge of the libraries in the Porticus Octaviae.
Melissus received more respect and found more possibilities to advance in society as a slave than he would have in his birth family.
A child owed its parents pietas, but there were limits (Dig. 37.15.1.2, Ulpian). The parents should behave decently. If not, there would be repercussions (Dig. 37.12.5, Papinian).
From the Digest (22.6.1.2, Paulus), there is an example of the legal implications for a free, abandoned person depending on whether or not he knows who his parents are. If a person who is bona fide serviens (serving as a slave in good faith) does not know that he is freeborn and who his parents are, he cannot know that he is an heir to them.
At Dig. 40.4.29 (Scaevola), a man repudiated his pregnant wife and remarried. The repudiated wife gave birth to a son that she abandoned. The child was taken up and raised by another. The son carried his father’s name (hic sublatus ab alio educatus est nomine patris vocitatus).
After his father’s death, he was recognized as his father’s son by his mother and paternal grandmother and instituted as heir to his father’s property.
There are a high number more of bona fide servi in the Digest—that is, slaves born free, but neither their assumed owner nor they are aware of it (Crook 1967: 58–60). Then legal questions must be addressed.
It is claimed that alumni frequently were exposed and rescued children (Treggiari 1969: 2; Osiek and Balch 1997: 50; Good 2006: 30; Edmondson 2011: 358).
Alumni were children who were brought up by others than their parents. The root of the word is alere (to nourish). Thus, an alumnus is frequently seen as a quasi-adopted child (Sigismund-Nielsen 1987; Bellemore and Rawson 1990; Rawson 2003: 251–3). According to the epigraphic material, an alumnus could also be seen as an apprentice (CIL VI 10158, 8454, 8679).
In Plautus’ comedy Cistellaria, the girl Selenium is referred to as an alumna. The term seems to refer to Selenium’s relationship with her fosterer.
Poor Freeborn Children
Antonius Gnipho and Gaius Melissus, both freeborn, were exceptions in deserving attention.
Freeborn children from the lower classes are infrequently mentioned in the sources.
In Varro’s handbook on farming (RR 1.17), poor free farmers till the land themselves with the help of their progenies (aut cum ipsi colunt, plerique pauperculi cum sua progenie).
Conditions for small farmers were not enviable. The land is described as droughty or pestilential (in Sipontina siccitate aut in Salpinorum plenis pestilentiae finibus) (Agr. 2.27.71).
Poor people constituted the majority of the population, but in literature, we hear about them only as mobs that had to be quieted with panem et circenses (Juv. Sat. 10.78–81).
Slave Children
Useful literary sources that describe the lives of slaves are the handbooks on farming by Varro and Columella.
Columella specifies the qualities a good vilicus (a farm’s slave bailiff) should have. It was important that he had been hardened by farm work from when he was little (1.8.2: rusticis operibus ab infante duratus).
This means that he would have been expected to work at least since before his seventh year (Dig. 26.7.1.2, Ulpian) or probably earlier (Dig. 7.7.6.1, Ulpian).
Slave children were put to work as early as possible. When Maximus Batonis bought Passia, he put her to work immediately.
In the Digest, if the use of an infant slave has been bequeathed, we should not despair, for the moment the child is not an infant any longer it can start being of use (Dig. 7.1.55, Pomponius).
Infancy for children is defined as the inability to understand one’s role. The moment a child gains this ability, it is no longer an infans.
Columella informs us about the kind of work the future vilicus could have done on the farm as a child. The child could help the slave in charge of the fowls to run after those that had escaped (RR 8.2.7). This job would also be suitable for a sedulous old woman (anus sedula).
Children could also be put to pruning and weeding. Columella mentions that this was so simple a task that even a child could do it (RR 4.27.6).
Both boys and girls could also be employed as shepherds, Varro informs us (RR 2.10.1).
Some of the skeletons from Herculaneum examined by Sara Bisel were of children. One was that of a girl approximately seven years old, who not only showed signs of malnourishment as a baby but, despite her very young age, also had been accustomed to work very hard.
Another skeleton was that of a girl of around fourteen years who had been carrying a little child when she and her charge died. According to Sara Bisel (2002: 464), her skeletal remains showed that she “did a lot of running up and down stairs or hills.” Also, her teeth reveal malnutrition.
The vilicus would be assigned a woman to live with (Columella, RR 1.8.5). She was the vilica, the overseer of work in the household. Columella uses the verb adsignanda est (should be assigned) of the vilica.
The vilicus and the vilica had no choice in the matter. Columella then goes on to describe how the ideal vilica should be. Among many other things, she must be non nimium puella; that is, she should be young but not too young.
Slave Breeding
Ulpian (Dig. 5.3.27 pr) claims that ancillae were not purchased commonly for the purpose of breeding (quia non temere ancillae eius rei causa comparantur ut pariant).
Several paragraphs in the Digest are concerned with the ownership of partus ancillarum, the legal term for the offspring of such slave women.
Varro directly mentions slave breeding as a means for getting good shepherds (Varro RR 2.10.6: quod ad feturam humanam pertinet pastorum . . .).
Columella also mentions that his female slaves could be rewarded with some freedom from work or could even obtain their freedom if they had produced more than three children (RR 1.8.19: nam cui tres erant filii, vacatio, cui plures, libertas quoque contingebat).
In one example, it was ordered in a will that the slave Arescusa be manumitted after giving birth to three children (Dig. 1.5.15, Ulpian; cf. Dig. 34.5.10.1, Ulpian).
If the child was born in the owner’s house in the city, it could be sent to his villa in the countryside to be reared (Dig. 32.99.3, Paulus; 50.16.210, Marcian).
They or their mothers, if the mothers had not been granted freedom, could also be sold off or bequeathed while the children were still young (Dig. 43.33.1 pr, Julian; 36.2.25.1, Papinian).
“None of the cases in the Digest that speak about partus ancillae mention the fathers of these children. So we have no idea under what conditions their mothers had conceived. It does not seem that their owners cared.”
Varro also mentions another type of slave children born in the household (RR 1.17.5). He says that overseers, as a reward, could be allowed to have partners, fellow slaves (conservae), from whom they would have children. The children of an overseer and his conserva technically had the same status as partus ancillarum; they would also be the vernae of their owner.
In Dig. 50.16.220.1 (Callistratus) a farm with its bailiff, his wife (contubernalis), and their children has been bequeathed. The question is whether the grandchildren of the vilicus also have been bequeathed.
At Dig. 33.7.27.1 (Scaevola): relictis conservabus et filiis suis et quaedam [mancipia] matribus et patribus. Contubernia, the common law marriages of slaves, naturally had no legal protection.
In Dig. 33.7.20.4 (Scaevola), the wife and daughter of an actor who had been bequeathed did not follow him.
In Dig. 33.7.12.7, it is indicated that it would be unbelievable if an owner imposed cruel separation (durām sepāratiōnem) of family members.
Dig. 33.7.12.33, Ulpian states that “it is the case that slave families as well, wives and children that is, are kept on an inherited farm” (contubernales quoque servorum, id est uxores, et natos, instructo fundo contineri verum est).
Ulpian claims that very often when the sale of sick slaves was annulled their healthy relatives were also returned to the seller. It would be “an offense against pietas” not to do so (Dig. 21.1.35).
Vernae
Children born to established slave families in the household would technically be termed vernae, slaves born in the household of their master.
According to Adolf Berger (1953: 761), vernae were generally treated better than other slaves in the household.
Child vernae are treated quite differently in different areas of the Roman Empire.
In many epitaphs from different parts of the Italian peninsula, alumnus and delicatus, for example, cover much the same kind of relationship as does verna (Sigismund-Nielsen 1991; Rawson 2010; La Monaca and Sigismund-Nielsen forthcoming).
Young vernae are frequently commemorated affectionately as “dear small children.”
In Ostia, Junia Eutychia commemorates Aphrodite her sweetest (dulcissima) verna who was one year and eleven months when she died (CIL XIV 592).
The freedwoman Caesia Tryphaena memorializes her verna Titus Caesius (CIL XIV 734). He was very sweet (dulcissimus) and five years and nine months old when he died. The grave plot where he is buried was quite big, 15 Roman feet wide and 30 Roman feet deep. Tryphaena also includes herself and her freedmen and freedwomen in the commemoration.
Titus Caesius was buried in the household tomb of his owner. Although he was slave born, he was obviously free at the time of his death, as we can tell from the fact that he carries the family name (nomen) of his former owner.
One inscription from Rome clearly says that a little verna was indeed brought up as a substitute for a son (loco filii, CIL VI 18754). The term loco filii/ae appears in fewer than a handful of cases in the Roman epigraphic material.
Columbaria in Rome either could be privately owned or could belong to an aristocratic family or the imperial household. They were large subterranean burial chambers where funerary urns were put up in little niches.
An epitaph like the one that Lucius Calpurnius Antigonus put up to his sweetest four-year-old verna Faustinus is typical of the commemorative pattern in the city of Rome (CIL VI 17742).
Lucius Julius Thamyros commemorates his well-deserving (bene merens), almost four-year-old verna Lucius Julius Carus, and so does his mother Julia Trophime (CIL VI 20304). The patronus of Carus and Trophime had a higher status than the verna and his mother and is therefore mentioned first.
In CIL VI 18404 Titus Flavius Daphnus commemorates his freed verna the twelve-year-old Flavia Prima, himself, his wife Flavia Eufrosyne, his relative (cognatus) Lucius Laberius Hermes, his excellent female friend (optima amica) Cassia Synethe, and his freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants.
Working Children
Libanus was sixteen years old when he died. He was an imperial verna and had worked as a secretary (ab epistulis) until his death (CIL VI 8597).
Halotus also belonged to the imperial household. He was being trained in the paedagogium and was twelve years old when he died. He was memorialized together with Phlegon, also from the paedagogium, who was eighteen years old at death (CIL VI 8965). Paedagogia were schools for the training of slave boys.
Pacorus worked as a cobbler (sutor) and was commemorated by his sister Thallusa when he died at the age of twelve (CIL VI 10546).
Calocaerus was the verna of Daphnus who commemorated him when he died at age fifteen (CIL VI 9649). Calocaerus is described as an ingeniossimus musicarius, a very gifted musician or perhaps instrument builder.
Sperata and Pieris were ornatrices, hairdressers (CIL VI 9728, 9731). Sperata was thirteen years old when she died and seems to have worked in a household where slaves were specialized in hairdressing. Pieris was eight years old when she died and was commemorated by her mother Hilara.
Delicia
A small good-looking child could become the delicium of its owner (Sigismund-Nielsen 1990).
The word delicium can be used as a term of relationship about a young child, frequently of slave status. In CIL VI 14990, the imperial freedman Tiberius Claudius Dalus commemorates his freed slave Moschus who was his delicium and verna and died at the age of nine.
Prosopa was such a boy. He died when he was nine years old and had been freed at that time. In life, he had been the delicium of Julia Augusta, that is, Livia and Livilla daughter of Antonia the Younger and Drusus.
Ephebus commemorates his son Primigenius who had been the delicium of Epagathus, an imperial freedman and official (CIL VI 8514).
Conclusion: A Good Life?
“Th ere was, however, no guarantee that such a slave child would continue being his or her owner’s favorite when he or she grew up. In one of his letters Seneca mentions his slave Felicio, now an old man ( Ep. 12.3).”
“Seneca does not recognize him, and when Felicio reminds him that he used to be his deliciolum Seneca makes some rude jokes. He says that Felicio is a most suitable pet child as he is losing his teeth. It was probably better for a slave child to rely on his or her intelligence rather than on ephemeral good looks.”
Suetonius also mentions Quintus Remmius Palaemon, who had started his career as a verna in the household of a woman and then became educated as a weaver (Gram. et Rhet. 23).
Melior was the verna of Sextus Aufustius Agreus in Ostia (CIL XIV 472). He was thirteen years old and a calculator (an accountant or teacher of math) when he died. Agreus, who besides being his owner was also his teacher (praeceptor), commemorated him with a long inscription praising his unusual intelligence.
“The lives of lower-class children in Rome must frequently have been sad. Their hope for a good life and for social progress rested primarily on the goodwill of their owners or patroni and their own intelligence. But one more thing could have provided them with a sense of stability and a feeling of safety: belonging to a domus.”
“Fortunately for slave children, the Romans did not understand family life in the way that we do now in modern Western society. Included within the family commemorations of many household tombs are anonymous dedications to “freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants” (libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum), that is, individuals who once may have held the status of a Passia.”
“Romans felt strongly about the survival of their family name. But they did not care much whether the name survived through biological off spring or freedmen”
“If we leave Rome and go as far north on the Italian peninsula as is possible to the Augustan Regio X where the main city was the busy port city of Aquileia, many household tombstones that commemorate Romans belonging to those below the elite can be found. In these it is the norm for slaves, freedmen, and freedwomen to be included in the commemoration under their own names.”
One striking example is the tombstone that the freed businessman ( negotiator ) Fructus put up memorializing his household ( Inscriptiones Aquileiae 1.715).
This tombstone commemorated his common law wife ( contubernalis ) Minicia Potita, his mother Hilara, his two sisters Crispia Vitalis and Crispia Procula, his little verna ( vernaculus ) Gaius Minicius December, and the mother of December, Minicia Helpis. His freedman and heir ( libertus et heres ) was responsible for executing the wishes of Fructus.
We do not know if the skeletons of these people would have shown malnourishment and too much hard physical work at too young an age. But at least they all had a strong sense of belonging, and this is amply displayed by Fructus’ tombstone.
It should not be forgotten that until very recently children’s lives in the west were much closer to what we can glean from the sources as typical of the lives of Roman children. Roman ways of thinking about human beings were fundamentally diff erent from ours.
Passia, like the vernaculus and his mother from Aquileia, might have thought that their lives were good as long as they did not starve and as long as they belonged somewhere.
A good life for members of the Roman lower classes, especially for their children, cannot in any way have been similar to what we think of as a good life.