I recall a passage from Durant’s Caesar and Christ, discussing the institution of Roman slavery – “but under no circumstances could his master kill him [the slave].” But I’ve read many historical novels that assume the contrary – a slave he no civil rights at all, and a master could kill, even crucify, a slave without asking permission of any public authority. What’s the straight dope?
Under Roman law during the Republic, the head of a household (pater familias) had the right to kill any member of his household…his children, his wife, his slaves.
Yes, it was known as patria potestas. The head of the family had absolute power over the members of the familia, which included all members of the family and all property, including slaves, belonging to the family. This power extended to life and death (ius vitae necisque), limited only by the restraints of sacred law, by the habit of consulting a family council and, in case of gross abuse, by the possibility of animadversion by the censors.
A little more, from Wikipedia
“The legal state of slaves was based on the fact that the slave was not a subject but an object of law. A master had the right of ownership over the slave, he could sell him, give in pawn, kill him ( ius vitae ac necis), and if someone injured his slave a master could initiate legal proceedings and demand protection. The ownership over the slave was called dominica potestas, and not dominium like the ownership of objects and animals.”
Slaves’ lot improved a bit in the later Empire. (Just went to a seminar earlier this week that touched on this subject, as it happens!). John Taylor’s Elements of the Civil Law (1754) noted that, before the collapse of the Empire, “several important changes had been introduced favourable to the slaves.” Hadrian promulgated a law that prohibited “cruel treatment towards slaves,” and even earlier, the killing of a slave by its owner was punishable by the state.
Roman law also permitted slaves to own property of their own (peculium). According to Prof. Thomas D. Morris of Portland State University in his Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 (Univ. of N.C. Press, 1996),
‘If much in Roman law and life can be said to dehumanize the slave… the peculium did much to humanize him.’ There was no limit to the amount of property a slave could acquire, nor were there limits on the kind of property. Slaves could ‘hold slaves, even many slaves, of their own.’ Furthermore, slaves could be educated; some were very knowledgeable indeed, and some were ‘high-income earners…’
However, the Roman law of senatus consultum silanianum required that if a master was murdered by a slave, all the slaves ‘who lived under the same roof are to be subjected to torture and then condemned to death…’
The ancient Roman principle of partus sequitur ventrem (“the status of the child derives from the mother”) was adopted in many Southern states before the Civil War, BTW, meaning that children born to slave women would themselves be slaves.
Not good.
So if I’m a slave and I see another slave about to kill my master, can I kill that slave or will I then be held accountable to destroying my masters property (so I’m boned either way)?
Only if you had a really strange master. “Well, you saved my life, But you killed a slave in doing it, so now I have to punish you.”
I wouldn’t put it past them!
There’s the story of the murder trial in whixh the accused man was convicted and sentenced to death, even though he swore that the supposed victim was merely away on business. As he was about to be executed the next day the ‘victim’ himself rushed up to halt the execution, having just got back to Rome.
He explained the situation to the executioner, who then led the much-relieved prisoner and the other man back to the judge, who listened impassively as the executioner told him what had occurred.
The judge promptly ordered the execution of all three men: the first, as he had already been condemned to death; the second, for causing the death of an innocent man; and the executioner, for failing to carry out his duty.
Fiat justitia ruat caelum. - “Let justice be done though the heavens tremble.”
Cite, please?
Because I find this a really hard story to swallow.
Cite Schmite. He didn’t say it was an Ancient Roman story, just that it was a story. And it is. In that sense, I guess his post is…
Anyway,
IIRC, the playwright Terence was a slave, at least at the beginning of his career.
I doubt that this passage is anywhere in the book, so I think you’re remembering it incorrectly. From pp. 397-8:
However, Rome lasted for a long time and slaves, possibly because they became rarer and more valuable, gradually received less stringent treatment.
What Saoirse said.
Sheesh, if you must have a cite for a tale, it’s from Seneca and told of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (not sure of chapter and verse though).
Here’s what Brewer has:
Piso’s Justice That is Piso’s justice. Verbally right, but morally wrong. Seneca tells us that Piso condemned a man on circumstancial evidence for murder; but when the suspect was at the place of execution, the man supposed to have been murdered exclaimed, “Hold, hold! I am the man supposed to have been killed.” The centurion sent back the prisoner to Piso, and explained the case to him; whereupon Piso condemned all three to death, saying, “Fiat justitia.” The man condemned is to be executed because sentence of death has been passed upon him, and fiat justitia; the centurion is to be executed because he has disobeyed orders, and fiat justitia; the man supposed to have been murdered is to be executed because he has been the cause of death to two innocent men, and *fiat justitia etsi coelum ruat. *
Just as well I looked it up. I see that I had the condemnations a little awry.
Oh well! Same difference. 