96 Chapter 5
Augustus tried to legislate against these abuses by de-
manding seven witnesses to a divorce and making it
possible for a man—though not a woman—to sue for
adultery thereafter. Legacy hunters were restrained by
limiting the bequests that could be received by wid-
owed or unmarried persons. Augustus’s efforts aroused
intense opposition and seem to have had little immedi-
ate effect beyond enriching the treasury with the es-
tates of those whose heirs had been disqualified, but
they mark a turning point of sorts in the history of Ro-
man morals. Others shared his distaste for sexual li-
cense and their attitudes, later reflected in those of
Christianity, gained ground with the passage of time.
Augustus may have been right in thinking that di-
vorce and sexual misconduct led to social instability,
but their prevalence did not imply that all of the men
and women of the Roman upper class were irresponsi-
ble pleasure seekers. A high level of education, secured
largely by private tutors, was common to both sexes,
and magnificent private libraries were a status symbol.
Moreover, a measure of debauchery did not seem to in-
terfere with the effective management of complex en-
terprises. In the Roman system of values, the ability
when necessary to control the passions, not the vice,
mattered.
Slaves were the constant companions of the rich,
and even poor households might own one or two. They
may at various times have numbered as much as a third
of the city’s population, but their role in Roman society
defies easy categorization. The lot of the urban slave
was in some ways preferable to that of the poor citizen.
Domestic slaves lived as part of their master’s
household and were sometimes friends or lovers.
Others were highly skilled professionals: teachers,
physicians, librarians, or entertainers who might have
homes of their own in the city and earn additional
fees by offering their services to the general public.
Craftsmen and industrial workers generally lived
apart and returned a portion of their earnings to their
owners, keeping the rest for themselves. Though
slaves, their daily lives were similar to those of ordi-
nary citizens.
Roman slavery was a legal and personal relation-
ship that had little to do with lifestyle. Simply put,
slaves were not persons under the law. The only virtue
required of them was loyalty to their master, and they
could neither serve in the army nor participate in public
life. Though slaves could testify in court, it was custom-
ary to torture them first on the theory that this released
them from their obligation of loyalty. Corporal punish-
ment was sometimes inflicted by owners as well, but
the emperors introduced legislation against the worst
excesses. Claudius forbade the exposure of slaves who
were old or sick. Domitian prohibited castration, and
Hadrian abolished private executions, even for criminal
behavior.
As is often the case with legislation, these acts
lagged far behind practice. Most owners knew that the
system worked only if the loyalty of the slaves were
genuine. No one would want to be shaved by a mal-
content or protected by untrustworthy bodyguards.
Slaves who rebelled might expect the fate of Spartacus.
Those who were merely difficult might be threatened
with being sent to the farm, a fate that for most of them
must have seemed worse than death.
Though kindness was important, the prospect of
manumission was a better guarantor of personal and
public safety. Urban slaves of either sex could look for-
ward to being freed, usually by the time they reached
age thirty. This was about the average life expectancy
in ancient Rome, but many lived far longer, and, as in
all preindustrial societies, the percentage of very old
people in the population was probably not much less
than it is today. To know with reasonable certainty that
one would be freed mitigated despair, but it also made
economic sense for the owners.
The Roman system allowed slaves to purchase their
freedom as soon as they could accumulate their pur-
chase price. Those who worked outside the household
could do this easily. Domestics, too, were often encour-
aged to develop private sources of income. The owner
could then use the most productive years of a slave’s life
and recover his or her purchase price before sickness
and old age diminished the total profit. As an added in-
centive to manumission, the freed slave became the
owner’s client, a relationship that might work to the ad-
vantage of both.
After the third century B.C. nearly all slaves were
foreigners, with Gauls, Syrians, and Africans being per-
haps the most numerous. Rome was therefore a multi-
hued city of immigrants in which people from every
corner of the known world mingled without apparent
racial tension. Consciously or not, slavery was the
means by which they were turned into Romans. The
owner purchased them, introduced them to Roman
ways, and in many cases provided them with the train-
ing and education needed to survive. Once free, their
lives were often more prosperous than those of citizens
who had nothing but a monthly allotment of grain.
Most of Rome’s free citizens were officially catego-
rized as poor. Some found work, often in jobs so haz-
ardous or unhealthy that they could not be given to
valuable slaves. Those who ran small shops faced in-
tense competition from slaves and freedmen who were