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"Slaves are either born or made" (servi aut nascuntur aut fiunt): [166] in the ancient Roman world, people might become enslaved as a result of warfare, piracy and kidnapping, or child abandonment—the fear of falling into slavery, expressed frequently in Roman literature, was not just rhetorical exaggeration. [167]
Freedmen in ancient Rome existed as a distinct social class (liberti or libertini), with former slaves granted freedom and rights through the legal process of manumission. The Roman practice of slavery utilized slaves for both production and domestic labour, overseen by their wealthy masters. Urban and domestic slaves especially could achieve ...
Ancillae (plural) (singular, ancilla) were female house slaves in ancient Rome, as well as in Europe during the Middle Ages. [1] In Medieval Europe, slavery was gradually replaced by serfdom, but a small number of female slaves were imported as household servants for the wealthy, most commonly in Italy, Spain and France. [1]
As a Roman letter expressing ambivalence about slavery from the 1st century, it has been compared to the early Christian writing in Paul's Epistle to Philemon. [5] And Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century condemns slavery outright, in rhetorical terms that may draw from Seneca, but that go beyond him.
Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become Roman citizens. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom (libertas), including the right to vote, though he could not run for public office. [18]
A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self-purchase. A fugitive slave is a person who escaped enslavement by fleeing.
Ancient Roman slaves and freedmen (6 C, 7 P) C. Crisis of the Roman Republic (6 C, 18 P) E. Epistle to Philemon (1 C, 6 P) N. Novels about slavery in ancient Rome (2 ...
Many slaves were created as the result of Rome's conquest of Greece, but Greek culture was considered in some respects superior to that of Rome: hence Horace's famous remark Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Captured Greece took her savage conqueror captive"). The Roman playwright Terence is thought to have been brought to Rome as a slave ...