Roman Slavery Throughout Roman History, there are various relationships among slaves, and the Roman elite. We can look largely at, the range of occupations entrusted to the slaves of the Roman elite. We find personal attendants and footmen, litter-bearers; wardrobe attendants, hairdressers and barbers; wet nurses, doctors, masseurs; spinners, weavers and wool-workers, dyers and fullers, clothes-menders and shoemakers; financial managers, stewards, accountants and secretaries. We can also trace some of family relations among the slaves and freedmen, some that had even been allowed to marry or, more accurately, to set up quasi-marital unions (contubernia) within the slave household, or occasionally with slaves from other households (Bankston
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For while it could be used, like the English term ‘family’, to denote the freeborn members of a based conjugal unit (comprising mother, father and child or children), it was much more often utilized in a broader sense to refer to this unit together with the slaves of the household. “The importance of slaves to the Roman family was emphasised at the festival of the Compitalia , revived by Augustus in 12 Bc and celebrated each year in either December or January”(Kleijwegt 2009)). At the main crossroad (compita)of each urban neighborhood in Rome, families decorated the shrines of the Lares Augusti (the ‘Augustan household gods’) with a puppet (male or female, as appropriate) for each freeborn member of the household and a ball for every slave . Although the way which they were represented made them visibly distinct from those that were born free, and stripped them of any human or gendered identity, slaves were still deemed important enough to be included in a family’s offerings in a public cult intimately linked to the household (Kleijwegt 2009). In my opinion I believe this means that although the slaves were stripped of human and gender identity, legally, the citizens and Elite of Rome still viewed apart of themselves in the slaves. At the rural equivalent, where the Lares Compitales who guarded the boundaries of rural estates were propitiated, wine rations for slaves were increased for the duration of the festival (Papakosta 2012). However, the term familia could also refer just to the slaves of the household, as it frequently does, for instance, in Petronius’ satirical novel the Satyricon, written in slavery and the roman family during the mid-first century ad (Teitler 2015). So at the excessively luxurious banquet of the rich
For while it could be used, like the English term ‘family’, to denote the freeborn members of a based conjugal unit (comprising mother, father and child or children), it was much more often utilized in a broader sense to refer to this unit together with the slaves of the household. “The importance of slaves to the Roman family was emphasised at the festival of the Compitalia , revived by Augustus in 12 Bc and celebrated each year in either December or January”(Kleijwegt 2009)). At the main crossroad (compita)of each urban neighborhood in Rome, families decorated the shrines of the Lares Augusti (the ‘Augustan household gods’) with a puppet (male or female, as appropriate) for each freeborn member of the household and a ball for every slave . Although the way which they were represented made them visibly distinct from those that were born free, and stripped them of any human or gendered identity, slaves were still deemed important enough to be included in a family’s offerings in a public cult intimately linked to the household (Kleijwegt 2009). In my opinion I believe this means that although the slaves were stripped of human and gender identity, legally, the citizens and Elite of Rome still viewed apart of themselves in the slaves. At the rural equivalent, where the Lares Compitales who guarded the boundaries of rural estates were propitiated, wine rations for slaves were increased for the duration of the festival (Papakosta 2012). However, the term familia could also refer just to the slaves of the household, as it frequently does, for instance, in Petronius’ satirical novel the Satyricon, written in slavery and the roman family during the mid-first century ad (Teitler 2015). So at the excessively luxurious banquet of the rich