11 - Slavery and Roman literary culture

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Slaves are everywhere in Roman literature. They serve masters faithfully or plot their undoing in Roman comedy. They are topics of concern in agricultural manuals. They act as go-betweens in love poetry and as figures of ridicule and disdain in satire. They make revolts in histories and sacrifice themselves to masters in collections of paradigmatic stories (exempla). They figure in the letters of famous Romans like Cicero and Pliny the Younger. Roman authors dismiss them, love them, hate them and sometimes ignore them. In their writings, slaves receive whippings or rewards, serve or betray masters, stand as moral paradigms and blend into scenery of house, city and fields.

Since Rome was a slave society from the late third century bc to the third century ad, the presence of slaves in its literature will not surprise its readers two thousand years later. Yet, how we understand the ubiquitous literary presence of slaves is no easy matter. The literary scholar observes the tropes and figures that deploy the slave; the social historian finds evidence of the realities of the institution and even of the experience of slaves; and the cultural historian looks for the attitudes, notions and ideology associated with these realities. Although this chapter partakes of all these approaches, it focuses on the work of cultural history. I examine a selected group of Latin authors as representative of both Roman literature from the late third century bc to the early second century ad and the appearances of slaves in it.