How was slavery viewed in Ancient Rome, and what type of resistance existed towards it?

Part 1:

I will try to address your multiple questions by presenting a brief but layered response. However, I want to preface this by stating that the source materials on Roman slavery, indeed much of Roman history, is patchy and scattered. Much of the evidence and sources come from different times and places and it creates problems with constructing a narrative or composite picture of the institution of slavery in the Roman world. With that in mind let me begin by stating that to the Romans slavery was an everyday, accepted, natural part of the order of the world. While slavery was normalized in Roman society, however, unlike many other ancient cultures, their mentality on the institution was that it was a social grade and not something that need be permanent. It was in fact the lowest social grade in their fiercely socially hierarchical society. This created some important distinction, the first of which I’ll point out is that there wasn’t any ethnic division between slave and owner in the Roman world. This is in stark contrast to how most people view slavery today due to their knowledge surrounding the Antebellum South in the United States of America where there was a racial element that was supported and explained by plenty of pseudo theories. There was no need for this in the Roman world because there was no ethic division; there was plenty of ethnic diversity but there was no ethnic group that was exclusively the masters and free while another was the enslaved.

Since slavery was a social grade it meant anyone could become a slave. An example for this is when Cicero notes a young man, from a prominent local family in an Italian town, who had joined the Allies and fought the Romans in the Social War, was later captured and made a slave on the estate of a senator. Thus, here was an Italian, a man a prominent status, being degraded to slavery. Furthermore, while one could be downgraded to slavery, it was also true that you could be raised from it due to it being a status grade; thereby "reentering" respectful society. In this way slaves could have a "rebirth" of some kind similar to modern perceptions of criminals going to prison and leaving it a better or more respectable person. In fact freed slaves became citizens albeit a lower level citizen (they and their offspring were debarred from holding office). The concept of manumission (literally a “sending away from authority” or “sending away from the hand of somebody”) is unique in ancient slave owning societies. We should not look at this act as a sign of Roman humanity but instead just another way to control slaves. Owners could dangle the prospect of freedom and rewards to a slave and therefore encourage him or her to be continue to be subservient. Likewise, you should not imagine that most or even the majority of slaves could ever hope for manumission throughout the empire. Most of those freed were personal friends or worked close to their master (like in the case of Tiro, Cicero's former slave secretary) and as such if you were working in a chain-gang in the fields the chances of being freed were slim to none.

We should also address the Marxist notion that Roman slavery was a case of exploitation of labour. This is absolutely not true. It is true however that slaves did do lots of manual labour but so did plenty of poor free and low born people. If we look at the evidence we have about Roman construction companies, for example, who were building the walls, houses, temples, roads, etc. we have slaves and low born people doing the same jobs and tasks. In some cases the slaves may be more skilled then their free counterparts. The fact that not all slaves did manual labour also stands in opposition to Marxist theory. Again, always remember that slavery was a social grade. If we look at the writings and evidence from the Roman upper classes its clear they disdained and were snobbish to both the poor citizens and slaves (though the slaves are clearly in the worse social and legal position).

The life of a slave varies tremendously. An educated slave that could read and write could become a teacher for a household or secretary or an accountant. If, however, the slave held no skills or education than he or she could be forced into working in a whole host of very dangerous and labor intensive jobs: the worst of which would no doubt be in the mines or chained to an oar on a ship. In the works of Diodorus Ciculus we have an eye-witness description of what the lives of slaves stuck in a Roman mine looked like: "But to continue with the mines, the slaves who are engaged in the working of them produce for their masters revenues in sums defying belief, but they themselves wear out their bodies both by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers because of the exceptional hardships they endure. For no respite or pause is granted them in their labors, but compelled beneath blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away their lives in this wretched manner, although certain of them who can endure it, by virtue of their bodily strength and their persevering souls, suffer such hardships over a long period; indeed death in their eyes is more to be desired than life, because of the magnitude of the hardships they must bear." Now conditions that a slave would face no matter which town, city, or profession they were in really rested with their owners. Some Roman writers emphasize to their readers that slaves should be treated humanely, with some level of decency and be given decent food rations, living courters, and medical aid. Others, most notably Cato the Elder, argue they should be given the bare necessities and worked virtually to death. If an owner happened to have a bad temper or was extremely aggressive than regardless of any job or perhaps if your job was closer to the master than the slave(s) could be subjected to immense and constant abuse and violence. In fact violence is something the sources constantly comment on and is presented as a standard feature of the life of a slave. Slaves could be beat, kicked, whipped, slapped, etc. at any time for any reason by their master. For example, a doctor named Galen, living in the 2nd century CE, comments in his book "The Passions of the Soul" how he does not advise people to lose their tempers with slaves and hit them with their fists and thus hurt their hands. Instead, Galen recommends waiting a while and getting a rod or whip and inflicting as many blows as they wish and to accompany the act with "reflection". So here the advice is not to mind the welfare of the slave but your fists. Additionally, Galen states he learned quite a bit about head injuries when he had to treat a slave who had been hit in the head by his master with a sheathed sword; he has quite a positive take on this event since he learned a lot about head injuries from this unfortunate slave. Under Roman law slaves were technically dead so the master could do whatever he wished with his "property". This includes sexual assault or murder. In fact, a source of slavery in the Roman world was unwanted children (contraceptives and abortion were not practical or available in the ancient world); if you found a child left in the woods to die to exposure or animals than that child could become your legal slave since you spared it. As a side note, the root of the English word 'servant' comes from the Latin 'servus' meaning "spared person" or "person who is preserved" a reminder of Roman slavery's origin as a tool for dealing with POWs and discarded babies.