Strange Things About Life for a Roman Slave
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- Unravel the mysteries of life as a slave in Ancient Rome in this eye-opening video! Explore the complexities of Roman slavery, from unimaginable wealth to rebellions, and the surprising significance of a simple hat.
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Marcus Tullius Cicero, a consul in the Late Republic and massively influential orator, had a slave called Tiro. Tiro was born into slavery, on the family’s estate and grew up with Cicero. Tiro spent his life taking Cicero’s speech notes, helping write his letters, and conducting important business for Cicero. Tiro was able to write Cicero’s speeches as quickly as Cicero dictated them, as he invented a shorthand system. Tiro eventually composed and published many of Cicero’s legal cases and letters, saving them for us today. Despite being one of Cicero’s closest friends, Tiro was given his freedom shortly before Caesar’s civil war and outlived his master, who was killed in the proscriptions of Antony and Octavian. Supposedly, Tiro lived as a freedman of the Tullius house and continued to prepare much of Cicero’s notes and papers for publication. Dying in old age, around one hundred years old.
Do you have sources for that? I'd very much like to read into it
@@hiasenestre I can recommend Robert Harris's three novels about Cicero, which are told from the viewpoint of Tiro.
@@hiasenestre sure thing. If you want some ancient sources, Tiro is mentioned a fair amount in Plutarch’s Life of Cicero. He is also mentioned a fair amount and occasionally written to by Cicero, check Cicero’s Letters to Friends (Epistulae ad Familiares) and Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (Ep. ad Atticum); Atticus being Cicero’s greatest friend and confidant. For pleasant introductions to modern scholarly sources on the matter. Tempest, Kathryn (2012). "Tiro, Marcus Tullius". Encyclopedia of Ancient History; McDermott, William C (1972). "M Cicero and M Tiro". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. Vol. 21, No. 2. These are both short, check their bibliographies for further sources. Equally, go to Jstor and search Tiro, then read any free scholarly articles you may see, and if you are a student then read as many as you want using institutional log in. Lastly, a fun, well-researched fiction read is Robert Harris’s Cicero Trilogy, an account of the statesman’s life with Tiro as the main character.
Boom 💥
@@joshlittell6346 thanks, mate. Appreciate it.
Simon: "If I have to make another video about the Roman Empire.."
Also Simon:
Thanks Simon. We know how much you love talking about ancient Rome.
I've never pressed the like button so fast!!
In the eyes, and out the mouth😂
Not quite. He really likes slavery. 😅😅
I didn't know
Fun fact: in an Asterix book our heroes gave the magic potion to a group of Roman slaves building a palace near their village expecting them to rise in rebellion... But instead they demanded to be set free as soon as they completed the job, and the Romans accepted.
One of the rare times Asterix got outsmarted...
Slaves in the Spanish mines had it difficult, not only because gold mines were located in places with hard rock, but also because the Romans used water power to help with the process... and not in a good way for any slave that didn't have the time to get out of the way.
If you're looking for a cool story of a slave that lived an incredible life check out Marcus Tullius Tiro.
I'm hoping one of the Herculaneum scrolls they are trying to currently read is his autobiography. He saw firsthand some of the most famous history of the last days of the Roman Republic and lived to tell the tale!
Fascinating
Wow. Another Ancient Rome video. This Simon Whistler person must really love talking about Ancient Rome. Please make more Ancient Rome videos. We want every detail of life in Ancient Rome.
I believe Simon is a passenger to his magnificent beard 😂
There was a time when Simon didn't have a beard! I've seen it on early episodes. I had to blink several times because he looked so young!
I'd love more videos showing Roman society. I feel like it's often ignored that rome lastet well over 1000 years. Society changed over this huge amount of time and I feel that fact is often underrepresented in discussions
"merry making" is a great way to say getting blackout hammered drunk.
Dobby has received a hat! Dobby is free!
This is the kind of content I come here for 😂
Ha ha
😂😂
This comment needs more likes 👍👍👍👍👍
Came here to say this lol
6:15 Roman women of the Republic had no rights anyway unless they were widows.
A daughter or wife was under the absolute control of the paterfamilias, the head of the family. So a former slave married to a former owner was no worse off.
There was also little stigma against the descendants of slaves amongst the head count or knight classes.
when are gonna give your writers their hats, simon?
The vast majority of human beings that have ever lived left a trace on history
Yay!!!! It's Fact-boy and his sidekick "the beard"!!!
At this point, he's the beard's sidekick
@@cleverusername9369 the beard is sentient... Lol...
😂😂lol
For all the talk of high status positions or supposed comfortable living, the fact remains that 99% of these slaves were forced into their roles in society, had no rights and could not leave unless freed by their owner. Most were taken from their homes as war spoils, never to return, and were subject to the whims of their master. There's no good way to spin slavery.
Well, if you eat better, get better medical treatment and work less hard than the majority of the "free" people, being a slave could be a great deal.
Maybe you should aks yourself, why so many well educated people sold themselves into slavery.
You guys have no idea how life was for the huge majority of people 2000 years ago. How hard the life of a "free" farmer was and stuff like that.
Spoiler: People back then did not work for 8 hours sitting in a chair in front of a computer and then went home to watch TV or YT.
Of course, slavery in ancient Rome wasn't based on race. Almost anyone could be enslaved if they were captured in a war. There were laws passed over time to protect slaves from extreme cruelty, and some slaves even sued their masters in court.
Yes, it's a hard difference from the Trans-Atlantic Chattel slavery. I have had to try to describe to my friend that there were many reasons Roman slavery shouldn't be just tossed in with TAC slavery but I often find my points being missed.
@@stax6092tbh, I had no idea how different they were until watching this video. It makes me question if the same word, "slave", applies to both. They were completely different economic and social things (or something. I'm still watching the video).
There are stories of slaves in places like China, India, Ottoman Empire holding important positions like military officers, treasurers, advisors to leaders, positions equivalent to modern cabinet ministers etc and some eunuchs even becoming so entrenched into royal courts they wielded political power and were lobbied by people who wanted positions in the administration, one was even able to get the sultan to hire or relieve viziers he liked or didn't like.
@@NormalGuyBrandon A really good way to think about it is like this. Transantlantic slavery was much more akin to Just Working the Salt-mines in Rome. Where they would send prisoners of war and only the worst criminals.
2:20 except you could be forced to sell your slave for mistreatment.
Slavery in the Roman Empire tended to be either economic or conquest slavery (prisoners of war/criminal punishment).
Later, slaves were often bought from outside the Empire too.
Especially in the later stages (Third century) when Roman expansion was halted many chieftains sold slaves to the Romans.
It's good that there are video like this that talk about the realities of slavery in Rome. There are a LOT of American Christians who genuinely believe that Roman slavery wasn't that bad and that the only really BAD form of slavery was the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Still, I don't expect that this video will convince them, if all the available evidence of objective reality and history doesn't do so already...
Most of these Christians have no knowledge of the servile wars. It’s certainly not taught in church and I didn’t learn about it in Christian school.
Those beliefs, which are indeed incorrect, are a reaction to the _equally_ incorrect beliefs that slavery in the Roman Empire was _just as despicable_ as that of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. All forms of slavery are wrong, but that doesn't mean some aren't worse than others. Just like all forms of murder are wrong, but a murder in the heat of a moment when you catch your partner cheating is punished less severely than a cold-blooded killing spree with ten victims across three months. Or even a calculated single murder.
I am a Canadian Christian and have never come across that belief in my entire life and I am 66 and have been a Christian for 40 years. Your statement can make you seem like you are anti-Christian, or at best talking out of your hat.
Excellent as usual!
Oh oh! Simon’s favorite subject. Thanks!
Thank you very much..
Congrats Simon, on the 1 Million subscribers for this channel!! You did it again!!!
Amazing that the most common slave name was "found in trash" which is where unwanted babies went.
Russia in 18th and 19 centuries had a good number of millionaire merchants who were legally serfs.
No matter how stringent a society's norms may be, owning a person's labor gives you absolute power over them. And we know what Lord Acton said about that.
richard
--
Trite, you may as well make claims about parents and children then.
Dang you are quick
I know how much you absolutely love the roman empire so it's great to see you bask in your element.
Expendable human being… lol
There’s something about Simons delivery, brilliant.
I have read that some highly educated foreigners would occasionally sell themselves into slavery in Rome to wealthy Roman families to serve as tutors and the like against the hope of manumission because at certain points in the history of Rome, they would gain their owner's name and the Roman citizenship upon manumission. Citizenship + the ongoing patronage of their former owners would allow them to make their fortune for their family ... or at least that was the hope.
0:55 - Chapter 1 - Skilled slaves were very valuable assets...but still slaves
3:05 - Chapter 2 - Up to 20% of the roman population were slaves...and sometimes rebelled
5:00 - Chapter 3 - A slave was freed with a hat
6:20 - Chapter 4 - There was a day when masters & slaves switched roles
8:00 - Chapter 5 - Difficult slaves wore identification collars
9:35 - Chapter 6 - Slaves could become influential millionaires
Last time I was this early I was the subject of a Casual Criminalist
Last time I was this early I was the first victim of the subject of a Casual Criminalist.
Lol
Last time you too were this early....you were having sex 😂
@@jeremysoares3288 ahhh there you are
I watched this video only because it will make Simon do more Roman empire video, he likes doing thoses.
Like rags to riches stories in all times and places, those who transcended their conditions were rare, and those who remained in poverty and brutality the norm. But those who were successful likely were held up as ‘this could be you, if only you play our game well’, to keep the masses who would never improve their lot in check.
One infamously sadistic Roman slave owner named Publius Vedius Pollio kept a pool of lampreys in his villa. Pollio, himself the son of a feedman wasn't above treating his own slaves with cold hearted cruelty and was known to feed any slave who earned his displeasure to the lampreys (the man was the original Bond villain). One story goes that one time when he was hosting the Emperor Augustus at his villa. A cup-bearer slave of his accidentally chipped one of his glass cups. Infuriated, Pollio ordered the unfortunate slave to be thrown to the lampreys. This slave however fell to his knees and begged Augustus for a less painful execution. Appalled, Augustus then ordered his guards to smash all of Pollio's expensive glassware, had the pool of lampreys filled in and as a final act of kindness, spared the slave who offended Pollio and granted him his freedom.
Yes, excessive cruelty against slaves happened - and we know about those incidents, because Romans TALKED about them. Because it was not common and not accepted by most.
There was a law that could force owners of slaves to sell slaves, if they were treating them too harshly.
Obviously it depended a lot where you ended up as a slave - in the mines, you were completly screwed and your life was basically over.
But in Rome? Well, most free people did not live better than you. On the contrary, hunger was way more common for "free" farming folks e.g.
One thing thats always irritated me with Marcus Lucinius Crassus is that he is painted as a bad guy. Yes he took care of a rebellion that threatened the stability of Rome, and believed people in society had their place, but he actually educated any of his slaves that showed talent, and would guide and help train them. He was not a cruel man, just an oppotunist. Hence why he became so rich, he took care of his people and in turn they worked hard for him. He was surrounded by engineers, architects, artists and other professionals.
Well, he had two sides. What you say is true - but on the other hand, there are a lot of reports about how he got parts of his fortune.
Using fires to buy the estate very cheap. Some claim that he was responsible for some of the fires himself.
But all in all I agree with you, he was not a "bad guy". His dealings were shady sometimes, but there isn't that much difference to what we see today.
And his behaviour definitly wasn't bad, he did not abuse his wealth, his slaves or whatever.
But hey, he was a man, wealthy and he had slaves (like everybody of status had back then) - that's enough to paint him evil in the days we live in.
02:40 - Crassus was the richest man in Rome - if you focused on coin.
If you factor in the value of estate, I guess that Pompeius was way richer than Crassus.
However, I think that most Romans believed Crassus to be richer, because it seems that Crassus talked way more about being the richest than Pompeius did.
Why did you never mention this channel on your Megaprojects channel? I love your video's, but were rarely interested in your megaproject video's. I like a lot more of the subjects on this channel.
My dog has one of those name tags 😂😂
Modern slavery. Gets evil when they put birds in jail.
In another TH-cam video I tried to make the point that slavery in the ancient world and other forms of slavery were different from the slavery practiced in the U.S. and Brazil. It was a Candace Owens video that said slavery was practiced everywhere and that the slavery in the U.S. and Brazil was not exceptional in any way. I pointed out that slavery in Rome was not based on race and that slaves were not generally considered to be inferior people and slaves could in end up as high placed government officials or very wealthy after they were freed, (and sometimes before they were freed). Her video seemed to imply that because slavery is common in history it should have no effect on the U.S. and the descendants of the former slaves. My point was that because U.S. slavery was based on racism it was that racism that continued to effect U.S. history even after slavery was abolished.
Historically speaking, slavery was not based on race the world over. In Europe and eventually America, the only reason why it became that was because making slaves of fellow Europeans was eventually outlawed but slavery itself still remained legal. So slave owners naturally looked to other countries in order to acquire non-white Europeans for slaves But at the same time, Europeans didn't ewlly go deep into African and around up people themselves to be slaves. Instead,, they mostly, if not exclusively, visited port cities and traded with other Afrians along with Arab traders who were the ones who actually captured the slaves.
@@Riceball01 i don't think that european countries outlawed only european slaves - that's why african slaves were in the new world & not in europe
Ottoman slavery was often racial: they liked capturing Europeans. You can come up with reasons to think that one form of slavery was worse than all the others if you want to, but Roman mining slaves and little boys castrated by the Ottomans would probably not think you were terribly clever.
@@lrmunro You're not so terribly clever yourself. The Ottomans might have liked to take white slaves but not all their slaves were white. Thus their slavery was not based on race, (it was actually more based on religion since if your white Christian European slave converted to Islam he would be freed). Also of course the mining and agricultural slaves of Rome usually had a short horrible life but if they managed to escape they could blend into the Roman population and stay free, the same could not be said for a black slave in America were slavery was based on race and justified with racism, (in fact a lot of legally free blacks were kidnapped into slavery due to the color of their skin). And thus my point that Candace Owens was wrong, (when she basically said that all this talk about American slavery is pointless because slavery has existed throughout history, thus implying that American slavery was no different), is correct. American slavery was different and the racism that justified it continued to effect American history long after slavery itself had been abolished.
@@ericdoberstein8872 As I say, you can come up with reasons to think one form of slavery is worse than others if that floats your boat, but nothing you’ve said would convince victims of the forms you find more acceptable by virtue of being multichromatic.
" I personally wouldn't want to be a part of any organization where you either have to wear a hat or are not allowed to wear a hat."
- George Carlin
6:52 wait, didn’t saturnalia also include drunkenness drugs and orgies? I thought I read that somewhere 🤔
Simon got out the carnauba wax today.
I don't usually catch the Roman empire videos Lol.
The festival sounds like the movie "The Purge" only nicer.
In Russian Empire before 1861 Emancipation of the serfs reforms filthy rich, but dependent, unfree peasant serfs were pretty usual thing.
It's also worth noting that as time went on slave got more and more rights. And successive emperors tried to dissuade slavery and create more rules about the use of slave labor. But not ouf any sort of morality or concern over the slaves but to ensure that there would be enough jobs for actual Roman citizens.
One of the most annoying parts of the film gladiator is when a skilled slave who can speak 7 languages(i think) is sent into the arena.
He would be so much more valuable in a business scenario.
9:11 he was born in 4 BC
7:12 Yeah i doubt that Spartacus and Batiatus ever switched roles either.
btw. I am amazed by the fact that there was a time when creating a law requiring collars to be put on slaves actually made you a human's right activist.
A hat? All Dobby got was a smelly sock.
Blurring out ancient works of art is just depressing.
We might be shocked...laugh out loud.
Slavery in America got way worse when health insurance began being tied to employment, causing the slaves to be more trapped in their jobs or risk financial ruin.
Only watching cos Simon hates doing the roman stuff 😂
Washed out Simon returns! I thought you fixed the color balancing issues...
Replace the word 'slave' with 'worker' and it sounds like modern life
I wonder how "monkeys gathering fruit for survival in the wild" would sound like
👍
Skilled slaves were very valuable assets, but still slaves----sounds a lot like modern age corporate workers with high salary and perks. :P
1/137
I am Spartacus!
The biggest take away from this video is the reason why the slaves didn't revolt more.... Its because the slaves were all diverse cultures and creeds.... Almost like multiculturalism has been used as a weapon to weaken the people for centuries.
There were three major revolts actually. There were also plenty of smaller revolts. Slaves of course would all have different mother tongues, but while slaves in mines were not taught Latin, urban slaves certainly were. They are the ones who conducted matters for their owner families and needed to not only know Latin, but also the locations dialect of Latin. Since formal Latin was only used for important matters like politics, each region had its own unique version of Latin.
For urban slaves, there weren’t many revolts as most were treated as a part of the family. Simon was very wrong by closing this video saying that slaves left no graves as many tombstones have been found for beloved slaves.
It had very little to do with the diversity of languages when it came to urban slaves as it was a non issue for most. The real reason is because urban slaves were important and because if you did try to revolt or run away, you would be branded with “FUG” for fugitive on your forehead and sent to work and die in the mines.
I am in no way claiming that no urban slaves were beaten, raped or killed. What I am saying is that it wasn’t a super common occurrence due to the treatment they received from their households. And I’m also saying that it wasn’t any kind of language barrier that suppressed revolts.😊
11:42 also the seeing of evidence of rich af former slaves made it so slaves would be even better behaved. It worked as an echo of itself
So it was actually a lot like the American dream?
what did freed slaves do to become wealthy?
It would appear, for Romans, meritocracy also mattered in a Plutocracy.
Salve Grumio!
Wow, this is far cry than the Hollywood depiction.
I tried writing about Roman slaves in a report when I was in elementary school. I was excused from the project because my slave wasn't black I guess. Black history month is such a weird thing.
Dammit too late
Like a successful former Roman slave with humility, I am not concerned with leaving such evidence of my greatness for future generations. Lol.
This is contemporary understanding of inequality. The relative differences make all the difference. Roman "slaves" were people with no rights, but when they're such a large portion of the society, they have community and a poor, poorly educated person with rights and without legal rights didnt really live that differently. If a guy thought the other noble dudes servant girl was hot and got to shack up, and make more indentured kids, that was usually preferably to revolt. Til it wasnt. If you just went "by the numbers" present society would make even less sense, except that then, just like now, it is the ambition and organization of labor by the owners that really drive everything. And thats what "let them eat cake" means - that if we boycotted all the evil companies and the 80% revolted against the 1%, the bronze age collapse would look like a recession - there wouldnt be anything left.
FrEE hAT!
Love the content.
Also its AD and BC
Most historians use BCE and CE now.
ACTUALLY FACT BOI, the closing line isn’t true at all. Tombstones that were erected for beloved slaves have absolutely been found. Got that one wrong.😅
Dang Simon makes being a Roman slave look abit better than other empires had slavery
Then i researched what being a Roman slave was 😢and............i would never vist ancient Rome 🤢🤮
So close 🤏
The past was the worst damn
How did wealthy Romans secure their wealth?
Like we do.
They had money in bank accounts and their houses were protecteed by strong doors and walls.
And the door was guarded of course.
What I want to know is when are the Italians going to pay reparations to all the ppl they enslaved across the Mediterranean?
Simon, you did this a year ago ("What was It Really Like to Be a Slave in Ancient Rome?") on 'Today I Found Out'. 😂
th-cam.com/video/h9jyBL6f4gk/w-d-xo.html
Their channels do this a lot. Money for nothing
And they were brothers ~ :v
🙄 Saturnalia was definitively NOT a pagan holdover or syncretic holy day; that is a TIRED, old argument that was answered hundreds of years ago
“They may have not even been slaves depending on how you understand the term.” Umm…were they people owned by other people who could be commanded at the will of their owner with no agency for themselves? Then I don’t care how well off they were, they were still by definition slaves lol
Like, if they were cool with their position, fine. But let’s not obfuscate the definition of what “slave” means.
Slavery was pretty much universally the accepted norm then, the Celts and barbarians neighbouring the Roman empire also had slaves. It was only when the early popes spoke out against it (particularly Christians keeping other Christians as slaves (as in the book of Philemon in the Bible) that the concept was first challenged. Of course slavery and serfdom in various disguises carried on even in Europe, but it was the first time that the idea of slavery had seriously been challenged.
Slavery was never meaningfully challenged by the church until after the Renaissance and some denominations continued to advocate and/or directly benefit from it until the 1800s. Through the Middle Ages, the church viewed manumission as an act to achieve salvation, essentially a means to an end rather than ending an evil practice, and many, like Aquinas, claimed that slavery was a just punishment for morally sinful people. Even when they did speak out against slavery, they only meant Christian slaves as evidenced by the papal bulls issued by multiple popes in the 15th century authorizing Portugal and Spain to "attack, capture and subjugate" all so called enemies of Christ, including Africans, Muslims, Jews and indigenous Americans and keep them in perpetual servitude.
Cyrus the Great outlawed slavery. He was a Zorastrian
🏁🏁🏁💜
one of your best docs in awhile i knew roman slavery wasnt quite as terrible as it was in the US, but didnt know why 😂😂😂 thanks for the education mr whistler one of my fav youtubers
So Roman slaves were generally treated better then the current freeman? Odd that eh?
Kinda like slavery in Ottoman Empire.
Freedmen not Freemen.
Christmas did not come from saturnalia.
Google TH-cam need to be broken up they have really made a mess of History.
Seneca died in 65 AD. I understand BCE means before Christ and CE means after Christ (or Anno Domini: AD)
Before Common Era, Common Era.
No gods involved.
@@AnnaAnna-uc2ff yes but is year zero the same one for both measurements? I'm from Germany and the "English" way to measure years I was tought is BC and AD (in German it's "vor Christus" and "nach Christus"). It's less a Statement about gods and more a question about how the BCE and CE timescale works. Also seneca died in 65AD which is why I thought 65 BCE was wrong.
@@hiasenestre the delineation of time is the same, it’s just a term now used in the Anglophone world that removes Christ from the equation. Seneca died in 65 CE which is 65 AD, and Caesar’s first consulship was in 59 BCE and 59 BC. Hope this makes sense
Why are we talking about the Roman Empire again….
Chabe01
Your closed captioning has many errors! I know it's not AI, because the random characters & misspellings are sometimes common QUERTY mistakes.
Whoever it is should read their own work before publishing. Luckily, I still have half of my hearing.
I'm sure they do it because they know pedants can't resist commenting, earning them more engagement and a better place in the algorithm
@@craigstoner2632 nah, I see the generated CC's too, on different channels. Computers don't make typing mistakes, but do make capitalization & plural/possessive mistakes.
12 minutes, and not a second of waffle.
Sounds like the population of Ruzzia today.😀
And how many of us leave graves now? So many cremate their dead while not being blessed to afford a grave... the game is not too different.
😂😂😂
first