European Slavery & Middle Eastern Slavery

I have been focusing on Roman slavery in particular, and I have gone into detail regarding the cultural aspect of Roman slavery. I have not explored Arab slavery, which had several differences and similarities to Roman slavery. A main difference between the two slavery cultures was that Middle East slavery was governed by religious law, rather than state law. The slaves were of many different racial and religious backgrounds as opposed to just one culutre in European Slavery. This led to the beginning of African Enslavement, since the Arabs began to control slave empires in Northern Africa. This continued until the 18th century, where the Arab Slave Trade became violent. Lynch mobs would hunt Africa for black slaves and capture them, since the demand had gotten so high.

Christian and Judaic law permitted the use of slavery, but the Judiac law gave strict guidelines for selling and treatment of the slaves. Because of this acceptance, slavery boomed in the Middle East until the transatlantic slave trade, where the black slaves were brought to America.

Bibilography

1) Aristotle, Politics. Translated to English by Ernest Barker.

This is a long text that explains in detail Aristotle's view on politics, including his stance and theory regarding slavery. He also focuses on the concept of a city as a basis for a community, and claimed that "man is a political animal."

2) Ben-Hur. Dir. William Wyler. Warner Brothers, 1959. DVD.

A 1959 slave film about a Jewish Slave named Judah Ben-Hur, whose good friend Messalla had been named commander of the Roman garrison of Jerusalem. Their friendship soon dissolved, as Messalla had become an arrogant tyrant. When Judah expresses his opposition to Messalla, he responds by making Judah a galley slave and imprisoning his mother and sister. Judah makes it out of the galleys, and is hell bent on revenge against Messalla.

3) Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print

This is a book that gives an in-depth perspective of Roman Slavery from 200 BCE - 200 AD, and goes into detail about the cruel treatment of these slaves, and how they were viewed in society. It captures how slaves dealt with slavery, and shows how as time progressed, opression to slavery grew.

4) Dubois, Page. Slaves and Other Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Print.

In this book, Dubois looks at Greek Slavery in antiquity, and examines various pieces of literature to examine the difference between a slave and someone who is free. She argues that ancient slavery has been overlooked, and highlights the significance of that time period through literary analysis.

5) Gaius Petronius Arbiter. Satyricon. Translated by Michael Heseltine.

A latin work of fiction, this is narrated by Encolpious, a former gladiator, who follows the life of his 16-year old slave Giton. This is a strong and accurate portrayl of the life of a Roman Slave. Since the story revolved around one person, it was effective in giving an insight on the life of a slave, and his place in culture.

6) Hornsby, Alton Jr., "Slavery and Servitude." Laughter Genealogy Reference and Research Center. Concord Learning Systems, 2008. Web. Accessed 5 April 2011.

This was the webpage that gave a chronological overview of ancient slavery.

7) Joshel, Sandra R. Slavery in the Roman World New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

If I had to identify my most important source for this blog, I would choose this book. Sandra Joshel gave a complete picture of slavery in Rome, using literature and law. This gave a perspective to the rights of slaves, the relation between slaves and their owners, plus it showed the tasks that these slaves had to do. After reading this book, I gained a complete understanding of Slavery's place in Roman Culture.

8) Plautus, Titus Maccius. The Comedies of Plautus. Translated by Henry Thomas Riley.

A moving story in which Saturio, a poor free man, had to resort to selling his own daughter into slavery in order to pay his debt. This follows the life of the daughter after she was sold, which goes into graphic detail about her time as a sexual slave.

9) Shahadah, Owen Alik. "The definitive History of the Arab Slave Trade in Africa." Arab Slave Trade. African Code, 2011. Web. Accessed 31 March 2011. http://www.arabslavetrade.com

This webpage was a key component of my blog, as it examined the Arab Slave Trade, showing many differences between Western Slavery and North African/Middle East Slavery. The most striking thing I learned from this was that Middle Eastern slavery was permitted under Islam, Christan, and Judaic law. As a result, the demand for slaves grew, and led into the transatlantic slave trade.

Beginnings of Bibliography

Bibliography (In Work)
DuBois, Page. Slavery: Antiquity and Its Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Oliver, and Jean Simmons. Universal Pictures Co., 1960. DVD.

Thucydides, Rex Warner, and M. I. Finley. History of the Peloponnesian War. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1972. Print.

Urbainczyk, Theresa. Slave Revolts in Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California, 2008. Print.

Original Intent: the Battle for America (1)

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The video above is taken from the documentary film "Original Intent: The Battle for America". This documentary addresses the debate over the meaning of the US Constitution and the original intent of the Founders. Politicians and judges often debate whether the Constitution should be interpreted according to what the Founders' words meant, literally, when the document was written or whether we should make our own decisions with reference to what principles we think the Founders were trying to protect when they wrote the Constitution.

In this clip we see former President George Bush explain several times that he will appoint judges that "strictly interpret the Constitution" and don't allow their personal opinion to shape their interpretation. (He is naturally overlooking the fact that being an originalist is also a personal opinion that is being used to interpret the Constitution.) We then see Justice Antonin Scalia explain that "There is indeed no reason to have a Constitution except to establish a fundamental framework that cannot be departed from"

Whether the originalists have it right or wrong, their attitude of reverence and strict adherence to a document written roughly 200 years ago is drastically different from the democracy of ancient Athens.The Athenian democracy had a smaller jurisdiction both geographically and in population, than our own. This allowed for, and in fact demanded, much more active citizens. In order to facilitate this sort of government, the citizens had to be free to make decisions, and so their rules were less restrictive in this sense than our Constitution is. The Athenians would certainly not have held reverently to a 200 year old document if the various citizen bodies found it out of date and absurd. The issue of what exactly a word meant 200 years ago, would not be an issue, because they would not have been bound by such documents. Even the judiciary branch of Athenian democracy relies far more on the common man than our own, as decisions were often made by panels or large juries (because large juries are harder to bribe) rather than by individual judges or a relatively small number of judges like our Supreme Court.

Interpretation of Slavery: Spartacus & a Disaster Called Human Enslavement

Spartacus (1960)

This video is the property of Universal Pictures, and its use on this blog is for educational purposes.  This adheres to US Copyright Law, Section 107.

I chose to share this clip because I feel like it highlights some of the prevalent themes that are incorporated into the film Spartacus through the Director's and Writer's literary privilege.  The film makes some over arching assertions and insinuations about Spartacus' character.  For example, the narrator makes the claim that Spartacus wanted to end slavery because of moral concerns.  Could this have been true?  Absolutely, but more likely is the scenario that Spartacus merely wanted his own freedom, and after a few successes, ran with the momentum he had built up.  I really felt this 'over-extension' of literary privilege in the when the narrator basically says that Spartacus' ideals were 2000 years before his time.  What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Ben-Hur

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I chose this video clip to illustrate how brutal slave punishments can be. What I found very powerdul about this clip was that two men looked on emotionally as three slaves were crusified. This scene shows the pain and suffering that slaves felt as they watched another slave be punished. Also, watching a man be crusified brought emotional suffering equal to a slave being split from their family, since it generally always meant that they would never see them again.

Relationships Between Slavery and Citizenship

Up to this point, my posts have focused on the relationship between governments and their citizens. However, it is important to note that one of the factors that strongly influenced the form of Athenian democracy was the fact that the economy ran on the labor of slaves. Athenian laws and social rules demanded high time investments in governing by the citizenry. This direct democracy would not have been able to function in a non-slaveholding society, as many of these men would have had to spend much of the day working. Later in Athenian democracy, men were paid about half a day's pay for their participation in the government, but on the whole, a direct democracy would prove too expensive without the availability of slave labor.

From a modern persepective, this is one of several reasons why we cannot simply copy the Ancient Greek system as our own system of government. While the largest problem with a direct democracy from an American perspective has more to do with the number of citizens in the country, the lack of institutionalized slavery also contributes to the infeasibility of this system.

Questions for further research:
-How could citizens become slaves or lose citizenship status?
-How could slaves become "free" and what was that freedom worth?
-Did slaves really revolt for the purpose of (re)gaining citizenship status or was it simply an emotional response to poor treatment without this clear and definite goal?

Gladiators as Slaves

Gladiators did not necessarily have to be slaves to fight in the arena; many were criminals, freemen and prisoners of war. Though they may not have originally been labeled as slaves before joining the fighting men, once an individual became a gladiator he relinquished an rights he had as a citizen of Rome. They took an oath that they swore to endure being burned, bound, beaten, and slain by the sword (“uni, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari patior.”) They were at the service of their master, just as a slave would be to his master. By becoming a gladiator these men became the highest level of social disgrace in the Roman society known as infamia.

As I talked in my midterm blog post I mentioned how despite the fact that gladiators had the rights of slaves and were socially the same, there is a major difference between a slaves and gladiators. Gladiators, though infamia, were idolized by the Roman people including certain Emperors (Caligula and Commodus both fought in the arena). Gladiators had the capacity to become heroes to the people. Cicero used the gladiator to represent his “good man” in Tusculanae Disputationes. He described the gladiator as a soldier soldier/philosopher who through his consistent and unflinching fierceness in the face of death and his complete collusion (and even pressure) in his own powerlessness couples his slavery with honor.

Lukas Varney

Comments on Timeline

In the timeline below, the events surrounding the 3rd Servile War, led by Spartacus are laid forth in detail.  An interesting piece of information which I would like to divulge into more would be the use of  "decimation" by the Roman army.  The word decimation is derived from Latin, meaning roughly "elimination of 1/10".

Plutarch writes on decimation in his "Life of Antony":

"Antony was furious and employed the punishment known as 'decimation' on those who had lost their nerve. What he did was divide the whole lot of them into groups of ten, and then he killed one from each group, who was chosen by lot; the rest, on his orders were given barley rations instead of wheat."

Why is this significant to slave revolts and the public perception of Spartacus?  I argue that Crassus' use of this on his troops in the 3rd Servile War actually made them fear him more than the rebel Spartacus.  They would not be cowardly or mutinous if the threat of decimation wars real.  Thus, Crassus garnished more fear, from his own troops, than did Spartacus.

Timeline of Spartacus and the 3rd Servile War

Important Events and Dates in the History and Timeline of Spartacus
Timeline Dates	Timeline of Spartacus and the Third Servile War
135 - 132 BC	Slave revolts in Sicily. (1st Servile War).
104 - 100 BC	Second Sicilian slave war (2nd Servile War).
c109BC	Spartacus is born in Thrace
c78BC	Spartacus serves as soldier in the Roman Army as an auxiliary
73 BC	Spartacus was trained at the gladiatorial school (ludus) near Capua belonging to Lentulus Batiatus, the slave trader and lanista.
73 BC	Spartacus trained as a lightly armed Roman gladiator referred to as a Thracian. A Thracian gladiator wore a helmet, padded leg protection and would have carried a circular or quadrangular small shield called a parmula
73 BC	Spartacus escapes from the gladiator school with 70-80 slave gladiators
73 BC	The gladiator band take refuge on the side of Mount Vesuvius (near modern day Naples) led by Spartacus with his aides Crixus, Castus, Gannicus and Oenomaus.
73 BC	The small group of gladiators plunder and pillage around the area and are quickly joined by large numbers of slaves, who flock to him from all quarters. He is soon at the head of a formidable slave army
73 BC	Outbreak of Third Servile War, led by the slave and gladiator Spartacus
73 BC	The praetor Clodius Glaber, with 3,000 soldiers, are sent by the Senate from Rome to quell the slave revolt. The over confident Glaber and his troops are defeated by the slave army
72 BC	After the success over Glaber many more runaway slaves join Spartacus and his gladiator army swelling the number to 30,000 escaped slaves. The slave army splits, separating into ranks according to their natural languages.
72 BC	The Senate sends the two consuls (Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus), each with two legions, against the rebel slave army.
72 BC	Battle at Picenum. Many Gauls and Germans are defeated by Publicola. Their leader, Crixus, is killed. Spartacus then defeats Lentulus and then Publicola
72 BC	Battle at Mutina. The slave army defeats another legion under Gaius Cassius Longinus, the Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. Spartacus counsels escape via the Alps but the Gauls and Germans refuse to go, wanting to the opportunity to rob and pillage more Romans
72 BC	Crassus is appointed to the supreme command of the war
72 BC	Spartacus keeps the slave army together moving to southern Italy where they can hire pirate ships to Sicily (the location of the first 2 Servile Wars). The slave army defeats two more Roman legions under Marcus Licinius Crassus
72 BC	Crassus inflicts the punishment of Decimation, where 1 out of 10 soldiers is beaten to death by his comrades, on his Roman soldiers for cowardice - this results in the Roman soldiers becoming more afraid of Crassus than of the gladiator army of Spartacus
72 BC	By the end of 72 BC, Spartacus is encamped in Rhegium near the Strait of Messina.
72 BC	Spartacus is then betrayed by the Cilician pirates and his plan to transport the slave army to Sicily falls through
71 BC	Crassus tries to trap Spartacus and his slave army at Calabria by building a ditch with a wall, nearly sixty kilometers long and five meters wide across the 'toe' of Italy from sea to sea
71 BC	Spartacus manages to break through Crassus's lines and escapes towards Brundisium
71 BC	Battle at the River Silarus. This is believed to be the final battle and the death of Spartacus. The body of Spartacus is never found
71 BC	Crassus wreaks a terrible revenge on the slave army and orders that 6,000 slave captives are crucified along the Appian Way from Brundisium to Rome. Their bodies are left to rot as an example to all slaves who rebel against Rome
71 BC	5,000 slaves escape capture and flee north. The remainder of the slave army is destroyed by Pompey
71 BC	Pompey claims credit for ending the slave war and is granted a triumph. Crassus is given just an ovation
71 BC	The Third Servile War (also referred to as the Gladiator War and The War of Spartacus) is crushed by Pompey and Crassus
<http://www.roman-colosseum.info/gladiators/spartacus-timeline.htm>