Late Antique Slavery in Epigraphic Evidence

11
Late Antique Slavery in Epigraphic Evidence
Mariana Bodnaruk
While slavery was entrenched in the high Roman Empire, it continued

well into late antiquity. The aim of this article is to evaluate the overall
state of the evidence and to discuss the epigraphic and material culture of
late Roman slavery, focusing on inscriptional sources for slaves in the later
Roman Empire. I contend that the comprehensive overview of this type of
evidence enables one to reintegrate the textual, visual, and physical
aspects of artefacts of the period and to move the discussion about slavery
and material culture forwards, by employing the intersectional approach.
To be sure, late Roman slaves were not ‘class for itself’, while ‘class in
itself’ they certainly were. They left a visible footprint in archaeological
sites, and the epigraphic record that survives from the later Empire holds
anthropological information about Roman slave culture: social inter-
actions and a hierarchy of statuses, values, and beliefs. I argue that
inscriptional data can be as ambiguous as literary texts, and, more import-
antly, that the violent subjugation of slaves in the later Roman Empire
found its basis, particularly, in the material evidence. Examining the
epigraphic representation of late Roman slavery from the late third to
the sixth century, I use intersectionality as an analytic tool that is crucial to
understanding the complexity of exploitation and oppression in the late
Roman slave-owning society.
First, I overview specific genres in the late antique ‘epigraphic habit’
recording slavery. I explore inscribed imperial edicts mentioning slaves,
census inscriptions in their provincial rural contexts, honorific inscrip-
tions set up by slaves, votive inscriptions giving a glimpse on enslaved war
captives, funerary inscriptions with slaves as both dedicators and
224
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Late Antique Slavery in Epigraphic Evidence 225
dedicatees, and, lastly, private identification inscriptions, in particular

slave collars. Then, I turn to different categories of slaves and of
unfree labour in general in the later Roman Empire as recorded in
the inscriptions. I examine both ubiquitous domestic slaves in private
ownership (servi domestici) and public municipal servitude (servi
publici) late into the fifth century. Next, I go through a series of
inscriptions, recording various types of slaves in their respective
labour contexts: more specifically, urban and rural slavery. Finally,
I assess inscriptions mentioning liberti (freedmen) as well as coloni
and adscripticii (free and dependent tenant farmers). I end with
a brief discussion of the socio-economic realities of coerced labour.
I conclude with a delineation of what the epigraphic sources reveal
about late antique slavery and the intersections of gender, class, and
ethnicity.
late antique legal and census inscriptions recording

slaves
I begin with inscribed imperial pronouncements such as edicts and
tariffs, as well as epistulae (letters) and rescripts regulating slave prices
and taxes or imposing and guarding compulsory labour. Numerous but
highly formulaic epigraphic sources, in the form of lists, are populated
with slaves who appear gendered and classed on the basis of age while
being commodified and priced, sold and bought, owned and disowned
(manumitted) via market-frames and legislation. The edict issued in
301 by the Emperor Diocletian, comprising a justificatory preamble
and a list of ‘prices for the sale of individual items that it is not lawful
for anyone to exceed’, extant only in inscribed copies, contains a slave
chapter.1 The slave prices fixed in the imperial utterances shed light
upon the value of reproduction in the Roman slave system, distinguish-
ing male and female slaves by price. Dated to the fifth or sixth century
on palaeographic grounds, a late antique civic tariff recorded in an
inscription from Anazarbus in Cilicia taxed slaves brought into the city
1
All translations are mine unless indicated otherwise. The chapter on slave prices has not
been preserved complete in any inscriptional copy, either in the original Latin or the Greek
translation of the tariff list found throughout Achaea; see Giacchero 1974, ch. 29, 208
(Latin) and 209 (Greek). However, the integration of the fragments from Iasos and
Aphrodisias with the preserved text from Aezani allows the reconstruction of almost the
entire slave chapter in its original Latin version; see Salway 2010, 19.

226 Mariana Bodnaruk
for sale among other commodities subject to customs, itemizing them

above cattle.2
Legal epigraphic documents related to the necessary work of construc-
tion document coerced corporate and slave labour. An inscribed imperial
epistula from Rome, dated to between 296 and 312, records that
a reorganized building guild (collegium fabrum tignariorum) became
bound to its duties together with the sons and slaves (filios vel servos) of
artifices (craftsmen artisans).3 Exceptionally, the fourth-century marble
tabula (tablet), dated on epigraphic and onomastic grounds, recording the
circitores (slave guardians of aqueducts) of Tivoli, has a total of at least
nineteen active servi publici ascribed to the single aqueduct (forma).4
A bilingual inscription preserves an imperial rescript from 527 issued in
response to a petition in order to protect the properties of an oratory of St
John from the exactions of soldiers and biocolitae (militia):5 ‘the estates
mentioned in (these) complaints and their peasants (γεωργοί) and regis-
tered peasants (ἐναπo´γραφοι), and overseers (φροντισταί), and [tenants
(μισθωταί)] should be free from [the passage of soldiers or militia
(βιοκωλυταί)] and from those units who are known to be permanently
garrisoned next to these estates’.6 This late Roman constitution mentions
coloni (γεωργοί), free tenant farmers, as well as adscripticii (ἐναπόγραφοι),
dependent coloni. The adscripticii or ἐναπόγραφοι (‘registered’) γεωργοί
were land-bound cultivators recorded in census registers under the name
of the landowner (δεσπόται) on whose estate they lived and whose land
they worked. A law of the late fourth century on bound tenants in Thrace
proclaims that ‘although they [i.e. registered coloni] seem to be free-born
in their condition, even so they are to be considered as slaves of the land to
2
Dagron and Feissel 1987, 170–85, no. 108, pl. XLV. It is not clear from the content
whether it was a municipal tariff on local trade or an internal imperial one. The editors
suggest the latter, noting that the rough methods of assessing the value of goods recorded
were more suited to large consignments than to taxing the produce of local peasants.
3
AE 1941, 68, with Fabiano 2019. The absence of slaves from construction inscriptions can
be explained by the fact they, for the most part, were highly formulaic documents,
adhering to a set pattern.
4
CIL XIV 3649. This inscription preserves a list of public slaves, indicating their children.
The prominent predominance of men in this roster of Roman slaves, who looked after the
aqueducts of Rome, is related to their labour employment, which would explain the male-
biased sex ratio. The aqueduct slaves, whose job was to patrol and prevent damage to an
aqueduct, continued to perform their function into the later Roman Empire.
5
CIL III 13640=ILCV 23=AE 1894, 68; see Feissel 2010, 242 n60, 253, 275 n86. A new
edition of this text is anticipated shortly.
6
Amelotti and Migliardi Zingale 1985, 97–9 (=CIL III 13640); CSLA, E00869 (trans.
Nowakowski).

which they have been born’.7 This fourth-century pronouncement is

a confirmation that bound conditions were enforced even on the lives of
free-in-status adscripticii, within the coercive apparatus of the landlord’s
power and sanctioned by the social legitimacy of the slave regime.
Late antique inscriptions also offer unique testimony for large, slave-
based properties, in the form of census registers. These have been well
studied by Kyle Harper, who emphasizes a self-reproducing enslaved agri-
cultural workforce in the late Roman context.8 Although the slave mode of
production was not a defining feature of late Roman rural economies,9
slavery was an important component of agriculture in the fourth-century
East. This is confirmed by the fragments of census records inscribed on
stone, preserved from eleven cities in the Aegean islands and along the
western coast of Asia Minor10 dated to the fourth century on epigraphic
and onomastic grounds, possibly to the early 370s.11 The Greek census lists
show farms that had two, four, eight, sixteen, twenty-one, and twenty-two
slaves. However, the Thera inscription, first published in 2005,12 lists 152
slaves, with their names and ages, belonging to a single landowner. The
balance (partially identified: sixty-three females and fifty-six males) sup-
ports the view that, in late antiquity, the sex ratio of the slave population
was not heavily tilted towards males, even in the countryside. The large
number of children also proves that natural reproduction through slave
families was important among the slaves on Thera. Although Ramsay
MacMullen claimed from epigraphic evidence available to him that slavery
was not prominent in agricultural production,13 it was in fact instrumental
in the intensively managed estates in these regions.
servi and liberti as awarders: setting up honorific

and votive dedications
I now turn to a genre of the honorific statuary featuring slaves as award-
ers. Some time between the years 339 and 341, a marble statue of Fabius
7
Cod. Iust. 11.52.1. However, the act of registration did not change the legal status of these
individuals as free men. See Grey 2011b, 503 on an early-fourth-century legislation,
which kept the positions of a colonus and a slave strictly separated.
8
Harper 2008.
9
Banaji 2010, 181–214, 231–40.
10
Jones 1953, 54 (Magnesia), 55 (Thera), 56–7 (Lesbos and Chios).
11
On the dating see Harper 2008, 85–6, contra Jones 1953, 49, followed by MacMullen
1987, 362.
12
Geroussi-Bendermacher 2005, 340–4 and 354–8 for photographs.
13
MacMullen 1987.

Titianus, consul and praefectus urbi (city prefect), was erected in Rome.14
A slave, known as Peregrinus, despite his subjugated status, acted as an
awarder of the statue to his master, a Roman senator, demonstrating pride
in his connection to a powerful person. Peregrinus must have been
a domestic slave (servus domesticus) of the senatorial household of
Titianus in Rome. The statue must have been set up within the private
properties of Titianus, as the slave could not erect a public monument in
one of the prominent sites of the city.15 To be sure, no honorific represen-
tation of slaves is known from late antiquity. Moreover, the monument is
the only surviving statue dedication by a slave, whose name is preserved as
a part of the honorific inscription, and who must have occupied a very
important position in Titianus’ household.16
Next, a dedicatory inscription on an altar of the goddess Victoria, set
up on the occasion of the victory of a Roman army over the Juthungi near
the Rhaetian provincial capital Augusta Vindelicorum, records a raid by
the tribe deep into Roman Italy in the winter of 259/60 that carried off
‘many thousands of Italian captives’,17 but was eventually stopped by
a Roman general near the Lech in April 260. The epigraphic evidence
usually does not allow the identification of slaves in Rome and elsewhere
in the Roman world who had their origin among subjugated peoples, such
as, for example, a tribe of the Bavares Mesegneitises in Mauretania
Caesariensis in Africa. A Roman governor of that province in the last
quarter of the third century erected a dedication to the Dei patrii and Dei
Mauri conservatores (indigenous and Mauran gods) ‘to commemorate his
crushing of the tribe of the Bavares Mesegneitises and his carrying off their
families into captivity along with all the booty’.18
Inscriptions equally record actions in the public sphere, such as dedica-
tions and benefactions, made mainly by liberti. A Christian mosaic
inscription coming from the coemeterium Pamphili (catacomb of
Pamphilus) on the Via Salaria Vetus in Rome is dated to 290–324.19 It
14
CIL VI 1717=ILS 1227.
15
The private character of this dedication thereby indicates that it may have come from
a family villa of the honorand.
16
LSA–1422 (Machado).
17
AE 1993, 1231. Late antique source materials yield some important glimpses on slave-
import across the frontiers and enslavement in frontier wars. Romans during the later
empire were equally regularly captured and enslaved by barbarians along all the frontiers.
18
CIL VIII 21486=ILS 4495. It could have been a local rebellion, when under P. Aelius
Aelianus the struggle against the Bavares was renewed between 270 and 280 (or 278 and
280); see Witschel 2006, 167.
19
AE 1921, 80=ICVR X 26460.

probably recalls a work done by freedman Vitalio together with

Quodvuldeus in the cubicle of the martyrs Theophilus and Pontianus:
‘In God the Father almighty, Vitalius the freedman made [this] with
Quodvultdeus for his lord Theophilus and lord Pontianus, well-
deserving in rest.’ The martyrs Theophilus and Pontianus were buried in
a double cubiculum (room) in the pars infima (the lowest part) of the
cemetery by the beginning of the fourth century.20 According to Maria
Costantini, it is so far the latest attestation of the term libertus.21
However, since the inscription yields only a very imprecise dating, other
possible candidates for the last mention of the term at later dates are at
hand.22
freedmen and slaves as commemorators and

commemorands in sepulchral inscriptions
Freedmen were much more likely than slaves to be able to afford the
erection of tombstones to their masters and patrons. A series of funeral
inscriptions set up by former slaves to their patrons reflect the social depth
of patron–freedmen relations, if not the institutional dynamics of manu-
mission in late antiquity. For example, three epitaphs of late Roman
aristocrats belonging to the ordo equester (equestrian order) were dedi-
cated by freedmen to their patrons. Dalmatius, ex protector (former or
honorary imperial bodyguard), patron of Volusius and Sabatia liberti, was
commemorated by his freedmen in Savaria in Pannonia Prima.23 Another
fragmentary funeral inscription unearthed in Sirmium, in Pannonia
Secunda, of equestrian proximus (deputy chief) Postumius Leo is dated
some time between the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine.24 The erection
of Leo’s monument was entrusted by Achilleus, also a holder of a post in the
sacra scrinia (imperial bureaux), to his friends Crescentius and Dyscolius,
and to his freedman, whose name is fragmentary. Yet another epitaph from
Milan possibly commemorates the vir perfectissimus (‘most perfect man’,
20
Borg 2013, 96.
21
Costantini 1997, 181; see ICVR II 6152.
22
E.g. CIL III 9623 (Salona), a sixth-century epitaph, in which Alexandria, the wife of
freedman Ursus, expressed confidence that for his merits, kindness, and faith her deceased
husband would join the blessed.
23
CIL III 4185 (first half of the fourth century). Although no excavated mausoleum has
been published from Savaria, this inscription comes from a fourth-century sepulchral
building (titulus). Judging from its physical characteristics, it must have been built as part
of the funerary structure, perhaps the mausoleum.
24
AE 1998, 1052.

an equestrian rank title), Iulianus, who was a master and the most beloved
patron of Quintus, perhaps the freedman, who set up the funerary plaque.25
The tomb inscriptions for aristocratic families record predominantly male
freedmen as commemorators.
Similarly, funerary inscriptions set up by nutrices (family freedwomen
or slaves) in Rome were for nurslings of equestrian or senatorial status.
A dedication for L. Septimia Pataviniana Balbilla Tyria Nepotilla
Odaenathiana, clarissima puella (girl of senatorial rank) is inscribed on
a tombstone erected by a wet-nurse, Aurelia Publiana Elpidia, to her
‘sweetest and most loving patroness’.26 Despite the tria nomina (triple
name), she was liberta (freedwoman) and not ingenua (free-born).27 The
long-term contact between wet-nurse, nursling, and its family, recorded
epigraphically, indicates an affectionate relationship that existed between
nursling and nutrix (nursemaid), yet sentiments of dependency and
patronage would still have been in the background.28 Further, in the late
fourth century, an otherwise unknown Maecilia Rogata erected a tomb
for her father, Maecilius Hylas, nutritor (male nurse) of the senatorial
children Caeionius Camenius and Caeionia Fusciana.29 The rank of the
patron is, however, not always indicated.30
Funerary monuments set up for slaves are rare in late antiquity.
Occasionally, tombs were erected for slaves and freedmen by their
patron or patroness. Euporia, who is described as the most honest and
faithful θρεπτή, received a relief sarcophagus commissioned by her
πατρῶνα (patroness), Artoria, in Rome.31 Another Greek inscription,
from fourth-century Laodicea, might mention a foster child, but the term
25
AE 1982, 408 (second half of the fourth or the end of the fifth century). AE editors suggest
‘libertus’ for the restoration of the last line.
26
CIL VI 1516=ILS 1202 (late third or early fourth century). Niquet 2000, 91 n36 suggests
that it was initially placed in semi-public space.
27
Evans 1991, 214, liberta. A nutrix, the most commonly freed female slave and a person
who frequently had significant emotional ties to the freeborn members of the family, set
up a commemorative monument for her senatorial patrona.
28
For a discussion of this problem, see De Wet 2015, 128–41.
29
CIL VI 21787=ILS 8533=ILCV 96a. As the epitaph comes from the catacomb of Priscilla
on the Via Salaria Nova, the daughter of the freedman was perhaps Christian.
30
A marble tablet from the coemeterium ss. Marcellini et Petri preserves the epitaph, in which
the formula liberti fecerunt (‘freedmen made (this)’) appears, probably in a dedication to their
patroness Sperantia: ICVR VI 16500 (first half of the fourth century). Another undated
sarcophagus’ inscription from the same catacomb carries a probable remains of the libertis
libertabusque (‘freedmen and freedwomen’) formula: ICVR VI 16747a.
31
ICVR IX 26042. For the sarcophagus, see Dresken-Weiland 2003, 39. The tomb pertain-
ing to the catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria Nova is dated to 290–324.

θρεπτή may refer to a household slave rather than an adopted daughter.32

Domestic slaves were sometimes commemorated together with close rela-
tives of the dedicators since they occupied a special place in the familia
(household). A Christian epitaph commemorates ancilla Duiona, a female
slave of Valens and a wife of Dexter, buried at Manastirine, the suburban
cemetery in Salona.33 Despite the familiar formulas of contemporary early
Christian funeral inscriptions, such as ancilla Dei or ancilla Christi, there is,
however, no reason to doubt the slave status of Valens’ ancilla, commem-
orated by a male awarder within the household.
Other slaves set up a burial for themselves and paid it off some years
prior to their death. In principle, the burial of a sarcophagus was not
limited to members of the highest strata, but, as the inscriptions show, in
rare cases it was also possible for persons who belong to a rich household
in various functions, such as the aforementioned Euporia.34 The eunuch
Aedesius, who died aged twenty-five, describes himself as neofitus (newly
converted Christian) in the inscription of his relief sarcophagus from the
catacomb of San Sebastiano in Rome (Figure 11.1).35 As no patron of
Aedesius is mentioned, it may be assumed that he himself took care of his
funeral and provided the sarcophagus during his lifetime. A Greek funer-
ary inscription from Nicomedia in Bithynia honours the family of Gaius,
οἰκονόμος (steward).36 He commemorated himself with his wife and little
son by making an expensive and lavish funerary monument.
Yet others were commemorated by their relatives, who were also often
of an unfree status. Certain filters may have been applied to select which
slaves or freedmen were memorialized. Infants are almost entirely
32
MAMA I 163. Hübner 2013, 517 with n9; Destephen 2010, 142–3.
33
AE 1892, 32=CIL III 13124=ILS 8252=ILCV 3870 (426 or 430). The epigraphic formula
is reminiscent of the Christian titles famulus dei or Christi (servant of God or Christ), or
the less common servus Christi (slave of Christ) in the contemporary epitaphs. The
amount of the fine for a burial violation of 216 solidi recorded in the inscription, see
Marin et al. 2010, 97, no. 91, seems to be a considerable sum for this simple maid,
perhaps a domestic slave. However, several epitaphs from Concordia, dating from the
first half of the fifth century, attest heavy fines in gold pounds. Moreover, the dedicator is
not explicitly named. It could either be her master, Valens, or her husband, Dexter. The
length of the inscription, corresponding to its cost, suggests rather the first solution, while
the clumsiness of the expression would indicate a more modest social level, which would
be that of the husband.
34
Dresken-Weiland 2003, 40.
35
AE 1982, 82=ICVR V 13443 (late fourth century or early fifth century). On the inscribed
decorated sarcophagus, featuring the raising of Lazarus, see Dresken-Weiland 2003, 39–
40.
36
TAM 4.276 (third or fourth century).

figure 11.1 Funeral inscription on the Christian sarcophagus of Eunuch

Aedesius (late-fourth to first quarter of the fifth century ce). Catacombs of San
Sebastiano, Rome. Photograph by Archivio Fotografico della Pontificia
Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, with permission of PCAS.
invisible in the columbaria inscriptions. One funeral stela from Rome set
up for a slave child Clarus, who died aged three, was dedicated by
Ianuarius and Sozusa. The name Sozusa, the feminine form of Sozon
(from σώζων, servans (saving)), is frequent among slaves and freedwomen.
They had to be wealthy enough to afford to commemorate their brother in
a sepulchral inscription. Another fourth-century Greek dedication, per-
taining to the cemetery area between the Via Appia and Ardeatina, men-
tions husband and wife, liberti of the same patron, who put their children
to rest.37 The imperial freedman (Augustorum libertus) Aurelius Sozon
erected a tombstone for a relative in the catacomb of Priscilla.38 From the
same catacomb also comes an inscription in which another Augusti liber-
tus appears with his family.39 In the last two cases, the term libertus is
37
ICVR IV 12513 (fourth century).
38
ICVR IX 25009=ILCV 763a=AE 1999, 174 (286–324 or Severan (AE)).
39
ICVR IX 25069 (third century). Another funeral inscription recorded in the catacomb of
Priscilla records an ἀπελευθέρα (freedwoman) as a tomb’s dedicator: ICVR IX 26085
(third century).

a part of the formula Aug(usti) lib(ertus), which, until about the middle of
the third century, was still a sign of prestige.
In a few cases funeral inscriptions include a status-specific title, such as
collibertus, fellow freed slave, but this habit is not quite as rare as it is
often considered to be.40 A mosaic inscription, pertaining to the
Sepulchrum Aureliorum (sepulchre of Aurelii) on the Via Labicana in
Rome, was placed by Aurelius Felicissimus for three Aurelii, two of
whom are called fratres (brothers) and colliberti, while the woman is
designated as virg(inia).41 An early fourth-century fragmentary inscrip-
tion placed for a certain Crescens by the colliberti and, according to the
integration by Antonio Ferrua, by the collibertae, comes from the cata-
comb of Praetextatus.42 Another inscription comes from the cemetery ad
Decimum in Rome, where the colliberti laid to rest a certain Sperantius.43
The term colliberti seems to have been added at a later stage.
The epitaph of Pusinna, who was buried in the locus of Severus in Rome,
mentions collibertus de tit(ulo) Marci, a sepulchral building from 336 or
shortly before.44 Pusinna died aged nine months, that is, too young to be
considered a liberta, and therefore the term collibertus, used by the dedica-
tor, does not indicate a relationship of reciprocity with respect to the
deceased, but perhaps with respect to the titulum Marci. If there were slaves
owned by religious institutions, it is likely that there were also slaves who
were freed from such institutions. Severus, named in the inscription, was
probably originally a slave of the parish of St Mark, then freed but
remained bound, by legal obligations related to his condition, to the titulus
where he had been servus. In the absence of comparisons, it is conceivable
that he would define himself collibertus to emphasize the spirit of brother-
hood that permeated the religious environment in which he was working.45
Coming from a burial over the cemetery of Callixtus, the epitaph is thus
associated with early Christian manumission practices.46
40
Solin 2008, 129.
41
ICVR VI 15931 (225–74). A Christian funeral inscription of colliberti, ICVR I 1032a, last
recorded in the SS. Quattro Coronati in Rome, is dated by the editor to the fourth century
or later; however, it also belongs instead to the third century.
42
ICVR V 14146.
43
ICVR VI 15731 (third or mid-fourth century).
44
ICVR VI 17340.
45
Costantini 1997, 181.
46
Also, in the Catacomb of Callixtus, Petronia Auxentia, clarissima femina (woman of
senatorial rank), received a tomb from the slaves who had been emancipated by her:
ICVR IV 10085 (perhaps from the fourth century).

With regard to the manumissio in ecclesia (emancipation in the

church),47 Christian inscriptions of liberti and slaves are not representa-
tive of demographical reality, as they are numerically much lower than the
bulk of men of servile status and freedmen converted to the new religion.
Another epitaph from the cemetery of Priscilla attests to the manumission
of seven slaves by the Christians Secundus and Rufina on the occasion of
their daughter’s demise.48 This inscription is a further proof of the persist-
ence in Christian circles of the juridical relationship that linked a libertus
to his patron in the Roman world.49 Freed slaves were not on an equal
footing with the ingenui, being bound by lifelong obedience (obsequium)
to their former master, as well as the daily labour services (operae liber-
torum). The obsequium had its root in the authority that the patron
derived from the patria potestas (‘power of a father’), that is, from the
original power of life and death that the pater familias (‘father of the
household’) had over the members of his family and therefore also over
the former slaves. Obsequium is, however, not only a moral attitude that
implies respect and devotion towards a patron in recognition of his
authority, but it is also inexorably linked to the economic reality of forced
labour.
inscribed objects and the materiality of slavery:

slave collars
Ultimately, slave collars (collares servorum) are part of the epigraphic
genre of inscriptions on instrumentum domesticum, domestic or everyday
material. Most collared slaves appear to have come from Rome and its
environs from Christian slave-owners and senatorial slaveholders.50 Over
forty collars and pendants survive from antiquity,51 and they are virtually
all from the fourth century. Many include Christian symbols such as
crosses or the chi-rho. One reads: ‘I am the slave of Felix the archdeacon.
Retain me lest I flee.’52 Even if these collars are not explained by
a Christian uneasiness towards the use of facial tattoos, they are still
powerful testaments to the enduring risks of flight and the strict preventive
47
Cod. Iust. 1.13.1.
48
ICVR VIII 23272 (second half of the fourth century).
49
Costantini 1997, 181.
50
The concentration of slave collars in the milieus of the imperial elite at Rome is comple-
mented by the survival of slave collars from Sardinia or Africa.
51
Thurmond 1994.
52
Sotgiu 1973–4.

measures against it.53 Two of the collar inscriptions from Rome are
commonly interpreted in Italian scholarship as the collars of dogs54
belonging to Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, praetorian and city
prefect.55 However, Yann Riviere’s study interprets the use of such objects
as a strategy to deter theft, as exemplified by the phrase noli me tenere, non
tibi experet (‘hold me not, it is not expedient for you’) engraved on both
bronze collar pendants, where the powerful Roman senator appears
rather as dominus (master) of his slaves.56
The basic slave identification inscription, tene me ne fugia (‘hold me,
lest I flee’), testifies to a domestic use of slaves in the urban milieu of not
only traditional aristocracy but also new ‘aristocracy of office’: ‘Retain
me and return me to Apronianus palatinus at the Mappa Aurea on the
Aventine because I have fled.’57 This inscribed collar was, however,
found in Tusculum in Latium around the neck of a skeleton, presumably
a slave of the western court official (palatinus) Apronianus in the late
fourth century. Another slave collar with a bronze disc found in Rome
announces the reward for returning the runaway slave to his or her
master, Zoninus (Figure 11.2).58 Dated to the period between the fourth
and the end of the fifth century, it reads: ‘I have run away! Keep hold of
me! When you bring me to my master Zoninus, you receive a solidus.’59
The solidus (gold coin), 1/72 of a pound of pure gold, would be
a reward too high for the return of a dog by any calculation. Far from
being dematerialized texts, inscribed collars embody the lived experience
of subjugation of urban slaves.
categories and the use of late roman slaves

I now turn to examining the economy of slavery, that is, the enmeshment of
slaves as labour force in the late Roman state. Slaves were employed in a wide
range of workplaces that can be roughly divided into four categories: house-
hold or domestic, public or municipal, urban crafts and services, and agricul-
ture. In turn, inscriptions equally provide information on a range of
53
Harper 2011, 258.
54
LTUR III, 76, s.v. horti Q. Clodi Hermogeniani Olybri (E. Papi). Orlandi 2011, 428.
55
CIL XV 7199; 7199a.
56
Riviere 2002, 162.
57
CIL XV 7182.
58
CIL XV 7194.
59
Trimble 2016.

figure 11.2 Zoninus’ slave collar (fourth to fifth century ce). From Rome.
Photograph by Museo Nazionale Romano – Terme di Diocleziano, with
permission of Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo – Museo
Nazionale Romano.
occupations of late Roman slave-owners, including administration, military,

and clergy.60
In the later Roman Empire, domestic work was still mainly performed
by slaves (servi domestici). Female slave labour was a crucial part of the
economy of slavery in the household, even if they were producing services
rather than a marketable product. The exceedingly complex relationship
between master and slave is exemplified in the vocabulary of Roman
slavery. Verna, alumnus, delicatus designate privileged links between the
servus and the dominus, outlining the whole lexicon of emotional situ-
ations. The selection of vocabulary in late Roman epigraphy, including
servi, famuli, ancillae, mancipia, familiarii, and pueri, confirms that their
number was considerable. However, late antique alumni, delicati, and
pueri were not always slaves.61
60
Hillner 2001.
61
Also, θρεπτός/θρεπτή (alumnus/alumna) may mean the same as Latin expositus/exposita,
an abandoned child.

Vernae, slaves born from slave mothers in the master’s household, were
often the outcome of male owners’ sexual use of their domestic slave-
women, although the father could also have been another slave. However,
vernae could be held in great affection by various members of the
household.62 A fragmentary funeral inscription from Aquileia dated to
the fourth century commemorates a dulcissima (‘the sweetest’) verna,
whose name is not preserved on the stone.63 Other forms of familial
relationship were also possible, such as those among slave families: the
stela for verna Clarus was commissioned by his brother Ianuarius and
sister-in-law Sozusa.64 The sepulchral monument erected by this slave
married couple displays a portrait of a nude boy, who holds a circular
object in his left hand, while touching a large rooster with his right hand.
The status of alumnus, an abandoned child taken into a household, was
also that of a slave and such a person often bore a simple servile name.
Extended informal ties between nutritor and alumnus are attested
epigraphically.65 For example, a funeral inscription from Rome on
a sarcophagus with a representation of a man in the toga contabulata
records alumnus Cointus (Κοΐντος).66 In the epitaph, he appears as
a recipient of the sarcophagus acquired for him by libertus Flavianus
Augustus when both were still alive. Another Christian honorific (or
possibly sepulchral monument) from Rome documents the alumnus
Marcus Servilius Servilianus acting as awarder of a memorial to
a Roman senator (Figure 11.3).67 Alumni continued to appear in the
inscriptions in the period from the second quarter of the fourth to the
first quarter of the sixth century.68
Moreover, the natural child of one free or freed parent and one slave is
equally termed alumnus. It can, however, be difficult to distinguish in
epigraphy. Grave inscriptions set up not by immediate family members
or spouses are rare, yet dedications by alumni show comparatively close
personal connections in the familia. A fragmentary funeral inscription from
62
Mander 2013, 124.
63
CIL V 8601. Another inscribed fragment from Aquilea recording a verna is undated:
InscrAqu-2, 1452. Zaccaria 2016, 204, table 8, nos 1–2.
64
AE 1984, 127.
65
Boulvert 1974, 326 n330. For a discussion of alumni in inscriptions, see Sigismund-
Nielsen 1987; Bellemore and Rawson 1990; Smodlaka Kotur 1994; Rawson 2003.
66
CIL VI 17956. For the sarcophagus, see Dresken-Weiland 2003, 253.
67
CIL VI 31810=41322.
68
Brancato 2015, nos. 145 (518), 241 (after 415), 833 (340), 954 (501–600), 970 (351–99),
978 (390–425), 980 (350–450), 985 (326–75), 997 (326–75), 999 (326–75), 1001 (400–
499), 1086 (315–50).

figure 11.3 Inscription on the Christian monument recording its awarder,

alumnus Marcus Servilius Servilianus (312–37 ce). From Rome. Photograph by
the author, © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali.
Aquileia was dedicated by both filii and alumni to their pater familias,
whose name is not preserved.69 Here alumni, who appear as co-
commemorators of their dominus, are undoubtedly servi, as they are
unambiguously differentiated from the biological sons of the deceased.
However, a foster child would also be called alumnus. An early fourth-
century epitaph from Lycaonia, which was engraved on the tomb of the
θρεπτός Tyrannos, reads: ‘Aurelius Gourdos, a presbyter, erected [the tomb
of] Tyrannos his foundling son in remembrance.’70 The omission of the
praenomen (personal name) on the tombstone is no proof of a slave status,
although it contrasts with the duo nomina (double name) of the dedicator.
In Latin tradition, the delicia/deliciae/delicati were slaves of freedmen
and free Romans,71 generally of young age, considered as favourite
objects of their masters and often elected to keep them company through-
out the day. Yet, delicati were also, more generally, small children of any
possible legal status. In the late antique inscriptions, slaves feature as part
of the emotional life of the family to which they belong. A funeral inscrip-
tion from Onaeum in Dalmatia was set up by Valeria Severina and
Messor, slave of Firmio, for their innocentissimus (‘the most innocent’)
delicatus Victor, who died aged nine.72 Delicati commemorated in
69
CIL V 1741.
70
Sterrett 1888, 197.
71
Laes 2003.
72
CIL III 1905.

epitaphs are not only young; they are also commemorated with pro-
nounced emotional responses of grief and mourning. A sepulchral monu-
ment was installed in Rome by Turrania Polybia for Turrania Prepusa,
who lived only seven years and three months: ‘for delicata, the sweetest
soul suddenly stolen by the injustice of fate, so that she could not savor the
benefits of her foster mother intended for her’.73 A third-century funeral
stela from Fulginiae or Hispellum was erected by soldier (evocatus) Suetus
Paullinus for delicatus Apolaustus, son of Caius Lamavus.74 Another
funeral inscription was set up by M. Allius Firminus to his son Ursinus,
delicatus of C. Septimius Carpophorus, who, aged eleven, drowned in the
sea following a shipwreck.75
A neutral term, famulus, denoted a slave member of the household.
A verse epitaph of the influential senator, urban prefect Junius Bassus,
who died while in office in Rome in 359, mentions such family slaves:76
While governing the people of his city and the house of the senate, he died, to the
everlasting tears of the city. Nor were his own servants (famulis) allowed to carry
his bier, but it was the burden of the Roman people, vying [for the honour]. . ..77
The funerary inscription claims that family retainers were ‘not allowed’
to carry the coffin of their master (dominus), and that ‘the people’ vied to
bear the burden instead. At first sight it seems to be ‘no more than a bit of
flattery, implying spontaneous enthusiasm on the part of a grieving public
to honor a popular figure’78 as the aristocratic funerals were traditionally
family affairs. However, Alan Cameron concludes that Bassus was
awarded the honour of a public funeral, and that is why members of the
elite at large rather than family retainers carried the coffin. The epitaph is
influenced by funerary and consolatory poetry, but with the mention of
famuli the social context rather than literary genre was the prime
consideration.
Eunuchs were also slaves in private ownership. However, they were
equally imperial slaves attached to the emperor’s household, the familia
Caesaris. Thus, Aedesius, who made a brief confession of faith in his
73
CIL VI 27827.
74
Xenia, 8 (1984): 42, no. 7 (Ambrogi).
75
CIL III 1899=ILS 8516.
76
CIL VI 32004=41341a-b=ILCV 90. Multiple identification tags make it clear that arch-
aeologically invisible slaves were ubiquitous in the aristocratic domus (household), with
its hierarchy of human personnel, but had no assigned spaces, often sleeping outside in the
portico of the peristyle.
77
Trans. Cameron 2002, 290.
78
Ibid.

funeral inscription (see Figure 11.1), was either employed in a rich private
household79 or in the imperial household as eunuch chamberlain. By the
late fourth century court eunuchs could rise through palatine service and
become senators themselves. Two praepositi sacri cubiculi (superintend-
ents of the sacred bedchamber) Antiochus and Parthenius are styled viri
clarissimi (‘most distinguished men’, a senatorial rank title) on the only
surviving inscription mentioning this office engraved on a bronze tablet
from Rome.80 Palatine eunuchs were almost always initially imported
‘barbarian’ slaves, usually from outside the Empire.81
Slaves as weapon-bearers are continually found accompanying their
masters among the ranks of the soldiers, and in the case of an emergency
they could be drafted into the late Roman army. The funeral inscription of
an eighteen-year-old Taurinus was found in Fano on the Adriatic coast
near the Via Flaminia: ‘Here lies puer Taurinus, eighteen years old, son of
Aurora, of the Invicti seniores.’82 Dietrich Hoffmann rightly indicates that
puer here rather has a meaning of ‘slave’, listing contemporary inscrip-
tions of similar usage.83 This is confirmed by the fact that, of the decea-
sed’s parents, only the mother is mentioned on the inscription, whose
simple name Aurora identifies her as a member of the lower strata and
perhaps as an unfree foreigner.
79
Dresken-Weiland 2003, 222 n116.
80
CIL VI 31946=XV 7131 (late fourth or early fifth century). Hopkins 1963, 64 wrongly
dates the inscription (perhaps tabula immunitatis (tablet with payment immunity act)) to
the first half of the fourth century. Antiochus may be identical with chamberlain
Antiochus (in office between 414 and 419/20). The inclusion into the ordo senatorius
(senatorial order) was of a great importance for praepositus in the first place in social
terms. Nevertheless, Claudian still describes Eutropius as a slave and a eunuch who rose
from an ignominious station; see Claud. In Eutr. 1.181–4.
81
Hunt 1996, 569 states that the imperial eunuchs at the late Roman court were ‘usually
freed slaves from Armenia or Persia’.
82
CIL XI 6289=ILCV 531 (late fourth or early fifth century); Hoffmann 1970, 376. While
Hoffmann totally ignores the excessive Christian decoration of the monument, Binazzi
1989, 194 no. 125 suggests that puer has perhaps, in the present case, the meaning of
‘recently baptized’, in consideration of the age of the deceased. Although Taurinus has
only one onomastic element, in the fourth century onomastics was definitely moving
towards an extreme simplicity that led to the use of a simplex nomen (simple name).
However, puer in the sense of boy – seldom found on grave inscriptions – usually applies
to smaller children, and puer, in place of filius, is an unusual formula.
83
Hoffmann 1970, 377 with n572. ILCV 289, 637, 693, 769, 1358, 2968, 3077, 4607,
4721. However, not all of these inscriptions give an age indication, notably, the famous
‘Turpillian stone’ (ILCV 3077). ILCV 1751, referred to by Hoffmann, does not record
any puer.

However, as Hoffmann himself points out, the problem with this

interpretation is that slaves were legally excluded from military
service.84 So, Taurinus would not have been a real soldier, but only
a slave and a man-at-arms of a soldier or an officer. The decree of 406
by Honorius explicitly mentions such weapon-bearers, who mostly come
from the enslaved and who accompany their masters in war, when, in view
of the emergency situation at that time, slaves were also called upon to join
the troops as recruits with assurances of their future release.85 However, it
is not possible to apply the military service of Taurinus to the edict itself,
even if it is assumed that it was in force for a long time. For then, as is
expressly stated in the decree, he would have been given the freedom to
serve as a regular soldier and no longer as a servant, and would therefore
no longer be called a puer on the tomb’s text either. If one finally asks why,
as it is customary, the master did not set up the tombstone of his deceased
puer himself, it could be explained by the fact that he had also fallen or
otherwise perished, and so perhaps – as Taurinus’ filiation is indicated
through the maternal line – his mother Aurora, who could have accom-
panied the army unit as a sutler, arranged the burial herself.86
Municipal and state slaves (servi publici) were the slaves of the Roman
people. The public urban servitude, as an institution, is well attested at the
beginning of the fourth century and continues to appear with regular
frequency throughout the century, though the range of activities gets
increasingly restricted. Originally a public slave, the οἰκονόμος Gaius
was set free by the philanthropy of the citizens.87 Slaves who filled the
post of city steward might be sufficiently affluent. Gaius, former δούλος
δημοσίους (public slave), as the inscription states, went into the service of
a private man named Tryphon after his release as an οἰκονόμος. Οἰκονόμοι
τῆς πόλεως (treasurers of the city) (usually termed arcarii in the West)
dealing with public finance are attested in numerous inscriptions from the
high Empire, although public finance, like public record-keeping, was
never the exclusive preserve of slaves.88
Public slaves continued to be acquired and employed in both eastern
and western cities deep into the fifth century. Yet there is no securely
datable inscription later than 250 and the number roughly datable to the
84
C. Th. 7.13.8 (from 380).
85
C. Th. 7.13.16.
86
Hoffmann 1970, 377.
87
TAM 4.276.
88
Weiss 2004, 59–69, cat. no. L86.

fourth century on epigraphic grounds is meagre, with none from the later
centuries. In the fourth century their activities were still quite diverse,
including the upkeep of aqueducts. Provincial cities continued to manage
their public water systems with servi publici in late antiquity. Circitores
were public slaves, a specialized crew of the civic water administration,
belonging to urban cura (care), to oversee and prevent damage to the water
system. The inscription from Tivoli lists nineteen circitores, three decani
(‘chiefs of ten’), and their twenty-eight children.89 The number proves that
Rome’s aqueducts may not have been suffering from any lack of servi
publici when this inscription was carved. According to Noel Lenski, the
aquarii (public slaves who attended to the aqueducts) were among the few
servi publici whose ranks were maintained well into late antiquity.90
Some public slaves were kept as skilled artisans. The funeral monument
from Rome dated to the late third- or early fourth-century records the
officium (employment) of the freedman or slave Crescens, who was
vermiculator.91 The vermiculator was perhaps an officialis (servant),
a floor-layer, who specialized in the polychrome mosaic-work for pave-
ments (opus vermiculatum). The term officialis, however, well attested for
slaves in the early fourth century, shifts its meaning almost entirely by the
century’s end, when it came to designate a member of the officium (office)
of the imperial bureaucrat.
The most suggestive piece of evidence about the status of prostitutes in
late antiquity is a slave collar from North Africa: an inscribed lead band
found during the excavations of the Temple of Apollo at Bulla Regia,
found still on the skeleton of a prostitute with the familiar formula ‘retain
me if I flee’. Not only is this fourth-century relic a testimony that the life of
prostitution was carried out ‘within the entire apparatus of the master’s
power’,92 as prostitutes usually did not have an individual owner (yet
were rather in public ownership), but it also offers physical evidence of her
slave status. Furthermore, the collar powerfully embodies practices of
enslavement that shaped the material culture.
MacMullen opened debate over the extent to which slavery was a rural
or an urban phenomenon in the period, and the importance of the eco-
nomic role(s) played by slaves.93 He endorsed the proposition that slaves
89
CIL XIV 3649.
90
Lenski 2006, 348.
91
AE 1988, 48; see Buonocore 1983, with drawing.
92
Harper 2011, 310.
93
MacMullen 1987.

had become largely a parasitic element in the economic activity of the

period, using the epigraphic sources to demonstrate that slaves were
largely absent from rural contexts, and present only in very limited cir-
cumstances in domestic and urban settings. MacMullen’s theory triggered
a strong reaction from Ross Samson, who dismissed the epigraphical
evidence as unsatisfactory to quantify the balance of urban and rural
slave labour force, and argued in favour of a continuing slave presence
in Roman villas in rural contexts.94 Cam Grey cautioned not to over-
emphasize the difference between rural and urban slavery in late antiquity,
as countryside slaves did not need to be replaced as a workforce, for their
exploitation had never been the dominant mode of production.95
Subsequently, Harper used new epigraphic evidence unavailable to
MacMullen and Samson as proof of the exploited labour of slaves that
was fundamental to agricultural production on estates in the fourth
century both in the East and in the West.
other types of compulsory labour: freedmen, coloni,

and adscripticii
Late antiquity yields less epigraphic evidence than a substantial series of
manumission inscriptions from southern Macedonia, mostly of the third
century, confirming the importance of household slavery among the upper
tier of village families. However, the inscription from Thera pictures
a rural slave population affected by adult male manumission. The manu-
mission of adult male slaves is presumed on the grounds of the age
structure. It has led Harper to believe that manumission was an incentive
used to motivate slaves and to create internal hierarchies on the estate.96
Manumission inscriptions themselves were commemorative and not legal
documents, even though they record the act of a slave-owner freeing
slaves. An undoubtedly Christian inscription from Moesia Prima com-
memorates manumission performed on account of his good will (pro bona
voluptate) by Ingenuus, vir devotus (‘devout man’), perhaps palatinus, of
his slave Toma.97
94
Samson 1989; 1992.
95
Grey 2011b, 507.
96
Harper 2011, 74–6.
97
IMS 4.177=IMS 4.118 (fifth or sixth century). The text of the inscription was scrawled in
the brick while still wet. However, unlike graffiti, it bears more official character, despite
the material used.

The epigraphic evidence of slavery in the western provinces of the

Empire is scarce, perhaps due to regional differences in the epigraphic
habit. However, a corpus of epigraphic references to coloni reveals them
to be even less commonly recorded in stone than slaves.98 The casarius
(‘cottager’) Santulus Flavius Aurelius, colonus or a servant that belonged
to an estate, died and was buried in Rome in 347.99 His employers are
mentioned as such, but it is uncertain if they were responsible for the
commission of his undecorated sarcophagus. Another funeral inscription
recording a casarius as commemorator is a Christian epitaph of uncertain
provenance in Rome.100 Criminal or undesirable behaviour on the part of
free men could result in subjection to the colonatus perpetuus (‘perpetual
colonate’) as a judicial sentence,101 similarly to enslavement for crimes,
that is, becoming slaves of the state (servi poenae) as a result of a legal
penalty.
Diether Einbach believes that adscripticius as a term denoting
a dependent colonus was not in use before the end of the fourth
century.102 Although being dependent on the landowner, as technically
free coloni, adscripticii were not slaves. The term adscripticius is docu-
mented for the first time in the law of 224,103 which concerns the children
of ancillae or adscripticiae, but it is considered to be a later interpolation.
The same explanation is given for the phrase adscripticia conditio in the
law dated a century later.104
The stone from the borderlands of Pisidia and Kibyratis contains the
partially preserved rescriptum Iustini et Iustiniani de possessionibus ora-
torii S. Iohannis apostoli (Rescript concerning the possession of the ora-
tory of St John).105 The bilingual inscription confirms that the Latin term
adscripticius corresponds to the Greek ἐναπόγραφος. The imperial letter
places the estates owned by an oratory and the peasants cultivating them
under the care of the ruling emperors. The Latin version reads:
[Since it is proper that our serfs be kept immune, it is absolutely necessary that the
es]tates [belonging] to the rever[end oratory of Sa]int John the Apostle [should
benefit from] the same provision. [For this reason] we state, by (the power) of the
98
Samson 1992, 219.
99
CIL VI 9237=ILCV 589=ICVR IV 10851.
100
CIL VI 9238=ILCV 588=ICVR I 3467. LTUR II 361 (Papi), s.v. a Furca.
101
C. Th. 14.18.1 (from 382).
102
Einbach 1977, 142, 204.
103
Cod. Iust. 8.51.1.
104
Cod. Iust. 3.38.11.
105
CIL III 13640=ILCV 23=AE 1894, 68.

present divine decision that, [the estates] mentioned in complaints and their
peasants (coloni) and ascribed peasants (adscriptici), and overseers (curatores)
and free tenants (conductores) should be [free from ev]ery burden, from both [the
passage of sol]diers or mili[tia (violentiae prohibitores)] and from those soldiers
who are kno[wn] to be permanently garrisoned [next to] these estates. May no one
of them dare to inflict [any] damage upon [them] on any occasion, if the [complai]
nts are true. . ..106
reproducing intersectional inequalities in the later

roman empire
Overall, the perspective of intersectionality, a theoretical framework that
can account for relations of domination organized around gender, race/
ethnicity, and class, conceptualizes the material foundations of social
relations as an integrated and unified process. The analysis of the relations
of production (narrowly construed) as the dominant force shaping social
relations had seldom addressed gender-based forms of oppression and
domination. To recognize it means to emphasize the interdependence
between relations of production and reproduction, or to capture the role
of gender in forms and structures of oppression that shape social matrices
in terms of material conditions. The maximum prices in the slave chapter
of Diocletian’s edict show the value of (reproductive) labour of an adoles-
cent female slave equivalent to her male counterpart, while otherwise it
differs significantly with the prices tilted towards men. Furthermore, the
sex ratio of the Thera inscription leans more towards females among
slaves over the age of thirty. This could imply that male slaves experienced
higher mortality. However, if manumission is the underlying cause of this
ratio, it shows that female slaves were rarely manumitted when they were
physically capable of reproduction. The fertility of slaves remained val-
ued, since children born to slave mothers within the Empire were one of
the two most important sources of slaves.
Hardly any statistics are available on the late antique Roman slave
supply. However, the second of the two most important sources of slaves
in late antiquity was surely trade. Epigraphic source material underrepre-
sents slave-import across the frontiers and enslavement in frontier wars,
106
CSLA, E00869 (trans. Nowakowski). The rescript is thus aimed at protecting the estates
and various categories of peasants cultivating them that were owned by an oratory
(εὐκτήριον), meaning probably a local shrine. The different kinds of peasants mentioned
in the text were troubled by both transient and locally garrisoned soldiers and militia,
who were apparently looting villages or violently exacting due supplies.

but it yields some important glimpses.107 Different tribes of the semi-

desert between the Mediterranean and the Sahara were a giant reservoir
of human bodies, trafficked by the Roman slave trade. There is visual
evidence for black slaves in Roman antiquity, including the fourth-century
mosaic of the Maison d’Isguntus at Hippo Regius in Africa Proconsularis
as well as mosaics at Piazza Armerina in Sicily. In turn, the ideology with
which Roman foreign conquests were interpreted opposes servitus (servi-
tude) and libertas (freedom), which the Romans lose when, as happens in
the wars on the Empire’s borders, they become captivi, prisoners, and, in
short, slaves of the barbarians.
Religious attestations, primarily in funeral practices, of the Christian
‘epitaphic culture’ bring to light a burgeoning Christian slave population,
particularly in Rome, conscious of its social status and religious affiliation.
In the inscription on his explicitly Christian sarcophagus from Rome (see
Figure 11.1), Aedesius indicates his sexual status (eunuchus) in combin-
ation with his origin from Armenia (natione Armenius), which taken
together would imply his initial status as a slave in the Empire. In his
indication of a sexual status, a non-Roman origin, and a new adherence to
the Christian religion (neofitus), he must have wanted to highlight his
social advancement. It was commonly among the courtiers that eunuchs
played their role. Usually, although not exclusively, inner-court domestics
underwent a triple discrimination as slaves of barbarian origin,108
eunuchs,109 and (allegedly) persons of same-sex sexuality.110
Nonetheless, court eunuchs in the emperor’s service benefited from the
power generated by their lofty position in the palatine hierarchy and their
participation in imperial ceremonies.
Late antique monuments are already intimately connected to the real-
ities of their social and economic environment. Within the inscribed traces
of late Roman slavery, embedded in the material cultural remains, shaped
by the same lived experiences,111 different identities are recognized.
A theoretical framework that intends to account adequately for relations
of domination and exploitation organized around gender, race, and class
(that is, processes for identities) has to recognize the simultaneity of
107
Scheidel 2011.
108
Scholten 1995, 33, estimates that for the fourth and fifth centuries the great majority of
chamberlains were drawn from Armenia or Persia.
109
Claud. In Eutr. 1.171 and 2.22, semivir (half-man). Sideris 2002, 161–2.
110
On the same-sex sexuality of eunuchs, see Claud. In Eutr. 1.65–77; On other prejudices
against eunuchs in the fourth century, see Guyot 1980, 164–76, and Sideris 2002, 161–2.
111
See George 2013.

figure 11.4 Slave victimarii in the suovetaurilia relief of the Decennalia base
(303 ce). Forum Romanum, Rome. Photograph by Procopius. Wikimedia
Commons, https://bit.ly/2SpmuzC, with CC BY-SA 3.0 licence: https://creative
commons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0.
oppressions. However, my contention is that slaves’ experiences of gender

and race in the late Roman state were conditioned by a class-relationship
with class as a fundamental axis of oppression.112 To delve into the
specificities of structural class relations is vitally necessary to an analysis
that explains experiences of enslavement. Only a wholesale analysis of
a structure of material relations of production and reproduction, accumu-
lation and dispossession, which affects the multifaceted realms of culture
112
On the use of the concept of ‘class’ in ancient history, see Ste Croix 1998 [1983]. In the
scene of the sacrificial procession from the only surviving column base of the tetrarchic
five-column monument, erected in Rome in 303, with two naked slaves carrying axes,
the visual connotation of class is underscored. The social status distinction of the
victimarii (sacrifice attendants responsible for slaughtering animals) is emphasized visu-
ally by their nudity and their attributes (Figure 11.4), which refer to their job of cutting
up the sacrificial carcasses, in contrast a togate official who supervised the traditional
suovetaurilia (sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and a bull). While nudity on sacrificial reliefs
was a pictorial convention defining the social class, it is unknown if such sacrificial
attendants were in fact always naked; see Elsner 2018, 87–8, with fig. 60.

and ideology, can explain the multiple structures of domination that

pattern the late Roman world. In order to do justice to the complexities
of oppression in the later Roman Empire, analyses of ‘intersecting oppres-
sions’ effectively render visible the notorious triad of patriarchy, imperi-
alism, and slavery, which were historically solidified in and through one
another.

Late Antique Slavery in Epigraphic Evidence

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11

Late Antique Slavery in Epigraphic Evidence

While slavery was entrenched in the high Roman Empire, it continued

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

dedicatees, and, lastly, private identiﬁcation inscriptions, in particular

late antique legal and census inscriptions recording

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

for sale among other commodities subject to customs, itemizing them

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

which they have been born’.7 This fourth-century pronouncement is

servi and liberti as awarders: setting up honorific

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

probably recalls a work done by freedman Vitalio together with

freedmen and slaves as commemorators and

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

θρεπτή may refer to a household slave rather than an adopted daughter.32

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

figure 11.1 Funeral inscription on the Christian sarcophagus of Eunuch

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

With regard to the manumissio in ecclesia (emancipation in the

inscribed objects and the materiality of slavery:

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

categories and the use of late roman slaves

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

occupations of late Roman slave-owners, including administration, military,

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

figure 11.3 Inscription on the Christian monument recording its awarder,

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

However, as Hoffmann himself points out, the problem with this

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

had become largely a parasitic element in the economic activity of the

other types of compulsory labour: freedmen, coloni,

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

The epigraphic evidence of slavery in the western provinces of the

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

reproducing intersectional inequalities in the later

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

but it yields some important glimpses.107 Different tribes of the semi-

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

oppressions. However, my contention is that slaves’ experiences of gender

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

and ideology, can explain the multiple structures of domination that

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108568159.013 Published online by Cambridge University Press

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