Free at last!: the impact of freed slaves on the Roman Empire 9781853997518, 9781472504494, 1472504496, 185399751X

Table of contents :
Introduction Teresa Ramsby, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USALocating the Grapevine in the Late Republic: Freedom and Communication Pauline Ripat, University of Winnipeg, CanadaThe Face of the Social Climber: Roman Freedmen and Elite Ideology Babara Borg, University of Exeter, UKThe Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Koenraad Verboven, University of Ghent, Belgium ? Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Marc Kleijwegt, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USAFeasting the Dead Together: Household Burials and the Social Strategies of Slaves and Freed Persons in the Early Principate Carlos R. Galvao-Sobrinho, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA'Reading' the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Teresa Ramsby, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USABetween Fame and Infamia: The Image and Influence of Roman Charioteers Sinclair Bell, Northern Illinois University, USA'Saintly Souls:' White Teachers' Instruction of Greek and Latin to African American Freedmen Michele Ronnick, Wayne State University, USAResponse Eleanor W. Leach, Indiana University, USAIndex

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FREE AT LAST!

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FREE AT LAST! The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire

Edited by Sinclair Bell and Teresa Ramsby

Bristol Classical Press

First published in 2012 by Bristol Classical Press an imprint of Bloomsbury Academic Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP, UK Introduction and editorial arrangement © 2012 by Sinclair Bell and Teresa Ramsby The contributors retain copyright in their individual contributions. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. CIP records for this book are available from the British Library and the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-85399-751-8 Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Book Group, Bodmin, Cornwall

www.bloomsburyacademic.com

Contents List of Contributors List of Illustrations Abbreviations

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Acknowledgments

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Introduction Sinclair Bell & Teresa Ramsby 1. The Face of the Social Climber: Roman Freedmen and Elite Ideology Barbara E. Borg 2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic: Freedmen and Communication Pauline Ripat 3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Teresa Ramsby 4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Koenraad Verboven 5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Marc Kleijwegt 6. Feasting the Dead Together: Household Burials and the Social Strategies of Slaves and Freed Persons in the Early Principate Carlos R. Galvao-Sobrinho 7. ‘Saintly Souls’: White Teachers’ Advocacy and Instruction of Greek and Latin to African American Freedmen Michele Valerie Ronnick 8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? Eleanor Winsor Leach Index

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Contributors

Sinclair Bell is Assistant Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University. His research focuses on Etruscan and Roman visual and material culture, especially sport and spectacle. He is the co-editor of Games and Festivals in Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 2004), Role Models in the Roman World (Ann Arbor, 2008), and New Perspectives on Etruria and Early Rome (Madison, 2009). Barbara E. Borg is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Exeter. She has published widely on Greek and Roman art and culture, with one focus being on Roman portraiture. Her books include two monographs on Romano-Egyptian portrait mummies and an edited volume on Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic (Berlin, 2004). Carlos R. Galvao-Sobrinho is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. His fields of interest include non-elites, slavery, and poverty in the Roman world; the city of Rome (topography, settlement, and urban history); and late antiquity. He is the author of Doctrine and Power: Theological Controversy and Christian Leadership in the Later Roman Empire, AD 318-364 (Berkeley, forthcoming). Marc Kleijwegt is Professor of History at the University of WisconsinMadison. He is the editor of The Faces of Freedom: The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery (Leiden and Boston, 2006). He is currently working on the study of aspects of GrecoRoman slavery in comparative perspective. Teresa Ramsby is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her fields of interest include Roman poetry and the representations of women and ‘the other’ in Roman literature. She is the author of Textual Permanence: Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition (London, 2007). Pauline Ripat is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Winnipeg. She has published several articles on Roman magic, divination, and religious specialists, particularly as these subjects relate to communication between different elements of Roman society.

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Free at Last! Michele Valerie Ronnick is Professor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her work includes studies of Latin literature, the classical tradition in general and its reception by people of African descent in particular. Her books include The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship (Detroit, 2005) and William Sanders Scarborough: Black Classicist and Race Leader (Oxford, 2006). Koenraad Verboven is lecturer at Ghent University. His research focuses mainly on the role of social relations, organizations and networks in the Roman economy and on financial and monetary history. He is the author of The Economy of Friends. Economic Aspects of Amicitia and Patronage in the Late Republic (Brussels, 2002). Eleanor Winsor Leach is Ruth N. Halls Professor of Classical Studies and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature and the History of Art at Indiana University Bloomington. With interests both in Latin Literature and Roman art she often works at the intersection of the two fields. Among her papers is an earlier study on the topic of this collection, ‘Constructing Identity: Q. Haterius and C. Trimalchio Decorate their Tombs’, in E. D’Ambra and G. Metraux (eds) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World (Oxford, 2006) 1-18. Her current project is a book examining the construction of epistolary dialogue in letters of Cicero and the Younger Pliny.

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List of Illustrations Fig. 0.1. Roman relief with a circus scene, previously identified as scene of manumission. Renaissance drawing (RL 8589). The Royal Collection © 2010 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Fig. 0.2. Grave altar of L. Caltilius Diadumenus. Roman, AD 140-170. Marble. Tampa Museum of Art. Purchased with funds provided by The Collectors 1991.001. Fig. 1.1.Tomb building on the Via Statilia, Rome (after Kockel 1993, pl. 1,1). Fig. 1.2.Tomb relief of the Servilii. Rome, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Inv. 10491 (after Sinn 1991, fig. 14). Fig. 1.3. Tomb relief of the Gessii. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 37.100 (after Kockel 1993, pl. 68a). Fig. 1.4. Tomb relief. Rome, Palazzo Conservatori, Museo Nuovo VI,12, Inv. 2231 (after Kockel 1993, pl. 31a). Fig. 1.5. Tomb monument of the Gratidii. Rome, Vatican, Sala dei Busti, Inv. 388 (after Kockel 1993, pl. 105a). Fig. 1.6. Portrait of Octavian. La Alcudia, private collection (Inst. Neg. DAI Madrid). Fig. 1.7. Portrait of Caesar, Pisa/Chiaramonti-Type. Rome, Vatican, Sala dei Busti, Inv. 713 (after Johansen 1987, 18 fig. 1). Fig. 1.8. Relief portrait of P. Furius: detail. Rome, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Inv. 10464 (after Sinn 1991, fig. 21). Fig. 1.9. Full-figure tomb relief of a couple: detail. Rome, Palazzo Conservatori, Braccio Nuovo, Inv. 2124. Fig. 1.10. Portrait of Crassus. Plaster cast in Munich after the original in Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. Ma 1220 (after Boschung 1986, 279 fig. 27). Fig. 1.11. Tomb relief of the Licinii. Alatri, Corso Vittorio Emanuele 41 (after Kockel 1993, pl. 16b). Fig. 1.12. Tomb relief: detail. Rome, Villa Wolkonsky (after Kockel 1993, pl. 16b). Fig. 1.13. Portrait of Pompey. Venice, Museo Archeologico, Inv. 62 (after Bentz 1992, pl. 68a). Fig. 3.1. ‘The New Smart Set’; lithograph; copyrighted in 1906 by the US Lithograph Company of Cincinnati and New York; now in the Theatrical Poster Collection at the Library of Congress, no. 10059.

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5

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26 27 28 28 29 33 35 35 36 36

37 37 37 68

Free at Last! Fig. 6.1. Length of time household collective sepulchres remained in use. Fig. 6.2. Columbarium of C. Scribonius Menophilus, altar for offerings built into the wall of the monument below a corner niche, second row from the bottom (author’s photo; Su concessione della Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma). Fig. 6.3. Columbarium of C. Scribonius Menophilus, main chamber, wall showing frescoes of birds, fruits, garlands, sacro-idyllic landscapes, and Dionysiac motifs (author’s photo; Su concessione della Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma). Fig. 7.1. Giles W. Shurtleff’s statue in Oberlin, Ohio, designed by Emily Peck and dedicated in 1911 (courtesy of Victoria Karim, Oberlin College). Fig. 7.2. Cyrus West Francis (Atlanta University Photographs Collection-Individuals, Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center). Fig. 7.3. Thomas Noyes Chase (Atlanta University Photographs Collection-Individuals, Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center). Fig. 7.4. Adam Knight Spence (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University). Fig. 7.5. Mary Elizabeth Spence as a young girl and her friend Mollie [indecipherable] (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University). Fig. 7.6. Helen Clarissa Morgan (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University).

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136 139

140

182

184

184

185

186

188

Abbreviations AE BC

L’Année épigraphique. Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma. CAR Carta archeologica di Roma (1962-1977) (Florence). CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (1862-) (Berlin). DAGR Daremberg, C. and E. Saglio (1962-3) Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Graz). DE Ruggiero, E. de (1961-) Dizionario epigrafico di antichità romane (Rome). ILS Dessau, H. (1954-5) Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin). ILLRP Degrassi, A. (1965) Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (Berlin). LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (1981-99) (Zürich and Munich). LTUR, Sub Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, Suburbium (2001-) (Rome). NSc Notizie degli scavi. PIR Klebs, E. et al (1897-8) Prosopographia imperii romani saec I. II. III (Berlin). PIR2 Groag, E. et al. (1933-) Prosopographia imperii romani saec. I. II. III (Berlin and Leipzig). RE Wissowa, G. (1900-) Pauly’s Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart).

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Acknowledgments We wish to thank Eve D’Ambra, Glenys Davies and Archer Martin for fielding questions and offering advice on a variety of freedmen-related issues; Tobias Sperlich for his excellent work in translating Barbara Borg’s contribution from the original German; and Fiorenzo Catalli and Francesco di Gennaro for assistance in procuring permissions. We are especially grateful to Deborah Blake at Bloomsbury for taking on this project and for her patience and efficiency at every stage of its production. Teresa Ramsby would like to thank Ellie Leach; her student research assistants (Benjamin Auger, Amanda Opalenik, Benjamin Powers); and John and Michael Berneche for their infinite support and patience.

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Introduction Sinclair Bell & Teresa Ramsby On 11 June 2009, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp to commemorate the life of Anna Julia Cooper, a woman born into slavery in North Carolina in 1858, who in 1892 became the first published author of the African American feminist movement with her book: A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South.1 Six months before that stamp was issued, on 20 January 2009, the forty-fourth President of the United States took the oath of office, and at his side stood his wife Michelle Robinson Obama, an accomplished lawyer and the great-great-granddaughter of Jim Robinson who toiled as a slave on a plantation in South Carolina in the mid-nineteenth century. He died a free man with two sons, one of whom, Fraser Robinson, despite losing an arm as a child, would build a prosperous life and lay the foundations for the considerable success of his now famous descendant.2 The lives of Jim Robinson and Anna Julia Cooper give voice to the fact that many freed slaves ingeniously created for themselves the opportunity to pursue an education, build businesses, influence national movements and social policy, pass the legacy of success to their descendants, and contribute to the gradual deconstruction and dismantling of racism in America. Slavery is of course the ultimate mode of victimization. But to think that from that state of victimization one could emerge strong enough to reshape, redesign, and reorient one’s life and energy in order to build the monuments of a life is a story worth pursuing, and a history worthy of examination, in any culture. The passion for freedom, the desire to overcome the stigma of servitude, and the urge to make a life that outshines that former servitude is visible in most well-documented slave societies. This book is an attempt to recognize the accomplishments of the freed slaves of ancient Rome and their contributions to Roman life and culture. Giving a voice to the voiceless, as Anna Julia Cooper once did, is a purpose at the heart of this collection that attempts to articulate not so much the legalities and mechanics of Roman manumission, but what freed slaves did with the opportunities of freedom, and how they, in weaving themselves into the fabric of their society, changed its complexion.3

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Free at Last! Background The last fifty years have been rich with studies on the legal, cultural, and personal aspects of slavery and freedom in ancient Rome. Among the significant body of scholarship that has built up in that time, special notice should be given to the study of freedmen during the late Republic by Susan Treggiari and the monographs on imperial freedmen by Heinrich Chantraine, Gerard Boulvert and Paul Weaver.4 In addition, numerous articles and book chapters have appeared – especially by Lily Ross Taylor, Paul Veyne, Paul Zanker, Keith Hopkins, Keith Bradley, and Jean Andreau – that have proven particularly important in advancing the field.5 While the last few decades have seen a steady flow of smaller studies on various aspects of freed slaves, from case histories of particular individuals to their activities and self-understanding as a group, it is the last decade that has witnessed an explosion of interest, as seen both in conferences and publications.6 Some of this interest has been devoted to bringing original perspectives to familiar topics – for instance, the process of manumission7 or the literary vs. historical representation of freed slaves in Petronius’s Satyrica.8 Other work has focused on treating rich but overlooked bodies of evidence, especially freed slaves’ distinct forms of self-representation through inscriptions and visual culture.9 Finally, and more broadly still, some scholars have sought to gain access to the Roman freed slave through cross-cultural comparisons.10 This year marks a highpoint of the rising interest in Roman freedmen as it witnesses the appearance of both this volume, the first edited collection on the Roman world devoted entirely to their study, and Henrik Mouritsen’s monograph The Freedman in the Roman World, the first synthesis of the republican and imperial material which promises to consider manumission, patronage, and the social profile, economic role, and everyday experience of freedmen.11 The current collection, even though it was conceived and sent to press before Mouritsen’s monograph became available, is intended to be seen as complementary in mission: that is, both our works seek to draw focus on the freed slave as an object of study in its own right. For it is clear that no one study of freed slaves can canvass all aspects of their lives and that, in spite of the peak of recent interest, much evidence remains to be gathered, filtered and analysed to give form and coherence to their history. Any study of Roman freed slaves needs to grapple with a number of methodological and evidentiary issues. It is important to begin, then, by briefly reviewing how this volume both builds on and departs from earlier work. The principal difference lies in our approach, which grants considerably more agency to freed slaves than they are regularly attributed. That is, ancient authors and modern scholars alike have placed emphasis on the psychological toll of slavery to the extent that manumission becomes, by virtue of the extension of some ties between former slave and

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Introduction master, another mode of subordination. Sandra Joshel, in her study of epitaphs created within communities of artisans, illustrates a different picture from the one emphasized in contemporaneous literature (e.g. Juvenal), where the freedman is seen merely as displacing the freeborn and (because he is the visible frontman for a wealthy citizen’s industries) as a slavish interloper.12 In a recent work, Marc Kleijwegt, referring explicitly to Bradley’s important work on the aspects of social control built into the system of slavery and manumission, points out that this ‘perspective absolutises the entrenched position of the slaveowner in ancient Rome }’.13 The contents of this collection is less concerned with the extent to which (or whether or not) freed slaves were victimized into submissive compliance by their former masters or were coerced into contributing to an economic and social system that stigmatized them. Such a point of view belittles the capability and ingenuity of freed slaves by emphasizing the dependency of the freed slave on his or her former master. Several scholars have brought greater nuance to this traditional picture, especially through the evidence of the Roman economy. Peter Garnsey has investigated the extent to which the independent freed slave was able to engage in commerce and industry, even to the point where he might rival his former master, with the cautionary note that truly independent freed slaves, such as Trimalchio whose former master had died, were relatively few in ancient society. Even so, Garnsey cautions us to be wary of the over-generalization that states that ‘behind every freedman artisan or trader lurked a patron drawing the lion’s share of the profits, extracting burdensome unpaid service, and so on’.14 Viewing the freed slave economy from another angle, Aaron Kirschenbaum has detailed how vital freed slaves were to the economic health of the Roman Empire as familial agents who could pursue transactions in the interests of their former owners.15 Joshel illustrates that although a relationship to a patron was frequently mentioned in the epitaphs of artisans, the freed slave can be seen to display an independence as well: ‘the freed slave’s use of occupational title displays the possibility of acceding to the patron’s place’.16 Most recently, Alexander Weiss uses the ‘biography’ of Hermas from the Shepherd of Hermas, an early Christian apocalyptic text, to reconstruct a possible example of an ‘independent freedman’ – that is, one who acted autonomously from his former master.17 While these studies have made clear that freed slaves were not mere economic satellites of the ‘great man’, others have stressed their agency in other sectors of Roman society. Far from being outsiders remotely connected to the cultural life of ancient Rome, Susan Treggiari suggests that countless senators, magistrates and Roman artists would have found a freed slave in their family trees,18 and concludes that freedmen were ‘at the forefront of development in the arts and in industry, innovators in religious ideas and essential subordinates in the change from Republicanism to Principate. Their talents and energy were among the forces which

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Free at Last! shaped the political and social revolution.’19 In fact, it is in the evaluation of the role of freed slaves in the transition between Republic and Empire that we arguably find the most striking illustration of the shift in scholarly opinion over the last half-century or so. In his influential study The Roman Revolution, Ronald Syme described freed slaves variously as the ‘ghastly and disgusting rabble’ who surrounded Julius Caesar, as human leeches who ‘battened upon the blood of citizens’ during the proscriptions, and, later, as eager parvenus who deviously insinuated themselves into the machinery of the early imperial administration and came to wield an outsize influence: ‘first the servants and then the ministers and masters of the Caesars’.20 In sharp contrast, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, writing some seventy years later in Rome’s Cultural Revolution, views freedmen not as malignant or marginal presences but as socially and politically empowered actors at the centre of change: ‘the social revolution threatened by the rise of freedmen is only partially contained: and the record of material-culture points to a spread of a cultural language that is all about assertion of status, to circles far beyond what can reasonably be described as an elite. It is perhaps here that the revolutionary impact of the new culture is most clearly seen.’21 A similar conclusion is reached by Barbara Kellum, who depicts freed slaves as active players in the shared construction of Roman identity: It is time that we questioned the presuppositions of that [Syme’s] formulation and recognize that in the early imperial period freedmen and women were not necessarily either ‘non-political,’ in Syme’s terms, or, in a more recent variation on the theme, ‘non-elite.’ Taking the material culture record into consideration, it becomes apparent that the principate established paths to local status and ritual participation in the state to a far wider spectrum of the population than ever before.22

A picture is thus emerging in the most recent scholarship that depicts the freed slave as more than a victim or as a negative influence: he or she can also be seen as empowered and ‘elite’, an agent of social and political change, a mechanic to the machine of the economy, and the possessor of a can-do work ethic. A reasonable claim can be made that the traditional picture of Roman freed slaves has changed in large part because of scholars’ increased and more refined use of visual (Fig. 0.1) and material culture,23 which has provided us with the kind of life stories that our elite literary sources are not prone to capture.24 After all, classicists tend to be literary scholars, and so a much-discussed figure (when freed slaves are mentioned) is Trimalchio – that larger-than-life braggart who dominates the most complete portion of Petronius’ genre-defying work, the Satyrica – since there are few other portraits of freed slaves, and none rendered in such careful detail.25 A freed slave who hosts a banquet for his many freed friends, Trimalchio seems to represent the crude, under-educated, un-philosophic, libidinous,

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Introduction

Fig. 0.1. Roman relief with a circus scene, previously identified as a scene of manumission. Renaissance drawing (RL 8589). The Royal Collection © 2010 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

and flatulent drone who makes money for the sake of the things and people that it buys. In short, he personifies nearly every prejudice that we can find or imagine in the minds of his elite contemporaries. No doubt it is Trimalchio that stacks the deck against perceiving the freed slave as more than the sum of his visible, profitable parts – as an individual who ‘makes it’ against considerable odds and despite considerable setbacks. That is not to say, however, that discussion of Petronius’ detailed representation of the lives of freed slaves, in the Cena Trimalchionis, is unfruitful: for there have been many recent studies, including one in this volume, that attempt to view Trimalchio and his fellow-banqueters from a variety of angles in

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Free at Last! order to uncover details about the lives of freed slaves that go unmentioned in the extant literary sources. The prejudices against freed slaves in sources such as the Satyrica derive ultimately from the legal status of the freed slave as inferior to the freeborn.26 Thus the presence of colourful stories about men like Vedius Pollio (Dio 54.23; Sen. de Ira 3.40) and Larcius Macedo (Plin. Ep. 3.14) fill the void markedly left by the dearth of historical sources that describe freed slaves buying their kindred-family members out of slavery, opening shops, hiring freeborn workers, freeing their own slaves, and buying and restoring agricultural estates.27 What we have presents an unmistakable prejudice and bias that taints the freed slave in Roman literature. The worst examples of corruption and cruelty are frequently illustrated by freed slaves in historical treatises. If an emperor behaved badly, he was shown to be surrounded by freed slaves who encourage and participate in his profligacy. Just before Tacitus narrates the dreadful fire of 64 CE in Rome which he implicitly blames on Nero, he illustrates the depths of Nero’s amorality with a wedding ceremony between himself and a freedman named Pythagoras – with Nero playing the bride (Tac. Ann. 15.37) – a notable transgression against traditional attitudes regarding elite Roman masculinity.28 The successful reign of Claudius is made suspect in our important historical sources by his over-reliance on freed slaves as advisors and governing subordinates.29 Even among seemingly objective writers we can plainly see the bias. Pliny the Elder, who writes mostly as an observer of the natural world in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History, digresses on the use of cretaceous earth to mark the feet of imported slaves for sale, and mentions a list of freed slaves whose enrichment and advancement, ‘by the blood of Roman citizens and the opportunity of the proscriptions’, to the uppermost ranks of Roman governance give evidence of Rome’s ‘disgrace at the hands of capricious fortune’.30 Certainly one man – Chrysogonus, freed slave of Sulla – has a prominent and guilty role in the framing of the young nobleman Roscius (as the young Cicero presented so effectively in the trial speech that brought him his first public acclaim). But Pliny began that list of freed slaves with a more innocent trio: Publilius and Manilius Syrus, and Staberius Eros who achieved prominence in their respective areas of theatre, astronomy and grammar. The direct train of thought that leads from Publilius Syrus to Chrysogonus is not so difficult to trace – admiration that might be directed at freed slaves is over-balanced on the other side by much prejudice against that class of citizens who have advantaged themselves from the more sinister opportunities of Roman patronage. Even so, occasionally a freed slave merits the favourable attention of our ancient literary sources. Pliny the Younger, in his many letters to Trajan in Book 10 of his correspondences, frequently refers to the work done by freed slaves on Trajan’s behalf, and assures the emperor that one of his freedmen exceeds Pliny’s high standards of efficiency and effective-

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Introduction ness and makes a worthy partner to Pliny’s efforts in Bithynia (see Plin. Ep. 10.27, 28, 63, 67, and especially 85). Reliance on freed slaves to achieve important work in the Empire, it seems, was not a hallmark of corrupt emperors alone – even emperors highly praised throughout history relied on such men to perform the important work of imperial maintenance.31 There can be few greater examples of industrious agency, however, than Marcus Tullius Tiro, the freed slave of Cicero, who, despite achieving his freedom in his middle age, continued to serve the literary interests and needs of his former owner and even published his volumes of letters after the great man’s death. The correspondences written by Cicero to Tiro are preserved in Book 16 of Cicero’s letters to friends and family, and consist mostly of the statesman’s concern for Tiro’s fragile health (Fam. 16.1-15, 17-20, 22-4, 26-7). Yet one letter to Cicero by his brother expresses joy at the news that Tiro has received his freedom (Fam. 16.16), and there are two letters written by the younger Marcus Tullius to Tiro, one of which expresses profound regret for the author’s past immaturities and excesses (16.25), so that the collection as a whole displays the high level of esteem in which Tiro was held among the men of that family. Even if the literary testimony tends to be sparing or conventional in its expressions of concern or praise, we can be sure that affectionate ties did develop between freed slaves and their former owners, as some funerary monuments would suggest. An unpublished tomb altar from Ostia (Fig. 0.2), which dates to the mid- to late-second century CE, is dedicated to a loyal Greek freedman who has assumed the family name, Caltilius, of his former owners.32 The inscription reads: D M / L. CALTILIO / VIXIT ANNIS XXXV / L. CALTILIUS EUHODUS / SENIOR LIBERTO / OPTIMO FECIT / L CALTILIUS DIADVMENVS HIC CONDITVS E ST (‘To the souls of the dead, for Lucius Caltilius Diadumenus. He lived 35 years. Lucius Caltilius Euhodus Senior made it for his best freedman’). Like Cicero’s letters, neither the laconic inscription nor even the sensitive portrait, which portrays the deceased togate (in the starchy mode of an upstanding citizen), afford us much insight into the life of the deceased or his relationship with his patron. And yet the erection of a large, finely-carved tomb altar of this kind reflects, at the very least, that Lucius Caltilius Euhodus Senior felt a sense of affection for and duty toward ‘his best freedman’ that merited his costly and enduring commemoration in this way.33 It was not exclusively loyalty to a former master that would cause some to admire the achievements of a freed slave. The aforementioned Publilius Syrus arrived in Italy from Syria as a slave, probably around the time of Cicero’s consulship. According to Macrobius and Pliny the Elder, he found favour in his Roman household by virtue of his wits and good looks.34 Having attained his freedom as a fairly young man, he pursued an education and composed plays and farces for Rome’s popular theatre form called ‘mime’. Being a freed slave, without the status of elite citizenship that made the acting profession taboo, he was able to act in his own

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Free at Last!

Fig. 0.2. Grave altar of L. Caltilius Diadumenus. Roman, 140-170 CE. Marble. Tampa Museum of Art.

productions which were notable for their quality and entertainment value. Macrobius goes on to tell us that when Julius Caesar grew angry at the cheekiness of an equestrian playwright, Decimus Laberius, he publicly humiliated the elite writer by ordering him to appear in a play he had composed for a competition with Publilius – an appearance that by law would deprive Laberius of his equestrian status (2.7.7-9).35 To add insult to injury, so Macrobius says, Caesar gave the palm of victory to Publilius, and condescendingly gave the gold ring and sum of money for re-entry to the knighthood as second prize to Laberius.36 Although today we have 176 verses of the plays of Laberius, we have over 360 maxims that are supposedly derived from the plays of Publilius. Both the elder and the younger Seneca quoted him, as did Macrobius and Gellius; Petronius

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Introduction refers to his work – and later Christian writers quoted him as well.37 Though the inferior status of Publilius allegedly made him a useful tool in a large and public joke on Caesar’s behalf, his talent overshadowed any off-stage farce – he merited his first-place win more than Caesar perhaps realized. Publilius operated within the realm of entertainment and it is here, as well as in the sporting industries, that we encounter a category of person whose hostile treatment in our sources exposes the deep fault lines between freed and freeborn in Roman society. As we know from epigraphic and literary sources, actors, gladiators and charioteers were typically slaves and freed slaves who were further handicapped by the social stigma and legal disability of infamia (lacking public honour).38 Not surprisingly, their literary portraits are overwhelmingly hostile: authors indict them for their naked display of their bodies, public competition for money, swollen and fanatical entourages, and special access to and corrupting influence on the crown. The remarkable consistency between these accounts makes clear that the majority should be understood as historiographical topoi, as when Pliny writes of the physician Messalus that ‘no actor or charioteer went out in public with a greater entourage’ (HN 29.10). As Susan Mattern notes, ‘Pliny is being sarcastic: in an ideal society only aristocrats would have a comitatus – not actors, charioteers, or physicians.’39 And yet even while the double-blow of their (ex-) slave status and legal ostracism made them highly suspect, at least within elite circles, their skill, charisma, and wealth endeared them to the Roman public at large. It is thus of little surprise that where our sources generally grow quiet about freedmen in the second century CE, as the rights of citizenship become less exclusive, the invective toward entertainers continues unabated. Clearly there is a need to take a step back from the lopsided literature and admit to the cultural forces at work that would explain such an ambivalent way of seeing the freed slave in Roman society. To be sure, freedmen were not the only figures who embodied ‘status inconsistency’: when we consider that Cicero was consistently taunted as a novus homo, despite his hard-earned status as pater patriae, and faced considerable prejudice in his own day, we must apply twice the scepticism to the heavy doses of negativity aimed at the freed slave.40 Indeed, there are forces at work in our own society that might encourage us to view the Roman freed slave as a tainted figure. The fact that most Roman freed slaves became slave-owners themselves surely works against them in the modern mind – how could these survivors of human ownership inflict the same on others? But the notion that the Roman freed slave is an agent of the slave-economy and someone who should have known better is intrinsically unfair, as Paul Veyne so eloquently states in his chapter on slavery within his survey of Roman life: No man has ever been able to look beyond the changing backdrop of the historical dramas in which he is caught up and peer deep in to the wings of

9

Free at Last! history’s theater, for there are no wings. No slave, no master, was ever able to imagine a world in which the institution of slavery did not exist. What slaves wanted – or what most of them wanted (for it was better to serve than to be free and die of hunger) – was to escape from servitude individually, to be set free.41

It was not until slavery could be seen outside the realm of perceived economic necessity that the moral question became pressing: when nonslave, industrial societies were working successfully, the questionable nature of slavery’s economic justification began to coincide with an increasing sense that it was immoral as well, which brought about at last the notion that slavery was eradicable. But in pre-modern economic systems, slavery was seen as acceptable because it was an efficient means of creating a standard of living enjoyed by the powerful.42 The volume The contributors of this volume building on recent scholarship seek to illuminate the many ways that freed slaves made their mark on Roman society: that is, through their hard work, social institutions, self-reinforced Roman values, and essential humanity. The collection contains a wide and divergent array of case studies that offer insights into key aspects of freed slaves’ participation in and impact upon Roman society, including their political mobilization, economic activity, appropriation of space, and modes of visual and verbal self-representation.43 These studies draw upon diverse sources of evidence (literary and artefactual), ranging in date from the late Republic through the high Empire, and extend broadly geographically, albeit with a focus on Roman Italy.44 The final contribution, a study of freedmen in the nineteenth century in the United States, brings many of the issues raised in the preceding papers into modern historical perspective. What coheres in this collection, as Eleanor Winsor Leach notes in her response essay, is the importance of community to the Roman freed slave: that the notion of being a (semi-)free agent operating in a marginal context in Roman society did not entirely discourage this population from making the attempt to belong to and participate in the larger community. In response to limitations, perhaps, freed slaves found innovative ways to create real and viable connections between themselves and the broader, freeborn population. This contention is clearly on display in the first chapter, ‘The Face of the Social Climber: Roman Freedmen and Elite Ideology’. There Barbara Borg turns to a rich body of material that was first studied in a systematic and social-historical way by Paul Zanker in the 1970s: the grave reliefs of freedmen. Where scholarship had long consigned these works belonging to social nobodies to the dustbin of second-rate art, Zanker saw their potential to reveal precious information about the social strategies of their freed

10

Introduction patrons. Borg’s paper builds in significant ways on Zanker’s analysis, especially in demonstrating how the portraits on these reliefs depict the deceased not simply or necessarily as they appeared in life (as Zanker held), but rather according to certain physiognomic or pictorial formulas associated with the republican upper class. The meanings of these formulas can be pieced together from contemporary rhetorical accounts (such as Cicero’s In Pisonem), which speak to how certain facial expressions (or mimic gestures) encode discrete elite values. In this way, the furrowed brow, pursed lips, and other similar features seen on a portrait of Crassus or his peers can be linked to concepts of gravitas, severitas, and constantia, among others. As a consequence, we must understand the imagery of this class of reliefs – such as their unforgiving depiction of age – not as depicting real life, but rather as freed slaves’ co-opting of the communal values of the upper class to their own ends. The relationship between the upper classes and freedmen is explored in the following contribution as well. In ‘Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic: Freedmen and Communication’, Pauline Ripat explains the significant role that the freedmen of some elite politicians may have played in political campaigns in the Roman Republic. Since at Rome a man’s name and reputation counted for so much, particularly in popular elections, it served the interests of the uppermost classes to establish connections with the lower ones. This could be done through various public benefactions. But how would the politician, removed several degrees from the street-life of the everyday Roman, know what would effectively ‘turn out the vote’? Ripat draws on some literary examples and informed extrapolations from our didactic, historical, and all-important epistolary sources to show that the models for such chains of information did indeed exist. In particular, the letters of Quintus Tullius Cicero to his famous brother reveal, as she puts it, ‘elasticity’ in the social relationships between the classes, especially when an election was at stake. The dangers of exaggeration, flattery, or deception from a strategically-placed informer would make freed slaves ideal informers, communicators and advisors, since they themselves were interested in developing helpful relationships among the upper classes and were simultaneously plugged in to various layers of the lowest classes. Trimalchio, as mentioned above, is an icon of the freed slave who missed no opportunity for social and economic advancement, and it is he who forms the focus of the next chapter. In ‘“Reading” the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis’, Teresa Ramsby turns the tables on the observant Encolpius in Petronius’ Satyrica by suggesting that as he narrates his ecphrastic excursus through the house of Trimalchio, he simultaneously reveals the prejudices of his (and his author’s) class while also, perhaps unwittingly, uncovering a sympathetic portrait of the freed slave’s biography and rise to empowerment. This is an argument John Bodel made a few decades ago and that has received recent corroboration in the article by

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Free at Last! Nelis-Clément and Nelis, but Ramsby brings to the fore the aspects of Trimalchio’s career that display a desire for not merely belonging within his society, but displaying his own version of Romanitas.45 Trimalchio is different by nature of his background, but he takes pains to make himself appear to conform to many of the traditional expectations of a member of that society – the ordered discipline of a paterfamilias, an appreciation for the literature of Greece and Rome, and an allegiance to the Roman deities that have helped him along his path to success. Trimalchio’s extreme fondness for his friend Habinnas, a stone-cutter and freedman, displayed in the climactic final scenes of the Cena Trimalchionis, Ramsby asserts, further highlights the intensity of the relationship between freed slaves and desires of self-representation. Why this would be is clear enough in the traces of biographical narratives we see on funerary monuments in the ancient world – formulated in image and text – capturing the struggle for human dignity among a class of people fortunate to survive the rigours of total servitude. In his chapter ‘The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy’, Koenraad Verboven re-examines the evidence of the economic impact of the freed slaves of the Roman Empire. Finding much epigraphic evidence of their presence in Italian towns and their association with various lines of work, as well as a legal structure that provided some privileges to freedmen as it did to freeborn natural heirs, Verboven challenges those who seek to emphasize the coercive aspects of freedmen’s engagement in various industries. He argues that the freed slaves who owned businesses were partners in an enterprise of self-interest, where protection of commercial interests and a pooling of familial resources could result in success and wealth for all involved. Verboven illustrates that the Roman method and practice of manumission, with freed slaves encouraged to participate in the economic life of Rome, led to a healthier economic state and higher standard of living than in many other slave societies, and this model represents a challenge to the moralistic undertones of scholarship that seeks to discredit all aspects of the Roman slave-society simply because, in our modern age, slavery is repugnant and unthinkable. Indeed, Verboven argues that ‘the economy of Roman Italy may with as much good cause be characterized as a “freedman economy” than as a “slave economy”’. Marc Kleijwegt’s chapter, ‘Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire’, also looks at the economic impact of freed slaves, but here through a largely overlooked group: freedwomen. Kleijwegt’s study offers both a fine-grained analysis of particular examples from across the Empire and a broad-based discussion of some of the methodological issues that are raised by the cross-cultural study of freedwomen. Comparing Roman and New World Slavery studies, he notes the different working assumptions that guide these two disciplines. Women are an area of particular interest to both, but especially to Romanists, where Kleijwegt sees no fixed agenda in their study and thus promotes it as an area ripe for creative approaches.

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Introduction Those approaches can be inspired, at least in part, by the different forms of evidence in and scholarly approaches to Hispanic America, Brazil, the US, and the French, Dutch, English and Danish Caribbean. While the evidence for freedmen in the Roman world can be lacunose, the global approach that he advocates can give access to the experiences and aspirations of female freed slaves in a way that may encourage Romanists to re-imagine their subjects, especially at the watershed moment of their manumission. Kleijwegt singles out the role of freedwomen as generators of economic activity as one area in which the evidence is more abundant and in need of examination. Political life and the economy are reliable registers for assessing a group’s larger impact within a society, as seen in the previous chapters, but that impact can also be measured by means of its integration into other sectors of society, including the funerary realm. Already in 1961, Ross Taylor noted that ‘the success of the freedmen in securing much of the burial space not in the hands of men of rank is an indication of the numbers, wealth, and the initiative of the entire class’.46 In ‘Feasting the Dead Together: Household Burials and the Social Strategies of Slaves and Freed Persons in the Early Principate’, Carlos Galvao-Sobrinho investigates the sudden rise and gradual decline of columbaria, large-scale household tombs that were largely the preserve of slaves and ex-slaves. He begins by presenting the abundant evidence for the typology and chronology of this new type of funerary monument, which rose up in the Augustan period and largely ceased to be built after 100 CE. He explains the life-cycle of these monuments and the drastic changes in the burial preferences of servile groups that they reflect as due to broad social and political changes. In particular, Galvao-Sobrinho argues that the social policies initiated by Augustus made slaves and freedmen more dependent on their masters and this forced a change to their sense of collective identity, whereby they sought to forge closer ties to their peers within the aristocratic household (or familia). This shift in the relational dynamics between master and slave (and freedperson) finds material expression in the columbaria, the inscriptions and organization of which embody the new horizontal patterns of funerary sociability. The decision of freedmen eventually to turn away from this form of burial in the second half of the first century CE and seemingly abandon their household communities may be explained against the background of the greater social and economic opportunities that were afforded under the high Empire. The chapter by Michele Valerie Ronnick, ‘“Saintly Souls”: White Teachers’ Advocacy and Instruction of Greek and Latin to African American Freedmen’ is, perhaps unsurprisingly considering the author’s careerwork, quite different from the rest of this collection. Ronnick has written many important pieces tracing the interaction between African Americans who emerged from slavery in the late nineteenth century and the academic profession of Classics and Classical literature. As she reveals in her book

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Free at Last! on William Sanders Scarborough, the number of underground schools that existed during the slavery period would have astonished the slave-owners of the American South, as did the rapid rise of many African Americans to the highest levels of academia shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation.47 In her chapter, Ronnick unveils the tireless and somewhat dangerous work of teaching freed slaves in southern and northern states. Her focus is mostly on the white teachers who used their talents and expertise to provide a much sought-after classical and liberal education to the African Americans who wished to enter the professional class. We are not forcing a relationship between this data and the ancient Roman world, but when one of the only references we have to the relationship between education and success for freed slaves – between knowledge and power – comes from a fictional freed slave in Petronius’ Satyrica, namely that his lad has a knack for literature but he is pushing the boy toward a useful trade that will pay the bills,48 then it seems to us relevant to enter into evidence the real and well-documented experience of those who taught freed slaves. Ronnick’s piece is inspiring and historically revealing with regard to the lengths many slaves and freed slaves go to achieve an education.49 Ronnick’s contribution marks a fairly dramatic departure from the rest of this collection. We the editors felt it was important to include Ronnick in a larger discussion of freed slaves in ancient Rome because of her groundbreaking work on the classical education of freed black slaves and the classical scholarship these students would later produce. If there is a connection to be made between her work here and what precedes it, it is this: that no matter how greatly humans suffer, no matter how low burns the candle of personal dignity and the hope of freedom – freedom, once attained, can heal a multitude of wounds and exorcise many demons of a tortuous past. The accomplishments of William Sanders Scarborough, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King Jr. are testaments in full to the resilience of the human spirit. This resilience responds not only to the first taste of freedom, as seen in the lives of Scarborough and Douglass, but continues to respond generations later when the fresh promises of freedom have been sullied by decades of racist political policies and tactics of exclusion, as seen in the life of Dr King. Roman freed slaves, in some ways, faced less of a struggle than the African American freed slaves, who were left to fend for themselves in a nation keenly reluctant to accept them as equals. Even so, as Petronius’ narrative relates, Roman freed slaves had to formulate their own strategies of survival, and had to negotiate a balance between the expected loyalties toward former masters, and the harsher memories of any past cruelties at the hands of those masters. Such obligation to former masters cannot have been an easy burden to bear, and must have nearly maddened some who had been most unfairly treated as slaves. Unfortunately, we have no evidence of slave-biographies, from anyone enslaved or freed, or

14

Introduction even as imagined by the freeborn. A few literary samples – Petronius’ satire, the odd poem by Juvenal, a remark in a Roman comedy, or the occasional musing of Seneca or Pliny in an epistle – are all we have to go by. But the overwhelming historical, epigraphic and archaeological evidence indicates that freed Roman slaves made use of the opportunities they had to establish themselves in a way that provided financial security and a baseline of a dignified existence on which future generations could build an authentic space within Roman society. There is an undeniable paucity of evidence concerning the crucial interactions that served to link aspiring slaves and freed slaves with the educators, financiers, and master craftsmen in ancient Rome who taught them the skills they needed to succeed. Yet we can see from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples that Ronnick provides the ways in which some members of a society are willing to provide the tools of success to those who need them most desperately. Even if we are doubtful that the same charitable spirit, seen in the United States after 1863, in the selfless actions of educators who populate this piece, could have existed to a similar extent in ancient Rome, her essay provides us with the opportunity to understand the fire in the belly for knowledge, success, and progress among the freed slaves of the Roman Empire, as it is so visible in the experience of African Americans after emancipation. * Despite the lack of demographic and literary sources, it is sometimes necessary in cultural studies to leap into a problematic area and try to address the universal by examining the particulars. It is our hope, as the editors of this collection, that the examination of intriguing developments among small populations or sub-groups of freed slaves – such as those connected to high-powered politicians in the Republic, or those connected to imperial households in the early Empire, or those involved in commercial and banking activities in the colonies of southern Italy or Spain – may provide greater insight into the complex and diverse nature of the interactions between slaves, freed slaves, and the freeborn in the Roman Empire. Notes We are grateful to the contributors to this volume, especially Marc Kleijwegt, for their comments on our text; to Maureen Carroll and Glenys Davies for sending copies of their recent work; and to Daniel Bell (The Royal Collection) and Seth Pevnick (Tampa Museum of Art) for assistance in procuring images, information and permissions. 1. Calhoun and Elizabeth 1993, 124-6. 2. Murray 2008. 3. Indeed, as one scholar and contributor to this volume has noted, ‘there has been a huge amount of interest in the formulaic nature of manumission, but not

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Free at Last! so much in the dynamic side. This apparent lack of interest in the non-legal dimensions of manumission can be attributed to general difficulties in finding reliable statistical information on manumission’ (Kleijwegt 2006, 27). 4. Treggiari 1969; Chantraine 1967; Boulvert 1970, 1974; Weaver 1972. A.M. Duff’s Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, first published in 1928 and reprinted in 1958 (and thus roughly falling within the fifty-year window discussed above), deserves special comment here. For his work, while still a useful collection of sources, is compromised by its ‘outrageously racist’ tone (as noted by Wells 1995, 319). Duff’s racial assumptions and prejudices, especially his Orientalist stereotyping, were not an isolated scholarly phenomenon (cf. Frank 1916), and a full accounting of the influence of these attitudes on ancient history generally – and on the history of freed slaves in particular – remains to be written. 5. Ross Taylor 1961, Veyne 1961, Zanker 1975, Hopkins 1978, Bradley 1984, and Andreau 1989 [1993]. This chapter makes no claim of comprehensiveness in bibliography, which is too vast and rapidly expanding to summarize here in any useful way. Rather, we refer the reader to two encyclopaedic resources: the ‘Bibliographie zur antiken Sklaverei’ (with all updates now made freely available online: http://www.adwmainz.de/index.php?id=322) and the recently completed Handwörterburch der antiken Sklaverei (Heinen 2006-11; available in both hard copy and as a searchable database). Both resources are offshoots of the ‘Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei’ project initiated by Joseph Vogt in 1950 and administered by the Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (for an assessment of this project’s goals and accomplishments, see Wiedemann 2000). 6. Some examples of scholarly meetings devoted to Roman slavery with contributions on freedmen: ‘Seeing Slaves in Ancient Rome’ conference, University of California at Berkeley, November 2002; the proceedings of the 30th colloquium of the Groupe International de Recherches sur l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité (GIREA), held in Besançon in December 2005 (published as Gonzales 2008); ‘Recovering Roman Slavery: New Approaches’ colloquium, 107th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Montreal, January 2006; ‘Roman Slavery & Roman Material Culture’, 6th E. Togo Salmon Conference in Roman Studies, McMaster University, September 2007 (to be published as George forthcoming a). 7. Lintott 2002, Kleijwegt 2009. 8. E.g. Andreau 2009; Richlin 2009; Verboven 2009; Kleijwegt 2010. 9. Inscriptions: Witzmann 2003; Mouritsen 2004, 2005; visual culture: Clarke 2003; D’Ambra 2002; D’Ambra and Metraux 2006a; Davies 2010; Dexheimer 2000; Guidetti 2006, 2007; Kellum 2010; Petersen 2006, 2009; Thomas and Içten 2007. 10. E.g. Kleijwegt 2006a, 2006b; Webster 2008 (who focuses more on slaves than freedmen). 11. Mouritsen 2011a. One should also note the publication within the last year of a new introduction to Roman slavery (Joshel 2010) and a new history of slavery in the ancient world (Cartledge and Bradley 2011). In addition, the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries (Hodkinson, Kleijwegt and Vlassopoulos forthcoming) is currently in preparation. 12. Joshel 1992, 120-45. 13. Kleijwegt 2006, 26 on Bradley 1984. 14. Garnsey 1981, 368. 15. Kirschenbaum 1987. 16. Joshel 1992, 145. 17. Weiss 2009. 18. Treggiari 1969, 229.

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Introduction 19. The primary source for much of Treggiari’s material is Suetonius’ work on grammarians (de Grammaticis), an encomiastic history of the contributions of various rhetoricians and grammarians, several of whom were freed slaves. 20. ‘Rabble’: Syme 1939, 78; ‘leeches’: 195; parvenus: 385. In his discussion of the role of freedmen in the proscriptions (195), Syme is rephrasing a line from Pliny (HN 35.201), on which see further below. 21. Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 37. Interestingly (and in significant contrast to Syme’s account), it is freed slaves who (literally) receive the last word in WallaceHadrill’s new history of the ‘revolution’: ‘the freedmen vicomagistri of Rome } are a useful symbol of the participation of the freedman in Roman cultural identity’ (2008, 454). 22. Kellum 2010, 202. 23. A fragmentary relief (Fig. 0.1), which is first recorded in Rome in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century and is now preserved in the Musée royal de Mariemont in Belgium, offers a case in point of the changing use of visual evidence. The relief depicts at its centre a standing togate figure who holds rods in both hands. Two males, who wear only subligacula and conical caps, accompany him: one stands to his right, the other kneels beneath him. The standing male also holds a rod or whip in his left hand and extends his right hand in the gesture of dextrarum iunctio to another standing male figure, who is preserved only in Renaissance sketches (as seen here). The relief, which may date to the early imperial period, was long thought to be the sole visual evidence for the ceremony of Roman manumission (Göttling 1840, Cuq 1915). This view was first challenged by Ville 1963, who interpreted the bare-chested figures as circus horsemen (desultores). Pack 1980 sought to unite these two interpretations by arguing that the desultores were slaves being given their freedom in the circus. Wacke 1981 summarised the legal-historical arguments against the relief’s interpretation as a manumissio vindicta, and a majority of scholars now believe that the relief depicts a scene from the circus (e.g. Wrede 1992, 135-6; Kleijwegt 2009). See further Bell 2006 and forthcoming. 24. This is not to argue that material evidence (e.g. epitaphs) is without its own problems of fact and interpretation. See, for instance, the bias in inscriptions discussed in the contributions by Kleijwegt and Verboven in this volume, and Eck’s discussion of the limits of the epigraphic sources more generally (Eck 2007). As for visual culture, new studies are quickly emerging which are certain to expand our evidence and to introduce new perspectives: e.g. George forthcoming a, b; Joshel and Petersen forthcoming; Kellum forthcoming. 25. See D’Arms 1981, ch. 5, for an astute deconstruction of the notion of Trimalchio’s ‘typicality’ in studies of the Roman economy and of Roman freedmen. See also Rosen 1995. 26. See Treggiari 1969, 229-34, on the damnosa hereditas of slavery. 27. But see Quintilian’s admission about freed slaves (Inst. 11.1.88): Libertinis detrahenda est auctoritas: licet iis testimonium reddere industriae per quam exierint de servitute (the social-standing of freed slaves requires detraction, but one is obliged to bear witness to their hard work, on account of which they have escaped servitude). On judging Pliny’s perspective of the case of Larcius Macedo, see McKeown 2003. 28. On concepts of elite Roman masculinity see further Vout 2007, 136ff. 29. See Tac. Ann. 11.38 and 12.2; and Suet. Claud. 28-29. See Osgood 2011, 193-9, on the increased appointment of freedmen and lesser freeborn men in imperial administration, and some reasonable justifications for the trend.

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Free at Last! 30. Plin. HN 35.200: aliosque deinceps, quos enumerare iam non est, sanguine Quiritium et proscriptionum licentia ditatos. hoc est insigne venaliciis gregibus obprobriumque insolentis fortunae. Cf. Wiedemann’s note on the source: ‘[Pliny] cannot resist making the point that it is unnatural for ex-slaves to win power and influence, but he cannot help revealing that many of these despised slaves had recently formed the intellectual elite of the Hellenistic world’ (1981, 111). 31. Some recent examples are provided by the work of Houston 2002 on imperial libraries, Osgood 2011 on the reign of Claudius, and Alfred Hirt 2010, 146ff., who in his recent book on imperial mines and quarries reveals the considerable evidence that the principal administrators of the imperial mines, especially on the Iberian peninsula, were freed slaves under direct control of the emperors in the period from 27 BCE to 235 CE. If such a significant industry was entrusted to the oversight of freed slaves, there is reason to deduce that freed slaves made tremendous contributions to the wealth of the Empire in general. 32. Tampa Museum of Art, inv. no. 1991.001. The proper left side of the altar has a jug facing right while the proper right side has a phiale. It can be dated to the reigns of the emperors Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius on stylistic grounds, including the subject’s stylized hair, beard, moustache and heavy-lidded eyes. 33. See now Carroll 2011 on funerary monuments as expressions of the patron’s humanitas. 34. Macrobius 2.7.6: Is Publilius, natione Syrus, cum puer ad patronum domini esset adductus, promeruit eum non minus salibus et ingenio quam forma. This reference to beauty, as well as wit, is probably a subtle reference to the boy’s status within the household as a deliciae, or sexual pet who then must have found the opportunity to use his master’s attentions to his advantage, like Trimalchio in Petronius’ Satyrica. 35. Macrobius reports (at Sat. 2.6.6) an example of the acerbic wit of Decimus Laberius which may have got him into trouble with Caesar. He once quipped to an angry Publius Clodius that the only threat he could offer was a one-way ticket to Dyrrachium, making light of the fact that Cicero had suffered only a brief exile from Clodian retribution. 36. See Panayotakis 2010, 50-6, for a keen assessment of Macrobius’ tale and the ancient author’s possible conflation of two separate public performances during Caesar’s dictatorship, in 46 and 47 BCE. Panayotakis raises evidence that Laberius may not have acted in his own play during the contest of 47, and therefore would have received no humiliating fee as second prize on that occasion, but there is little doubt that he lost the contest to Publilius. 37. Duff and Duff 1961, 5. 38. On entertainers, see now Leppin 2011, with full bibliography (though on slave and freed actors see also Gregori 2008); on infamia see Edwards 1997. 39. Mattern 1999, 16. 40. One of the most glaring examples of this is Livy’s condescending summation of Cicero, recorded in Seneca the Elder (Suas. 6.22), that the only time Cicero measured up as a man (in the Roman sense) was when he bravely faced his proscribed assassination at the hands of Antony’s thugs. On ‘status inconsistency’, see Hopkins 1965; 1983, 176-93. 41. Bodel 1984; Veyne 2000, 64. 42. There is ongoing debate about the aetiology of the abolitionist movement that developed in England in the eighteenth century and led to the abolition of slavery in 1833. Some, building on the evidence compiled by Eric Williams 1944, see it as a natural result of the rising industrial age, whereas others, applying the

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Introduction analyses of Seymour Drescher 1986 place the emphasis on a tide of moral indignation about slavery that pre-empted the coincidental effects of industrialization on the slave trade. Wherever one may choose to place emphasis, the common ingredient to both theories is the rise of an intellectually engaged working and middle class in eighteenth-century Britain made possible through the nascent industrial age. That the British lower classes could have any effect on the legal and social policy of British slave-owning society must be attributed to the effects of industrialization on British society. 43. As Marc Kleijwegt 2006b has already claimed, the lack of literary sources about the lives and careers of freed slaves leaves us with tremendous difficulty in even counting the number of freed slaves actively engaged in Roman society, let alone specifying their careers, fortunes, and influence on Roman civilization. Despite the profound lacunae that so far prevent us from completely conceptualizing the roles of freed slaves in Roman civilization, there is growing evidence, including the pieces in this collection, to indicate that freed slaves played important roles – enough to merit the term ‘impact’ in our title rather than the weaker and broader term ‘influence’ or ‘contribution’. 44. The use of ‘Roman Empire’ in our title may seem improper since there are pieces in this collection that discuss freed slaves in the period defined politically as the Roman Republic as well as that defined as the imperial period. Those terms refer to political distinctions, however, whereas we are referring to geographical, territorial, social, and expansionist realities that define Rome as an Empire as early as the beginning of the Second Punic War, and certainly by the end of that campaign. 45. Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005. 46. Ross Taylor 1961, 131. 47. Scarborough 2005, 24. 48. Sat. 46: emi ergo nunc puero aliquot libra rubricata, quia volo illum ad domusionem aliquid de iure gustare. habet haec res panem. Nam litteris satis inquinatus est. quod si resilierit, destinavi illum artificii docere, aut tonstreinum aut praeconem aut certe causidicum, quod illi auferre non possit nisi Orcus. 49. In light of her piece, a casual remark such as Pliny the Younger’s, that he appreciates the members of his familia who can engage him in intelligent conversation during a stroll after dinner, may hold a note of protest against the way many Romans may have neglected the education of their slaves: Ep. 9.36.4: Cenanti mihi, si cum uxore vel paucis, liber legitur; post cenam comoedia aut lyristes; mox cum meis ambulo, quorum in numero sunt eruditi.

Bibliography Andreau, J. (1989) ‘The Freedman’, in A. Giardina (ed.) The Romans (Chicago) 175-98. Andreau, J. (2009) ‘Freedmen in the Satyrica’, in Prag and Repath 2009, 114-24. Bell, S. (2006) ‘Zirkusslaven’, in H. Heinen et al. (eds) Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei, vol. 1 (Stuttgart). Bell, S. (forthcoming) ‘Mariemont Relief’, in H. Heinen et al. (eds) Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (Stuttgart). Bodel, J. (1984) ‘Freedmen in the Satyricon of Petronius’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan. Boulvert, G. (1970) Esclaves et affranchise impériaux sous le Haut-Empire romain (Naples).

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Free at Last! Boulvert, G. (1974) Domestique et fonctionnaire sous le Haut-Empire romain. La condition de l’affranchi et de l’esclave du Prince (Paris). Bradley, K. (1984) Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Brussels). Calhoun, D. and G. Elizabeth (1993) ‘Anna J. Cooper’, in D. Salem (ed.) African American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (New York). Caroll, M. (2011) ‘“The Mourning was very Good”. Liberation and Liberality in Roman Funerary Commemoration’, in V.M. Hope and J. Huskinson (eds) Memory and Mourning: Studies in Roman Death (Oxford) 126-49. Cartledge, P. and K. Bradley (eds) (2011) The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 1: The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge). Chantraine, H. (1967) Freigelassene und Sklaven im Dienst der römischen Kaiser: Studien zu ihrer Nomenklatur (Wiesbaden). Clarke, J.R. (2003) Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and Non-elite Viewers in Italy, 100 BC-315 AD (Berkeley). Conybeare, C. (2005) Review of W.S. Scarborough, The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship (Detroit), BMCR 2005.05.12. Cuq, M. (1915) ‘Une scène d’affranchissement par la vindicte au premier siècle de notre ère’, CRAI 7: 537-51. D’Ambra, E. (2002) ‘Acquiring an Ancestor: the Importance of Funerary Statuary among the Non-Elite Orders of Rome’, in J.M. Højte (ed.) Images of Ancestors, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity 5 (Aarhus) 223-46. D’Ambra, E. and G. Metraux (eds) (2006a) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World, BAR International Series 1526 (Oxford). D’Ambra, E. and G. Metraux. (2006b) ‘Introduction’, in D’Ambra and Metraux 2006a, viii-xviii. Davies, G. (2010) ‘Viewer, I married Him: Marriage and the Freedwoman in Rome’, in L. Larsson Lovén and A. Strömberg (eds) Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality (Newcastle upon Tyne) 184-203. Dexheimer, D. (2000) ‘Portrait Figures on Sepulchral Altars of Roman Liberti: Evidence of Romanization or Assimilation of Attributes characterizing higher Social Strata?’, in J. Pearce, M. Millett and M. Struck (eds) Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World (Oxford) 78-94. Drescher, S. (1986) Capitalism and Antislavery: British Mobilization in Comparative Perspective (Oxford). Duff, A.M. (1958) Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge). Duff, J.W. and A.M. Duff (1961) Minor Latin Poets (Cambridge, MA). Eck, W. (2007) ‘Befund und Realität. Zur Repräsentativität unserer epigraphischen Quellen in der römischen Kaiserzeit’, Chiron 37: 49-51. Edwards, C. (1997) ‘Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome’, in J.P. Hallett and M. Skinner (eds) Roman Sexualities (Princeton) 66-95. Frank, T. (1916) ‘Race Mixture in the Roman Empire’, AHR 21: 689-708. Garnsey, P. (1981) ‘Independent Freedmen and the Economy of Roman Italy under the Principate’, Klio 63: 359-71. George, M. (ed.) (forthcoming a) Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture, Papers of the 6th E. Togo Salmon conference, September 2007 (Toronto). George, M. (forthcoming b) Images of Roman Slavery. Gonzales, A. (ed.) (2008) La fin du statut servile? (affranchissement, libération, abolition), 2 vols (Franche-Comté).

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Introduction Göttling, C. (1840) ‘Explicatio duorum anaglyphorum quae manumissionem servi exhibent’, AdI 12: 157-60. Gregori, G. L. (2008) ‘Schiavi e liberti imperiali per gli allestimenti teatrali’, in R. Bertini Conidi and F. Longo (eds) Ex adversis fortior resurgo: Miscellanea in ricordo di Patrizia Sabbatini Tumolesi (Pisa) 93-102. Guidetti, F. (2006) ‘Note sull’iconografia di un rilievo funerario da Amiternum: modelli e scelte figurative di un liberto municipale’, ArchClass 57: 387-403. Guidetti, F. (2007) ‘La tomba Trimalchione: Saggio di commento archeologico al Satyricon’, in F. de Angelis (ed.) Lo sguardo archeologico: I normalisti per Paul Zanker (Pisa) 77-95. Heinen, H. et al. (eds) (2006-11) Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (HAS) I-III, CD-ROM Lieferung 1-3, Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 5 (Stuttgart). Hirt, A.M. (2010) Imperial Mines and Quarries in the Roman World: Organizational Aspects 27 BC-AD 235 (Oxford). Hodkinson, S., M. Kleijwegt, and K. Vlassopoulos (eds) (forthcoming) Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries (Oxford). Hopkins, K. (1965) ‘Elite Mobility in the Later Roman Empire’, Past & Present 32: 12-26. Hopkins, K. (1978) Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge). Hopkins, K. (1983) Death and Renewal, Sociological Studies in Roman History, vol. 1 (Cambridge). Houston, G.W. (2002) ‘The Slave and Freedman Personnel of Public Libraries in Ancient Rome’, TAPA 132: 139-76. Joshel, S. (1992) Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, OK). Joshel, S. (2010) Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge). Joshel, S. and L.H. Petersen (forthcoming) The Material Life of Roman Slaves. Kellum, B. (2010) ‘Representations and Re-presentations of the Battle of Actium’, in B. Breed and C. Damon (eds) Citizens of Discord: Rome and its Civil Wars (Oxford) 187-205. Kellum, B. (forthcoming) The House of the Vettii: Freedmen and Fortune in Roman Pompeii. Kleijwegt, M. (ed) (2006a) The Faces of Freedom: The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery (Leiden). Kleijwegt, M. (2006b) ‘Freedpeople: A Brief Cross-cultural History’, in Kleijwegt 2006a, 3-68. Kleijwegt, M. (2006c) ‘Freed Slaves, Self-Presentation and Corporate Identity in the Roman World’, in Kleijwegt 2006a, 89-115. Kleijwegt, M. (2009) ‘Creating New Citizens: Freed Slaves, the State and Citizenship in Early Rome and under Augustus’, European Review of History/Revue Européene d’Histoire 16.3: 319-30. Kleijwegt, M. (2010) Review of Prag and Repath 2009. Ancient Narrative 8: 157-66. Leach, E. (2006) ‘Freedmen and Immortality in the Tomb of the Haterii’, in D’Ambra and Metraux 2006, 1-18. Leppin, H. (2011) ‘Between Marginality and Celebrity: Entertainers and Entertainments in Roman Society’, in M. Peachin (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World (Oxford) 660-78. Lintott, A. (2002) ‘Freedmen and Slaves in the Light of Legal Documents from First-Century AD Campania’, CQ 52: 555-65. Mattern, S. P. (1999) ‘Physicians and the Roman Imperial Aristocracy: The Patronage of Therapeutics’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73: 1-18.

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Free at Last! McKeown, N. (2007) ‘The Sound of John Henderson Laughing: Pliny 3.14 and Roman Slaveowners’ Fear of their Slaves’, in A. Serghidou (ed.) Fear of Slaves – Fear of Enslavement in the Ancient Mediterranean (Besançon) 265-79. Mouritsen, H. (2004) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in the Necropolis of Imperial Ostia’, ZPE 150: 281-304. Mouritsen, H. (2005) ‘Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy’, JRS 95: 38-63. Mouritsen, H. (2011a) The Freedman in the Roman World (Cambridge). Mouritsen, H. (2011b) ‘The Families of Roman Slaves and Freedmen’, in B. Rawson (ed.) A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Malden, MA) 129-44. Murray, S. (2008) ‘A Family Tree Rooted in American Soil: Michelle Obama Learns About Her Slave Ancestors, Herself and Her Country’, Washington Post: 2 October, p. C01, http://www.washingtonpost.com, retrieved 1 October 2010. Nelis-Clément, J. and D. Nelis (2005) ‘Petronius’ Epigraphic Habit’, Dictynna 2: 145-64. Osgood, J. (2011) Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge). Pack, E. (1980) ‘Manumissio in Circo? Zum sog. Freilassungsrelief in Mariemont’, in W. Eck, H. Galsterer, and H. Wolff (eds) Studien zur antiken Sozialgeschichte. Festschrift F. Vittinghoff (Cologne) 179-95. Panayotakis, C. (2010) Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (Cambridge). Petersen, L.H. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Petersen, L.H. (2009) ‘“Clothes Make the Man”: Dressing the Roman Freedman Body’, in T. Fögen and M. Lee (eds) (2009) Bodies and Boundaries in GraecoRoman Antiquity (Berlin and New York) 181-214. Petersen, L.H. (forthcoming) ‘“Arte plebeia” and Non-elite Roman Art’, in B. Borg (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Roman Art (Malden, MA). Prag, J. and I. Repath (eds) (2009) Petronius: A Handbook (Chichester, UK and Malden, MA). Richlin, A. (2009) ‘Sex in the Satyrica: Outlaws in Literatureland’, in Prag and Repath 2009, 82-100. Rosen, K. (1995) ‘Römische Freigelassene als Aufsteiger und Petrons Cena Trimalchionis’, Gymnasium 102: 79-91. Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Taylor, L.R. (1961) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in Epitaphs of Imperial Rome’, AJP 82: 113-32. Thomas, C.M. and C. Içten. (2007) ‘The Ostothekai of Ephesos and the Rise of Sarcophagus Inhumation: Death, Conspicuous Consumption, and Roman Freedmen’, in G. Koch (ed.) Akten des Symposiums des Sarkophag-Corpus 2001. Marburg, 2.-7. Juli 2001, Sarkophag-Studien 3 (Mainz) 335-49. Treggiari, S. (1969) Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford). Verboven, K. (2009) ‘A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Market: Reading Petronius to write Economic History’, in Prag and Repath 2009, 125-39. Veyne, P. (1961) ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, AnnÉconSocCiv 16: 213-47. Veyne, P. (2000) ‘The Roman Empire’, in P. Veyne (ed.) A History of Private Life, vol. 1: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, MA and London) 51-70. Ville, G. (1963) ‘Le relief R 14 (26) de Mariemont ne figure pas un affranchissement par la vindicte mais une scène de cirque’, Latomus 22: 14-30. Vout, C. (2007) Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (Cambridge). Wacke, A. (1981) ‘Das Relief-Fragment Nr. 26 aus Mariemont: Zirkus-Szene oder

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Introduction manumissio vindicta?’, in Studi in onore di Arnaldo Biscardi, vol. 1 (Milan) 117-45. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (2008) Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge). Weaver, P.R.C. (1972) Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge). Weaver, P.R.C. (1998) ‘Imperial Slaves and Freedmen in the Brick Industry’, ZPE 122: 238-46. Webster, J. (2008) ‘Less Beloved. Roman Archaeology, Slavery and the Failure to Compare’, Archaeological Dialogues 15: 103-23. Weiss, A. (2009) ‘Hermas’ “Biography”. Social Upward and Downward Mobility of an Independent Freedman’, AncSoc 39: 185-202. Wells, C.M. (1995) The Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA). Wiedemann, T. (1981) Greek and Roman Slavery (London and New York). Wiedemann, T. (2000) ‘Fifty Years of Research on Ancient Slavery: The Mainz Academy Project’, Slavery and Abolition 21.3: 152-8. Williams, E. (1944) Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill). Witzmann, P. (2003) ‘Integrations- und Identifikationsprozesse römischer Freigelassener nach Auskunft der Inschriften (I. Jh. v. Chr.)’, in A. Haltenhoff, A. Heil, and F.-H. Mutschler (eds) O tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den letzten Jahrzehnten der Republik, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 171 (Leipzig) 289-321. Wrede, H. (1992) ‘Der Codex Coburgensis und das Museum Chartaceum. Entwicklungsstufen der Klassischen Archäologie’, in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum, vol. 1 (Ivrea) 122-36. Zanker, P. (1975) ‘Grabreliefs römischer Freigelassener’, JdI 90: 267-315.

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1

The Face of the Social Climber: Roman Freedmen and Elite Ideology1 Barbara E. Borg There is probably no other genre of ancient art that has received as ambiguous a reception as Roman portraiture.2 On the one hand, the life-like representation of the heads of wrinkly old men, heroic soldiers, dandified youths, beautiful, elegant women and sweet little girls seemed to identify these images as epitomes of mimetic art. Thus, ever since Winckelmann, the majority of art lovers and art critics have relegated them to a lower class of art or even denied them access to the realm of true art altogether. But even when, during the nineteenth century, research increasingly turned to historical questions, and the opinion started to take hold that not only ‘artworks’ in the strictest sense were of value but the material remains of antiquity as a whole, portraits of Romans seemed to add little to these questions precisely because of their apparent photographic quality, which mirrored only the physical aspects of reality. On the other hand, the continuing interest in such portraits from the Renaissance onwards is attested especially by the practice of their collection. Occasionally, they were arranged in galleries of ‘Good Emperors’, ancient philosophers, poets, and so forth, which were complemented by entirely modern busts, if necessary. Frequently, however, they were simply collected and exhibited by coincidence. In both cases, a diffuse feeling seems to have prevailed, that knowledge of the outward appearance of an historical personality would reveal information that goes beyond knowledge of their actions and writings. This feeling undoubtedly persists today, for why else would articles in encyclopaedias or book covers of novels be illustrated with portraits? This meant, however, that interest was primarily directed towards those ancient portraits which represented familiar historical personalities – or which at least could be assumed to depict these. It is therefore easy to see why the type of portraiture under review here – tomb reliefs of Roman freedmen – did not arouse immediate interest: on the one hand, most of them were anything but aesthetically pleasing works of art; on the other hand, they portrayed individuals who were rather ephemeral figures for a historical inquiry that was interested in great men and key historical events.

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Free at Last!

Fig. 1.1. Tomb building on the Via Statilia, Rome.

I. Tomb reliefs for freedmen Against this background, it is not exactly surprising that these tomb reliefs were first awarded a detailed study in the 1970s, when the increasing politicization of the present resulted in a heightened interest in the political role in the widest sense of ancient, and in particular Roman, monuments, and attention turned more and more to manifestations of the lives of less prominent social groups. In 1975, Paul Zanker was the first to demonstrate how tomb reliefs could be used as evidence for the self-representation of a particular social group, the Roman liberti, and that they could improve our understanding of this class, their values, norms and points of reference.3 These tomb reliefs, which in most cases represent several individuals in bust form, more rarely as complete figures, are first attested c. 80 BCE. Their heyday of production is the second half of the first century BCE, when freedmen profited increasingly from the stabilizing political situation and the economic upturn under Augustus.4 The reliefs were attached to the exterior of tomb monuments, mostly to altar-like cubic tombs and – in rare, early cases – to house-like façades (Fig. 1.1).5 Their existence alone is significant, for while they were rather modest in comparison with the prestigious tombs of the aristocracy, they also differ markedly from the simple interments in terracotta urns or from depositions in columbarium niches – not to mention the anonymous mass

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1. The Face of the Social Climber

Fig. 1.2. Tomb relief of the Servilii. Rome, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Inv. 10491.

graves of the poor.6 Their patrons possessed their own tomb monument and presented it confidently alongside the tombs of the nobility in prominent locations along the roads leading out of Rome, where the attention of passers-by was guaranteed.7 The portraits on those monuments were also able to fulfil a function similar to the public honorific statues of the nobility. They elevated the tomb owner and his family above their ‘portrait-less’ contemporaries by identifying them as persons of dignity and renown, and compared them to the elite of society.8 Reliefs and inscriptions on the tombs of freed slaves thus were not a gratuitous luxurious adornment, but rather conveyed specific information about their patrons. Foremost they were meant to showcase the deceased’s pride on his ascension from his former slave status and from the restrictions associated with slavery.9 These restrictions included the prohibition of legal marriage and of the establishment of a legitimate family. Characteristically, most reliefs depict multiple individuals whose epigraphic and pictorial portrayal served to construct a family group. To this end, nonconsanguine individuals might be given space as well, such as a patron replacing a natural father.10 The highpoint of familial aspirations was the birth of a son, so that nearly all of the children depicted on the reliefs are boys. These sons were typically equipped with all the attributes of a freeborn male, i.e. the bulla (amulet) and the toga praetexta (Fig. 1.2).11 Occasionally, the sons of freedmen even gained admission into the military service, an achievement which allowed for further social advancement and was duly showcased in the reliefs (Fig. 1.3).12 Female status symbols include the stola (dress), characterizing the free wife joined to her husband cum manu (under his control), as well as the vitta (headband) covering a hair knot as the token of the mater familias (mother of the family) (Fig. 1.4).13 Apart from the family itself, the chief status symbol for adult males was the toga of the free citizen. Occasionally it is clearly recognizable in the reliefs, although in most cases it can only be extrapolated, for in the images it is often indistinguishable from a pallium (cloak) or some women’s garments.14

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Free at Last!

Fig. 1.3. Tomb relief of the Gessii. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Inv. 37.100.

It is in these cases that the significance of inscriptions is most evident. Today only about two-fifths of the reliefs bear inscriptions, while in the remaining cases they must have been affixed to the tombs separately. They unambiguously reveal the status of their subjects: the tria nomina of the Roman citizen, the freedman’s status (libertus), occasionally a profession, especially when it was reputable and/or lucrative (auctioneer, lictor, carpenter, cereal merchant, silversmith, doctor or soldier),15 and, importantly again, the marital and familial connections of those depicted on the monument. On a relief in Rome, the boy with his bulla is explicitly identified as f(ilius) (son), and the woman as uxor (wife): without the inscription, her position within the family would be uncertain, as she is not joined to her husband in dextrarum iunctio (i.e. the joining of the right hands, a typical visual sign of marriage) (Fig. 1.2).16 Freedmen therefore proudly expressed their new social status by means of inscriptions and pictorial representations. It is important to note, however, that the images add a range of supplementary components to these self-representations which are not mentioned in the accompanying inscriptions. As mentioned above, it was less important in the depiction of men to display the toga as a symbol of their new status than their presentation in appropriate dress, a garment earning them the habitus of the ‘correct citizen’.17 Similarly, the soldiers signify on their tombs not only their formal position in the social hierarchy but also their military virtus

Fig. 1.4. Tomb relief. Rome, Palazzo Conservatori, Museo Nuovo VI,12, Inv. 2231.

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Fig. 1.5. Tomb monument of the Gratidii. Rome, Vatican, Sala dei Busti, Inv. 388.

(virtue). The women’s portraits draw on the iconographies of Hellenistic statue types, characterized by covered hair and arms bound within their garments, which remained popular throughout the imperial period and among elite women as well, whereas more sensual, playful and luxurious Hellenistic types were not copied. In a different context, Zanker has surely rightly attributed these statues to a behavioural ideal, which can arguably be linked to such terms as pudicitia (chastity) and castitas (purity), and which, in any case, signpost a woman’s ‘correct appearance’ in a manner similar to the garment of men.18 For freedmen, this virtue meant not only their acceptance of generally binding norms of Roman society but also their demonstrative negation of the proverbial immoral lifestyle of slaves. In this context, the dextrarum iunctio should be interpreted not just as a marker of the matrimonium iustum (legal marriage) but also as a symbolic expression of the couple’s concordia (harmony) and fides (loyalty) (Fig. 1.5).19 In similar fashion, the hand or arm on the shoulder of the spouse is not only an expression of matrimonial affection,20 but also and above all else an expression of concordia, as it is on coins and sarcophagi.21 Freedmen’s tomb reliefs and their inscriptions therefore express two things: their newly-gained social status and the moral virtues upheld by those depicted. They are thus part of a confrontation with the legal and moral deficits of slave life, which are shown to all to have been overcome:

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Free at Last! not lacking freedom and legal rights but free and with the privileges of a Roman citizen; not deprived of marriage rights and children but legally married and blessed with legitimate offspring; not adhering to a permissive and immoral lifestyle, but joined correctly and in concord, demure, and loyal. II. Portraits and physiognomy While all of these characterizations can be seen as reactive negations of slavery’s main deficiencies, the semantic content of the reliefs seems also to include an active choice of further positive attributes to be adopted – at least in the image. In this regard, it is primarily the portraits themselves which are instructive. Adopting a traditional approach, Paul Zanker emphasized the realism of the portraits, and assumed that ‘the libertini quite evidently wanted to be seen the way they looked’.22 This is contradicted, however, by the strong stereotyping of the images.23 As Valentin Kockel demonstrated in his monograph on these reliefs, the representations make use of a relatively limited stock of basic physiognomic types which convey a more marked sense of individuality only when viewed in isolation.24 This observation is interesting for two reasons: on the one hand, the same basic physiognomic types can be found across workshops, so that they cannot be explained simply by artisanal traditions; on the other hand, the same types can also be found among the portraits of the nobility and the leading men of the state. We can better understand this phenomenon in light of some general observations about Roman portraiture. The diffuse feeling, mentioned above, that knowledge of the outward appearance of a person would allow conclusions about their personality and character, had already informed ancient physiognomic writings.25 These theories – clearly absurd and often contradictory – have not been taken up in contemporary treatments of portraits. However, modern impromptu interpretations of portraits resting on some general impressions – like those offered by Ludwig Curtius as the most famous example of the twentieth century – are equally problematic.26 I do not want to repeat yet again the example of his famous interpretation of the portrait of Pompey, but would like to cite instead a more recent example which demonstrates that the premises on which his work was based were still current even in the 1960s. Discussing an image of Nero in the Terme Museum, Helga von Heintze, a well-known German portrait specialist, argued that with every facial feature, [the portrait] reveals his pathological character. As the last descendant of the Julio-Claudian family – albeit only through his mother – he bears the results of a long line of family marriages. His face is bloated and smudged, his mouth small and pouting, his short-sighted eyes

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1. The Face of the Social Climber [}] are sunk deep. They reflect an inhuman, cruel friendliness and incalculability. His full, thick hair, which has been coiffed into neatly undulating, long, irregular curls, serves to underline the vanity of his character [}].27

Von Heintze would surely have strongly denied the accusation that she was applying a simplistic psychologizing approach here; after all, her representation is in line with the equally uncomplimentary characterizations of the emperor by ancient authors and thus seems to possess a reliable foundation. The implied preconditions of such interpretations were therefore questioned by modern scholars all the less: first, the presumption that the physiognomy and facial features of a person would allow for conclusions about particular character traits; second, the assumption, mentioned above, that the portraits represented the individuals in question in such a way as they in fact appeared. The 1960s were also a period, however, in which the foundations of this approach began to be questioned with the first-time systematic attempt to name and date Roman portraits.28 It soon became apparent that the sculptural and numismatic representations of male and female members of the imperial family could be classified into groups converging so closely that they must derive from a shared prototype. At the same time, this insight allowed scholars to distinguish more reliably between imperial and private portraits, and to become aware of an interesting phenomenon: not only did private citizens imitate imperial hairstyles but they also sometimes likened themselves physiognomically to members of the ruling family (conventionally referred to as a Zeitgesicht or ‘period face’). Portraits of both emperors and private citizens could therefore not have been simple, mimetic copies of actual physiognomies, but were evidently meant to convey specific messages as well. That these messages must have been positive – at any rate in the eyes of their contemporary beholders – can be deduced not least from their public display. Of course this also rendered the traditional interpretation of the Nero portrait obsolete. Now it became clear that while Suetonius’ characterization might have been accepted by some of his contemporaries, it was by no means the only opinion on the emperor, and it certainly did not represent the emperor’s own view of himself. From this it followed that the message of imperial portraits had to be positive, independently of what precisely one thought this message was.29 And more than that: this intention must have been understood as positive by the wider public, for how else could one explain that private persons attempted to emulate the appearance of the emperor in their own portraits?30 Of course, the mere observation of the existence of a programmatic intention behind a portrait was not enough; rather, the aim was to get to the contents of the messages, often by using the traditional ‘method’ of unmediated empathy and only avoiding negative interpretations. However, this approach in fact misses a more fundamental problem: it is

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Free at Last! probably true that facial expressions often only allow for a limited range of interpretations (e.g. laughter, which can hardly be interpreted as anger; or a frown, which is difficult to associate with excited agreement). But a survey of other cultural spheres reveals how misleading ad hoc interpretations can potentially be, and how culturally-specific an interpretation of seemingly universal facial features in fact is. Nelson Goodman, for instance, cites a paper of the anthropologist Ray L. Birdwhistell: Insofar as I have been able to determine, just as there are no universal words, sound complexes, which carry the same meaning the world over, there are no body motions, facial expressions or gestures which provoke identical responses the world over. A body can be bowed in grief, in humility, in laughter, or in readiness for aggression. A ‘smile’ in one society portrays friendliness, in another embarrassment and, in still another, may contain a warning that, unless tension is reduced, hostility and attack will follow.31

Goodman further reminds us how difficult it was for Western audiences to understand what kinds of emotions the actors in the first available highquality Japanese films wanted to convey; for instance, whether a particular facial feature ‘was expressing agony or hatred or anxiety or determination or despair or desire.’32 And even once we have recognized, described and named a particular facial expression, we can only deduce the actual meaning of this ‘gesture’ when we situate it within its cultural context. However, the fact that Roman society is in many ways alien to us is demonstrated not least by the physiognomic interpretations by Curtius, von Heintze and others, which are belittled today but which were once regarded as entirely obvious. The oft-quoted dictum by Uvo Hölscher about the ‘closest other’ sums up the dangerous ambiguity in our relationship with Classical Antiquity: on account of our tradition, we feel a certain sense of kinship with ancient culture, which makes us forget its otherness all too easily.33 A look at the portrait of Octavian well illustrates how mediated our access to ancient portraits as historical documents really is (Fig. 1.6): the ruffled hair over his forehead, for example, might perhaps strike an unbiased observer as ‘dynamic’ (although many a museum visitor simply believes Octavian to be uncombed); that it is, in fact, a reference to Alexander the Great requires someone proficient in the iconography of Alexander, on the one hand, and in the modes of self-fashioning and the usage of visual templates in ancient portraiture in general, on the other.34 Comparable misunderstandings are a scholarly reality. The portraits from a tomb monument in the Vatican frequently referred to as Cato and Porcia (Fig. 1.5) became a textbook example of a Roman married couple and Roman virtues. According to the associated inscription, however, these two individuals are a certain M. Gratidius Libanus and his liberta Chrite, whose ethnic background was most likely anything but Italo-Roman.35

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1. The Face of the Social Climber

Fig. 1.6. Portrait of Octavian. La Alcudia, private collection.

Luca Giuliani paid heed to these considerations in his aptly-titled work Bildnis und Botschaft (‘Portrait and Message’) by illustrating the programmatic representational intentions of republican portraits and proposing a new interpretive approach.36 On close inspection, the seemingly mercilessly realistic and individual portraits of the late republican upper class showcase specific and recurrent mimic formulas (termed ‘pathognomic’ by Giuliani) which were added like attributes to the features of individual persons. Giuliani interprets these mimic formulas as some kind of gestures, largely canonized and fixed in their meaning, and rooted in the value system of appropriate behaviour, just as the gestures of orators in public gatherings were. A passage from Cicero’s In Pisonem serves as one example among numerous ancient sources which justify such an approach. Here the reputable consul L. Calpurnius Piso Caesonianus is accused: Do you begin to see, monster, do you begin to realize how men loathe your face?37 [}] it was your eyes, eyebrows, forehead, in a word your whole countenance, which is a kind of dumb interpreter of the mind, which pushed your fellow-men into delusion; this it was which tricked, betrayed, inveigled those who were unacquainted with you. There were but few of us who knew of your filthy vices, few the crassness of your intelligence and the sluggish ineptitude of your tongue. Your voice had never been heard in the forum; never had your wisdom in council been put to the test; not a single deed had you achieved either in peace or war that was, I will not say famous, but even

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Free at Last! known. You crept into office by mistake, by the recommendation of your dingy family busts, with which you have no resemblance save colour.38

Already at a young age, Piso is said to have fooled people with his ‘assumed and crafty grave face’.39 It thus seems that the pictorial ciphers of specific mimic features identified by Giuliani corresponded in part with factual rules of behaviour. What is important in comparison to previous approaches is that Giuliani applies the known value system neither to an entire social group nor to a general feeling evoked by the images in our biased mind. Rather, he connects individual values and virtues with specific pictorial formulas and thus creates a kind of reading guideline for portraits of the republican upper class. While contemporaries doubtless understood the signs intuitively – based on their viewing habits and their familiarity with general norms of behaviour – and thus did not have to decipher them consciously, the approach proposed by Giuliani opens up a sophisticated methodological access route to the various ways of self-representation, one applicable even for us today.40 III. Portraits and freedmen On the basis of these ideas, another look at the tomb reliefs of freedmen is salutary for, as already suggested, many of the physiognomic types of these reliefs resemble the portraits of important personalities of the late Republic.41 In individual cases, a physiognomic type that resembles the so-called ‘Tusculum Type’ of Caesar from the 40s BCE, for example – which has led to the most abstruse identifications of certain portraits as Caesar by modern scholars – might indeed have been due to a personal admiration for Caesar by those who had their images carved in a style imitating his own. The same might be true for the assimilation of some freedmen to Caesar’s later portrait type (Figs 1.7, 1.8).42 However, it is just as likely that such assimilations did not refer to the person himself but to the values and ideals expressed by his outward appearance. This is supported by the fact that the similarities are of a comparatively general nature in most cases, and that the preferred physiognomic types and models were those which accorded the civic, ‘stately’ virtues of the aristocracy. Someone who chose a representation in the style of Cicero might not have meant to show explicit support and admiration for his person but might perhaps have wanted to be perceived as a man of letters or to claim some other character features for himself which were embodied by Cicero’s likeness, whatever these might have been.43 The unforgiving representation of age (Fig. 1.3), which has so often been (mis)understood as just an indication of a ‘realistic’ style of representation,44 attains new meaning when it is linked with keywords in contemporary rhetoric including consilium (judgement), ratio (reason),

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1. The Face of the Social Climber

Fig. 1.7. Portrait of Caesar, Pisa/Chiaramonti- Type. Rome, Vatican, Sala dei Busti, Inv. 713.

Fig. 1.8. Relief portrait of P. Furius: detail. Rome, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Inv. 10464.

sapientia (wisdom), sententia (opinion) or auctoritas (authority), which are particularly associated with advanced age. Alternatively, these features could perhaps be associated with the accomplishments achieved throughout a long life: no other group of portraiture displays signs of age as relentlessly as the reliefs of freedmen.45 Energetic images which arguably combine ideas of fortitudo (bravery), dynamism and energy with the wisdom of old age are rare and mostly early (Fig. 1.9).46 They are still reminiscent of late Hellenistic portraits like that of an anonymous though important man of the late second century.47 However, the majority of men present us with a calm, serious face, as we can see in the images of Cicero, Caesar (Fig. 1.7), Crassus (Fig. 1.10) or Agrippa.48 The contracted brows, the pressed lips and the entire facial features of the Crassus portrait, for instance, recall the passage above from Cicero’s speech and could be linked to such terms as gravitas (seriousness), severitas (sternness) and constantia (firmness), which also assured the dignitas (dignity) of a senatorial office (Fig. 1.10).49 Even if this office lay outside the reach of those portrayed on our reliefs, the necessary characteristics equally honour an ordinary citizen and pater familias (head of the family) (Fig. 1.11). Whatever the reasons for the curb in pathos that we observe across ancient Mediterranean art from the second third of the first century

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Free at Last!

Fig. 1.9. Full-figure tomb relief of a couple: detail. Rome, Palazzo Conservatori, Braccio Nuovo, Inv. 2124.

Fig. 1.10. Portrait of Crassus. Plaster cast in Munich after the original in Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. Ma 1220.

BCE, the calm and collected expression of Caesar’s portraits (Fig. 1.7) and related images, which renounced any imperial air, must have been interpreted at Rome as a sign of temperantia (self-control) and mansuetudo (mildness), of modestia (restraint) and constantia (perseverance) – values which continued to be invoked in the face of the cruelties exacted by the civil war.50 Yet, these characteristics in particular were not exclusive to emperors but were worthy of imitation by any good citizen, including freedmen. Conspicuously, real pathos-formulas following the Hellenistic tradition are nearly entirely absent: nowhere do we find the declamatory turn of the head of Pompey or of the young Octavian (Fig. 1.6). An elevated self-dramatization and a demonstration of the virtus imperatoria (imperial virtue) that followed the habitus of Hellenistic rulers did not conform to the role of a freedman. The ruffled frontal hair of a young man on a relief in the Villa Wolkonsky (Fig. 1.12), potentially inspired by the portrait of Pompey (Fig. 1.13), represents an exception and appears to be almost ambitious-looking in comparison with the other images. 51 It is symptomatic that the few soldiers on the reliefs (Fig. 1.3) do not assume any of the emphatic pathos-formulas of military leaders. The ‘messages’ of the Hellenistic ruler portrait

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1. The Face of the Social Climber

Fig. 1.11. Tomb relief of the Licinii. Alatri, Corso Vittorio Emanuele 41.

Fig. 1.12. Tomb relief: detail. Rome, Villa Wolkonsky.

Fig. 1.13. Portrait of Pompey. Venice, Museo Archeologico, Inv. 62.

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Free at Last! and its republican successors probably exceeded the ambition of most freedmen just as much as the ideology of the Augustan idealized portraits did, at least for some time. IV. Conclusion The scope of this work neither allows for nor requires a review of each and every one of Giuliani’s specific readings of mimic formulas, nor to transfer these onto individual heads on the freedmen reliefs (this method should not be overused in any case). Nor can the ideological framework in which the keywords mentioned above unfold their true meaning be detailed further. However, in my view, one thing appears to be important: it is possible to relate the initially purely abstract values and norms of the Roman aristocracy to concrete behavioural ideals and habitus, that is, to a cultural practice which, after all, is the feature that decides their effectiveness or ineffectiveness in social life. These exterior ways of expressing behaviour and habitus in turn are reflected in visual representations, especially in those of the nobility and of political and social protagonists. The assimilation of freedmen to their likenesses therefore attests the acceptance of the norms propagated by the nobility on the part of the freedmen from their own point of view, if only on a basic level. At the same time, and from the perspective of the nobility, the communication of their norms to other social classes proves to be exceptionally successful, both in terms of content and strategies of dissemination. Epilogue The preceding paper first appeared in 2000 in an edited volume resulting from a workshop and larger project on Roman values in the late Republic at Dresden, Germany, mostly involving Latinists and Ancient Historians.52 My intention was therefore to offer some insight into the ways in which Classical Archaeology can contribute to a social history of the ancient world and, more specifically, to our understanding of the value system of non-élites. I am grateful to the editors for inviting me to contribute to the present volume a translation of this paper, and for the opportunity to communicate my ideas more widely. As might be expected, I would not write this paper in exactly the same way today, but I still agree with the main points of my original argument. The editors and I have therefore decided to add to the translation only some updated bibliography, and this epilogue with some further comments and thoughts on what I would do differently if I wrote this paper now and in a different context, and on where I see scope for further research.

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1. The Face of the Social Climber Psychologizing approaches, biographical fallacies, and the ‘trickle-down effect’ It is by now generally agreed by scholars in the field that any psychologizing approaches to portraiture as exemplified by Curtius and von Heintze are obsolete, and at the time when I first presented the paper they had already been widely criticized. Thus, there is no need to continue nagging at these otherwise very accomplished scholars. On the other hand, Luca Giuliani’s attempt at resituating the interpretation of portraits on a sound and reflected methodology appears to have had very limited impact. It may be true that some of his interpretations are too mechanical in that they are based on a semiotic concept of signs or codes with fairly definite meanings.53 We should conceive of individual features not as signs conveying only a single clear-cut message, but rather as visual stimuli for a limited range of associations. But with these qualifications in mind, I still hold that his methodology is valid and worthy of continued reflection. After all, the idea of striking individualism and realism in late republican portraiture continues to be repeated despite the obviously limited set of visual formulas employed. More recently, Bert Smith has drawn attention to what he called the ‘biographical fallacy’ – namely the danger of reading into a portrait what we believe we know about an individual.54 As he rightly points out, a patron or artist may not necessarily want to characterize the individual portrayed with all his or her features, or with what we might regard as their most important ones. Rather, he wants to guide the viewer’s perception towards a particular aspect of this person’s character that was worth advertising in its ancient context. The statue of Sophocles is an excellent example: only by comparison with the portrait statue of Aeschines and a passage in Demosthenes can we identify the message, namely that Sophocles is presented in the guise of an Athenian orator and thus as the epitome of the politically engaged ‘good citizen’, as Paul Zanker has shown.55 In the portrait, there is nothing that would have identified him as the tragedian we may expect to be depicted. The portraits of Hadrian are another good example: our knowledge that Hadrian was a graecophile, and the observations that the Greeks as well as Greek ‘intellectuals’ used to wear beards, are insufficient to support the view that Hadrian wanted himself to be depicted as a Graecophile and an intellectual. Rather, as Smith argues with reference to the Roman tradition of wearing a beard and a hairstyle like Hadrian’s (among other things), he is represented in an urbane and elegant style that stresses his civilitas (affability) and that was meant to be contrasted programmatically with his predecessor Trajan’s simplicitas (simplicity) and military virtus.56 I would clarify now my original text and stress that the proposed methodology guards against the still-persistent danger of succumbing to the biographical fallacy, as much as against adopting the obsolete psychologizing approach. The suggested interpreta-

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Free at Last! tion of elements of republican portraits is not based on any individual named portrait or on the assumption that this portrait must represent the character features we know this individual possessed. Rather, it is based on comparisons with other visual material and explicit statements in contemporary sources such as literary texts or coins about widely accepted readings of visual signs and habitus. I should also have made clearer how my interpretation of the freedmen reliefs differs from the notion of a ‘trickle-down effect’, the assumption that lower social classes would emulate the élite by default.57 The term ‘trickledown effect’ is misleading in at least three ways. First, it suggests an automatism that largely denies any active choice. What I have proposed, however, is based on the assumption that the freedmen deliberately chose certain features for their representations that also appear among the élite, and that they chose them probably not primarily because they were élite characteristics but because they were characteristics of any good Roman citizen. This is most obvious in their reluctance to emulate certain other élite portrait styles, like those modelled on Hellenistic rulers. Second, the term ‘trickle-down effect’ suggests that the socially inferior groups necessarily received their value system and habitus from the élite, and from the élite only; that they used exclusively élite elements for representation, which were just watered down a bit while ‘trickling down’. This is obviously not the case either. Unfortunately, our evidence for élite portrait-representation in the late Republic is extremely scarce, so that it is difficult to assess the exact relation between the likenesses of freedmen, freeborn and the élite. But the freedmen’s inclusion of references to occupations is clearly not based on any élite precedent but rather on values specific to the working class(es). Similarly, Carola Reinsberg has argued that the dextrarum iunctio of married couples was originally used by the non-élite and entered into élite self-representation only in the Antonine era when it was inspired by imperial precedent.58 These examples demonstrate some ideological independence in freedmen self-representation and imply that others may have escaped our notice too. Thirdly, the ‘trickledown’ model often suggests, at least implicitly, that self-representation of social inferiors is addressed at the élite. This is equally misleading, at least for the majority of freedmen. More recently, scholars – including Lauren Hackworth Petersen, John Bodel, and Carlos Galvao-Sobrinho (in this volume) – have argued convincingly that the main addressee of freedmen self-representation was the peer group itself. 59 Context This leads to a more general point on the study of freedmen reliefs. As already mentioned, the original context of the essay required a focus on norms and values, and I still think that this aspect is important for our understanding of freedmen self-perception and ideology. But in a new

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1. The Face of the Social Climber study on freedmen reliefs I would opt for a more contextual approach. To start with the norms and values again, it would be interesting to compare the ideas identified in the reliefs by others and myself with themes addressed in epitaphs. To be sure, we should not expect the reliefs to illustrate merely the epitaphs, nor should we expect the epitaphs to serve as captions to the images; both probably complemented each other. But these inscriptions are another important source for a better understanding of the value system of the freedmen in general, against which we could check our interpretation of the reliefs, and which may indicate additional meanings of certain features. For instance, we could argue that the gesture of dextrarum iunctio signifies not only the matrimonium iustum and marital concord, as is widely acknowledged, but also constitutes a special further comment on the wife, who is often praised in epitaphs as univira (married only once).60 Another aspect that would need further discussion is the question of who is actually represented in these reliefs. Hackworth Petersen has recently reminded us that only some 30% of the reliefs bear inscriptions that identify their patrons, and suggested that what we tend to take as typical freedmen art, i.e. the reliefs, could equally have been used by the freeborn population.61 This is surely true in principle, and also in fact according to some attested cases, but I think that we can still support the view that these reliefs were primarily used by people from the freedmen milieu. First, it is generally agreed that the reliefs were fixed to the outside of tombs. Only three of the over 270 preserved portrait reliefs have been found in situ, so that we lack secure information about what kinds of monuments they used to decorate.62 Two have been found on the Via Statilia set into the façades of house-like tombs.63 Another one belongs to a freestanding cubic monument which may or may not have supported a lost altar.64 The reliefs’ frames and technical details indicate that many or even most of them were part of some larger structure, and since most of the tombs of this period lack any more elaborate chambers or even any chambers at all, the reliefs must have decorated the tombs’ façades.65 It is further clear from epigraphic and onomastic studies that between 70% and 80% of tomb tituli (title inscriptions) refer to dedications by freedmen, and the vast majority of the remaining ones to their first-generation descendants.66 From this it follows that only a minority of the reliefs in question, if at all, can depict ingenui (freeborn citizens) with freeborn parents. This is supported by the inscriptions preserved on the reliefs. Of the 75 tituli that allow for an assessment of status, 65 include liberti among the dedicants and dedicatees.67 Of the remaining ten, three are highly likely to belong to freedmen as well (one is very fragmentary, two are lacking filiations): in one instance the tribus (tribe) is Palatina, the typical tribus of freedmen, and in another one the cognomina are Greek, so that both are likely to belong to people of freedmen descent. The remaining seven reliefs could have been dedicated by and for ingenui, though one silversmith and

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Free at Last! one scriba (clerk) point to a similar social background as the other reliefs. There is one relief indicating that, under certain circumstances, the second order might have opted for this type of relief too. It depicts three freeborn individuals in aedicula niches, of whom a young man in the centre aedicula named L. Septumius L.f. is designated as eques. However, his father was a magister Capitolinus, a position that was typically held by freedmen or foreigners who had been awarded citizen status.68 Thus, even though the family had climbed steeply in the social hierarchy over just two or three generations, the links with the freedmen milieu are still clear enough. Whether the senatorial class ever used such reliefs – for instance, the rarer full-figured reliefs that are lacking the dextrarum iunctio motif – cannot be determined with certainty due to the very poor state of preservation of most élite tomb monuments, but so far there is no indication that they did. It is, therefore, safe, in my view, to regard the reliefs in question as well as their iconography as typical for the freedmen milieu, even if they may have been used by others on rare occasions. This takes me to my third and final point, the notion of freedmen as such. Throughout my paper and this epilogue, I have used the term as if the freedmen were a socially coherent group of people, but this was clearly not true in reality. To be sure, from a legal point of view, freedpeople were a class of their own, united by the simple fact that they were former slaves, still deprived of major citizen rights and bound by certain obligations towards their former owners. However, from a less legalistic point of view, they were anything but equal and socially coherent. It is generally acknowledged that imperial freedmen were a special group and proud of their connection with the imperial household.69 But it should be kept in mind as well that, as much as there were differences among imperial freedmen, there were further differences among freedmen of other familiae, depending on the status of their patron, but also on their profession and rank within the household. It is the imperial freedmen who had the best chances of becoming rich and powerful through their connection with the imperial domus (household), and who sometimes became so influential that they even alarmed the traditional Roman ruling classes: the likes of Nero’s notorious freedman Epaphroditus, Domitian’s freedman Abascantus, or M. Antonius Pallas, one of three particularly powerful freedmen of Claudius, who boasted in his tomb inscription about ornamenta praetoria (praetorian honours) and other honours granted to him by the Senate ob fidem pietatemque erga patronus (by reason of his fidelity and respect toward his patron) in a language that is strongly reminiscent of honorific inscriptions for the most deserving senators, as Pliny noted with disgust in one of his letters.70 More research would be needed in order to pin down the social group(s) who used the reliefs in question here, but taking into account that there is a substantial number of Augustan and JulioClaudian reliefs, it is significant that we do not find among them any imperial freedmen or augustales (the priestly order who maintained the

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1. The Face of the Social Climber cult of Augustus). From a preliminary overview of their inscriptions, it seems that they mostly constituted a kind of ‘middle class’ among the freedmen, craftsmen, traders, and a few doctors: wealthy enough to be able to afford a decent, or even more elaborate tomb with relief decoration, aspirational enough to be interested in having such a monument, but not aspiring to challenge the élite or emulate them in any respect except the fundamental norms and values every good Roman citizen would and could plausibly subscribe to. Notes 1. The present text is a slightly altered version of a paper presented in the autumn of 1998 at a colloquium on mos maiorum in the context of the Sonderforschungsbereich 537 ‘Institutionalität und Geschichtlichkeit’ (Institutionality and Historicity) at the Technical University Dresden. I would like to thank the organizers and particularly F.-H. Mutschler, and all the participants in discussion. This work originally appeared as Borg 2000, and was translated from the German with the help of Tobias Sperlich. I am grateful to the editors of this volume for the opportunity to publish my paper here again in a more accessible way. The text has not been updated except for some bibliographical additions to the footnotes, and an epilogue that will add some further thoughts and comments in the light of recent research. 2. On Roman portraiture generally, see now Fejfer 2008; on the history of scholarship on Roman portraits see Bazv ant 1995. 3. Zanker 1975. Similar tomb reliefs for freedmen were also produced outside of Rome; on this see Pflug 1989. 4. Accordingly, the reliefs from this period are nearly without exception made of marble, while previously local stones were used as well. Cf. Zanker 1975, 270f., 281f.; Kockel 1993, for the oldest pieces see 83-93, group A. 5. On the associated grave types see Zanker 1975, 271-81; Kleiner 1977, 7-13; especially Kockel 1993, 7-14; on this also Borg 1996, 82. 6. On columbaria, see also Galvao-Sobrinho’s chapter here; on graves of the poorest: ibid., note 6. 7. On the ‘streets of tombs’ in general see also Hesberg and Zanker 1987; Hesberg 1992; Koortbojian 1996. 8. See Galvao-Sobrinho in this volume for more on the stature of freed slaves from imperial households as reflected in their funereal practices. 9. On the following see Zanker 1975, 283-306; Kockel 1993, 15-55; Carroll 2006, 247-53. 10. Zanker 1975, 296-98. 11. Kockel 1993, 53f.; cf. CIL VI 26410; on the bulla see Goette 1986; on the toga see Goette 1990; Davies 2005. 12. Zanker 1975, 303-6; Kockel 1993, 24f.; cf. CIL I 3356a. 13. Kockel 1993, 39-42, 51-3. 14. Cf. Zanker 1975, 300f., who recognizes (at footnote 120) the difficulty in making the distinction yet insists on the specific semantic function of the toga in the image; Kockel 1993, 15; on this Borg 1996, 83-5. 15. Zanker 1975, 279, 298-300; Joshel 1992; Kockel 1993, 54, 245 (index 4); Clarke 2003, 118-24; George 2006.

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Free at Last! 16. Rome, Museo Vaticano, Museo Gregoriano Profano, Inv. 10491: Kockel 1993, 141f. no. H6 plate 51b, 52a-c [CIL VI 26410]. 17. The significance of the ‘correct demeanour’ is also emphasized by Zanker 1975, 300, 308. 18. Zanker 1989; now Alexandridis 2004, 39-73; Davies 2008; Fejfer 2008, 331-48. 19. Kockel 1993, 50: cf. CIL VI 35397. 20. Thus Zanker 1975, 286f.; Kockel 1993, 54. 21. Cf. Borg 1996, 85 with n. 46f.; now especially Reinsberg 2006, 75-85; on concord in general cf. LIMC V (1990) 479-98 s.v. Homonoia/Concordia (T. Hölscher). 22. Zanker 1975, 312; also Zanker 1976, where a similar interpretation is assumed for the comparable portraits of the nobility (at 591f.). I believe that the misunderstanding rests on the fact that Zanker attributes a specific semantic function only to the formulas of pathos, which are derived from Hellenistic portraiture, and not to the formulas of naturalistic portraiture; on this see further below. 23. The arguments developed below are not meant to deny that ancient portraits, and in particular portraits of freedmen on tomb reliefs, could have resembled those whom they represented; what is essential here is that verisimilitude is not the only – and often perhaps not even the most important – intention behind the depiction. 24. Kockel 1993, 62-7. 25. Evans 1969; on Polemon’s physiognomics and its sources see Gleason 1994, especially 29-54, and now Swain 2007, especially ch. 4 (‘Physiognomics: Art and Text’) by J. Elsner. 26. On modern physiognomic interpretations see Giuliani 1986, 11-51. 27. Von Heintze 1961, 9f. 28. For the history of scholarship on Roman portraiture see especially Bazv ant 1995; on the connection with contemporary attitudes to politics and the scholarly ‘paradigm shift’ after 1968, see especially Hölscher 2000, and now Dally 2007. 29. On the Nero portraits and their interpretation see the summary of Bergmann 1998, 147-9; on the hairstyle in general, see Cain 1993, 58-68, 88-95. 30. On the private portrait during the Neronian period see Cain 1993. 31. Goodman 1997, 56f. = Goodman 1968, 49. 32. Goodman 1997, 56 = Goodman 1968, 48. 33. Hölscher 1994. 34. On Octavian’s portraits see Fittschen and Zanker 1994, 1f.; Boschung 1993 (with problematic type classifications); fundamental: Zanker 1973. 35. Zanker 1975, 285f.; Kockel 1993, 188-90 on L19, plate 105 [CIL VI 35397]. 36. Giuliani 1986. 37. Watts has ‘impudence’ but the Latin frontis should be translated as ‘face’. 38. Translation by N.H. Watts. Cic. Pis. 1: iamne vides, belua, iamne sentis quae sit hominum querela frontis tuae? [}] oculi, supercilia, frons, voltus denique totus, qui sermo quidam tacitus mentis est, hic in fraudem homines impulit, his eos quibus eras ignotus decepit, fefellit, induxit, pauci ista tua lutulenta vitia noramus, pauci tarditatem ingeni, stuporem debilitatemque linguae, numquam erat audita vox in foro, numquam periculum factum consili, nullum non modo inlustre sed ne notum quidem factum aut militiae aut domi. obrepsisti ad honores errore hominum [}]; on this see Giuliani 1986, 227f. 39. Cic. Red. sen. 13: nam ille alter Caesoninus Calventius ab adolescentia

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1. The Face of the Social Climber versatus est in foro, cum eum praeter simulatam versutamque tristiatiam nulla res commendaret, non consilium, non dicendi facultas, non rei militaris, non cognoscendorum hominum studium, non liberalitas; see Giuliani 1986, 228, with additional examples. N.H. Watts translates tristia as ‘melancholy’, but ‘grave face’ seems to be more accurate: cf. Giuliani 1986, ibid. 40. This fundamental value of his methodology is not compromised either by (justified) criticism of some of Giuliani’s individual interpretations or by the claim that many of the characteristics which are now related to specific mimetic formulas had been recognized all along (see especially Fittschen 1991). Valid critique of the discussion of some individual images primarily concerns their dating and their identification by name, occasionally creating a circular argument in the visual form(ula)s’ interpretation. And the fact that some interpretations have never been doubted does not prove the expendability of a methodology but simply the fact that some (but clearly not all!) intuitive interpretations were correct. Their correctness, however, is really only substantiated by applying this methodology. 41. For a broad outline of the following see Giuliani 1986, 232f. 42. Examples in Kockel 1993, 64f., who does not, however, interpret the phenomenon; bibliography on the Caesar portraits in Kockel 1993, 64f. nn. 540, 543. 43. Cf. Kockel 1993, 65. 44. The literature on the so-called veristic portraits is vast, but mostly concerned with the origins of verism: see most recently Pollini 2007, and Rose 2008, 102-18 with further bibliography. 45. Giuliani 1986, 225-33. 46. Cf. especially a full-figure relief in Rome, Museo Capitolino, Palazzo Conservatori, Pr. N II, 24, Inv. 2142: Kockel 1993, 94f. No. B1 plate 10a. 12A-b. 14A-b (here Fig. 1.9). This is not to deny that this image, too, is clearly subdued when compared to the so-called Postumius Albinus – which also renders Kockel’s association with the so-called Tivoli General convincing – but in comparison with the other images in his group it still appears relatively emotional. 47. Conventionally, the images are called Postumius Albinus; cf. Giuliani 1986, 190-9, who suggests an unverifiable interpretation of the images as M. Porcius Cato the Elder. 48. Kockel 1993, 64-6. 49. Giuliani 1986, 223-5, 233-8; on the grave reliefs see Kockel 1993, 64. 50. Giuliani 1986, 200-20. 51. Kockel 1993, 33 with n. 261; 100 on B 8 plate 15c. 16A-d; on the Pompey portrait see especially Bentz 1992. 52. Braun et al. 2000. 53. Fittschen 1991. 54. Smith 1998, 62-3, 83-7; 1999, 453; Smith’s own approach to portraiture seems to be influenced by Giuliani’s in that his interpretations of late antique statues draw upon descriptions and characterizations of behaviour in texts, e.g. Smith 1998, passim. I have succumbed to the biographical fallacy myself in my remark on Cicero (above) since there is actually nothing in his portrait characterizing him as a ‘man of letters’. 55. Tim. 25; Zanker 1995, 43-50. 56. Smith 1998, 62-3, 83-7, contra Zanker and others; see also Borg 2004. 57. For such a view most recently see Pollini 2007, 261-2, who thinks that the freedmen emulated the nobility in order to stress their romanitas. 58. Reinsberg 2006, 75-85, esp. 81-2, where she points out that the marriage

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Free at Last! motif enters élite ideology only after it featured on Antonine coins celebrating the concord characterizing the marriage of Antoninus Pius and Faustina Maior, and later of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina Minor (cf. also T. Hölscher in: LIMC V (1990) 479-98, esp. 487 no. 94, 488 no. 108, 495 s.v. Homonoia/Concordia). 59. Petersen 2006, esp. 184-226; Bodel 2008. 60. On the significance of marriage and the dextrarum iunctio see most recently Reinsberg 2006, 75-85; on its special relevance for the wife, ibid., 83-5. 61. Petersen 2006, 96; for the numbers see Kockel 1993, 56. A publication of the relevant inscriptions by P. Castrén was announced in Kockel 1993, 77 but it never appeared; the fullest discussions thus remain Zanker 1975, and Kleiner 1977, 22-46. 62. Kleiner 1977, 7-13; Kockel 1993, 7-9. 63. Kockel 1993, 83-5 no. A2-3. On these tombs, most of which have been destroyed after their excavation see Colini 1943 and 1944, 393-6. 64. Kockel 1993, 7-8; 103-5 no. C4. 65. Kleiner 1977, 9-13. However, a few reliefs were found in columbaria and thus were displayed inside the tomb: ibid., 9-10. 66. Taylor 1961; Mouritsen 2004 and 2005. 67. The following is based on the inscriptions as published in Kockel’s 1993 catalogue. The majority of freedmen are identified by the explicit mentioning of their status, but I have added a few in which husband and wife bear the same family name. 68. Giuliano 1981, 259-60 on inv. n. 125655 (P. Sabbatini Tumolesi); cf. Kockel 1993, 101-2 cat. C1 pls. 17a; 18a-c; cf. CIL VI 40911. 69. Though see the qualifications by Galvao-Sobrinho in this volume. 70. Eck 1987, 76-8 with Plin. Ep. 7.29; 8.6 (see also Leach’s chapter in this volume for further discussion of this passage). It is these specific kinds of freedmen, in my view, not the freedmen in general, who the senatorial writers complain about, and whom they regard as a threat to their power and the traditional order. The differences among the freedmen class (among other things) also make any assessment of Petronius’ Trimalchio so difficult and should warn us against drawing conclusions from this piece of literature about the class as a whole and its perception (for one interpretation of Trimalchio see Ramsby in this volume).

Bibliography Alexandridis, A. (2004) Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses. Eine Untersuchung ihrer bildlichen Darstellung von Livia bis Iulia Domna (Mainz). Bazv ant, J. (1995) Roman Portraiture: A History of its History (Prague). Bell, S. and I.L. Hansen (eds) (2008) Role Models in the Roman World: Identity and Assimilation, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome supplementary volume 7 (Ann Arbor). Bentz, M. (1992) ‘Zum Porträt des Pompeius’, RM 99: 229-46. Bergmann, M. (1998) Die Strahlen der Herrscher. Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz). Bodel, J. (2008) ‘From Columbaria to Catacombs: Collective Burial in Pagan and Christian Rome’, in L. Brink (ed.) Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artefacts in Context: Studies of Roman, Jewish, and Christian Burials (Berlin) 177-242. Borg, B. (1996) Review of Kockel 1993, GGA 248: 70-91.

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1. The Face of the Social Climber Borg, B. (2000) ‘Das Gesicht der Aufsteiger: Römische Freigelassene und die Ideologie der Elite’, in Braun, Haltenhoff and Mutschler (eds) 2000, 285-99. Borg, B. (2004) ‘Glamorous Intellectuals: Portraits of Pepaideumenoi in the Second and Third Centuries AD’, in B. Borg (ed.) Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic, Millennium-Studien 2 (Berlin and New York) 157-78. Boschung, D. (1986) ‘Überlegungen zum Liciniergrab’, JdI 101: 257-87. Boschung, D. (1993) Die Bildnisse des Augustus. Das römische Herrscherbild 1,2 (Berlin). Braun, M., A. Haltenhoff and F.-H. Mutschler (eds) (2000) Moribus antiquis res stat Romana. Römische Werte und römische Literatur im 3. und 2. Jh v. Chr., Beiträge zur Altertumkunde 134 (Leipzig). Cain, P. (1993) Männerbildnisse neronisch-flavischer Zeit (Munich). Carroll, M. (2006) Spirits of the Dead. Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe (Oxford). Clarke, J.R. (2003) Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans. Visual Representation and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 BC-AD 315 (Berkeley). Colini, A.M. (1943) ‘I sepolcri e gli acquedotti repubblicani di via Statilia’, Capitolium 18: 268-79. Colini, A.M. (1944) Storia e topografia del Celio nell’antichità, Memorie / Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 7 (Rome). Dally, O. (2007) ‘Das Bild des Kaisers in der Klassischen Archäologie oder: Gab es einen Paradigmenwechsel nach 1968?’, JdI 122: 223-57. Davies, G. (2005) ‘What made the Roman Toga virilis?’, in L. Cleland, M. Harlow and L. Llewellyn-Jones (eds) The Clothed Body in the Ancient World (Oxford) 121-30. Davies, G. (2008) ‘Portrait Statues as Models for Gender Roles in Roman Society’, in Bell and Hansen 2008, 207-20. Eck, W. (1987) ‘Römische Grabinschriften. Aussageabsicht und Aussagefähigkeit im funerären Kontext’, in von Hesberg and Zanker 1987, 61-83. Evans, E.C. (1969) ‘Physiognomics in the Ancient World’, TAPA 59: 1-101. Fejfer, J. (2008) Roman Portraits in Context, Image and Context, vol. 2 (Berlin). Fittschen, K. (1991) ‘Pathossteigerung und Pathosdämpfung’, AA: 253-70. Fittschen, K. and P. Zanker (1994) Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom, Bd. I: Kaiser- und Prinzenbildnisse (Mainz). George, M. (2006) ‘Social Identity and the Dignity of Work in Freedmen’s Reliefs’, in E. D’Ambra and G. Métraux (eds) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World (Oxford) 19-30. Giuliani, L. (1986) Bildnis und Botschaft (Frankfurt am Main). Giuliano, A. (ed) (1981) Museo Nazionale Romano, Le Sculture. I,2 (Rome). Gleason, M.W. (1994) Making Men: Sophists and Self-presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton). Goette, H.R. (1986) ‘Die Bulla’, BJb 186: 133-64. Goette, H.R. (1990) Studien zu römischen Togadarstellungen (Mainz). Goodman, N. (1997) Sprachen der Kunst. Entwurf einer Symboltheorie (Frankfurt) = Goodman, N. (1968) Languages of Art. An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis). Hackworth Peterson, L. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Heintze, H. von (1961) Römische Porträt-Plastik aus sieben Jahrhunderten (Stuttgart).

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Free at Last! Hesberg, H. von (1992) Römische Grabbauten (Darmstadt). Hesberg, H. von and P. Zanker (eds) (1987) Römische Gräberstrassen. Selbstdarstellung – Status – Standard. Kolloquium in München vom 28. bis 30. Oktober 1985 (Munich). Hölscher, T. (2000) ‘Augustus und die Macht der Archäologie’, in A. Giavannini (ed.) La révolution romaine après Ronald Syme. Bilans et perspectives. Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique, Vandoeuvres 6-10 septembre 1999 (Geneva) 237-73. Hölscher, U. (1994) Das nächste Fremde: von Texten der griechischen Frühzeit und ihrem Reflex in der Moderne (Munich). Johansen, F.S. (1987) ‘The Portraits in Marble of Gaius Julius Caesar: A Review’, in Ancient Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu) 1: 17-40. Joshel, S.R. (1992) Work, Identity and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, OK). Kleiner, D.E.E. (1977) Roman Group Portraiture: The Funerary Reliefs of the Late Republic and Early Empire (New York). Kockel, V. (1993) Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und zum Verständnis des spätrepublikanisch-frühkaiserzeitlichen Privatporträts (Mainz). Koortbojian, M. (1996) ‘In commemorationem mortuorum: Text and Image along the “Streets of the Tombs”’, in J. Elsner (ed.) Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge) 210-33. Mouritsen, H. (2004) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in the Necropolis of Imperial Ostia’, ZPE 150: 281-304. Mouritsen, H. (2005) ‘Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy’, JRS 95: 38-63. Pflug, H. (1989) Römische Porträtstelen in Oberitalien: Untersuchungen zu Chronologie, Typologie und Ikonographie (Mainz). Pollini, J. (2007) ‘Ritualizing Death in Republican Rome: Memory, Religion, Class Struggle, and the Wax Ancestral Mask Tradition’s Origin and Influence on Veristic Portraiture’, in N. Laneri (ed.) Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Ritual in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, Oriental Institute Seminars 3 (Chicago) 237-85. Reinsberg, C. (2006) Vita-Romana-Sarkophage (Berlin). Rose, C.B. (2008) ‘Forging Identity in the Roman Republic: Trojan Ancestry and Veristic Portraiture’, in Bell and Hansen 2008, 97-131. Sinn, F. (1991) Vatikanische Museen. Museo Gregorio Profano ex Lateranese. Die Grabdenkmäler 1: Reliefs – Altäre – Urnen (Mainz). Smith, R.R.R. (1998) ‘Cultural Choice and Political Identity in Honorific Portrait Statues in the Greek East in the Second Century AD’, JRS 68: 56-93. Smith, R.R.R. (1999) Review of Zanker 1995, Gnomon 71: 448-57. Swain, S. (ed.) (2007) Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam (Oxford). Taylor, L.R. (1961) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in the Epitaphs of Imperial Rome’, AJP 82: 113-32. Treggiari, S. (1969) Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford). Zanker, P. (1973) Studien zu den Augustus-Porträts I. Der Actium-Typus (Göttingen). Zanker, P. (1975) ‘Grabreliefs römischer Freigelassener’, JdI 90: 267-315. Zanker, P. (1976) ‘Zur Rezeption des hellenistischen Individualporträts in Rom und in den italischen Staädten’, in P. Zanker (ed.) Hellenismus in Mittelitalien. Kolloquium in Göttingen vom 5. bis 9. Juni 1974 (Göttingen) 592-96.

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1. The Face of the Social Climber Zanker, P. (1989) ‘Statuenrepräsentation und Mode’, in S. Walker and A. Cameron (eds) Greek Renaissance in the Roman Empire: Papers from the Tenth British Museum Classical Colloquium, Bulletin suppl. 55 (London) 102-7. Zanker, P. (1995) The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity (Berkeley).

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2

Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic: Freedmen and Communication Pauline Ripat Many scholars have focused on the spread of information in Roman society from the top of the social hierarchy to the bottom, describing how political men used the rostra, friends, freedmen, and clients as media to have their views heard by the voting population, their opinions widely circulated, and positive talk about themselves generated.1 Relatively little attention, however, has been given to the spread of information from lower social echelons upward,2 and even less has been said about the possible content of this information, its transmitters, or the potential power transmission bestowed. To my knowledge, these issues have been addressed only briefly or obliquely: Susan Treggiari notes that it was one of the duties of a trusted freedman to ‘keep his ear to the ground in Rome’,3 Ray Laurence asserts that clients might have supplemented ‘the patron’s expert knowledge of the law’ with news about events in different parts of the city,4 and Peter O’Neill has argued that hostile representations of popular conversation may well reveal that the ‘Roman political class took popular speech and expression more seriously than is sometimes acknowledged’.5 I attempt to demonstrate the value investigating these possibilities further in the following, first by arguing that information might indeed be communicated upward, and then by suggesting that this direction of communication could create an opportunity for the inception of a new relationship between non-élite transmitter and élite recipient. If members of the non-élite can be shown to have had information of value to the Roman élite by virtue of their social position, and if lines of communication can be detected, we must recognize not only that significant, if indirect, contact between the classes existed,6 but also that social inferiors could, at times, exert a considerable degree of power in their relationships with their superiors. Freedmen offer a good place to start this inquiry, since they have long been recognized as intermediaries between their patrons and society at large.7 However, they have almost always been considered as ‘agents’ in this capacity, doing the business or spreading the opinions of their patrons with whom they enjoyed pre-existing relationships. Late republican electioneering provides a case study in which to consider the transmission of

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic information up the social hierarchy. Candidacy might cast a politically privileged and economically stable member of the élite into a position of social vulnerability: failure at the polls spelled public humiliation, and success at the polls (as recent scholarship has demonstrated) was largely dependent upon the fickle opinion of members of the voting population, the majority of whom would not have had direct, personal connections to the candidate.8 As Treggiari has noted, even freedmen did not owe their patrons their votes, and they, like ingenui, could cultivate relationships with numerous powerful men.9 While candidacy during the Republic was a period of vulnerability for members of Roman society we rarely think of as vulnerable, it was a period when collective influence was to some extent exercised by the poor free and freed;10 it was, moreover, a period of potential real influence for some individual members of non-élite society – most visibly (though perhaps not exclusively) well-connected freedmen. Influence at this time derived, I argue, from the relaying of information about the degree of a candidate’s popularity and thus his chances of success – and the mutually recognized fact that information could be manipulated, misrepresented, withheld, or shared with others further magnified the inversion of the normal balance of power. Discussion falls under four headings. The first seeks to demonstrate the value of information as a resource, and its communication in multiple directions as an expected dynamic of social networks, including those of the late Republic. The second discusses the importance of gaining information in the particular context of late republican electioneering. The social frameworks and social actors that provided a candidate with information are treated in the third part, while the fourth considers the power invested in the transmitter. Detecting communication: social networks and the Late Republic The discussion in the following sections relies largely upon evidence gleaned mainly from Cicero and the advice of his brother Quintus regarding electioneering,11 along with some suggestive impressions from comedy. Traditional problems of sufficient source material are nonetheless pressing for the current inquiry, which seeks to map the content and direction of something as ephemeral as unrecorded speech on the one hand, and to identify its non-élite communicators on the other. But the impossibility of achieving unassailable conclusions is no reason to fail to ask questions, particularly when there are other considerations that urge us to do so. There are two reasons to persist with the current inquiry despite a dearth of direct evidence. First, and as I shall argue below, the laconic attitude of our élite sources about the communication of information from social inferiors does not necessarily mean that these dynamics were absent. Secondly, theories of social networks suggest that we should expect the

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Free at Last! passage of information in multiple directions. These theories describe ‘how the pattern of ties in a network provides significant opportunities } because it affects the access of people and institutions to such resources as information, wealth, and power’.12 I suggest that it is appropriate here to adopt this social network theory as a framework within which to interpret the evidence since its findings seem to accord well with the recent conclusions of historians of late republican politics: both stress the importance of extensive social connections (which need not be permanent) in gaining entry into, or maintaining membership in, the political élite, or winning pre-eminence over one’s peers.13 Indeed, network analyses draw four conclusions that are very familiar to historians of the late Republic: first, that it is relationships rather than isolated economic resources which are the basis of social power; second, that those with the closest and most numerous contacts with subcultures or communities not their own enjoy greater importance, and thus power, than their less-well connected peers; thirdly, that social relations are dynamic, and thus the best-connected person today might not be the best-connected person tomorrow, nor need every social relationship be permanent in order to be useful; and fourth, that one’s relative ‘well-connectedness’ or ‘poorly-connectedness’ is not necessarily dependent upon how long one has been a member of a particular network.14 Yet network analysis describes further as a necessary characteristic the movement of ‘resources’ in multiple directions between elements of a network, and reciprocity has been identified as an absolutely critical element of social networks in particular.15 However, reciprocity, a traditional mainstay of now-disputed concepts of patronage, has been overlooked in historians’ discussions of extended social networks within republican electioneering; these have focused instead only on the use made of networks by politicians to mobilize support for themselves.16 But surely a dynamic of exchange is to be expected here too, resulting in negotiations of power between the transmitter and the receiver. Since obligatory lifelong political partisanship has been removed as a likely currency of exchange on the part of the social inferior, other ‘goods’ must be sought. Information is one of many possibilities, both since ‘information about one’s environment’17 is one of the kinds of resources that move through a social network in general, and information – particularly accurate information – must be recognized as a valuable resource in Roman society. In the absence of the modern technologies that to no small extent democratize access to information for us, information was hard to come by in the Roman world. Gaining it largely depended upon one’s contacts, which the ambitious man ensured were extensive. In addition to friends and one’s own freedmen, it appears it was not uncommon to have even friends’ freedmen and clients as correspondents (Cic. Att. 5.12.2, 5.20.9, 6.9). Caesar and Pompey, for instance, were both notable for their habit of forming friendships that plunged through the social orders (see Cic. Fam.

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic 1.2.3 and 8.4.2). Even with a vast network of contacts, accuracy of information was not guaranteed. The very idiom of being informed in Latin, certior factus, or ‘being made more sure’, reflects awareness of this difficulty, and Cicero provides numerous examples of false or faulty information received (e.g. Att. 7.1.1, 7.14.2, 8.14.3). Thus Cicero could be ridiculed (Att. 1.14.5) for his use of the verb comperi (I discovered) in the Catilinarians (Cat. 1.10, 1.27, 3.3, 3.4), a verb which he self-consciously weakens to its synonym audivi (I heard) elsewhere (Fam. 5.5.2). Indeed, Cicero extends a profound compliment to Caelius (Fam. 2.11.2) with the avowal that Caelius’ information was all that he would need while in Cilicia to stay on top of things in Rome (ea enim certissima putabo quae ex te cognoro) – a statement belied, in fact, by the wealth of his correspondence with others during this time. In this context, information can be imagined as a good, and its provision as a service. The value of both good and service was increased by virtue of the fact that it was the prerogative of the one who had information to keep it, to share it, to manipulate it, or to decide to whom it ought to be given. Furthermore, while every relationship will leave the communication of information as its footprint, not every relationship can provide the same kind of news. Social inferiors could transmit many types of information, as anecdotal evidence attests. For example, those who idled away time in the Forum, the subrostrani, spread rumours of Cicero’s death (Cic. Fam. 8.1.4), news which reaches Caelius’ ears, while several pieces of Cicero’s correspondence (especially Fam. 3.6 and 3.8) make it clear that Cicero was kept informed by unnamed underlings of the actions and attitudes of his predecessor in the governorship of Bithynia. However, the kind of nonélite information which lends itself to the most systematic, regular, and historically-detectable transmission is indication of a political man’s popularity amongst the voting population.18 Though electioneering demanded that the normal social attitudes and behaviours of an élite man be overturned or ignored,19 the dynamics of communication observed from this context are not to be considered anomalous – the fact that electioneering took place annually ensured their presence as a regular feature of republican society. Public opinion and the necessity of being informed Popularity, and greater popularity than others might have, was both critical for political success and guaranteed to no one. Though every student of Cicero knows that the new man was at a disadvantage since men of famous families could depend upon popular recognition of their names, it is clear that even famous ancestry was no assurance of electoral success.20 Furthermore, the lynching of the wrong Cinna at Julius Caesar’s funeral (App. B Civ. 2.147; Dio 44.50; Plut. Caes. 68) is at once witness to the potential power of name recognition and to the fact that the mass of

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Free at Last! the population was not very familiar with each individual member of the élite, even when they held public office; one unenergetic member of the Roman élite may have been largely indistinguishable from another as far as the voting population was concerned.21 Though the support of one’s own tribe might be hoped for, there was no assurance of this either, particularly if one’s competitors came from the same tribe.22 Quintus Cicero (Comment. pet. 30-1, 42-3, 53; cf. Cic. Att. 1.1.1) notes that famous speeches, particularly of a popularis nature, were helpful (and famous actions were expected to have similar results: see, e.g. Cic. Cat. 3.26); shaking hands and remembering names in the Forum created the aura of a personal connection with individual voters; the visual demonstration of popularity by being accompanied by large crowds composed of all levels of society could promote the ‘bandwagon effect’, as could the good services of friends and connections in talking up a candidate’s good qualities.23 Moving out of upscale areas into non-élite neighbourhoods could raise one’s public profile.24 Much attention, both ancient and modern, has been lavished on the subject of bribery.25 But even these things did not necessarily secure positive popular report about one’s personal and political merits, which could translate into popular support. As studies of rumour indicate, people only discuss and pass on information which is interesting to them.26 It was therefore considered good electioneering strategy to put on games and impressive dinners, neither of which every voter could attend, but which every voter might nonetheless find interesting to hear about (Cic. Comment. pet. 44; Mur. 38-9, but cf. Fam. 2.3.1). Claims of personal divine support were also expected to capture popular imagination.27 On the other hand, while positive talk might be difficult to encourage, negative talk was all too easily generated. The story found in Valerius Maximus (7.5.2) of Publius Scipio Nasica commenting on the roughness of a humble voter’s hands spread like wildfire, alienated the voting public, and secured Scipio’s defeat. Similarly, in his letter about electioneering, Quintus Cicero (Comment. pet. 17, 52-3) warns Marcus to ensure the goodwill of even his slaves, so that the wrong sort of stories or impressions of his character would not emanate from his house; but at the same time, he advises his brother to encourage scandalous rumours about his competitors.28 Indeed, as Cicero points out (Mur. 36), nothing was less dependable than popular opinion, and thus, electioneering was an uphill struggle to get one fire going while being ever vigilant to snuff others out. It is the inability to mandate political success and the precariousness of popularity that made the attainment of office an honour: there is more dignity in winning a contest that one might have lost. But the unreliability of public opinion and popular support made it imprudent to leave one’s reputation untended, and the public exposure of the lack of popularity made it folly to leave it unmonitored.29 There were three places where the people’s opinion was advertised, according to Cicero: at meetings in the

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic forum, at the assemblies, and at the games – all public venues, and thus, as Peter O’Neill has noted ‘always potentially troubling’.30 Indication of one’s own popularity at these venues was an occasion for self-congratulation, and indication of another’s lack of popularity was cause for smugness. Caelius gleefully reports the surprise and disappointment on the faces of unsuccessful candidates, an exquisite sight (pulcherrimum spectaculum: Cic. Fam. 8.4.1 and 8.14.1). For his part, Cicero takes pleasure in detailing the chilly hush that fell at the games in 59 BC when Caesar arrived, which was all the more noticeable when compared to the hoopla that had greeted Curio.31 He reports the ovation which greeted himself at the games in 61 (Att. 1.16.11). Although Cicero scorns his fans as the wretched and starving mob (misera ac ieiuna plebecula), it is significant that he nonetheless knew that he and Pompey were popularly thought to be very close (plebecula } me ab hoc Magno unice diligi putat), and that this would affect the kind of reception he could expect in public. The point of gaining information was to know what to expect next, and thus what to do next (see, e.g. Fam. 1.1.3, 1.5b, 1.19.25, 2.8). When attaining office and its attendant glories depended upon the support of the voting population, it was clearly a concern to know how one’s own and the competition’s popularity was progressing, and to decide one’s actions accordingly. Cicero, for example, is delighted to report in 65 BC that his early-bird competitor for the consulship, P. Sulpicius Galba, is being turned down by voters, who avow their support for himself (Att. 1.1.1). Quintus Cicero urges specific remedial actions should Marcus hear that some of those who visit his house are visiting the houses of his competitors too (Comment. pet. 35). Similarly, in his speeches against Catiline, Cicero protests too much that the shadow of looming unpopularity (invidia) is unrelated to his decision to stay his hand against Catiline (e.g. Cat. 1.23, 1.28-9, 2.3-4), and indicates recognition and concern that he did not enjoy the unanimous support of the Senate nor of the voting population (Cat. 1.30, 2.3-4; cf. 2.12). Cicero indicates that Appius Claudius Pulcher was keeping similar tabs on his own popular reputation (Fam. 3.10.4). Informants, ‘friends’, and freedmen Details are not mentioned about how information about popular opinion concerning oneself and rival candidates was to be obtained. Nor is it easy to find elsewhere a clear image of the lines by which important non-élite information was communicated to inquisitive social superiors.32 Indeed, even explicit evidence of politicians actively seeking the information of their social underlings for their own advantage is scanty, and perhaps exists best in just two very brief passages by Cicero. He provides contemptuous descriptions of populares who, giving avid ear to the common talk (rumusculi and rumores) of the vulgar crowd, pass popularizing legislation (Leg. 3.35; Clu. 28.77). However, both Cicero’s disdain of the listeners and

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Free at Last! the relation between listening and action exhibited in these snapshots ought to make us suspicious that silences in our sources on this topic are the result of snobbish ideals of our élite sources, and muffle a noisier reality of communication amongst the classes. Indeed Peter O’Neill argues that élite dismissal of popular talk was as a ‘representational strategy’ to undermine the power of its contents and the authority of the purveyors.33 As with all valuable resources, the expectation of the élite was that access to information and control of the resulting knowledge should be their prerogative. Thus Cicero fondly imagines the politically successful paterfamilias, who is an expert on everything, meting out advice and information to his inquisitive underlings (De or. 3.133-4). Robert Morstein-Marx similarly discusses the figure of the orator and his ‘self-representation as one possessed of privileged insight’, a representation whose success was ‘founded on a community’s acceptance, warranted or not, that [the orator] has information, knowledge, and wisdom superior to their own’.34 This equation between knowledge, social worth, and political legitimacy is clear, as is its converse, in Cicero’s descriptions of himself and of Catiline.35 Cicero claims almost preternatural powers of awareness, knowing as he does every detail of Catiline’s nefarious plans before they are set in motion (Cat. 1.9-10). Catiline, on the other hand, is stipatus, vallatus, saeptus, and munitus – ‘fenced in’ (Mur. 24.49; Sest. 44.95) – by informers drawn from every segment of society except the boni (Cat. 2.8-9), and as a consequence of his inferior connections only realizes that the jig is up when he discovers that no one wants to sit with him at the Senate meeting (Cat. 1.7, 2.12-13). But we must suspect that the greater knowledge of social superiors was a cherished fantasy on the part of those who occupied the position rather than a strict reality. Cato (Agr. 5.4), for example, warns that a vilicus must not keep anything from his master (nequid emisse velit insciente domino, neu quid dominum celavisse velit) nor (5.2) think himself more knowledgeable (ne plus censeat sapere se quam dominum). The admonition was no doubt necessary simply because a vilicus likely would know more than his master, due to his vaster experience and situation. Roman comedy, amusing because it stretched possible realities to caricatured extremes, often presents slaves and parasites36 as the ones who must reveal reality and interpret situations to their unaware or less astute social superiors (e.g. Plaut. Men. 559-675, 1081-145, Capt. 768-989, Bacch. 573-610) – and sometimes the information was deliberately false.37 In the same way, in the competition for popularity, members of the non-élite were best able to report popular climate, and thus to help an ambitious man decide what to do next to ensure success; as Cicero notes (Fam. 1.6.1 and 1.8.1), those personally engaged in affairs are the best informants. Non-élites who were well-connected within their own communities, that is, the very sort of person who has been recognized as a useful force in mobilizing political support, would have been particularly well-positioned to provide this kind of information.

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic It is difficult to say who precisely these shadowy characters were, nor need it be the case that all worthy informants fit the same social and economic description.38 But when the work of Treggiari, O’Neill, and the advice of Quintus Cicero are all read together, they form a spotlight which could illuminate some of the silhouettes. Quintus exhorts Marcus (Comment. pet. 29) that he ought to befriend the freedmen who are influential and energetic in the forum (libertini in foro gratiosi navique). Treggiari notes that the freedmen of less illustrious masters may well have earned their livelihood as fortune-tellers and performers in the public areas of the city.39 O’Neill observes (2003) that the circuli, the much-maligned informal and plebeian conversational congregations, often collected in the fora of the city and around a sort of ‘showman’, the circulator. He argues (151-2) that ‘the entertainment role of the circulatores cannot wholly be divorced from a political aspect’ and that their activities ‘may have been involved in the dissemination of unauthorized, unofficial information’. The figure at the centre of these circuli may well be as often as not one of the libertini gratiosi Quintus recommends cultivating, as they would not only be transmitters of information, but could also function as detectors of the content of popular talk and the tenor of popular sentiment. Cicero, for one, counted several poets and performers among his acquaintanceship, including Archias of the Pro Archia (see also Att. 1.16.15), Clodius Aesopus, the tragic actor (Fam. 7.1.2, QFr. 1.2. 14, Div. 1.80), and Thyillas (Att. 1.9.2; 1.12, where Thyillas is identified as a source of gossip about the activities of Cicero’s freedman Hilarius; 1.16.5). Domitian (Suet. Dom. 15.3), for example, employed the mime actor Latinus as a gatherer of information. Alternatively, these figures could be socially connected to other performers who were themselves familiar friends of élite men; the deceased singer Tigellius of Horace Sat. 1.2 appears to have been one.40 Nor, perhaps, should the lower-class auctioneers discussed by Nicholas Rauh be ignored.41 Praecones, the ‘mediator[s] of the business world’, who were often freedmen, were usually scorned as loud, coarse hucksters, particularly of the property of bankrupt aristocrats, and thus were despised as the advertisers of their social betters’ personal failures.42 However, the successful praeco could gain considerable notoriety and wealth, and therefore could enjoy extensive connections with élite and non-élite alike. Significantly, they were expected denizens of the atria auctionaria, the location recognized as ‘a good place to pass on and to acquire the latest gossip or the hottest business tip’.43 In short, social inferiors, and particularly freedmen, might tacitly be recognized as valuable sources of information, but such sources were not generally to be admitted openly – except, perhaps, in the course of campaigning for office. Though Cicero (Amic. 20.74) opines that ‘true’ friendship is impossible between social unequals, Quintus (Comment. pet. 16) points out to his brother that the definition of ‘friendship’ during candidature is much more elastic than it would be in other contexts (sed hoc nomen amicorum in

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Free at Last! petitione latius patet quam in cetera vita), and (25) that one can and should form ‘friends’ from those elements of society with which one would normally be ashamed to associate (potes honeste, quod in cetera vita non queas, quoscumque velis adiungere ad amicitiam, quibuscum si alio tempore agas ut te utantur, absurde facere videare, in petitione autem nisi id agas et cum multis et diligenter, nullus petitor esse videare). As we have seen, Cicero should ensure the support of all centuries and tribes by securing the goodwill of influential men (homines excellenti gratia, 18), including freedmen (29), and through many, socially-diverse friendships (multae et variae amicitiae, 29). Indeed, Quintus asserts (16), all who showed a candidate goodwill and frequented his house were to have the ideological aura of friendship surround them for the duration of the campaign (quisquis est enim qui ostendat aliquid in te voluntatis, qui colat, qui domum ventitet, is in amicorum numero est habendus). Thus (35) mutual loyalty and goodwill were assumed, or at least pretended, even if the real state of affairs was something less.44 Although the onus was on the candidate to be a good friend at this point in time in order to receive in return the support and aid of his new ‘friends’, campaigning presented an opportunity for ingratiation to social inferiors, who might desire the connection to survive the period of candidacy.45 The enduring relationship desired could perhaps be a client-patron connection, which Claude Eilers observes required client initiative for its very formation.46 Social inferiors’ hopes for longer-term social connections with a candidate might in the end be disappointed – see Cicero (Comment. pet. 45-9) for advice about making promises to individuals one need not keep after the elections – but the immediate need to mime friendship kicked the door open for displays of loyalty and goodwill on both sides. Well-connected freedmen could impart a degree of requisite reliability and trust to the hastily established quasi-friendships, and perform a good service, by providing information about the degree of the candidate’s popularity amongst the informant’s own social circles. Between social equals, the provision of information was a demonstration of intimacy, as Cicero’s opening remarks in a letter to Lentulus Spinther (Fam. 1.7.1; cf. 2.1.1) make clear: ‘I have read your letter, in which you write that you are grateful since I keep you so consistently informed about everything, and you can easily see my goodwill towards you’ (legi tuas litteras, quibus ad me scribes gratum tibi esse, quod crebro certior per me fias de omnibus rebus, et meam erga te benevolentiam facile perspicias). When reporting to a friend, not just any news would do, but only that which was of particular use and import to one or both partners; indeed, Cicero declares (Fam. 2.4.1; cf. 1.5b) that this kind of communication was the very reason why letter-writing was invented (cuius causa inventa res ipsa est, ut certiores faceremus absentes, si quid esset, quod eos scire aut nostra aut ipsorum interesset). Elsewhere (Amic. 13.44; cf. 25.91) he declares that it was the duty of a true friend to report even bad news, and to offer unwelcome

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic advice when necessary (auctoritas } adhibeatur ad monendum non modo aperte, sed etiam acriter, si res postulabit). Therefore, friendliness was the appropriate attitude toward one supplying information, be it good or bad, an etiquette we can see was expected by the very fact that Verres could be counted on to display the opposite, and so to be inimicus to those who rushed to his house to inform him that a posse was gathering against him (Verr. 2.2.19.47-20.48). Gratitude and recognition of the informant’s goodwill were proper reactions particularly since the information might have been given to someone else. Cicero (Sest. 3.8; cf. also Cat. 1.21), for example, underlines the fact that the strength of his friendship with Sestius is witnessed not only by the sharing of information during the Catilinarian conspiracy, but also by the fact that Sestius shared information with Cicero and not with Cicero’s consular colleague, whose quaestor Sestius was. Shows of goodwill were furthermore especially gratifying from others’ freedmen, since their priorities might have been expected to be elsewhere.47 In short, in the context of electioneering, providing critical information that could impact on the success of a candidate’s campaign was thus to fulfil the expectations of friendship, particularly since the information might have been withheld, or other candidates’ quasi-friendship cultivated (as Quintus Cicero is careful to remind his brother at Comment. pet. 35). Flattery and the balance of power It then follows that like real friendships, these quasi-friendships could prove false. Because of malice or privileging their own advantage over that of their friends, false friends perverted expectations by giving intentionally bad information or advice. Thus, Cicero – distraught, disillusioned, and in exile – laments that those he thought to be his friends were his enemies, and that he would have been much better off had he not listened to anyone’s counsel but his own (sed omnia sunt mea culpa commissa, qui ab iis me amari putabam qui invidebant, eos non sequebar qui petebant. Quod si nostris consiliis usi essemus neque apud nos tantum valuisset sermo aut stultorum amicorum aut improborum, beatissimi viveremus: Fam. 14.1.1-2; cf. Att. 3.8.4, 3.10.2, 3.13.2). Cicero (Amic. 17.64) points out that the ideals of friendship are particularly difficult for a politician to achieve, because it is a rare person who would place the success of his friends before his own, and Quintus (Comment. pet. 35) specifically warns his brother against falling prey to false friends during the course of his candidacy: Marcus should determine how each new ‘friend’ was disposed towards him so as to know how far he could be trusted (scire autem oportet quo quisque animo sit, ut et quantum cuique confidas constituere possis). He later (49-51) identifies different motivations for those who would perfidiously avow their goodwill, but does not identify the nefarious actions they might perform which would make them the sort of people a

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Free at Last! candidate would do best to avoid. These could no doubt be various. We may presume, however, that all would aim to subvert a candidature, and could probably include not only the leaking of unfavourable information about a candidate, but also providing to him false information about his chances. It is at this point that the spectre of the flatterer rears its head. In his treatise on friendship, Cicero (Amic. 24.89-26.99) was clearly concerned with the identification and avoidance of the flatterer, the person who tells not the straight truth as a friend would, but rather what his target wants to hear (semper auget assentator id, quod is, cuius ad voluntatem dicitur, volt esse magnum). This was usually a manipulated or exaggerated version of the real state of affairs. Such figures are recognizable in the parasites of comedy, who attach themselves to and ingratiate themselves with their social superiors by providing pleasing words and information.48 Cicero had his share of flatterers; in 59 BC he reports to Atticus (Att. 2.22.3) that due to his recent zeal in the courts, his house is thronged with grateful visitors who recollect to him the glory days of his consulship (domus celebratur, occurritur, renovatur memoria consulatus, studia significantur). Epictetus (Disc. 4.1.33) suggests that freedmen in particular must often turn to flattery in order to secure the necessities of life for themselves, as freedom has robbed them of the protection of their masters. Of course, not all freedmen would find themselves at loose economic ends – those with close ties to their ex-masters and those who knew trades, for example, might prosper.49 However, the ‘showmen’ freedmen of the Forum, who peddled not goods but entertainment, and who would best be able to gauge the tenor of public opinion, would presumably enjoy less certain economic stability on the one hand, and might desire to establish ties with members of polite society to satisfy professional ambitions on the other: professional value was judged by the quality of one’s clientele.50 Flatterers, in any case, were no doubt suspected to lurk among a candidate’s new ‘friends’, and clearly, for a candidate, flattery would give an exaggerated impression of his popularity among the voting population (cf. Plut. Mor. 57b). The danger an unidentified flatterer posed to a candidate is found in the connection between receiving information and future action. Trusting in a false impression of how he existed in the eyes of others could cause a candidate to relax his efforts in certain directions when they needed to be redoubled, and indeed, leave him unwittingly open to failure at the polls, and to being exposed publicly as duped: Artemidorus (On. 4.14) provides an interesting comparison, stating that dreams of being flattered signify humiliation. Thus, as an ambitious candidate forged a diversity of new ‘friendships’ and maximized his connections, such counterfeiters even of the quasifriendships of candidature were to be guarded against, and perhaps this is part of the reason why secret ballot continued to be decried by people like Cicero more than half a century after its introduction.51 Since the support of a candidate’s clientele, which most now think was much smaller

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic in numbers than once imagined, could not bring about a candidate’s victory at the polls, we are left to wonder why secret ballot was distasteful to politicians of the late Republic who had never known anything else anyway. But secret ballot would make it difficult for a candidate to tell which of his connections had provided true information about his popularity amongst the social groups to which they were connected, and which had been self-interested flatterers.52 This was a concern since socially asymmetrical relationships forged during candidacy could perhaps endure, provided sufficient mutual loyalty and goodwill on the part of the prospective client had been deemed demonstrated. In the context of élite competition for public honour, knowing who could be trusted was always a problem, and a sound and faithful connection was prized, not only for its usefulness,53 but perhaps also because of its rarity (e.g. Cic. Fam. 1.7.2; cf. also 1.9.20). Conclusion Communication from social inferiors upward may then be suspected as a regular feature of late republican political life. Since elections were normally held annually, the actual individuals in this network of communication would probably drop out at relatively regular intervals, but only to be replaced by others. The necessity for candidates to monitor their popularity ensured that links with social inferiors who enjoyed numerous connections with the voting population would always be sought out, fostered, and valued, even if such relationships were not advertised from the rostra or in the senate house. It cannot be said that this role was reserved for freedmen any more than we can say that any social function was their exclusive purview. We might suspect, however, that freedmen fulfilled this function more often than not. This suspicion is grounded partly in the peculiar circumstances in which some freedmen might find themselves: freedmen had the potential to enjoy a spectrum of social connections, a potential which was perhaps greater than that of non-élite free-born citizens, and some freedmen might have economic and professional reason to desire to establish yet more, new ties with members of the élite. But this suspicion is equally rooted in the recognition that the provision of information might satisfy an imperative many freedmen might have felt to realize their independence by engaging in a negotiation of trust unfettered, and from a position of power, with those who were in all other ways their social superiors. Notes 1. E.g. Achard 1991, 44; Laurence, 1994; Morstein-Marx 1998 and 2004; Millar 1998; Mouritsen 2001, 55-6; O’Neill 2003, 138-9 and n. 11. 2. Though slaves have long been suspected as informants about scandalous or

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Free at Last! treacherous activity within the walls of a political rival’s home; e.g. Treggiari 1969, 19; Fitzgerald 2000, 19-20; Pagán 2004, 17-18, with references, and Rawson 2005. 3. Treggiari 1969, 179. 4. Laurence 1994, 65. 5. O’Neill 2003, 157. 6. A situation questioned in Mouritsen 2001, 132-3. 7. E.g. Treggiari 1969, 177-92; Vanderbroek 1987, 52-5. 8. The debate over the role of patronage in electioneering and bibliography: North 1990a; Mouritsen 2001, 1-17; O’Neill 2003, 136 and n. 3; Hölkeskamp 2004, 9-17, 85-92. Traditional views and new interpretations: Brunt 1988, 382-442; North 1990a; Konstan 1997, 136-45; Millar 1998, 8-9; Mourstein-Marx 1998, esp. 271, 276-80 and 2004, 133-5; Yakobson 1999, 65-123; Mouritsen 2001, 67-78, 96-108; Eilers 2002, 1-17; Farney 2007, 11-20. Q. Cicero (Comment. pet. 18, 24, 29, 30) stresses the importance not of having many clients, but rather of being attended by men of all social levels during candidature, and of soliciting connections with men of the non-elite who were influential in their own social circles. 9. Treggiari 1969, 165. 10. See Galvao-Sobrinho, this volume, on the ideological effects on freedmen of the changes wrought by Augustus. 11. That is, the Commentariolum Petitionis. Morstein-Marx 1998, 260-1 and Tatum 2007, 117, discuss its authenticity. Brunt 1988, 360, remarks ‘even if he be not Q. Cicero, the writer was well versed in the manners of the age’. 12. Wellman 1983, 157. Many of the fundamental themes and findings of network analysis are explicated plainly by Barabási 2003. 13. See note 2. For the adoption of network theory as an investigative approach in the study of antiquity, see Malkin et al. 2009; see also Verboven, this volume. 14. E.g. Wellman 1983; Cook et al. 1983, 282-3; Lin 2001, who also observes that not all connections will be equally useful; Barabási 2003, 93-107; Sandwell 2009 studies the nature of Libanius’s social connections. 15. Cook and Whitmeyer 1992; Schnegg 2006. 16. E.g. Vanderbroek 1987. 17. Wellman 1983, 172. 18. This perhaps did not include all economic classes of the free population; see Millar 1998, 35, 37, 137 and 148. Mouritsen 2001 argues persuasively that manual labourers, artisans, and the even more destitute were largely apolitical (except when mobilized by certain populares during the late Republic). However, his opinion rests in part upon the reasoning that the lower classes would have been uninterested in political debate or too busy earning a living to attend elections, suppositions which O’Neill 2003 undermines. Yakobson 1999, 43-54 argues for the electoral power of the lower (if not the lowest) property classes. 19. Tatum 2007. 20. On the advantage of a famous name: Cic. Sest. 9.21; Cicero Comment. pet. 2, 7-8; Morstein-Marx 1998, 273, who also comments (at 278) on its inability to secure automatic election. See also North 1990a and Yakobson 1998a, 184. Farney 2007 discusses the cultivation of familial ethnic identity by politicians in an attempt to distinguish themselves. 21. Mouritsen 2001, 93; cf. Yakobson 1999, 119; and Farney 2007, 20-6. 22. Morstein-Marx 1998, 280; Yakobson 1999, 115. 23. Konstan 1997, 129; Yakobson 1999, 89. Brunt 1988, 430, and MorsteinMarx 1998, 280, note that gaining the support of influential connections did not necessarily translate into assured popular support.

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic 24. Mouritsen 2001, 136. 25. E.g. Lintott 1990; Yakobson 1999, 145; Mouritsen 2001, 109-27. 26. Allport and Postman (1960) 314-17; Dio 67.11.6, 73.14.3-4 provides a vivid example. 27. North 1990b. 28. Yakobson 1992, 43, implies the possibility of upward transmission of information: ‘it is true that popularity, as well as unpopularity, can be contagious; the attitude of the lower orders towards a candidate could ‘spill over’ into the higher strata and affect his standing there’. 29. Tatum 2007, 110-15, describes fear of failure, and the increasing difficulty of gaining success after the Social War. 30. Cic. Sest. 106; O’Neill 2003, 144. 31. Cic. Att. 2.19.3; cf. Fam. 8.2.1. Hopkins 1983, 14, provides further references. For indication of one’s popularity at the assemblies even when one was not a candidate, see Cic. Att. 2.1.9, Yakobson 1992, 46, and Morstein-Marx 1998, 280. Compare also Cicero’s pride at interest shown by all members of the Roman population in his return, Att. 4.1.5; Morstein-Marx 1998, 270, discusses. 32. Information about how popular opinion was to be discovered is equally vague in other contexts too; for example, in 49 BC Cicero (Att. 7.13a.3; cf. 7.12.6 and 8.11.7) asks a house-bound Atticus to let him know quae sit populi urbani voluntas. 33. O’Neill 2003. 34. Morstein-Marx 2004, 257. 35. Cf. Morstein-Marx 1998, 267. 36. Rawson 1993, 218, notes that the desperate parasites of Roman comedy were not conflated with freedmen (whose relationships with their patrons were respectable), but that the two might mirror each other in terms of the sorts of tasks they performed. 37. E.g. MG 947-85, and Tranio’s actions in general in Mostellaria; see also Stewart 2008. 38. For example, see Morstein-Marx 2004, 133-5, for ‘low- and medium-level “bosses” available in the Forum’, and ‘claqueurs’. For ‘vote-brokers’, see Yakobson 1999, 140-1 and 1992, 38. 39. Treggiari 1969, 128; cf. 138-42. 40. O’Neill 2003, 155. 41. O’Neill 2003, 152, discusses whether praecones and circulatores ought to be associated. Rauh 1989, 461, remarks upon a praeco’s ‘wit, comic presence, and } ability to draw a crowd and to hold its attention’. 42. Rauh 1989, 457. 43. Rauh 1989, 460. 44. Cf. also Wallace Hadrill 1989, 68. 45. See Cic. Amic. 13.46; cf. Granovetter 1983, 205-9; Schnegg 2006. 46. Eilers 2002, 32. 47. Treggiari 1968, 220-1. 48. Damon 1995 and 1997 discusses the connection between social inferiors (clients) and the parasites of comedy. Cicero quotes from Plautus and Terence (Amic. 25.93-5, 26.98) to illustrate his points about flatterers. Cf. also Capt. 768-989, however, where Ergasilus the parasite is amply rewarded for his true and useful information about Hegio’s sons. 49. Treggiari 1969, 87-106 and Verboven, this volume. 50. On social worth being judged by the company one keeps, and efforts to

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Free at Last! ensure that members of the élite did not bestow too much honour upon the non-élite with their attentions (which thus imply the regularity of the dynamic), see Tac. Ann. 1.77, Dio Chrys. Or. 70.4, and Porphyrio on Hor. Sat. 1.6.114; cf. also O’Neill 2003, 152-4. Treggiari 1969, 110-32, recounts the successes of several well-patronized freedmen of the ‘learned professions’ – that is, freedmen whose livelihood depended upon services rather than goods. 51. Cic. Leg. 3.34-5, 37; Yakobson 1999, 126-33 and Mouritsen 2001, 75-6. 52. Yakobson 1999, 135-41, observes that a candidate could not know how different social clusters within the tribes or centuries voted, nor whether (141) the ‘promises of support [offered by ‘various local notables’] were vindicated by the votes of their neighbours }’. Cf. Cicero Fam. 3.12.1. 53. Connections of proven trustworthiness might also become deliverers of (verbal) information; see Cic. Att. 2.20.1, 2.23.7, 2.24.1, 2.25.7.

Bibliography Achard, G. (1991) La communication à Rome (Paris). Allport, G.W., and L. Postman (1960) ‘The Analysis of Rumour’, in G.W. Allport, Personality and Social Encounter: Selected Essays (Boston) 311-26. Barabási, A.-L. (2003) Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it means (Cambridge, MA). Brunt, P. (1988) The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford). Cook, K., R. Emerson, M. Gillmore, and T. Yamagishi (1983) ‘The Distribution of Power in Exchange Networks: Theory and Experimental Results’, American Journal of Sociology 89: 275-305. Cook, K. and Whitmeyer, J. (1992) ‘Two Approaches to Social Structure: Exchange Theory and Network Analysis’, Annual Review of Sociology 18: 109-27. Damon, C. (1995) ‘Greek Parasites and Roman Patronage’, HSCP 97: 181-95. Damon, C. (1997) The Mask of the Parasite (Ann Arbor). Eilers, C. (2002) Roman Patrons of Greek Cities (Oxford). Farney, G. (2007) Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome (Cambridge). Fitzgerald, W. (2000) Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination (Cambridge). Granovetter, M. (1983) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited’, Sociological Theory 1: 201-33. Hölkeskamp, K.-J. (2004) Rekonstruktionen einer Republik. Die politische Kultur des antiken Rom und die Forschung der letzten Jahrzehnte, Historische Zeitschrift. Beihefte 38 (Munich). Hopkins, K. (1983) Death and Renewal, Sociological Studies in Roman History 2 (Cambridge). Konstan, D. (1997) Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge). Laurence, R. (1994) ‘Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics’, G&R 41: 62-74. Lin, N. (2001) ‘Building a Network Theory of Social Capital’, in N. Lin, K. Cook, and R. Burt (eds) Social Capital: Theory and Research (New York) 3-29. Lintott, A. (1990) ‘Electoral Bribery in the Roman Republic’, JRS 80: 1-16. Malkin, I., C. Constantakopoulou, and K. Panagopoulou (eds) (2009) Greek and Roman Networks in the Mediterranean (London and New York). Millar, F. (1998) The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor). Morstein-Marx, R. (1998) ‘Publicity, Popularity and Patronage’, CA 17: 259-88.

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2. Locating the Grapevine in the Late Republic Morstein-Marx, R. (2004) Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge). Mouritsen, H. (2001) Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge). North, J. (1990a) ‘Democratic Politics in Republican Rome’, P&P 126: 3-21. North, J. (1990b) ‘Diviners and Divination at Rome’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds) Pagan Priests (London and Ithaca) 49-71. O’Neill, P. (2003) ‘Going around in Circles: Popular Speech in Ancient Rome’, CA 22: 135-66. Pagán, V. (2004) Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History (Austin). Rauh, N. (1989) ‘Auctioneers and the Roman Economy’, Historia 38: 451-71. Rawson, B. (2005) ‘Circulation of Staff between Roman Households’, ZPE 151: 223-4. Rawson, E. (1993) ‘Freedmen in Roman Comedy’, in R. Scodel (ed.) Theater and Society in the Classical World (Ann Arbor) 215-33. Sandwell, I. (2009) ‘Libanius’ Social Networks: Understanding the Social Structure of the Later Roman Empire’, in I. Malkin, C. Constantakopoulou and K. Panagopoulou (eds) Greek and Roman Networks in the Mediterranean (London and New York) 129-43. Schnegg, M. (2006) ‘Reciprocity and the Emergence of Power Laws in Social Networks’ [online], accessed 21 February 2010. http://arvix.org/abs/physics/0603005 Stewart, R. (2008) ‘Who’s Tricked? Models of Slave Behavior in Plautus’ Pseudolus’, in S. Bell and I.L. Hansen (eds) Role Models in the Roman World: Identity and Assimilation, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, supplementary volume 7 (Ann Arbor) 69-96. Tatum, J. (2007) ‘Alterum est tamen boni viri, alterum boni petitoris: The Good Man canvasses’, Phoenix 61: 109-35. Treggiari, S. (1969) Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford). Vanderbroek, P. (1987) Popular Leadership and Collective Behaviour in the Late Republic (c. 80 BC) (Amsterdam). Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1989) ‘Patronage in Roman Society’, in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.) Patronage in Ancient Society (London and New York) 63-87. Wellman, B. (1983) ‘Network Analysis: Some Basic Principles’, Sociological Theory 1: 155-200. Yakobson, A. (1992) ‘Petitio et Largitio: Popular Participation in the Centuriate Assembly of the Late Republic’, JRS 82: 32-52. Yakobson, A. (1999) Elections and Electioneering in Rome (Stuttgart).

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3

‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Teresa Ramsby As is shown in three essays in this volume and in several previous studies, the manner in which freed slaves in ancient Rome engaged in the art of epigraphic self-representation on tombs and other monuments indicates the interest of freed slaves in fixing their place, even posthumously, in Roman society.1 That freed slaves seem to dominate the landscape of inscriptions in Roman culture is not merely anecdotal: Jane Webster points out that ‘around three-quarters of the funerary inscriptions known from the city of Rome commemorate former slaves’,2 and Koenraad Verboven points out that those inscriptions that note the profession of the deceased are more likely by a factor of four to one to belong to freed slaves, suggesting that freed slaves are proud not only of having escaped slavery, but of the professions by which they achieved their freedom.3 It has been of interest to many scholars to show correlations between these preserved modes of self-representation and the fictional appearances, actions, and speeches of the freed-slave banqueters at Trimalchio’s house in Petronius’ Satyrica. Indeed this scene depicting freed slaves in conversation with each other is unique in Roman literature, and provides a unique opportunity to piece together ancient perceptions about the methods of and motives for self-representation among freed slaves, even if it comes through the filter of the élite perspective. As we well know, there are many groups throughout history who are underrepresented in the literary sources of the cultures in which they live; when one considers the social barriers to literary participation in the Roman Empire, it is not surprising to see an entire population (this could pertain to women as well) receiving few opportunities to establish a self-determined presence in literature. Paul Veyne’s 1961 article is one of the first of several influential pieces to address the links between Trimalchio’s biography and self-representation and the lives of actual freedmen, although Trimalchio’s fake funerary inscription and how it can be related to historical freedmen was a topic that had already captured the interest of Theodor Mommsen.4 John Bodel’s 1984 unpublished dissertation explores many facets of freedmen’s

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis self-expression in the Cena and the relevant corollaries in the archaeological record. Mary Beard draws many interesting conclusions from a close analysis of Trimalchio’s planned tomb inscription in her 1998 article. Jocelyne Nelis-Clément and Damien Nelis address the textual nature and reading/viewing aspects that dominate the Trimalchio scene as a process of mise en abyme that has consequences for the interpretation of the larger narrative – namely that Trimalchio has constructed a narrative of inscriptions and images that serves to deconstruct Petronius’ (or Encolpius’) overt attempt to stereotype and denigrate the freedman.5 Judith Perkins devotes a chapter of her recent monograph on imperial identities in the early Christian era to the way Trimalchio and his fellow freedmen speak and act in the Cena narrative and the way that early Christians wrote, both aiming to ‘change the status quo and create a social space for themselves’.6 The purpose of this present study is to highlight those occasions where Trimalchio and the freed slaves at his banquet use textual or artistic self-representation to reveal their accomplishments despite the forces that would thwart their ambitions. Although the Cena has been viewed mostly with an eye to deciphering the aspects of satire and social critique in Petronius’ narrative, there is need also to balance the grotesque and vulgar aspects of the banquet scene against the many moments in the narrative when freed slaves impress and outshine their supposedly freeborn counterparts.7 In addition to the imposing figure of Trimalchio in the narrative, the late-arriving character Habinnas plays a very important role because he, as a stone-mason, serves as the very instrument through which many of Trimalchio’s dreams of self-representation have come and will come to fruition. In a variety of ways, through spoken and more permanent forms of expression, the freed slave characters in the Satyrica broadcast their significance within Roman society, and their contributions to it. As I alluded to above, the traditional direction of scholarship has been to study these representational moments as designed traps meant to make freedmen look ridiculous – yet the case can be made that such representations indicate not merely the ridiculousness of the subject matter, but the anxieties of the élite social classes who see other groups as threatening their control over cultural norms, social customs, and class distinctions. To make analogies between attitudes in ancient Roman and modern (e.g. American or British) societies always runs the risk of anachronism and is further complicated by the different emphases of different scholars in these fields. Even so, as pointed out by Marc Kleijwegt in this volume, ‘combining different types of evidence with different types of questions and different outcomes can only enhance the discussion’ of freedmen as a whole.7a Thus, I have included here an image (Fig. 3.1) of a poster from the Vaudeville minstrel tradition in the post-bellum period in the United States (1906) to help reframe the traditional emphasis in the scholarship. That image depicts three African-American citizens attend-

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Free at Last!

Fig. 3.1. ‘The New Smart Set’; lithograph; copyrighted in 1906 by the US Lithograph Company of Cincinnati and New York; now in the Theatrical Poster Collection at the Library of Congress, no. 10059.

ing a horse race (one is a clearly a horse owner), wearing fine clothes, and looking in the direction of a demure white woman (though her race is, I think, purposefully somewhat ambiguous).8 The upper caption reads ‘The New Smart Set’, and the lower caption reads ‘A Sure Winner’. Although

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis the men in the picture bear the insignia of respectability, there is an implicit meaning in the image and its captions that these men, because of the colour of their skin, threaten the status quo. The bulldog’s face at the bottom of the picture and the barely visible glance of a white man (with white moustache) in the background behind the three men obviously reflect the discomfort of the situation to many whites in America in the early 1900s. In her chapter in this volume, Michele Ronnick provides numerous examples of how this discomfort resulted in the mistreatment of white educators who taught, and therefore empowered, newly freed slaves and their children. That some black Americans were in a position to mingle with the rich, to engage in sports that have traditionally been relegated to the American élite, and to have any advantage in the mating game with women of lighter hues, is clearly the issue this cartoon depicts. The ironic captions, the woman’s anxious expression and sidelong glance, and the white man’s and the bulldog’s protective gaze express irony and distaste over the appearance of these wealthy African Americans in the context of a ‘gentleman’s arena’. The viewer’s eye is further encouraged to distance itself from them by the female figure’s outward list, the forceful breeze seen along the skirt of her dress, and the rightward movement of the race in the background. What I find most fascinating about this image, then, is its subtlety. There are countless more images from this period depicting African Americans as bawdy, raucous, grotesque figures, created to instil in the reader a sense of the incongruity of their race with American ideals of social class and citizenship. This image, on the other hand, not only forces the reader to look, read, and absorb the nuances of the message, it also considers soberly the consequences of giving freedom and citizenship to black Americans who may succeed within that system. The image and all it represents is distasteful to us, and intrinsically unjust, of course, but such images were once quite abundant in American newspapers, magazines, and as street advertisements. My point in showing this image is that satire and farce which depicts the lower classes in ancient Roman literature need not always be read in its comedic form, with empathy towards the upper-class perspective. There is a need also to pull back from the hilarity of the narrative and understand from where that perspective derives – to realize that it may stem from fear that a way of life and normative cultural experience is under threat with the rise of a ‘new set’.9 In Petronius’ Cena, Trimalchio certainly displays his grotesque, bawdy, and distasteful moments, but there are many other moments where he and other freedmen represent themselves in ways that encourage the careful reader to consider Petronius’ (and the Roman élite’s) problem with freedmen rather than the foibles and social deficiencies of freed slaves themselves.

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Free at Last! Why text matters Petronius fills his Cena with text, images, symbols, adornments, and other elements that the freed slaves in the narrative rely upon to communicate what they wish others to understand about them. Trimalchio’s signs and symbols will receive more attention in this study, but Encolpius observes every freedman in the room, and notices enough idiosyncrasies about each to suggest that Petronius himself found this class fascinating. Indeed, there are redeemable qualities about Trimalchio and the freedmen in this narrative that reflect detrimentally upon Encolpius and his companions. Froma Zeitlin has suggested that in its presentation of the freedmen’s milieu, the Cena ‘reflects the disruption of that hierarchical society in which each man knew his place and his prospects’, and that in a complex society ‘the individual loses a sense of participation in a coherent group, and turns inward to personal and private means of the validation of life’.10 The freedmen in the Cena challenge the social structures in which Encolpius seemingly resides as an apparently freeborn individual, though ironically no one in the narrative is less prosperous or more isolated and alienated, in many respects, than Encolpius.11 Such a detailed examination of the lives of freedmen, though fictional, subtly suggests disappointing prognoses for the futures of the previously privileged classes; there are clues in the Cena that the paths of success in imperial Rome may have irrevocably changed to favour the fortunes of the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs, and the money-handlers rather than those with aristocratic ties. The freedmen have attained the upper hand in Petronius’ narrative through their exploitation of hard-earned capital, and they prove it through their use of image and text. Use of text in public places is a powerful means of establishing control over image and meaning, and takes many forms: the erection of legal statutes in a town centre, a biographical summary on a tombstone, an advertisement for a show, the promotion of a political candidate, and even the re-fashioning of history for the benefit of an aging emperor who wishes to shape his legacy with words, as seen perhaps most notably in Augustus’ Res Gestae. Some scholars have discussed intriguing corollaries between Trimalchio’s tomb inscription and those found in the archaeological record.12 Petronius imagines a freed slave consistently, and in formats other than funereal, usurping the power of text – there are many inscriptions in his house that promote his accomplishments. This idea of the less powerful usurping the power of the Roman ‘epigraphic habit’ has gained currency in recent scholarship: elegiac poets, it has been argued, frequently used inscriptions in their works to align their literary accomplishments to the political and martial deeds of their more traditionally motivated peers and superiors.13 It cannot be denied that there is a piling up of textual instances in the Cena that is uncharacteristic of the rest of the Satyrica; Nelis-Clément and

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Nelis have made the case that the reason for this lies in a desire to communicate one’s identity in the style of the privileged: ‘if it can be said that inscriptions reify diverse and particular desires of their authors, then the Cena Trimalchionis offers many insights to the ways that some freed slaves, at least those with whom Petronius may have been familiar, envisioned themselves and the Empire in which they live’.14 Some of the inscriptions are truly inscribed (such as Trimalchio’s well-known tomb inscription), some are painted on walls, but a few of the texts that appear early in the Cena stand out particularly in their effectiveness at providing us insights into how Trimalchio desires to be perceived. As Encolpius makes his way to the famous dining room scene (where stimulating and experiential sensory-overload will soon occur), he encounters five texts within the house that are remarkable for the range of perspectives they provide into the status, biography, psychology, and even political sympathies of the host of the banquet. Trimalchio’s inscriptions Before Encolpius enters the freedman’s home, he reads an inscription painted or inscribed on its doorpost, a significant spot in Roman domestic architecture as well as literature: quisquis servus sine dominico iussu foras exierit, accipiet plagas centum (‘any slave who leaves the house without his master’s permission will receive 100 lashes’).15 The placement of the inscription matters not just because it is physically on a doorway, but also because it is posted in a strange place considering its purpose as a warning to any slave leaving the house. Niall Slater aptly asks, ‘} is it just there for advertising purposes, to remind his guests of his powers?’16 In response to those who care to see this inscription as an indicator that Trimalchio’s slaves were literate, Edward Courtney suggests that the inscription is rather meant for those who stand outside the house.17 Paolo Tremoli suggests that the legal tone of the inscription aims to impress the reading audience outside the home that the man who owns the house maintains a firm control over his household, in the spirit of a stern paterfamilias (‘head of household’) expressing the attitudes toward slaves as reflected in our ancient sources.18 But Petronius’ reader will soon discover that within the house the slaves exhibit a great deal of familiarity with their master, allowed eventually to sit with the dinner guests at the banquet (Sat. 74.6-7). The inscription allows the master to maintain a harsh public posture, but the policy that inhibits slaves’ access to the outside also limits public awareness of the true nature of things inside the home, concealing a private revolution in the order of things while reinforcing Trimalchio’s public image as a paterfamilas. In addition, the fact that later in the narrative Encolpius and Giton fail to leave the house when they try (Sat. 72.7-73.1), suggests that any who enter the door of Trimalchio’s home have subjected

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Free at Last! themselves to the will of the master, in that they become powerless to determine when and how they shall exit his house.19 Thus the inscription exaggerates by outwardly indicating a punitive authority, while it simultaneously underplays the manipulative and psychological powers the master actually exerts inside the house. This impulse to broadcast the appearance of a stern paterfamilias serves two roles in that it is a nod to the status quo of slave ownership while it conceals the reality of what happens inside the house; for although in a few cases Trimalchio metes out punitive judgments to slaves, in every case but one he is persuaded to forgive the offender.20 After noting the text at the house’s entrance, Encolpius next confronts the phrase cave canem (‘beware of the dog’: Sat. 29.1), painted in capital letters on the wall of the vestibule, and accompanying a painting of a large dog on a chain. The image startles him and he falls backwards to the amusement of his companions. Encolpius’ reaction to the cartoon is a key signal that he is not well equipped to deal with the situation into which he has entered.21 At the upcoming banquet, he will undergo an experience that requires a heightened urbanity, a keen sense of interpretation and wordplay, for all of which he is ill-prepared. Indeed, it marks him out as incompetent and inadequately equipped to deal with the machinations of the freedmen. Trimalchio’s home and what goes on inside is consistently a location of curiosity and surprise for Encolpius, and his description of himself and his companions as already ‘stuffed with wondering amazement’ (saturi admiratione: Sat. 28.6),is hardly an appropriate condition for one about to undergo such a feast for the senses.22 Just as the banquet will require him to devour too much food, so too will it and the events surrounding it require a ‘stomach’ for overstatement, excess, and exaggeration.23 Trimalchio’s inscription, cave canem, warns not only about the dog somewhere in the house (which does later materialize as a threatening beast: Sat. 72.7), but about the master’s capability to manipulate the senses, as in the dinner itself when foods appear to be one thing and turn out to be something else entirely. At the centre of this whirlpool of illusion is a man who artfully arranges his house, his person, and even his biography in a manner that empowers him at home beyond the degree to which his society actually renders him legitimacy outside it. Encolpius views two more inscriptions just before he enters the dining room. The first is a parietal inscription that informs the household that Trimalchio dines out on the last two days of December: III. et pridie Kalendas Ianuarias C. noster foras cenat (on the two days before the first of January, our Gaius will dine out: Sat. 30.3). This may mean that Trimalchio dines outside his home so rarely that such an occurrence is worthy of inscribed record. It is surely significant that a similar text was found scratched on the wall of a Pompeian house-kitchen to indicate that a cook was keeping track of the days that his master would be out of the house and thus not require his meals.24 Significantly, the Petronian in-

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis scription appears for guests to see – not the cook; it is reinforcement of the idea that Trimalchio rarely leaves his home, and we may note that the days Trimalchio has selected to exit his house fall a week after the end of the Saturnalia, the week-long festival (December 17-23) in which slaves and masters swap their respective roles, and just before the Compitalia (a festival in honour of household deities) begins in early January.25 Perhaps more in keeping with the presumed attitude of a Roman dominus toward the Saturnalia, Pliny the Younger writes that in his villa in Laurentum he built a suite that is separated from the remainder of the house by a long walkway so that he could avoid the general noise of the household, and particularly the cacophony and levity of the Saturnalia (Ep. 2.17). Trimalchio’s inscription indicates that this dominus celebrates the entire slaves’ holiday at home, and is sure to return by the next festive occasion. It would of course make sense that a former slave might derive particular enjoyment from holidays that involve the whole household, and that focus on domestic harmony. Trimalchio’s idea of running his household is more participatory, and quite different from that of a nobleman like Pliny who prefers to segregate himself from the activities of the household. This inscription also repeats the word foras used earlier, at 28.7, to communicate Trimalchio’s anxiety that he be viewed as master and authority of his house. Here foras, in complicity with Gaius noster, deconstructs that public image by indicating the reality of the relationship he has with his slaves, one that will come into view as the party gets underway.26 These two inscriptions seen together evince Trimalchio’s ambivalent relationship with the outside world – he avoids it when possible, and demands his household do the same. At the same time, he has created a space in his home in which freed slaves can speak candidly and even insultingly to freeborn people (Sat. 57-8), and in which slaves can even enact fantasies of acquiring freedom. This becomes apparent in the ‘Dionyse Liber esto’ passage (Sat. 41.7), in which Trimalchio’s command to a singing slave-boy dressed as Dionysius to play the part of the Roman Bacchus (‘hey Dionysius – now be Liber’) could also mean that he should ‘be free’ or receive his freedom; the boy takes the latter meaning, and Trimalchio allows him to take what he himself (perhaps unintentionally) bestowed.27 A fourth inscription honours Trimalchio’s sevirate: C. Pompeio Trimalchioni, seviro Augustali, Cinnamus dispensator (To Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio, sevir augustalis, from Cinnamus his chief-steward: Sat. 30.2). This inscription appears on a bronze sculpture that hangs on the doorway to the dining room, and consists of the fasces with axe-heads affixed, and from that extends a shape like the prow of a ship or rostrum. Scholars duly note the irony of such privileged imagery used to honour Trimalchio. Tremoli points out the illegitimacy of such a use of magisterial symbols;28 but Lauren Hackworth Petersen comments on the occasional appearance of fasces on the tombs of freedmen,29 and Michele George points to the relief

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Free at Last! from the tomb of the freedmen Licinii which clearly depicts a fasces with axe attached, possibly indicating that one of the deceased was a sevir augustalis.30 If we consider Verboven’s estimate that roughly only 5-10% of adult male freedmen could hold such a title in any given community,31 then Trimalchio’s accomplishment is worthy of note, and certainly worthy of brandishing symbolic imagery on a monument to that accomplishment. The inclusion of the rostrum, a symbol of military victory or oratorical prowess (with its subliminal reference to the Roman speakers’ platform) may be indicators of the offices Trimalchio would possess if his circumstances were different, for obviously a freeborn man could aspire to many higher offices and responsibilities. The grandiose imagery that accompanies Cinnamus’ dedication could correlate to the hyperbolic imagery of a mural in Trimalchio’s atrium where he is lifted onto a tribunal by Mercury (Sat. 29.5): both perhaps acknowledging that Trimalchio’s permitted or endowed sphere of operation is far more limited than the one in his dreams and ambitions.32 Soon after this, Encolpius reads a mundane plate inscription; a heavy, ornate silver plate is engraved with Trimalchio’s name (duae lances, in quarum marginibus nomen Trimalchionis inscriptum erat et argenti pondus).33 Encolpius reads ‘Trimalchio’ in the silver, and very soon after this, when Trimalchio subsequently enters the banquet, visibly adorned with an array of metallic and other symbols, Encolpius ‘reads the silver’ on Trimalchio, noting every aspect of his accoutrements. As Encolpius does so, he points initially to the laughter that erupts from less controlled onlookers: in his eramus lautitiis, cum ipse Trimalchio ad symphoniam allatus est positusque inter cervicalia minutissima expressit imprudentibus risum. pallio enim coccineo adrasum excluserat caput circaque oneratas veste cervices laticlaviam immiserat mappam fimbriis hinc atque illinc pendentibus. habebat etiam in minimo digito sinistrae manus anulum grandem subauratum, extreme vero articulo digiti sequentis minorem, ut mihi videretur, totum aureum, sed plane ferreis veluti stellis ferruminatum. et ne has tantum ostenderet divitias, dextrum nudavit lacertum armilla aurea cultum et eboreo circulo lamina splendente conexo. ut deinde pinna argentea dentes perfodit, } (Sat. 32.1-4 and 33.1). We were among such pleasures, when to music Trimalchio himself was carried in, and was deposited among a heap of small cushions, and his appearance brought the incautious to laughter, for his head was shaved and it stuck out from a scarlet cloak, and round his neck draped with a muffler he had thrust a napkin with a broad purple stripe and fringes dangling from it all around. On the little finger of his left hand he sported a huge gilt ring, and the top joint of the next finger held a smaller one, which seemed to me to be solid gold, though it was clearly studded with iron stars. Not content with demonstrating these marks of wealth, he bared his right arm to show

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis that it was adorned with a golden bracelet and an ivory bangle fastened with a shining plate of metal.34

The jokes are clear to those ‘in the know’: Trimalchio’s buzz-cut is one sported by newly freed slaves (making it perhaps a political statement that he still has his hair shorn);35 his scarlet military cloak and purple-striped napkin evoke not only the purple-striped tunics and togas worn only by senators, but the military command that came with the highest offices; his immense gold-plated ring and his bronze-starred gold ring remind us that only equestrians can wear the solid gold ring (Dig. 40.10); his arm-band of gold and ivory makes clear that he can certainly afford gold jewellery, but he cannot sport the equestrian ring he desires to wear; his silver tooth-pick is further emblematic of the luxuries at his disposal – even for the most mundane functions.36 The details that Encolpius takes in and narrates for the reader transmit his class-conscious sensitivity to the significance of these symbols. He knows exactly what they mean, and he is judging Trimalchio here for daring to dabble in the semantics of power and authority. The scene begs several questions: what has Encolpius gained over Trimalchio by drawing attention to the obvious differences between the freedman’s projections of power and their realities? Is Trimalchio any less rich or powerful in his own house now that his provocative insignia have been identified as mere props? Is Encolpius, despite his likely freeborn status, any more empowered in the universe within Trimalchio’s walls or the world outside? Although Encolpius seems to possess the upper hand in his assessment of the freedman’s adornments, he quickly loses ground again in the narrative by mistaking the pastry egg that is placed before him for a rotten egg (Sat. 33.7-8), showing once again that he has difficulty discerning the nature or reality of things. As we will discover later in Petronius’ novel, he will resort to disguising himself as a slave to avoid detection by another rich and powerful man whom he fears (Sat. 100-3). Encolpius may emphasize Trimalchio’s pretensions, but he cannot disguise his apparent awe at the luxuriousness of his surroundings, nor can he overcome his recurring state of befuddlement. Rather, what emerges more strongly in this passage is the extent of Trimalchio’s protest against the limitations placed upon his class; all these insignia reveal his intense desire to attain a status that his money cannot buy him. Hackworth Petersen points out the significance of the confused nature of Trimalchio’s adornments in the same passage: From Petronius’s perspective, the freedman struggles with his self-image as his face is literally framed by references to both his servile past and, despite his fabulous wealth, his impossible aspirations. Trimalchio thus both underand overstates his social position. } A servile past marred a freedman’s newly acquired citizen status and reinforced his marginal position in society; neither the slave cut nor trappings of elected office were appropriate. 37

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Free at Last! Perhaps nothing that Trimalchio does is appropriate when judged from a freeborn Roman’s privileged viewpoint. But is that relative judgment more important than the impulse that drives Trimalchio to make something out of a life interrupted by nearly two decades of servitude and sexual exploitation? Trimalchio has built a private and public persona on a foundation of Romanitas (‘Roman-ness’) that outshines the careers of any of the freeborn guests at the table. Indeed, what role is he now performing but that which facilitates trade and diversity of the Roman economy, thus perpetuating Roman society and projecting Roman power throughout the Empire? His ambitions and vast resources drive him not to wage war on the land that enslaved him, but rather to own land in Italy (Sat. 48); he adorns his person in a rather outrageous manner, but his house is filled with images and inscriptions suitable to any Roman household short on aristocratic imagines (waxen masks of noble ancestors).38 The concentration of self-representational texts at the beginning of the Cena narrative brings to the fore these important qualities of Trimalchio: that he is a man interested in cultivating a public image that has little or nothing to do with his private self (hence the warning of flogging slaves in an atmosphere where slaves address him warmly as ‘Gaius noster’) making him not a hypocrite in the modern sense, but merely a man concerned with his public face or facies, much like any member of the Roman élite. He hastens to document his achievements with little concern for the humility of his origins, eschewing prejudice-born shame in favour of a predilection for the miraculous, rags-to-riches story that astounds his peers.39 He displays a conservative nostalgia for republican roles which manifests itself in the insignia that he associates with success.40 In stark contrast to Encolpius’ rudderless life without familial or financial stability, Trimalchio has built an empire within the Empire which he monitors dutifully; he values his wife (though not without infidelity or the occurrence of tempestuous outbursts); he believes in the maintenance and acquisition of literature – he has built not one library but two, one for Latin and one for Greek books.41 Although Trimalchio fails the Roman aptitude test with his flawed recall of important Greek and Roman historical and literary works, he could nevertheless retort that, unlike many freeborn, he has dedicated some of his resources to preserving the literary culture of Rome.42 By contrast, Encolpius and his ilk, as the bitter Hermeros eventually rants against Ascyltos, are simply the beneficiaries of luck; they are born free, but make no significant contribution to their society (Sat. 57.10). Other freedmen at the banquet are given voice to inform the reader of their various roles within the society that previously enslaved them. One freedman boasts of funding a well-rounded education for a boy in his household.43 Another touts his qualities as a self-made man and speaks of buying his concubine (contubernalem) out of slavery (Sat. 57.5-6). Diogenes is a freedman who has made enough money to buy a house, and has placed an advertisement to sublet his apartment worded to emphasize his

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis rise in fortune: C. Pompeius Diogenes ex Kalendis Iuliis cenaculum locat; ipse enim domum emit (‘Gaius Pompeius Diogenes is renting out his pad starting in July, for he has purchased a proper house’: Sat. 38.10). Another freedman named Proculus has suffered hard times, but, eager to maintain his standing in society and fool his creditors, has posted an advertisement for an auction of his estate that summons bargain-hunters to bid merely on his ‘extra possessions’: Iulius Proculus auctionem faciet rerum supervacuarum: Sat. 38.16). In a lengthy rant Hermeros claims that his word is as good as gold in the marketplace, and he is proud that he owes nothing to anyone (Sat. 57.5). The freedmen thus show themselves to have values that most Romans would admire, and so the parodic aspects of the Cena begin to break down; the only hinge on which a parodic reading can hang when we read these accomplishments is the status of the individuals who boast. If we were to read of kindred accomplishments in one of Cicero’s letters, I should think the reader’s mental commentary would be very different, and little if any humour would be found in the statesman’s attempts to, say, augment his personal fortunes, or downplay a financial setback.44 What I am asking is that the reader pause and consider that Petronius, though clearly intending to hoist the freed slave on his own petard by means of this literary exercise, has rather found himself flying through the air as well. Petronius and his class have lost significant political clout in the imperial age, and what is left to define the upper class is a smaller and smaller space configured by moral, financial, and aesthetic qualities that, it turns out, others outside the class are equally capable of assuming – and redefining. In an age of rampant divorce among the upper classes, isn’t there some moral superiority to be rendered to a man who undertakes personal sacrifice to buy the woman he loves out of bondage? The libertus and the lapidarius One freedman’s portrayal that truly stands out in the Cena is that of Habinnas, the stone-mason and guest of honour who arrives late to the banquet.45 Scholars have had difficulty deciding what to make of Habinnas, the most popular idea being that his entrance parodies an inebriated Alcibiades entering Plato’s symposium.46 Maria Plaza suggests that Habinnas’ appearance evokes laughter, while his occupation (two aspects of which are builder and inscriber of tombs) highlights the theme of death.47 Courtney suggests that the reason Habinnas is a stone-mason is to allow Trimalchio to discuss his tomb,48 and Jane Whitehead identifies Habinnas with Petronius: ‘the author creates a comical stereotype of the freedman’s monument in the same way that the fictitious sculptor is to create the stereotype of the freedman’s monument’.49 Yet not enough attention has been paid to the emphasis in the narrative on Encolpius’ confusion as to who Habinnas is when he enters. Indeed, Habinnas’

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Free at Last! entrance fits in well with the persistent Petronian theme that things are not always what they seem: Inter haec triclinii valvas lictor percussit, amictusque veste alba cum ingenti frequentia comissator intravit. ego maiestate conterritus praetorem putabam venisse. itaque temptavi assurgere et nudos pedes interim deferre. risit hanc trepidationem Agamemnon et ‘contine te’ inquit ‘homo stultissime. Habinnas sevir est idemque lapidarius, qui vide[re]tur monumenta optime facere’, recreatus hoc sermone reposui cubitum, Habinnamque intrantem cum admiratione ingenti spectabam (Sat. 65.4-6). As we were engaged with [the delicacies], an attendant rapped on the dining room doors, and a reveller swathed in white cloth, followed by a large entourage, made his way in. I was awed by his eminence, and thought that a praetor had arrived, so I struggled to get up and put my bare feet on the ground. Agamemnon grinned at my panic, and said: ‘Control yourself, you fathead. This is Habinnas, one of the college of priests, and a stone-mason to boot; apparently his tombs are top-quality. This information reassured me, so I leaned back on my elbow, and eyed Habinnas’s entry with considerable astonishment.50

Once again, Encolpius misreads what he sees. His initial reaction to Habinnas stands in contrast to his earlier critical reaction to Trimalchio’s trinkets and the symbolic trespasses they represent (Sat. 32-3). But the result of Encolpius’ error is that Habinnas, unlike any of the other freedmen at the banquet, momentarily appears as a man without the baggage of his former servitude. It is surely relevant that Agamemnon (a companion of Encolpius), not one of the other freedmen, is the one who breaks the news to Encolpius: one assumes the freedmen, had they noticed Encolpius’ reaction, would have been willing to let the illusion last as long as possible. Thus the man who appears at first to be among the élite, who shares an intimate relationship with Trimalchio, and who is elevated to prestige above all other freedmen present at the banquet, is a lapidarius (‘stonemason’). Here is the man whose job it is to render stony permanence to the desires for self-representation among members of his social class.51 Given that we can verifiably attest that freed slaves displayed a more prominent penchant for inscriptional self-representation in the imperial period than their freeborn counterparts, this scene may reflect a broader context in which freedmen held special relationships with stone-masons in a way similar to the relationships between patricians and literary clients in the days of republican Rome. If it can be said that patricians of the Roman Republic frequently relied on social inferiors with literary talent to document their accomplishments, we should notice that here Trimalchio relies on a man who is his social and political equal (Habinnas is also a freedman and a sevir) to grace his monument with the images and words that honour his achievements and aspirations – images described in great detail later in the narrative.

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Furthermore, we should notice the conflation (within two sentences of the Latin text) of lictor, praetor, sevir, lapidarius, monumenta and admiratio (which need not include our sense of ‘admiration,’ but does carry a sense of awe). As a lapidarius, Habinnas is a link between freedmen and their hope for commemoration, and in his momentary appearance as an élite magistrate he enacts the flattening of social interaction in imperial Rome.52 Habinnas’ appearance as a praetor signifies the degree to which the syntactic elements that served in the past to distinguish the social orders have become confused. Shortly after Habinnas’ entrance, Trimalchio invites the slaves of his household to join in the festivities (Sat. 70.11 and 74.6), dismantling entirely the pretence of social hierarchy within Trimalchio’s world. Encolpius’ embarrassment about his bare feet raised up before a praetor is also important for what it tells us about him, for here we get an indication that Encolpius not only recognizes symbols of power (as we saw earlier), but also that he has respect for civic structures. His deference to a man of rank reminds us that he does in fact live under Roman rule, and that despite his bawdy adventures, he retains an understanding of sociopolitical decorum, and he knows his own (low) position within the hierarchy. It may also be likely that Encolpius is mindful of the numerous crimes he has (likely) committed in lost sections of the Satyrica that are recounted in section 81.3 – a praetor is a court official after all. It is worthy of note also that Agamemnon seems perhaps a little too eager (and prescient – how did he know what Encolpius was thinking?) to correct Encolpius’ error. He calls Encolpius ‘stultissime’, and displays an aggressively defensive posture in what can only be seen as an instinctual need to preserve the social status quo.53 But to what end? Habinnas is nearly as rich as his friend and host, as shown by the expensive baubles their respective wives compare in a slightly later scene (Sat. 67.9-10). Bringing Habinnas ‘down a notch’ in Encolpius’ eyes (and those of the reader) is only possible through the lens of prejudiced and legalistic social status – his skill as an artisan and his immense success in his business outshines the accomplishments of any of the ‘freeborn’ men in the room. Habinnas has been commissioned to execute Trimalchio’s plans for his elaborate tomb – one its owner carefully describes with respect to the dimensions, the images to be depicted (and their position on the tomb), the landscaping that surrounds the tomb, and the inscription.54 At one point, Trimalchio and his wife Fortunata have a quarrel brought on by her jealousy over his esteem for an attractive slave-boy. After being rebuked by his wife, Trimalchio turns to Habinnas and asks him to remove her statue from the sculpture that will grace his tomb (Sat. 74.17). Habinnas begins to reconcile the couple with the simple phrase ‘no one is perfect – we are men, not gods’ (Sat. 75.1). This and pleading from Habinnas’ wife begin to soften Trimalchio’s mind so that later in the narrative, when

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Free at Last! Trimalchio relates his life-story, he admits that his wife played a central role in restoring his fortunes after a significant loss of capital (Sat. 76.7). Habinnas is more than a stone-mason in this narrative – he displays a great deal of control over Trimalchio’s banquet to the point that he manipulates the direction of conversation and the sequence of events after his arrival. Trimalchio seems utterly reliant on Habinnas for approval and confirmation, asking his friend to approve his desired inscription, and understand his point of view in his relationship with his wife.55 He even allows Habinnas to be the centre of attention when the artisan hums along to a musical performance by his slave (Sat. 69.4). To my mind, it is much more than plot-determined necessity that has induced Petronius to include a stone-mason in Trimalchio’s circle of friends, for in Habinnas’ character the author has brought to life the dependent relationship between status and self-representation. When Trimalchio reports the inscription he wants on his tomb, he asks Habinnas if he approves. Here is the inscription he recites: C. Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatianus hic requiescit. huic seviratus absenti decretus est. cum posset in omnibus decuriis Romae esse, tamen noluit. pius, fortis, fidelis, ex parvo crevit; sestertium reliquit trecenties, nec umquam philosophum audivit. vale: et tu (Sat. 71.12). Here rests Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio of the household of Maecenas. He was formally declared Priest of Augustus in his absence. Though he could have claimed membership of every Roman guild, he refused. He was god-fearing, brave and faithful. He grew from small beginnings and left thirty million, without ever hearing a philosopher lecture. Farewell, Trimalchio; and fare well, you who read this (translation by P.G. Walsh).

Habinnas does not make it clear whether or not he approves of the inscription, though he (along with Trimalchio, Fortunata, and soon the whole household) weeps to hear it (Sat. 72.1). Indeed, this may be one of many versions that Trimalchio has considered, and indeed we are left to imagine that there may be several more revisions of the words before they are finally inscribed in stone. But its effect on the freed slaves and the slaves in the room is powerful; the reason for this could be related to what Mary Beard has noted about the inscription – namely that the inclusion of Trimalchio in the household of Maecenas displays a seemingly brazen association with the man who was once very close to the soon to be imperial family, and whose bitter enemy was a ‘Pompeius’: As several commentators have pointed out, the addition of the extra agnomen ‘Maecenatianus’ could be an aristocratic flourish that risks rebounding } Or is it us that have failed to catch up? Isn’t that exactly what the mid-first century’s all about? It’s taken an imperial revolution – but Pompeius and Maecenas now go together just fine.56

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis The entire inscription broadcasts a life of struggle (ex parvo crevit) to achieve astounding success, and to add ‘Maecenatianus’ could be likened to a lowborn but successful American businessman calling himself a Rockefeller. I like to think that the slaves and freed slaves in the room weep not just for the eventual death of Trimalchio, but for the inscription’s fulfilment of their collective desire to be appreciated by the society in which they labour and to which they contribute. The validation of the freed slave’s existence in Trimalchio’s inscription makes it a manifesto of sorts. Conclusion Through the eyes of Encolpius, the reader of sections 26-78 of Petronius’ Satyrica comes to understand not only the opulence and strangeness of Trimalchio, but the dimensions and details of his Campanian home. Amid these details are texts and images that depict Trimalchio as a man who has succeeded to the limits of his station – well beyond the expectations of anyone who would have started his life inside the Roman Empire as a slave. Other voices of freed slaves speak, too, within the narrative to demonstrate that the economic and political landscape has shifted: those from ignoble circumstances have the chance to live as well as their aristocratic contemporaries. Petronius leaves us with the impression that Trimalchio and his ilk are the new Rome – that this topsy-turvy state of affairs could be the ‘new normal’ in a system where being freeborn under an emperor, as Tacitus blatantly puts it, is to be enslaved: at Romae ruere in servitium consules, patres, eques (but at Rome the consuls, senators, and the knights all hastened into slavery).57 There is parody and satire here in the representation of wealthy freed slaves, to be sure, but there is also another current within the narrative willing to suggest that some freed slaves have merited their position, an admission Quintilian makes reluctantly a generation after Nero’s arbiter elegantiae likely wrote this fiction: ‘the social-standing of freed slaves requires detraction, but one is obliged to bear witness to their hard work, on account of which they have escaped servitude’ (Inst. 11.1.88). Trimalchio’s freed table-mates and especially Habinnas, his best friend and stone-cutter, appear in a more favourable light than Trimalchio himself, and provide evidence that no community should be judged entirely by its most visible members. Trimalchio’s tomb and inscription stand as a model of silly and over-the-top monumentalism, but we should keep in mind that within the Satyrica they remain desiderata, not a fait accompli. It rests with the dutiful obligation of his social peers that his accomplishments will receive the honour of commemoration. Freedmen, the Cena suggests, serve as narrators for each other, and their narratives are durable, as we, so many centuries later, can attest. Despite the prejudiced nature of ancient Roman literary attitudes toward them, the successes and contributions of many freedmen in the Empire deserve our attention and our study.

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Free at Last! Notes 1. For example, Taylor 1961; Clarke 2003; Mouritsen 2005; Petersen 2006; Leach 2006; and George 2006; as well as Borg, Galvao-Sobrinho and Verboven in this volume. The author wishes to thank Marc Kleijwegt, Damien Nelis, and Jocelyne Nelis-Clément, Eleanor Winsor Leach, and an anonymous reader, as well as Sinclair Bell for immensely helpful suggestions and comments that served to make this a better paper; shortcomings are entirely my own responsibility. Translations unattributed are my own – the rest are by P.G. Walsh. 2. Webster 2005, 168. 3. See Verboven in this volume, and see also Whitehead 1993, 319-20. 4. Mommsen 1878.Cf. also Hübner 1878. A recent piece that gracefully develops further on the themes of Veyne’s study is Hidalgo de la Vega 2005. 5. Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005. 6. Perkins 2009, 139. 7. On the legal status of Encolpius, Ascyltos, Giton, and Agamemnon (the outsider guests at the banquet) – see Andreau 2009; Richlin 2009; and especially Courtney 2001, 39-43. 7a. See Kleijwegt, this volume, 113. 8. The curators of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, especially Matthew Fancher at Ferris State University, sent me much helpful information about this image. According to the Library of Congress, there are no restrictions on its publication, and it was copyrighted in 1906 by The US Lithograph Co. (Russell-Morgan Print) of Cincinnati & New York. For more information, see this site: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/var1993000228/PP/ 9. One also might think of the dilemma of the professional middle class in England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, seen by the élite as a debased group enjoying inappropriately the privileges and standards of living previously available only to the landed aristocracy. It is interesting that the word ‘condescension’ in Jane Austen novels refers (without negative connotations) to the proper attitude of the aristocracy toward anyone outside that élite circle, but now, of course, it has come to have quite negative connotations, due to the legitimization of non-aristocratic wealth in England. 10. Zeitlin 1971, 683. 11. Certainly Petronius does not pose Encolpius as an admirable character; on the dual nature of Encolpius’ characterization, on the one hand the all-knowing narrator, and on the other the foolish, misguided youth who is depicted by the narrator, see Beck 1973. 12. E.g. Mommsen 1878; Hübner 1878; Beard 1998; Wolters 1999; Guidetti 2007. Textual and visual parallels are also discussed in a thematic issue of an Italian journal devoted to plebeian art: Studi Miscellanei. Seminario di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte Greca e Romana dell’Università di Roma 10 (1963-1964). See also Whitehead 1993 on corollaries between Trimalchio’s art of self-representation and art commonly found among freedmen in ancient art. 13. Ramsby 2007. The phrase ‘epigraphic habit’ was coined effectively by MacMullen 1982. There is a parallel reflection in the narrative of the movement among freed slaves to use the visual language of the upper classes as well, as seen in Trimalchio’s atrium-mural where he associates his rags to riches life with divine aid and approval. 14. Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005, 15. 15. Sat. 28.7. See Tremoli 1960, 5-7, about the significance of doorposts as a

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis location for important objects, n. 5-8: Hor. Epist. 1.1.5, Cic. de Domo 46.121, Cic. Att.3.15, Liv. 2.8, Val. Flacc. 3.25, and Juv. 6.51. See also Miller 2009, 96, on the fixing of items to the doorposts of Apollo’s temples in Vergil’s Aeneid (3.287 and 8.721-2). All Petronius passages are taken from Müller’s 2003 edition. 16. Slater 1990, 56 n. 13. 17. Courtney 2001, 75. See also Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005, and Best 1965 on slave-literacy. 18. Tremoli 1960, 5-7: Cato, Agr. 2.7, and Varro, Rust. 1.17.1. Indeed when Encolpius first spies Trimalchio at the baths, and before he knows who he is, he calls him a paterfamilias (Sat. 27.2). 19. Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005, 6. 20. Sat. 52.6 (slave forgiven for dropping a goblet), 53.3 (report of a farm slave crucified for cursing the genius of Trimalchio), 54.5 (clumsy acrobat forgiven); and compare the freedmen’s dismayed reaction to the news that another freedman (Glyco) has thrown his steward to the beasts merely for pleasuring his wife (45.8). 21. Plaza 2000, 99, and Veyne 1963. 22. Sat. 28.6: saturi admiratione; 29.1: stupeo; 30.1: miratus sum; 30.5: his repleti voluptatibus; 34.8: nobis et accuratissime lauitas mirantibus; 36.7: non erubui eum qui supra me accumbebat hoc ipsum interrogare; 41.1: interim ego } in multas cogitations diductus sum; 41.5: damnavi ego stuporem meum et nihil amplius interrogavi. See also Conte 1996, 129: ‘The author has provided his narrator and protagonist with material worthy of satire, but he has also ironically ensured that the narrator himself collapses when confronted with the world around him’. 23. See Rimell 2002 on the various permutations of words and actions that suggest a deterioration of the boundaries between ‘insides’ and ‘outsides’, and a concentration of images and accounts of things full to bursting, and other ideas of excess. 24. See CIL 4.8352, published in Matteo della Corte’s third supplement to volume 4: III Non(as) Mai(as) / III Non(as) Iunias Pompeis / Pr(idie) III Non(as) Iunias P[uteo]li(s). 25. The Saturnalian tone of the Cena is unmistakable: see Rankin 1962; Slater 1990, 75; and Plaza 2000, 35-7.On the Compitalia, where ‘signs of servitude were removed from slaves’, see Bradley 1987, 42-3. The precise dates of the Compitalia are uncertain, with some sources suggesting the festival occurred on the first of January, and others that it took place on the second (e.g. Cic. Att. 7.7): see Lintott 1999, 80. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 4.14.4, informs us of the origins of the festival and its aspects; for a good discussion of the role of the festival, and its differing modes and periods of celebration see Lott 2004, 35ff. 26. Perkins 2009, ch. 6, n. 26, points out the passages that indicate Trimalchio’s generous nature with his slaves at the dinner party (Sat. 70.10, 74.6) in contrast to other writers’ frank admissions to the considerably harsh treatment of slaves at such events (e.g. Sen. Ep. 47.3). 27. See Bodel 1994, 185 on the juxtaposition of this scene against the prior introduction of a roast boar with freedman’s cap on its head. Bodel argues that the ‘Liber’ scene demonstrates how easy it is to become a freedman, but how little it affects the true status of the freed individual. 28. Tremoli 1960, 11. 29. Petersen 2006, 58-60. 30. George 2006, 22-3. For the naval imagery, see Prag 2006. Manning 1965 suggests that the object may be a rod meant to symbolize the ceremony of vindicta whereby a slave is freed by the touch of a rod. However Manning has nothing to

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Free at Last! say about why the fasces also appear there. It is worthy of note that the tomb of Gaius Cartilius Poplicola at Ostia includes the appearance of sixteen fasces, with eight placed symmetrically on each side of the tomb’s face, to symbolize, presumably, each of his eight terms of office as duovir, which is essentially a mayoral position – a local office. Cartlilius is not a freed slave, but the presence of the fasces shows its importance in symbolizing local as well as imperial authority. 31. See Verboven, this volume, 91. 32. For a nice summary of the interpretations regarding Trimalchio’s mural painting, see Hidalgo de la Vega 2005, 233-4 and nn. 18 and 19. See also Zanker 1990, 291-5 on the consequences of prestige and honours coming from the emperor rather than the aristocratic state, and as a result the broader social range of people that could express accomplishment using time-honoured symbolic imagery. 33. Sat. 31.10. See Painter 2001, 27 on the regularity of the appearance of names and weight on silver plate. 34. This translation is by P.G. Walsh with a few of my own emendations. 35. See Bodel 1994, 251 on the clever link between freed slaves and survivors of shipwreck who would both sport the shaved head. 36. See Zanker 1990, 274-8, on the incorporation of public and ‘official pictorial vocabulary’ into private contexts. 37. Petersen 2006, 124-5. 38. See von Hesberg 2005 and Wiseman 1987 on the social and political significance of the houses of senators; see also Flower 1996. Beck 2009 emphasizes the necessarily public and accessible aspects of such houses, and how houses could win a man political office. See also Guidetti 2006, 399-401, for more on aspects of Trimalchio’s self-fashioned civis Romanus. 39. Trimalchio also makes a point to ask that seemingly mundane events be recorded in text: the fall of the acrobat receives an epigram he composes (Sat. 55.1-3) and the daily report (tamquam urbis acta) he has read aloud concerning his property-holdings (Sat. 53.1-10). 40. See Ripat, this volume, on the probable and significant role of freedmen in Roman magisterial elections during the Republic. If freed slaves developed a taste for politics and an appreciation for the republican system by means of their polling and campaigning, it is little wonder that in the imperial age they would play an even greater role in the professional, political class that emerges. 41. On Trimalchio’s concern for his holdings, see Sat. 53.1-10; on his care for his wife, see Sat. 37; on Trimalchio’s libraries, see Sat. 48.4; on the textual problem regarding the number of libraries (two or three) and the implications of such a claim, see Starr 1987. 42. Sat. 50.5-6, 52.1-2 and 59.4-5 depict Trimalchio’s incorrect textual recall; see also the astute commentary of Arrowsmith 1996, 320: ‘If the freedmen vulgarize, [then] Encolpius, Eumolpus, and Agamemnon desecrate the culture they profess. } If the freedmen show that they secretly hate culture, Encolpius and Eumolpus are hypocrites and snobs whose culture is no more than a veneer. In practice, they betray it on every possible occasion.’ See also Perkins 2009, 135, for the suggestion that Trimalchio may have a purpose in reporting things this way: ‘In the early empire, getting myth histories right operated as a part of the contemporary system of values based on abstruse education that set up the élite } Trimalchio’s stories challenge this power.’ 43. Sat. 46.3. Horsfall 1989, 202: ‘Trimalchio is, if you will, bewitched or entranced by the power of the written word, by the binding, almost magical effect of durable communication. The Cena portrays a world of first-generation literates

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis or semi-literates (to whom) elementary education is novel and important. Little wonder that Trimalchio wants to live surrounded by words – in large letters, too, some of them.’ 44. In this vein, one might think also of the irony that issues from Pliny’s letter to Trajan (10.96) as he writes about the habits of Christians he has found in Bithynia, many of whom he has had to send to execution: ‘they bind themselves in a sacred oath not toward wickedness but to the effect that they commit no theft, robbery or adultery, that they breach no contract, and that they not cheat a creditor.’ 45. On the seeming indifference among the Roman élite to the various tasks of the stone-mason and on the resulting confusion regarding what to call the stonemason in Latin, see Susini 1973, 14-20. 46. See Cameron 1969 and Cucchiarelli 1996. 47. Plaza 2000, 153-4. 48. Courtney 2001, 113. 49. Whitehead 1993, 320. 50. Translation by P.G. Walsh with a few emendations of my own. 51. See Cucchiarelli 1996, 745: ‘Per la sua stessa professione, al figura di Abinna si deve associare una competenza specifica sul linguaggio, spesso sovrapposto, dello scritto e dell’immagine. I monumenta, per quello che è il sistema comunicativo dei liberti, sono i vettori preferiti di iconografia e di scrittura.’ 52. See Cucchiarelli 1996, 747-50, for a quite different interpretation; he notes that Habinnas’s appearance continues the Dionysian theme of the dinner party, established particularly in Sat. 41, and that the dual presence of Habinnas as magistrate and god makes him a satiric figure ‘all’ennesima potenza’. 53. I wish to thank Marc Kleijwegt for the observation that Agamemnon, as shown by his sudden response, seems to read Encolpius’ mind – instantly realizing somehow that Encolpius has misunderstood Habinnas’ identity. 54. Sat. 71.6-12. For an analysis of Trimalchio’s tomb within the historical context and emergence of Rome’s ‘tomb-suburbs’, see Purcell 1987; see Whitehead 1993 for a discussion of the images and inscription in a wider Italian context. 55. For Habinnas as Trimalchio’s alter ego, see Cucchiarelli 1996, 747. 56. Beard 1998, 97-8. 57. Sat. 1.6. This quotation of the phrase ‘new normal’ comes from a series of stories ABC news presented in mid-2009 regarding the consequences of the recent financial crisis.

Bibliography Andreau, J. (2009) ‘Freedmen in the Satyrica’, in Prag and Repath 2009, 114-24. Arrowsmith, W. (1996) ‘Luxury and Death in the Satyricon’, Arion 5.3: 304-31. Beard, M. (1998) ‘Vita Inscripta’, in W.W. Ehlers (ed.) La Biographie Antique (Geneva) 83-118. Beck, H. (2009) ‘From Poplicola to Augustus: Senatorial Houses in Roman Political Culture’, Phoenix 63: 361-84. Beck, R. (1973) ‘Some Observations on the Narrative Technique of Petronius’, Phoenix 27: 42-61. Best, E. (1965) ‘Attitudes towards Literacy Reflected in Petronius’, CJ 61: 72-6. Bodel, J. (1984) ‘Freedmen in the Satyricon of Petronius’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.

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Free at Last! Bodel, J. (1994) ‘Trimalchio’s Underworld’, in J. Tatum (ed.) The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore) 237-59. Bradley, K. (1987) Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Oxford). Cameron, A. (1969) ‘Petronius and Plato’, CQ 19.2: 367-70. Clarke, J.R. (2003) Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representations and Non-Élite Viewers in Italy, 100 BC-AD 315 (Berkeley). Conte, G.B. (1996) The Hidden Author: An Interpretation of Petronius’ Satyricon, translated by E. Fantham (Berkeley). Courtney, E. (2001) A Companion to Petronius (Oxford). Cucchiarelli, A. (1996) ‘L’entrata di Abinna nella Cena Trimalchionis’, AnnPisa 1: 737-53. D’Ambra, E. and G. Métraux (eds) (2006) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World (Oxford). Flower, H. (1996) Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford). George, M. (2006). ‘Social Identity and the Dignity of Work in Freedmen’s Reliefs’, in D’Ambra and Métraux 2006, 19-30. Guidetti, F. (2007) ‘La tomba Trimalchione: Saggio di commento archeologico al Satyricon’, in F. de Angelis (ed.) Lo sguardo archeologico: I normalisti per Paul Zanker (Pisa) 77-95. Guidetti, F. (2006) ‘Note sull’iconografia di un rilievo funerario da Amiternum: modelli e scelte figurative di un liberto municipale’, ArchClass 57: 387-403. Hesberg, H. von (2005) ‘Die Häuser der Senatoren: Gesellschaftliche und politische Funktion’, in W. Eck and M. Heil (eds) Senatores populi Romani. Realität und mediale Präsentation einer Führungsschicht, Kolloquium der Prosopographia Imperii Romani vom 11.-13. Juni 2004 (Stuttgart) 19-52. Hidalgo de la Vega, M. (2005) ‘El liberto Trimalción en el Satiricón de Petronio. Entre la libertad y la dependencia’, in A. Gonzales (ed.) La fin du statut servile?: affranchissement, libération, abolition, vol. 1 (Franche-Comté) 229-40. Horsfall, N. (1989) ‘“The Uses of Literacy” and the Cena Trimalchionis: I & II’, G&R 36.1:74-89; 36.2:194-209. Hübner, E. (1878) ‘Zum Denkmal des Trimalchios’, Hermes 13: 414-22. Leach, E. W. (2006) ‘Freedmen and Immortality in the Tomb of the Haterii’, in D’Ambra and Métraux 2006, 1-18. Lintott, A. (1999) Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford). Lott, J.B. (2004) The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome (Cambridge). MacMullen, R. (1982) ‘The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire’, AJP 103: 233-46. Manning, W.H. (1965) ‘A Relief of Two Greek Freedmen’, BMQ 29: 25-8. Miller, J.F. (2009) Apollo, Augustus and the Poets (Cambridge). Mommsen, T. (1878) ‘Trimalchios Heimath und Grabschrift’, Hermes 13: 106-21. Mouritsen, H. (2005) ‘Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy’, JRS 95: 38-63. Müller, K. (ed.) (2003) Petronii Arbitri Satyricon Reliquiae (Munich). Nelis-Clément, J. and D. Nelis (2005) ‘Petronius’ Epigraphic Habit’, Dictynna 2: 145-64. Painter, K.S. (2001) The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii, vol. IV: The Silver Treasure (Oxford). Perkins, J. (2009) Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era (New York).

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3. ‘Reading’ the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis Petersen, L.H. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Plaza, M. (2000) Laughter and Derision in Petronius’ Satyrica: A Literary Study (Stockholm). Prag, J. (2006) ‘Cave navem’, CQ 56: 538-47. Prag, J. and I. Repath (eds) (2009) Petronius: A Handbook (Chichester, UK and Malden, MA). Purcell, N. (1987) ‘Tomb and Suburb’, in H. von Hesberg and P. Zanker (eds) Römische Gräberstrassen: Selbstdarstellung – Status – Standard (Munich) 25-41. Ramsby, T. (2007) Textual Permanence: Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition. (London). Rankin, H.D. (1962) ‘Saturnalian Word Play and Apophoreta in Satyricon 56’, ClMed 23: 134-42. Richlin, A. (2009) ‘Sex in the Satyrica: Outlaws in Literatureland’, in Prag and Repath 2009, 82-100. Rimell, V. (2002) Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction (Cambridge). Slater, N.W. (1990) Reading Petronius (Baltimore). Starr, R.J. (1987) ‘Trimalchio’s Libraries’, Hermes 115: 252-3. Susini, G. (1973) The Roman Stonecutter: An Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (Oxford). Taylor, L.R. (1961) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in Epitaphs of Imperial Rome’, AJP 82: 113-32. Tremoli, P. (1960) Le Iscrizioni di Trimalchione (Trieste). Veyne, P. (1961) ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, AnnÉconSocCiv 16: 213-47. Veyne, P. (1963) ‘Cave Canem’, MÉFR 75: 59-66. Walsh, P.G. (1996) The Satyricon (Oxford). Webster, J. (2005) ‘Archaeologies of Slavery and Servitude: Bringing New World Perspectives to Roman Britain’, JRA 18: 161-79. Whitehead, J. (1993) ‘The Cena Trimalchionis and Biographical Narration in Roman Middle-Class Art’, in P. Holliday (ed.) Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge) 299-325. Wiseman, T.P. (1987) ‘The Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses’, in L’Urbs: espace urbain et histoire (Ier siècle av. J.-C.- IIIe siècle ap. J.-C.) (Actes du colloque international organisé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique et l’Ecole française de Rome, 1985) (Rome) 393-413. Wolters, R. (1999) ‘C. Stertinius Xenophon von Kos und die Grabinschrift des Trimalchio’, Hermes 127: 47-60. Zanker, P. (1990) The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor). Zeitlin, F. (1971) ‘Petronius as Paradox: Anarchy and Artistic Integrity’, TAPA 102: 631-84.

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4

The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Koenraad Verboven Rome was one of history’s major slave societies. The economy of Roman Italy in the late Republic and early Empire has often been described as a slave economy. Yet, looking at the literary, legal and epigraphic evidence, freedmen are considerably more prominent than slaves in positions requiring special skills and responsibilities. Although slaves quantitatively outnumbered freedmen, freedmen qualitatively outranked slaves as agents, managers, and entrepreneurs. Whereas unskilled slaves were easily replaceable, skilled freedmen were not. In crucial sectors of the economy slavery was a passing phase necessary to produce freedmen: an investment in human resources yielding its greatest fruits after manumission. In this chapter I will argue that the economy of Roman Italy may be characterized as a ‘freedmen economy’ with as much good cause as a ‘slave economy’. ‘Freedmanship’ should not be reduced to an epiphenomenon of slavery, but be acknowledged as a relation of structural importance for the Italian economy. Slavery as a legal condition Slaves in the ancient world did not form a recognizable social class. Although Aristotle’s theory of the ‘natural slave’ was long cited to justify modern slavery, Aristotle was not expressing common opinion. Roman law considered slavery an institution of convention (ius gentium). According to natural law (ius naturale) all men were born free.1 Roman slavery was therefore strictly a legal condition, nothing more, nothing less. Law provided that some people who were born naturally free were legally born as slaves. It provided in some cases that legally freeborn were enslaved and in others that slaves could be turned (back) into free individuals entitled to legal protection.2 There was no objection in principle, therefore, against integrating former slaves in the citizen community. Greek law excluded freedmen from full citizenship but gave them the status of metoikoi, ‘resident aliens’. Roman law, probably already in the early Republic, provided formal manumission procedures which turned slaves into full Roman citizens, although they remained subject to some limitations, mostly concerning

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy their relation to their former master (see below).3 Since the Augustan period they were legally excluded from the order of knights and of senators and were forbidden to marry with senators or their children.4 The lex Visellia of 24 CE barred them from holding municipal offices or sitting as city councillors (decuriones).5 Slaves freed without the proper procedures were accepted as free individuals, but did not attain citizenship. In the late Republic their freedom was guaranteed summarily by the praetor, but they could not acquire property or make legally valid agreements concerning transactions (ius commercii), and their marriages were legally void (i.e. they lacked the ius connubii). Probably in 19 CE, the Lex Iunia Norbana granted them the Latin rights once given to the former allies of the Latin league in 338 BCE.6 Junian Latins (Latini iuniani) – as they were henceforth called – lacked Roman citizenship, but their ius commercii et connubii were legally guaranteed. However, they had no testamentary rights and when they died, their entire inheritance returned to their patron or his heirs. Various means allowed a latinus iunianus to become a full Roman citizen: when he or she had a one-year-old child born from a legal marriage (as granted by the lex Aelia, 4 CE),7 when he served at least six (later three) years in the Roman watchmen brigades (as granted by the lex Visellia, 24 CE), when he constructed a ship and imported grain to the city of Rome during a period of at least six years (as granted by an edict from Claudius), when he owned more than 200,000 sesterces and built a house in Rome (by Neronian edict), or when he exploited a bakery in Rome during a period of a least three years (by edict of Trajan).8 Cicero took it for granted that ‘good’ slaves would be rewarded by their freedom, and thought that without such a prospect none could have borne their condition (Cic. Phil. 8.32 and Cic. Rab. Post. 15). Alföldy adduced epigraphic and legal evidence to corroborate this idea and concluded that slavery was primarily a transitional state for most slaves.9 This is probably unduly optimistic. His view was sharply criticized by Wiedemann who believes the sources reflect idealistic views held by slave owners about how the ‘deserving’ slave should be rewarded.10 Hopkins, however, argued that manumission was a crucial incentive to employ slaves in positions requiring responsibility and care.11 Hence, manumission was an integral part of the Roman system of slavery. In the same vein, Scheidel proposed an adapted version of Fenoaltea’s model in which manumission is correlated to the use of slaves in care-intensive tasks or in positions where they were responsible for valuable capital assets.12 Demography The omnipresence of slaves in responsible positions implies the presence also of large numbers of freedmen. Indeed, Nero’s councillors claimed that freedmen formed the majority of the plebs, of assistants of magistrates and

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Free at Last! priests and even of the urban guards (presumably within Rome). Most knights and many senators would have descended from freedmen. Thus, the shortage of freeborn would soon become manifest if freedmen were separated from them (Tac. Ann. 13.26). Freedmen are unusually well documented in Italian epigraphy. In the city of Rome and Ostia roughly 75% of all funerary inscriptions belong to freedmen, while the remaining quarter largely belong to first-generation freeborn. 90% of all persons mentioned in inscriptions from Puteoli are freedmen. It is generally agreed that these percentages reflect ‘epigraphic habit’ rather than demographic reality. Mouritsen has argued that funerary monuments (which provide the bulk of all inscriptions) were not customary among the Italian freeborn. Roman families owned burial plots where they received simple inconspicuous (mostly anepigraphic) burials.13 Freedmen who were denied access to the family burial plots of their patrons had to provide their own burial facilities. Acquiring and marking a burial ground or monument may well have underscored their hard-won right to establish their own true family and provide it with a final resting place. The freedmen elite were not so much competing with the civic elite, but were competing with each other. Even among freedmen, however, ostentatious funerary monuments remained exceptional.14 Most burial markers with inscriptions were invisible to the public: they served emotional needs, rather than social ones.15 Jongman, however, recently expressed doubts on the dismissal of epigraphic evidence.16 The large proportion of freedmen mentioned in membership lists of professional associations and recorded in the Campanian tablets cannot have been biased by a freedmen preference for inscriptions. Although the numbers of freedmen recorded in the Ostian collegia are much lower than those recorded as tomb builders, they are still very high. They suggest that at least 40% of the collegiati – representative of the adult male members of the plebs media (the ‘middling class’ of the common people) – in Ostia were freedmen.17 The discovery of new fragments of an inscription listing the adult male inhabitants of Herculaneum in the 70s CE has revealed that roughly 45% of the listed persons had Greek cognomina, suggesting that approximately 75% of all persons mentioned in the list were freedmen.18 The Herculanean tablets (mainly legal documents) record 386 persons, of which 40% have Greek cognomina and 60% have Latin names, suggesting a sample population consisting of c. 60% freedmen (a number of these appear not to have lived in Herculaneum, yet the figure is in line with the epigraphic data on Herculaneum as a whole).19 It would appear therefore that, at least for Herculaneum, the large number of attested freedmen, cannot be explained away by epigraphic habit alone. It more or less correctly reflects the number of freedmen in the city. The Campanian cities and Ostia are obviously not representative for Italy as a whole. This was a highly ‘commercialized’ zone, heavily engaged

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy in international trade and the production of luxury articles for the Roman market. The slave pool from which the Campanian and Ostian freedmen were drawn is likely to have been much larger than Campania itself. Yet we should be apprehensive about underestimating the population of freedmen in other parts of Italy too. The numbers of epigraphically recorded freedmen are high also in other regions, but not high enough to support the idea of a distinctly different epigraphic habit among a socially distinct freedman community20 – there are numerous inscriptions to memorialize the freeborn as well. In Brescia for instance, among the epigraphically attested population, only c. 30% seem to have been freedmen compared to 65% freeborn.21 The numerical importance of freedmen in the cities may be inferred also by looking at the elite section of the freedmen community, or those belonging to the civic order of (seviri) augustales who were involved in the cult of the emperor and who feature prominently in Italian cities.22 The main purpose of this institution was to create a status qualification for well-to-do members of the community who for some reason were excluded from public office or from entering the ordo decurionum. Presumably the office of augustalis lasted only one year, but the dignity attached to it was held for life. Ex-(seviri) augustales formed an ordo augustalium with privileges and tokens of status attached to it, which in some cases organized itself into a collegium. The vast majority (80-90%) of recorded augustales were freedmen. The existence of such a status group presupposes a critical mass of freedmen from which the wealthy members could be selected for this civic honour. Their numbers range from roughly 20 members in Cures Sabini and Petelia, to over 200 members in Ostia and Puteoli.23 Inscriptions recording hand-outs at Spoletium to augustales specifically and to citizens in general suggest that augustales represented c. 0.5-1% of the total non-slave population.24 Assuming that 1% (at most) of the town population were augustales (80-90% of whom would have been freedmen) and 10% (at most) of the freedmen in the town were augustales, then freedmen in the town of Spoletium represented roughly over 10% of the town population. So if the Spoletium proportion is roughly representative, it suggests freedmen populations of at least 10% throughout Italy. After some generations, the presence of freedmen was felt even in the city council. Some 13% of the decuriones at Ostia, 21% in Pompeii shortly before the eruption, and 15% in Puteoli and Beneventum were of freedmen descent.25 Unless we are prepared to believe that sons and grandsons of freedmen stood a better average chance of entering the municipal aristocracy, these figures again point towards high numbers of freedmen among the adult male population. Some notion of the numbers of freedmen in Italian cities may be derived also from estimates of the slave population and the chance of manumission. Scheidel estimated the urban slave population at a ‘computational mean’ of 600,000 for an urban population of approximately 2 million,

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Free at Last! equally divided between the capital and other Italian cities, and he assumes a similarly notional (or ‘computational mean’ of) 600,000 in the countryside.26 For the urban population this estimate would be close to a notional 30%, although it would imply much lower rates in the countryside, since the rural population outnumbered the urban population by at least two to one (probably more). There is no way of verifying these figures, but as an order of magnitude they are mostly accepted.27 Dumont argued that up to two-thirds of urban slaves reaching the age of 30 would be freed.28 Scheidel hypothetically assumes quinquennial manumission rates of 10% to 20% from age 25 onwards, leading ultimately to an overall 33% to 55% chance of manumission before death. These figures are highly hypothetical and we should not push them too far. Yet they do support the general notion of freedmen making up on average roughly one seventh to one fifth of the adult male urban population throughout Italy, with numbers going up to 50% and more in highly commercialized areas with high slave populations and high immigration rates. The numbers of female freedmen, however, must have been lower and their age of manumission higher to maintain the initial population.29 On the whole, we should probably think of a relatively young slave population and an older freedmen population.30 Professional identities and numbers of freedmen The importance of work in constructing freedmen’s social identity has often been noted. It is clearly visible in the Italian epigraphic material, where occupational denominations primarily occur with freedmen. In Rome itself, almost four out of five epitaphs mentioning the deceased’s profession commemorate freedmen or slaves.31 In Picenum, where slaves and freedmen are less dominant in the epigraphic material, out of 44 inscriptions mentioning a person’s profession, seven (16%) belong to freeborn, 23 (52%) to freedmen, and seven (16%) to slaves.32 These figures do not necessarily reflect demographic reality, as was long held,33 but rather illustrate the strong psychological and socio-cultural association between occupation and freedmanship. Freedmen owed their freedom and sometimes their wealth to their professional talent, but mostly lacked other tokens of social respectability. They were more inclined to take pride in their work than freeborn, which is reflected in the iconography and epigraphy of their monuments.34 Petronius’s depiction of the freedmen’s conversations at Trimalchio’s banquet provides a vivid picture of the high social value attached by freedmen to their work.35 Nevertheless in some contexts the number of freedmen was disproportionately high. International trade, for instance, appears to have been largely conducted through freedmen. On Delos in the late second and early first century BCE, 43% of all attested Romans whose status is known were freedmen and 22% were slaves.36 Similar percentages are found in Spain

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy in the same period. Of the 24 magistri recorded in four merchant associations in Hispania Citerior, 11 are freedmen and 9 are slaves.37 Nearly 52% of persons mentioned in the archives of the Sulpicii – who financed international trade in Puteoli – have non-Latin (mostly Greek) cognomina.38 If the Sulpician data provide a representative sample, they would suggest that almost two-thirds of all those involved in international finance and trade in Puteoli in the Julio-Claudian period were freedmen.39 Of all persons mentioned in the tablets of the local Pompeian banker Caecilius Iucundus 38.5% have non-Latin cognomina.40 This is virtually the same proportion as that for the seal stamps found in Pompeii (38.4%). It suggests that at least roughly two-thirds of all those involved in Pompeian production, commerce and finance were freedmen.41 In this case too, the Campanian cities are probably not representative for Italy as a whole. However the quantitative importance of freedman in important sectors of the economy is documented also elsewhere, even in non-urban contexts. The production stamps of Arretine terra sigillata record 105 master potters. 42 of these had approximately 630 slave or freedmen dependants. Prachner estimated that approximately 16% (100) of the recorded dependants were freedmen, while roughly 10% (63) were first active as slaves, subsequently as freedmen.42 Although the freeborn clearly dominate as master potters (at least 72%), the total number of freedmen potters (175, c. 24%) is more than twice as high as that of freeborn (76, c. 10%).43 There has been considerable debate on the organization of the Arretine workshops and the relative positions of masters, freeborn, freedmen and slaves in the workshops. The dominant view has long been that dependants worked in factory-like workshops owned or managed by a master potter.44 Fulle, however, argued that each stamp, including those documenting slaves and freedmen, indicates a separate production unit operated either by a master, or slave or freedman agents.45 This is not the place to go into this debate, which might be insoluble, but it highlights the methodological problems of occupational epigraphy: neither monumental inscriptions nor instrumentum domesticum distinguish between owners, managers, foremen or labourers. Lacking other criteria, we have no way of knowing whether for instance a freedman fuller was the independent owner, lessee or manager of a workshop, the manager of a dependent branch, a foreman or even a simple workman. Skills, training and human capital Professions requiring capital or expertise are mentioned distinctly more often than those requiring neither, suggesting that freedmen took pride in the nature of their professions, and not solely in the fact that their professions had gained them freedom. Not coincidentally, professional expertise is part of the (stereo-)typical profile attributed to freedmen in Petronius’ Satyrica. Trimalchio is proud of his learning and skills. His

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Free at Last! guest Echion proclaims how he stressed to his own ‘darling’ young slave the importance of the right kind of learning.46 In serious literature, too, economic skills are predominantly ascribed to freedmen. Q. Remmius Palaemon, for instance, became one of the most talented grammarians of this time. Palaemon had originally been trained as a weaver. His literary talent came to light because he was fortuitously appointed to accompany his master’s son to school. As a freedman he made a fortune as grammarian, which he invested in textile workshops and vineyards.47 For the latter he hired the services of Acilius Sthenelus, a man ‘from the freedmen class’ (e plebe libertina), renowned for his skill as winegrower (Plin. HN 14.47-50). Freedmen bear the fruits of the investments their former masters made in the education and training of their slaves.48 Temin rightly notes that ‘education is a key to the nature of Roman servitude’.49 Cato devised a system whereby he lent money to his own slaves to allow them to buy and train new slaves, which were subsequently sold with a profit (Plut. Cat. Mai. 21.6); the jurist Paulus refers to a case in which a skilled workman was commissioned by a friend to buy a slave apprentice, which was afterwards sold for double the original price;50 and Crassus was renowned for his valuable trained slaves, whose education he supervised himself (Plut. Crass. 2.5-6). Skilled slaves performed more valuable work and represented a far greater capital value than unskilled ones. Diocletian’s price edict allowed double price limits for skilled slaves (arte instructo).51 Justinian ordered that unskilled slaves over ten years of age should be valued at 20 solidi, artisans no more than 30 solidi, notaries 50 solidi, physicians and midwives 60 solidi (Cod. Iust. 6.43.3.1; 7.7.1.5). The range of prices recorded in literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence suggests even greater differences, but these tend towards exceptional cases.52 This points the way to one of the major contributions of slavery to the ancient economy. In high mortality regimes, it is risky to invest in young people’s training. First of all, if training started at approximately the age of seven, then roughly a third of the apprentices or pupils would die before the age of fifteen. Another risk was that an apprentice could conceivably abandon the teacher or the trade after gaining independence. In pre-modern Europe, apprenticeships were overwhelmingly embedded in family and guild structures which insured the commitment of apprentices 53 In the case of slaves, the master could be sure that the trainee would not leave when his training was completed.54 The risk was thus considerably reduced, making it more worthwhile to invest in young apprentices. Conversely, however, once the slave had himself become a trained expert, incentives needed to be given to ensure that he would continue to work strenuously in his master’s interest. Manumissio was the most important of these. The more productive a slave was, the better his chances for early

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy manumission were. The stock of skill and knowledge possessed by freedmen, therefore, was probably higher than what could have been achieved in a system relying on free apprentices or a slave system with low manumission rates. Education of North-American slaves, for example, was actively discouraged, and in some states such as Virginia was even punishable by law.55 Accordingly, the high percentage of freedmen in Italian cities suggests that the expertise available to the urban economy was very high. Paradoxically, freedmanship may have been the decisive factor explaining the significantly higher investment in human capital in the Roman Empire than would be seen for a thousand years to come.56 (In)dependence of freedmen? Manumission turned slaves into free and legally independent persons. Patrons, however, did not lose their authority altogether. Discussion on how strong the patron’s hold on his freedmen was in the early and middle Republic is still undecided. Yet Roman jurists concurred that until the late second century BCE patrons often laid heavy burdens on their freedmen. From the late second century BCE onwards, however, the legal situation of freedmen vis-à-vis their patrons was gradually but thoroughly reshaped. Reforms started with Rutilius Rufus, who as praetor in 118 BCE restricted the demands of patrons on their freedmen, and continued until the Principate of Tiberius, who created the status of latinus iunianus in the lex Iunia Norbana of 19 CE (?). Imperial legislation afterwards modified or extended particular legal points, but no more fundamental changes were introduced.57 Not coincidentally this evolution occurred against the background of the Roman economic expansion over the Mediterranean. The second century BCE was the century in which the Roman economy became monetized and commercialized. ‘Classical’ freedmanship as it emerged in the late Republic and early Empire was an institutional response to these changes. Legally the relation between a patron and his freedmen since the late Republic evolved around obsequium (deference or compliance), operae (services) and inheritance rights. All freedmen owed their former master obsequium, a moral obligation also expected from clients towards their patrons and generally of social inferiors towards their betters.58 Contrary to clients vis-à-vis their patrons or humble folk towards their betters in general, however, obsequium in the case of freedmen entailed some legal constraints. Thus, a freedman was barred from suing his patron in court in cases involving the latter’s reputation. In addition he was legally obliged to sustain his patron financially if necessary (Dig. 37.14.19); under the lex Aelia Sentia of 4 CE he was even liable to a suit for ingratitude (accusatio ingrati liberti) in cases of manifest disrespect, although refusal to obey his patron’s demands did not in itself constitute ingratitude. In legal terms obsequium was a passive concept which ensured the

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Free at Last! patron’s superiority but did not give him authority over his freedmen. To secure legal authority, an oath was needed by which the latter promised to continue providing specific services (operae) to his patron.59 The oath, often enforced by a formal contract (stipulatio), was legally binding and freedmen could be sued to pay damages if they failed to comply. Some services were of a strictly personal nature (operae officiales) others of a professional nature (operae fabriles). The latter could comprise any professional activity in any organizational setting, allowing patrons to make use of freedmen in all possible functions, ranging from employees to independent agents. It is worth noting that slaves who bought their freedom, often presumed to be the majority of freedmen, could not be subjected to operae.60 Operae fabriles could be inherited and the patron could order his freedman to perform them for a third party. Conversely the freedman could appoint someone else to discharge the obligation (Dig. 38.1.9.1). The lex Aelia Sentia stipulated that operae could not be replaced by payment in money unless the freedman himself preferred this. The same law provided that the operae had to be in accordance with the age, rank, health, and necessities of both patron and freedman and should not be of a shameful nature (turpes). They should not interfere moreover with the freedman’s ability to earn a livelihood unless the patron provided for this. In such a case he could even demand that his freedmen worked full time for him providing he did so with all due respect for their well-being and health (Dig. 38.1.16-19; 26.pr.). A patron could not, however, forbid a freedman to exercise the same trade in the same location as himself.61 Clearly the law gave patrons the upper hand in determining the relation with their freedmen.62 When a childless freedman died intestate, his patron took the place of a father, and received the inheritance as nearest pseudo-agnate. Originally freedmen had enjoyed a total freedom to make wills. This right was limited in the late Republic to protect the patron’s interests. Since the mid-seventies BCE, a patron was entitled to at least half the inheritance of his freedman unless the latter left children (or grandchildren) as heirs. The lex Papia Poppaea of 9 CE entitled the patron to a child’s portion of his freedman’s inheritance, if he left fewer than three children and the inheritance was valued at 100,000 sesterces or more.63 Latini Iuniani were in an even worse situation; when they died, everything they owned was treated as mere peculium belonging to their former master.64 This does not mean, however, that freedmen as a rule continued to be in a state of dependency on their former masters. Garnsey rejected this view in his seminal study of ‘Independent Freedmen’ in which he argued that ‘a sizeable number of freedmen attained a position of independence or relative independence and wealth’.65 In high mortality regimes death inevitably liberated large numbers of freedmen. Extremely wealthy freedmen like Caecilius Isidorus, Remmius Palaemon, or their caricature Trimalchio, were not under anyone’s authority (Plin. HN 33.135). Economic independence was no doubt the normal

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy situation also for seviri augustales and rich freedmen in general, who would have been able to buy off their patrons if necessary. Even less wealthy but talented freedmen who owed operae to their patrons, must have often enjoyed some independence. Personal freedom may have been an incentive for the slave, but it was not for the freedman. In the case of skilled slaves, arrangements concerning operae were no doubt negotiated. There is no reason to think that a skilled freedman in charge of his own business suffered under any real authority exercised by his former master. When the jurists talk of excessive burdens laid upon freedmen, they consider this an archaic situation effectively remedied by legislation.66 Garnsey’s view was challenged by Mouritsen, who believes the high proportion of freedmen engaged in urban production and commerce in Pompeii (see above) indicates that the local elite tightly controlled their freedmen and, through them, most of the urban economy.67 Members of the elite figure prominently among the freeborn witnesses in Caecilius Iucundus’s archive and must have provided the workshops and capital needed for small and medium-sized enterprises. However, if manumission was a necessary incentive for slaves assigned care intensive tasks, what motivated dependent freedmen to show the same commitment and diligence? Patrons may have had the capital and property needed, but freedmen had the expertise and know-how without which the former’s assets were useless. Of course, it is highly likely that a few wealthy businessmen and aristocrats dominated production and commerce because they owned the required capital assets, but this is true of most historical societies. Nothing prevented businessmen from forming partnerships or hiring experienced and highly-skilled freedmen. Nothing prevented skilled freedmen from hiring working spaces. We should be wary of interpreting patron-freedmen relations exclusively in terms of calculation, exploitation and conflict. Abuses clearly occurred and particularly freedmen who remained economically dependent and continued to live in their patrons’ houses are likely to have suffered them. But they were not the ones most likely to be entrusted with responsibilities requiring genuine commitment. Conversely, slaves working under close surveillance performing unskilled manual labour were not the ones most likely to be freed. Freedmen had ‘earned’ their freedom, not just on account of the economic advantage they had procured for their master, but on account of the fidelity and trustworthiness they had shown. Legal texts intended to remedy and prevent misconduct may mislead us to think that transgression was the norm. Ideally the relationship between a patron and his freedmen was one of trust, respect and deference: even legal texts consistently compare freedmen to sons (Dig. 37.15). Thus, for instance the ban on legal suits involving the reputation of the accused applied equally to children against their parents and freedmen against their patrons (Dig. 37.15.5). Funerary monuments commonly leave room for the dedicator’s freedmen (libertis libertabusque).68 As we know, Roman

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Free at Last! familiae were hierarchically structured. The authority of the pater familias over his slaves and children in potestate was beyond questioning. But familiae were also strong moral communities based on pietas, which transcended the limits of paternal authority.69 Membership within a familia came with clear emotional expectations for emancipated children and manumitted slaves as well.70 Veyne compared freedmen in this respect to illegitimate children in later historical periods. After all, some houseborn slaves (vernae) were literally their master’s natural children.71 Thus, the ‘independence’ of freedmen was rather like the independence of emancipated children. Manumission constituted a rupture in the legal relationship between master and slave, it rarely constituted a rupture in their personal relations. As a rule freedmen formed an extension of the familiae from which they were manumitted. Mouritsen rightly points to the improbability of large numbers of independent, skilled freedmen competing both with each other and their former masters.72 This observation, however, is equally true for systems based on apprenticeship. In medieval and early modern Europe the risk of soaring competition was checked by the regulatory practices of guilds. Papyri show that professional associations fulfilled the same role in Roman Egypt.73 Professional associations were highly prominent in Italian cities. Tran has recently shown how membership lists of Italian collegia show distinct groups of colliberti and patrons (‘nebuleuses familiales’), the former probably introduced by the latter.74 Unfortunately, epigraphy does not allow us the same inside view as the papyri do. However, the presence of large numbers of freedmen and patrons in professional collegia and their prominence also as magistrates and patrons of these collegia suggest that they provided a framework preventing competition between colliberti and patrons. Both categories were embedded in the strongly regulated social and moral community of the collegium, which offered further opportunities for social mobility.75 Instead of interpreting the relations of patrons and freedmen as authoritative structures designed to exploit the latter in favour of the former, we should rather think of stratified and centralized trust networks, with the patron as central node and freedmen in various relations to each other and their common patron depending on the variety of resources (wealth, skill, emotional proximity, access to other networks, etc.) they controlled. Thus, manumission was a powerful generator of social capital. No doubt, patrons continued to derive benefit from their freedmen’s work, but conversely the freedmen derived benefits from belonging to a larger exclusive group under the protection of a dominant patron. The network connecting colliberti and slaves with the patron as central figure, increased the creditworthiness and business potential of all those concerned, which could be further enhanced when the patron introduced his freedmen into the same professional collegia.

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Management – familia Trust networks of ‘extended familiae’ (including freedmen) were particularly suited for purposes of agency and partnership. The use of slave agents was widespread since the late Republic. Praetorian law in the late second and early first century BCE constructed a comprehensive system of legal procedures (actiones adiecticae qualitatis) which regulated the liability of the master for legal obligations incurred by his slaves. A master/principal could choose between entrusting to his slave a capital of his own (peculium) which he could use as he pleased (in which case the master was liable only to the extent of the peculium), or appointing his slave as manager (institor) or ship captain (magister navis), in which case the master could be held liable in full by means of the actio institoria or exercitoria. He could be held liable in full, moreover, whenever he commissioned his slave for a specific transaction (iussum).76 Like the legal arrangements concerning freedmen, the system of actiones adiecticae qualitatis was clearly inspired by the profound economic changes of Roman society in the late Republic. At some early point in time the actiones institoriae/exercitoriae were extended to managers and agents not under the authority of the principal.77 Freedmen were no doubt the first on whom this extension was applied and they very likely remained the prime beneficiaries.78 In the case of slave agents (or children in potestate) Roman law provided that everything they acquired – whether in kind, money or claims – was acquired automatically by their master (or father). However, while a patron could in that case be held liable for obligations incurred by his agents, he did not automatically acquire any rights based on the contracts entered into by freedmen, even when they were carrying out his orders. Legally, only the agents were entitled to sue the ‘third’ party with whom they had entered into contract. Their principal could act only as ‘legal representative’ of his own agents (procurator in rem suam), providing he had been so appointed. Such appointments, however, expired when the principal or his agent died. It was, in short, a clumsy and somewhat risky arrangement. However, the use of freedmen offered other advantages. Because slaves lacked legal capacity, they could not represent their master in court, and they could not be sued in court themselves. As Roman citizens or latini iuniani freedmen had full legal capacity. This made it possible for freedmen to act as legal agents (procurator, mandatarius) or partners (socius) of their patrons.79 Interestingly the lex Aelia Sentia accepted the appointment to procurator as a valid excuse for manumission before the age of thirty (Gai. 1.19). Agency services should not be confused with operae although overlap was possible. The services underlying agency and partnership were much more varied and required a commitment on behalf of the freedman and his patron beyond the possibilities of predefined operae. They were based on the so-called consensual contracts – the legal obliga-

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Free at Last! tions of which derived from a formless agreement between the parties relying on mutual trust and solidarity (fides). The typical legal terms for these were mandatum and societas. The former was non-remunerative in principle, although the agent could be rewarded with gifts or receive a salary, while the latter was based on the sharing of profits and losses. Mandata could be given on an ad hoc basis to whomever enjoyed the principal’s trust. However, they could also serve to create and give instructions to procuratores. The term procurator denoted a representative in court (procurator litis) or a person to whom the general management or (more commonly) supervision of a business, a farm or an entire estate was entrusted. Procuratio in the latter sense was based on a general mandatum.80 The requirements of obsequium and the resulting officia were very well suited to guarantee freedmen’s commitment and reliability as managers and agents. Kirschenbaum thought that ‘the conglomeration of rules, habits and practices that constituted the way of life of a former slave in his relations with his former master created a non-contractual agency relationship between many patrons and freedmen whose basis the student of law and sociology would regard as somewhat midway between potestas status and formal contract.’81 Patrons could provide the capital needed, while their freedmen-partners contributed their efforts and expertise (Dig. 17.2.5). Thus, when Trimalchio retired from active commerce, he started to ‘lend out through his freedmen’ ( libertos faenerari: Petr. 76.9). According to Cicero, Crassus would have formed partnerships with slaves, freedmen and clients (Cic. Par. Stoic. 6, 46), and in other instances freedmen acted as procuratores (managers). Rural estates were run by slave stewards (vilici) but supervised by procuratores, most of whom were probably freedmen.82 Significantly, a freedman who refused to ‘administer his patron’s affairs’ was guilty of ingratitude (Dig. 37.14.19). Thus, the freedman Cinnamus acted first as procurator for his patron the Puteolean merchant-financier C. Sulpicius Faustus, and gradually set up his own business. On at least one occasion he acted as partner (socius) of his patron. Interestingly his archive – and presumably his business – was reunited with that of his patron in the hands of the latter’s heir.83 In international trade freedmen could be set up as independent businessmen, providing the patron with reliable contacts from whom he could obtain information, to whom he could entrust mandata and with whom he could form partnerships. Thus the grand adventurer, trader and usurer C. Rabirius Postumus established his freedman C. Curtius Mithres in Ephesus, probably to assist him in the trade of luxury wines.84 Mithres owned an estate in Colophon and was honoured as public benefactor on Naxos (Cic. Fam. 13.69; BÉ 1970, 438). The case of Mithres is an excellent illustration of how trusted freedmen were valuable in building commercial networks.85

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Conclusion Freedmen were crucial to the Italian economy of the late Republic and Empire, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In cities in the coastal area of Campania more than half the adult male population consisted of freedmen, in Ostia their number may have been only slightly less. These commercial hotspots are not representative for Italy as a whole, yet they do illustrate the importance of freedmen in international trade and the production sectors attached to it. In cities elsewhere in Italy the number of freedmen among free adult males is likely to have varied, but proportions exceeding 15% seem normal. The high number of freedmen among the Arretine potters shows that freedmen are typical of large commercially oriented business enterprises. Freedmanship was the inevitable result of an economy relying on slaves to perform care intensive tasks and to provide agency services. The need for a skilled and reliable workforce stimulated investments in the education and training of slaves and entailed the creation of a ‘class’ of skilled and talented freedmen. Obviously, not all slaves gained their freedom, not all freedmen won real independence. We have a rough idea of the numbers of adult male freedmen, but not of how many remained stuck as latini iuniani or economic dependants of their patrons. Nevertheless, the social structure allowing freedmen to participate in urban social life to their own benefit and that of their loved ones is clear. The institutionalized social trajectory that gave them perspectives for social advancement was real. Freedmen, therefore, had good cause to feel themselves an integral part of the society in which they lived. Notes 1. Hence also slaves were not labelled ‘merchandise’ (merx) and slave dealers were called ‘slave dealers’ (venalicarii) or ‘mongers’ (mangones) rather than ‘merchants’ (mercatores). 2. See Garnsey 1996, 11-15, and Weiler 2003, 277-86. 3. See also Kleijwegt in this volume on the case of freedwomen marrying their former masters. 4. See Treggiari 1969, 37-86; 1991, 61-2. 5. See Kleijwegt 1992; Gordon 1931; and Patterson 2006, 236-41. 6. On Latin rights granted to provincial communities see Kremer 2006. 7. See, for instance, the case of Venidius documented in the Herculaneum Tablets: Camodeca 2002. 8. Gai. 1.22-4; 3.56. See Lopéz 1996 and Weaver 1997; see also Kleijwegt in this volume. 9. Alföldy 1972. 10. Wiedemann 1985, 163. 11. Hopkins 1978, 118. 12. Scheidel 2008 and Fenoaltea 1984. For a similar approach see Temin 2004; for the impact on productivity see Rihll 2008.

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Free at Last! 13. Mouritsen 2005. 14. See Borg in this volume for more on this. 15. See Taylor 1961 and Oliver 2000, 121-2; for Ostia see Meiggs 1997, 217-24; for Puteoli: D’Arms 1974, 112. Only 1 in 16 persons mentioned in Puteolean funerary inscriptions are certain freeborn: D’Arms 1974, 112. For the old ‘demographic’ view see Treggiari 1969, 31-6: ‘Libertini and their descendants seem to have dominated the Roman petite bourgeoisie while residents of native stock belonged mainly to the upper-classes and the proletariat.’ On freedmen burials and monuments see Galvao-Sobrinho in this volume. 16. Jongman 2003, 116-17. 17. Cf. Mouritsen 2005, 43: 83% of tomb builders whose status could be ascertained were liberti; 56% of all tomb builders bear Greek cognomina; 26-30% of collegiati have Greek cognomina. On the collegiati as representative for the adult male population see Verboven 2007 and Liu 2009, 162-71. 18. CIL 10.1403 = AE 1978, 119; on the inscription see Camodeca 2008; Wallace-Hadrill 2004, 123-6; and Mouritsen 2007. The list started in the mid or late 1960s CE with approximately 1,000 names, and over the course of its existence (c. 15 years) about 200 names were added. Camodeca 2008, 7, estimated the entire population of Herculaneum at no more than 4,000 (including slaves), of which approximately 750/850 adult males. 55% of epigraphically attested certain freedmen in Herculaneum have a non-Latin cognomen, compared to only 15% of all certain ingenui. Hence the chance for a randomly picked freedman having a non-Latin name is 55%, and for a randomly picked freeborn is 15%. From this we can work out an estimate for a combined sample. The figure is only approximate because it does not take into account Latin servile cognomina. On Greek names as statistical indicators of freedmen status see Solin 1971 and Duthoy 1974 and 1989. 19. Camodeca 2008. 20. Mouritsen 2005. 21. In general, 51% of all certain freedmen and slaves have Greek cognomina, compared to only 2.5% of all certain freeborn. Of all persons epigraphically recorded in Brescia, 20% had Greek cognomina, 60% Latin names, 15% indigenous names and 5% from various other origins. Based on these figures we would expect c. 35% slaves and freedmen in the epigraphic population. Approximately 4.5% of the epigraphically attested Brescian population were certainly slaves, which leaves approximately 30% freedmen, who are predominantly found in the city. Cf. Gregori 1990-99, 18, 87-9, 215-25. 22. On the (seviri) augustales see Duthoy 1970, 1974, and 1978; Kneissl 1980; Ostrow 1985; Abramenko 1993; and Patterson 2006, 242-52. 23. See Duncan-Jones 1982, 284-7, and Patterson 2006, 249. At Liternum in the late second century CE they numbered 30-40 members (AE 2001, 853; 854; Camodeca 2001). In Misenum their collegium numbered 100 members, but not all members were freedmen and not all augustales were ‘incorporated’ (D’Arms 2000). 24. See Duncan-Jones 1982, 267-8; 285-6. 25. See Patterson 2006, 238; Lopéz 1995; and Los 1996. 26. Scheidel 2005, 66-7, 71. 27. Note, however, Scheidel 2005, 65: ‘the notion that slaves accounted for one-third of a given historical population has long been popular in those cases where the actual share of slaves is thought to be significant but is actually completely unknown’. Scheidel 2005 replaces Scheidel 1999. For other estimates

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy see de Ligt 2008, 160-1; see Jongman 2003, 117, for the view that slaves were predominantly located in urban centres, not rural contexts. 28. Dumont 1987, 66. See also Treggiari 1969, 11-20. 29. Scheidel 2005. See, however, the interesting remarks by Kleijwegt in this volume (118-21) on the economic activities of freedwomen. Against this see Weaver 1972, 185-6. 30. In this sense also Jongman 2003, 118: ‘slaves were not so much members of different social groups, but members of different age cohorts’. 31. See Joshel 1992, 47. On social representation generally in the inscriptions from Rome see Huttunen 1974. 32. Cristofori 2004, 564-8. 33. See Duff 1958, 105-28; Treggiari 1969, 95-101; and Staerman 1969, 102-27. Duff 1958, 109, acknowledged a possible underrepresentation of freeborn but rejected this as unimportant: ‘(Free-born) Italians did not take the same pride in their work as the Orientals did; consequently they were less apt to have their trades mentioned on their tombstones or to inscribe their names on the articles their hands produced. However, this last reservation is not of very great importance. If Italians had engaged in trade and manual labour in large numbers, such numbers would have emboldened them to make no secret of their occupation.’ 34. See Joshel 1992, 76-91; Petersen 2006, 114-16; and Huttunen 1974, 121-9. On epigraphy see Huttunen 1974, 121-9; Joshel 1992, 76-91; and Petersen 2006, 114-16; on iconography see George 2006; Laird 2006; Leach 2006; Petersen 2006; and the contribution by Borg in this volume. 35. See Verboven 2009a, 129-30, and Ramsby in this volume. 36. See Hatzfeld 1919, 247-8, and Treggiari 1969, 104. For a list of Italian trades on Delos see Hatzfeld 1912; Ferrary et al. 2002; note that very few of these inscriptions are funerary. 37. Verboven 2009b, 161-2. 38. Camodeca 1999, 28-30. 39. 70% of certain freedmen in Puteolean epigraphy have non-Latin names, compared to only 20% of certain freeborn: Camodeca 1993, 349. 40. Not 42% as Camodeca assumes: note that among the vendors this proportion rises to 53.03%. See Andreau 1974, 151 and 131-162 for a thorough onomastic study of the tablets, and Kajanto 1965 for Pompeian onomastic data in general. 41. See Mouritsen 1990; 2001. Jongman’s figure of 83% of all witnesses being freedmen is too high, because he identified all persons with Greek cognomina as freedmen and added all those whose freedmen status could be deduced from other criteria. Nevertheless, his detailed list (1988, 207-73) suggests that the actual figure for the witnesses lay above that deduced from the Greek cognomina among all persons mentioned in the tablets. 42. Prachner 2008, 177-84, 188-9, 218-22. 43. See also Weaver 1998 for imperial freedmen in the brick industry. 44. See Park 1921, 79-88, and Treggiari 1969, 91-4. 45. Fulle 1997. 46. Verboven 2009a, 130-1. 47. See Verboven 2009a, 131, and Duncan-Jones 1982, 46-7. 48. See Booth 1979 and Forbes 1955. 49. Temin 2004, 535; see also 529-30. 50. Dig. 17.1.26.8. Note the organisational aspects: the friend who gave the mandatum presumably financed the operation and cashed the sale’s price. The

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Free at Last! workman acquired an apprentice to aid him for a time, while his expenses were borne by his friend. In addition he may have received an honorarium (cf. Verboven 2002, 247-8). 51. See Giacchero 1974, 208 (§29,1-8), and Scheidel 1996. 52. See Szaivert and Wolters 2005, 113-17, 352-4; Drexhage 1991, 249-79; and Duncan-Jones 1978, 162-5. 53. Epstein 1998. 54. Rihll 2008, 134-6. 55. Temin 2004, 535. 56. Saller 2008. 57. See Fabre 1981, 217-26, 317-31; Waldstein 1986, 131-208; and Watson 1987. 58. See Waldstein 1986, 51-69, and Treggiari 1969, 68-81. 59. See Waldstein 1986 and Fabre 1981, 317-31. 60. See Hopkins 1978, 128-9, on self-purchasers consisting a majority. 61. Dig. 37.14.2; 18; 38.1.45. The latter is sometimes cited as proof to the contrary because the paragraph specifies ‘if his patron sustains no injury thereby’ (si nullam laesionem ex hoc sentiet patronus), but see extensively against this Waldstein 1986, 316-20; Wacke 1982. 62. See Kleijwegt in this volume. 63. See Watson 1967, 231-6; Fabre 1981, 301-16; and Masi Doria 1989. 64. Weaver 1997. 65. Garnsey 1996, 39. See also Veyne 1961, 224-7, who believes the phenomenon was particularly strong in the first century when aristocratic families tried to promote the interests of their freedmen. 66. Waldstein 1986, 131-208. 67. Mouritsen 2001, 12. 68. Fabre 1981, 141-62. 69. Saller 1994, 102-32. 70. Fabre 1981, 242-52, and Kirschenbaum 1987, 128-40. 71. See Veyne 1961, 228, and Herrmann-Otto 1994, 83-98. 72. Mouritsen 2001, 9. 73. See van Minnen 1987 and Gibbs forthcoming. 74. Tran 2005; 2006, 409-518. On the numbers of freedmen in Italian collegia see also Royden 1988. 75. Verboven 2007; see also Ramsby in this volume on the upward mobility for freedmen looming in the background of Petronius’ novel. 76. See Porto 1984; Aubert 1994; and Verboven 2002, 24-9. 77. Dig. 14.3.7. There was no need to extend the actio quod iussu because fideiussio had the same effects in the case of free persons. 78. Kirschenbaum 1987, 140-8. 79. See D’Arms 1981, 143-4, and Kirschenbaum 1987, 127-40. 80. For more on these types of informal and negotiated contracts, see Verboven 2002, 227-86. 81. Kirschenbaum 1987, 128. 82. See Aubert 1994, 183-6, and Carlsen 1995, 158-65. 83. Verboven 2000; 2008. 84. C. Rabirius Postumus was born after his father’s death as Post. Curtius or C. Curtius Postumus and adopted by his maternal uncle C. Rabirius; see Deniaux 1993, 490-92. 85. D’Arms 1981, 42-3, 63.

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Bibliography Abramenko, A. (1993) ‘Die innere Organisation der Augustalität: Jahresamt und Gesamtorganisation’, Athenaeum 81: 13-37. Alföldy, G. (1972) ‘Die Freilassung von Sklaven und die Struktur der Sklaverei in den römischen Kaiserzeit’, RSA 2: 97-129. Aubert, J.-J. (1994) Business Managers in Ancient Rome (Leiden). Booth, A.D. (1979) ‘The Schooling of Slaves in First-Century Rome’, TAPA 109: 11-19. Camodeca, G. (1993) ‘Archivi privati e storia sociale delle città campano: Puteoli ed Herculaneum’, in W. Eck (ed.) Prosopographie und Sozialgeschichte (Cologne). Camodeca, G. (1999) Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum. Edizione critica dell’archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii (Roma). Camodeca, G. (2001) ‘Albi degli Augustales di Liternum della seconda metà del II secolo’, AIONArchStorAnt. n.s. 8: 163-82. Camodeca, G. (2002) ‘Per una riedizione dell’archivio ercolanese di L. Venidius Ennychus’, CronErcol 32: 257-80. Camodeca, G. (2008) ‘La populazione degli ultimi decenni di Ercolano’, in M.P. Guidobaldi (ed.) Ercolano: tre secoli di scoperte (Naples) 86-103. Carlsen, J. (1995) Vilici and Roman Estate Managers until AD 284 (Rome). Cristofori, A. (2004) Non arma virumque: le occupazioni nell’epigrafia del Piceno (Bologna). D’Ambra, E. and G. Métraux (eds) (2006) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World (Oxford). D’Arms, J.H. (1974) ‘Puteoli in the Second Century of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study’, JRS 64: 104-24. D’Arms, J.H. (1981) Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA). D’Arms, J.H. (2000) ‘Memory, Money and Status at Misenum: Three New Inscriptions from the Collegium of the Augustales’, JRS 90: 126-44. de Ligt, L. (2008) People, Land and Politics. Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy 300 BC-AD 14 (Leiden). Deniaux, E. (1993) Clientèles et pouvoir à l’époque de Cicéron (Rome). Drexhage, H.-J. (1991) Preise, Mieten/Pachten, Kosten und Löhne im römischen Ägypten bis zum Regierungsantritt Diokletians (St.-Katharinen). Duff, A.M. (1958) Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge). Dumont, J.-C. (1987) Servus: Rome et l’esclavage sous la République (Rome). Duncan-Jones, R. (1978) ‘Two Possible Indices of Purchasing Power of Money in Greek and Roman Antiquity’, in Les dévaluations à Rome. Epoque républicaine et impériale (Actes du Colloque tenu à Rome) (Rome and Paris) vol. 1: 159-68. Duncan-Jones, R. (1982) The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies. 2nd edn (Cambridge). Duthoy, R. (1970) ‘Notes onomastiques sur les Augustales. Cognomina et indication de statut’, AC 39: 88-105. Duthoy, R. (1974) ‘Fonction sociale de l’augustalité’, Epigraphica 36: 134-54. Duthoy, R. (1978) ‘Les Augustales’, ANRW II 16.2: 1254-309. Duthoy, R. (1989) ‘Cognomen est omen?’, in M.-M. Mactoux and E. Geny (eds) Mélanges Pierre Lévêque II: Anthropologie et société (Paris) 183-205. Epstein, S. R. (1998) ‘Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe’, Journal of Economic History 58: 684-713.

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Free at Last! Fabre, G. (1981) Libertus. Recherches sur les rapports patron-affranchi à la fin de la république Romaine (Rome). Fenoaltea, S. (1984) ‘Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective: A Model’, Journal of Economic History 44: 635-68. Ferrary, J.-L., C. Hasenohr and M.-T. le Dinahet (2002) ‘Liste des Italiens de Délos’, in C. Müller and C. Hasenohr (eds) Les Italiens dans le monde Grec. IIe siècle av. J.-C. – Ier siècle ap. J.-.C., BCH Supplément 41 (Athens) 183-239. Forbes, C.A. (1955) ‘The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity’, TAPA 86: 321-60. Fulle, G. (1997) ‘The Internal Organization of the Arretine Terra Sigillata Industry: Problems of Evidence and Interpretation’, JRS 87: 111-55. Garnsey, P.A. (1981) ‘Independent Freedmen and the Economy of Roman Italy under the Principate’ (re-edited with addenda by W. Scheidel), in Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity. Essays in Social and Economic History (Cambridge) 28-44. Garnsey, P.A. (1996) Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge). George, M. (2006) ‘Social Identity and the Dignity of Work in Freedmen’s Reliefs’, in D’Ambra and Metraux 2006, 19-30. Giacchero, M. (1974) Edictum Diocletiani et collegarum de pretiis rerum venalium in integrum fere restitutum e Latinis Graecisque fragmentis, 2 vols (Genova). Gibbs, M. (forthcoming) ‘Professional Associations in Roman Egypt’, AncSoc 41. Gordon, M. (1931) ‘The Freedman’s Son in Municipal Life’, JRS 21: 65-77. Gregori, G.L. (1990-99) Brescia romana: ricerche di prosopografia e storia sociale (Rome). Hatzfeld, J. (1912) ‘Les Italiens résidant à Délos mentionnés dans les inscriptions’, BCH 36: 5-200. Hatzfeld, J. (1919) Les trafiquants italiens dans l’Orient hellénique (Paris). Herrmann-Otto, E. (1994) Ex ancilla natus: Untersuchungen zu den ‘hausgeborenen’ Sklaven und Sklavinnen im Westen des Römischen Kaiserreiches (Stuttgart). Hopkins, K. (1978) Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge). Huttunen, P. (1974) The Social Strata in the Imperial City of Rome: A Quantitative Study of the Social Representation in the Epitaphs published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. VI (Oulu). Jongman, W. (1988) Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam). Jongman, W. (2003) ‘Slavery and the Growth of Rome: The Transformation of Italy in the Second and First Centuries BCE’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds) Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge). Joshel, S. (1992) Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, OK). Kajanto, I. (1965) ‘Cognomina Pompeiana’, NPhM 66: 446-60. Kirschenbaum, A. (1987) Sons, Slaves and Freedmen in Roman Commerce (Jerusalem). Kleijwegt, M. (1992) ‘The Value of Empty Honours’, Epigraphica 54: 131-42. Kneissl, P. (1980) ‘Entstehung und Bedeutung der Augustalität. Zur Inschrift der Ara Narbonensis (CIL XII 433)’, Chiron 10: 291-326. Kremer, D. (2006) Ius latinum. Le concept de droit latin sous la République et l’Empire. Romanité et modernité du droit (Paris). Laird, M. (2006) ‘Private Memory and Public Interest: Municipal Identity in Imperial Italy’, in D’Ambra and Metraux 2006, 31-43. Leach, E.W. (2006) ‘Freedmen and Immortality in the Tomb of the Haterii’, in D’Ambra and Metraux 2006, 1-17.

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Liu, J. (2009) Collegia Centonariorum: The Guilds of Textile Dealers in the Roman West (Leiden). Lopéz Barja de Quiroga, P. (1995) ‘Freedmen Social Mobility in Roman Italy’, Historia 326-48. Lopéz Barja de Quiroga, P. (1996) ‘Junian Latins, Status and Numbers’, Athenaeum 86: 133-63. Los, A. (1996) ‘Les fils d’affranchis dans l’ordo Pompeianus’, in M. Cébeillac-Gervasoni (ed.) Les élites municipales de l’Italie péninsulaire des Gracque à Néron (Actes table rond Clermont-Ferrand, 1991) (Naples-Rome). Masi Doria, C. (1989) ‘Die Societas Rutiliana und die Ursprünge der prätorischen Erbfolge der Freigelassenen’, ZRG 106: 358-403. Meiggs, R. (1997) Roman Ostia, 2nd edn (Oxford). Mouritsen, H. (1990) ‘Pompeian Epigraphy and Social Structure’, C&M 41: 131-49. Mouritsen, H. (2001) ‘Roman Freedmen and the Urban Economy: Pompeii in the First Century AD’, in F. Senatore (ed.) Pompei tra Sorrento e Sarno (atti del terzo e quarto ciclo di conferenze di geologia, storia e archeologia, Pompei, gennaio 1999-maggio 2000) (Rome) 1-27. Mouritsen, H. (2005) ‘Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy’, JRS 95: 38-63. Mouritsen, H. (2007) ‘CIL X 1403: The Album from Herculaneum and the Nomenclature of Latini Iuniani’, ZPE 161: 288-90. Oliver, G. (ed) (2000) The Epigraphy of Death: Studies in the History and Society of Greece and Rome (Liverpool). Ostrow, S.E. (1985) ‘Augustales along the Bay of Naples. A Case for their Early Growth’, Historia 34: 64-101. Park, M. (1921) The Plebs in Cicero’s Day: A Study of their Provenance and of their Employment (Cambridge, MA). Patterson, J.R. (2006) Landscapes and Cities. Rural Settlement and Civic Transformation in Early Imperial Italy (Oxford). Petersen, L.H. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Porto, A. di (1984) Impresa collettiva e schiavo ‘manager’ in Roma antica (ii sec. a. C.-ii sec. d. C.) (Milan). Prachner, G. (1980) Die Sklaven und Freigelassenen im arretinischen Sigillatagewerbe (Wiesbaden). Rihll, T. (2008) ‘Slavery and Technology in Pre-industrial Contexts’, in E. Dal Lago and C. Katsari (eds) Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern (Cambridge) 127-47. Royden, H. (1988) Magistrates of the Roman Professional Colleges in Italy from the First to the Third Century AD (Pisa). Saller, R.P. (1994) Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge). Saller, R.P. (2008) ‘Human Capital and the Growth of the Roman Economy’. Princeton/Stanford Working Papers, Classics Paper No. 060809. Available at SSRN, accessed 30 April 2010: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1427350 Scheidel, W. (1996) ‘Reflections on the Differential Valuation of Slaves in Diocletian’s Price Edict and in the United States’, MBAH 15: 67-79. Scheidel, W. (1999) ‘The Demography of Roman Slavery and Manumission’, in M. Bellancourt-Valdher and J.-N. Corvisier (eds) La démographie historique antique (Artois). Scheidel, W. (2005) ‘Human Mobility in Roman Italy II: The Slave Population’, JRS 95: 64-79. Scheidel, W. (2008) ‘The Comparative Economics of Slavery in the Greco-Roman

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Free at Last! World’, in E. Dal Lago and C. Katsari (eds) Slave Systems. Ancient and Modern (Cambridge) 105-26. Solin, H. (1971) Beiträge zur Kenntnis der griechischen Personennamen in Rom (Helsinki). Staerman, E.M. (1969) Die Blütezeit der Sklavenwirtschaft in der römischen Republik, tr. M. Bräuer-Pospelova (Wiesbaden). Szaivert, W. and R. Wolters (2005) Löhne, Preise, Werte. Quellen zur römischen Geldwirtschaft (Darmstadt). Taylor, L.R. (1961) ‘Freedmen and Freeborn in Epitaphs of Imperial Rome’, AJPh 82: 113-32. Temin, P. (2004) ‘The Labor Market in the Early Roman Empire’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34: 513-38. Tran, N. (2005) ‘Les affranchis dans les collèges professionnels du Haut-Empire romain: l’encadrement civique de la mobilité sociale’, in M. Molin (ed.) Les régulations sociales dans l’Antiquité (Actes colloque d’Angers, 2003) (Rennes). Tran, N. (2006) Les membres des associations romaines: le rang social des collegiati en Italie et en Gaules, sous le Haut-Empire (Rome). Treggiari, S. (1969) Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford). Treggiari, S. (1991) Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford). van Minnen, P. (1987) ‘Urban Craftsmen in Roman Egypt’, MBAH 6: 31-88. Verboven, K. (2000) ‘L’organisation des affaires financières des C. Sulpicii de Pouzzoles (Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum)’, CCG 11: 161-71. Verboven, K. (2002) The Economy of Friends. Economic Aspects of Amicitia and Patronage in the Late Republic (Brussels). Verboven, K. (2007) ‘The Associative Order, Status and Ethos of Roman Businessmen in the Late Republic and Early Empire’, Athenaeum 95: 861-93. Verboven, K. (2008) ‘Faeneratores, Negotiatores and Financial Intermediation in the Roman World (Late Republic and Early Empire)’, in K. Verboven, K. Vandorpe and V. Chankowski-Sable (eds) Pistoi dia tèn technèn. Bankers, Loans and Archives in the Ancient World. Studies in Honour of Raymond Bogaert (Leuven) 211-29. Verboven, K. (2009a) ‘A Funny Thing happened on my Way to the Market. Reading Petronius to write Economic History’, in J. Prag and I. Repath (eds) Petronius: A Handbook (Chichester, UK and Malden, MA) 125-39. Verboven, K. (2009b) ‘Magistrates, Patrons and Benefactors of Voluntary Associations: Status Building and Romanisation in the Spanish, Gallic and German Provinces of the Roman Empire’, in J.B. Antela-Bernárdez and A. Ñaco del Hoyo (eds) Transforming Historical Landscapes in the Ancient Empires (Proceedings of the First Workshop Area of Research in Studies from Antiquity, Barcelona 2007) (Oxford) 159-67. Veyne, P. (1961) ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, AnnÉconSocCiv 16: 213-47. Wacke, A. (1982) ‘Wettbewerbsfreiheit und Konkurrenzverbotsklauseln im antiken und modernen Recht’, ZRG 99: 188-215. Waldstein, W. (1986) Operae libertorum. Untersuchungen zur Dienstpflicht freigelassener Sklaven (Stuttgart). Wallace-Hadrill, A. (2004) ‘Imaginary Feasts: Pictures of Success on the Bay of Naples’, in A. Gallina Zevi and J.H. Humphrey (eds) Ostia, Cicero, Gamala, Feasts and the Economy. Papers in Memory of John H. D’Arms, JRA supplementary series 57 (Portsmouth) 108-26. Watson, A. (1967) The Law of Persons in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford).

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4. The Freedman Economy of Roman Italy Watson, A. (1987) Roman Slave Law (Baltimore). Weaver, P. (1972) Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge). Weaver, P. (1997) ‘The Children of Junian Latins’, in B.R. Rawson and P. Weaver (eds) The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (Oxford) 55-72. Weiler, I. (2003) Die Beendigung des Sklavenstatus im Altertum: ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Sozialgeschichte (Stuttgart). Wiedemann, T. (1985) ‘The Regularity of Manumission at Rome’, CQ 35: 162-75.

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5

Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Marc Kleijwegt At the close of the second century CE Acilia Plecusa was responsible for the erection of a number of inscriptions in Singilia Barba (conventus Astigitanus; Baetica; Málaga) and neighbouring towns.1 Two of the inscriptions honor Publius Magnius Rufus Magonianus, an equestrian administrator who was mainly active on the Iberian peninsula (CIL II2/5.780; 781), while a third honours Rufus’ wife Carvilia Censonilla.2 The other inscriptions concern members of Acilia Plecusa’s family, including her husband, her son, her daughter, her grandson, and her granddaughter.3 More recently, in 1993, Plecusa’s funerary inscription was discovered as well as her massive tomb.4 Both her public role as well as her private life merit further discussion and for this the following two texts from Plecusa’s dossier need to be examined: Manio Acil(io), Quir(ina), Frontoni, Sing(iliensi) Barb(ensi), prae/f(ecto) fabrum, d(ecreto) d(ecurionum), / m(unicipes) m(unicipii) Sing(iliensis) Barb(ensis). Acil(ia) Plecusa patrono et / marito, honore accept(o) imp(ensam) remis(it) (CIL II2/5.784). The citizens of the town of Singilia Barba for Manius Acilius Fronto, of the tribe Quirina, citizen of Singilia Barba, praefectus fabrum, by decree of the municipal councillors. Acilia Plecusa has erected this for her husband and patron. After she had accepted the honour, she paid for the expense.5 P(ublio) Magnio, Q(uinti) f(ilio), Quir(ina), Rufo / Magoniano, tr(ibuno) mil(itum) IIII, / proc(uratori) Aug(usti) XX her(editatium) per Hisp(aniam), Baet(icam) / et Lusitan(iam), item proc(uratori) Aug(usti) / per Baetic(am) ad kal(endarium) Veget(ianum), / item proc(uratori) Aug(usti) prov(inciae) Baet(icae) ad ducen(a). Acili(a) Plec(usa) amico optimo / et bene de provincia / semper merito d(ono) d(at) (CIL II2/5.780). Acilia Plecusa has offered this as a gift to her best friend, which is well-deserved in recognition of his ever-present good attitude towards this province, Publius Magnius Rufus Magonianus, son of Quintus, of the tribe Quirina, military tribune on four occasions, financial officer in charge of the tax on inheritances for the provinces of Hispania, Baetica, and Lusitania, also financial officer for Baetica in charge of the running of the estate of Vegetianus,6 financial officer of the province of Baetica with a salary of 200,000 sesterces.

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire In the prior inscription, Acilia Plecusa addresses her husband Manius Acilius Fronto, as patronus et maritus (‘patron and husband’), and it is therefore to be assumed that she had been his slave before she was made his freedwoman and his wife. Her son Manius Acilius Phlegon was presumably born while she was still a slave, because his cognomen singles him out as a former slave rather than as freeborn. Another point which leads one to believe that he had been a slave is that he was honoured with the ornamenta decurionalia rather than with full membership of the municipal council.7 Her daughter Acilia Septumina, however, appears to have been born after Plecusa had gained her freedom. The second important fact is that Plecusa’s husband was a Roman knight, although he is not known to have undertaken a public career beyond the position of praefectus fabrum.8 Furthermore, Acilia Plecusa addresses a very important imperial official of equestrian status as amicus optimus and his wife as amica optima. This suggests that there existed a social relationship between Plecusa and the Roman official and his wife which may have approximated a cordial friendship.9 To begin a study of freedwomen in the Roman world with the example of Acilia Plecusa creates certain associations in the reader, and I would like to spell some of these out and briefly comment on them. Acilia Plecusa’s life after slavery – marriage to a man of status, a close relationship with another couple belonging to the same status-group as her husband – suggests that she was a remarkable woman who successfully left her servile past behind her. It is potentially misleading, however, to reconstruct Acilia Plecusa’s redemption from slavery as an outright success story.10 It is self-evident that Acilia Plecusa’s status was raised considerably by her marriage to her equestrian husband, but it probably goes too far to describe her as ‘a very influential lady’,11 without knowing a little bit more about the circle of influential people in Singilia Barba as a whole. In this context it needs to be pointed out that her son was not promoted to full membership of the municipal council and that there is no evidence that she engaged in a series of expensive benefactions.12 While studying Acilia Plecusa’s life we tend to forget that she is only known to us through a number of honorific inscriptions, inscriptions which she herself commissioned and which by their very nature do not contain any reference to the challenges which she faced as a freed slave. Was she completely accepted by her environment and by the social equals of her husband?13 How many more Acilia Plecusas were there in the Roman world? It is the principal aim of this study to discover how manumission affected freedwomen in their personal and family lives. In pursuing this objective I am going to focus on a number of critical moments in their lives and I will make an attempt to tease out the implications for their position. In the second part of this chapter I will do so by featuring a number of situations affecting freedwomen in the Roman world. In the next section,

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Free at Last! however, I will present three situations for which the main evidence comes from New World slave societies but which have not been studied for the Roman world. I wish to emphasize from the outset that it is not my objective to gloss over essential differences between different slave societies, nor is it my purpose to borrow evidence from a modern, better-documented, slave society to fill in the blank spaces for the world of freedwomen in the Roman Empire. The adding of one particular layer of enquiry serves to demonstrate how useful it can be to adopt a broader perspective on the history of freedwomen than to seek an answer in one particular slave society. Students of slavery in the Roman Empire as well as researchers of slavery in the New World typically focus on the evidence that is available for their own slave society and develop research questions based on the problems raised by the types of evidence that they are mining for information. I will try to broaden the focus of the investigation somewhat by including questions that derive from research on one slave society and applying them to another for which this particular set of questions has not been tested. For a good understanding of the process of drawing comparisons between Roman slavery and New World slavery it is important to note that students of slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and the US categorize freedwomen together with the freeborn. This is because they think, consider and argue on the basis of two categories: the enslaved and the free. In other words, for students of New World slavery the distinction between freed and freeborn is less important and less significant than the distinction between the free and the enslaved. For Roman historians the category that is the most useful subject of study, however, is that of the freedwoman, the recently freed slave who has received Roman citizenship or Junian-Latin status.14 Drawing comparisons between slavery in ancient Rome and the New World will therefore always be complicated by the different emphases that have been traditionally applied by scholars working in these respective fields. In Rome, freed female slaves usually identify themselves by their status as freedwomen, while the next generation would be freeborn and therefore not immediately recognizable as descendants of slaves. In Brazil, on the other hand, non-white women are categorized on the basis of their skin colour. They are either preta (black), parda (mulatto), or cabra (a mix between mulatto and white, often darkerskinned than parda), and the list goes on with many individual variations. The same phenomenon can be observed, with a slightly different vocabulary, in the Caribbean. In Suriname, for example, the term quadroon was used for people who had one black and three white grandparents, while octoroons were people who had one black great-grandparent.15 In addition, it needs to be noted that those researching free women of colour derive their information mainly from census records and court documents. Roman historians do not have such material at their disposal, but it is no use complaining at length about what we do not have, and never will have.

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Instead it should be acknowledged that every type of evidence comes with certain limitations and that the construction of an argument should be done with these weaknesses in mind. For example, the census records of two parishes in Bahia in northeastern Brazil from 1835 allow Barickman and Few to extrapolate how many households were headed by women, but because of a lack of successive census returns the census of 1835 remains a snapshot.16 It is a useful one, and one that Roman historians would be extremely happy to possess, but it is a snapshot nonetheless. My main point is that by combining different types of evidence with different types of questions and different outcomes the discussion of freedwomen as a whole will be enhanced. The moment of manumission and the consequences of freedom The possibility of manumission must have been on a slave’s mind all the time.17 The introduction of the principle of manumission signified that slavery was not a permanent state of submission; there was a way out. But the process of achieving manumission was accompanied with anxiety, since it was always dependent on the master’s good will. Would the promise be kept, would it be denied? When would it be granted? In many slave societies in the New World it was customary for master and slave to reach a verbal agreement about the conditions on which freedom would be granted. Usually this involved the payment of a sum of money in a number of instalments. Once an agreement was reached the objective of freedom was brought within reach by allowing slaves to hire themselves out or to be hired out for work.18 Many slaves, however, complained that masters reneged on the agreement altogether or that the sum initially agreed upon several years ago, sometimes more than a decade ago, was suddenly increased before the last instalment was due. It is also frequently reported that after the death of the master who had agreed to manumit his/her slaves the heirs would try to prevent the slaves from acquiring their freedom. To the heirs the emotional reasons behind the original agreement were less important than the money represented by the eventual sale of the slaves. In cases where freedom was denied to the slave because the owners or the heirs raised the price of freedom at the last minute the slaves could submit a petition to the courts. Adding all this up it can be said that in New World slavery manumission generated as many legal, social, and economic problems as slavery itself. Slaves in the Roman world could also pay a sum to their owner in exchange for their freedom, but there is very little that we are told about possible problems raised by the prospect of manumission. In his account of the murder of the senator Pedanius Secundus by one of his slaves the historian Tacitus suggests that the reason for the crime was either a conflict over a mutual lover or a last-minute change in the promise to

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Free at Last! award freedom (Ann. 14.42.1). This implies that Tacitus considered both scenarios believable reasons for a conflict with the master, and that his audience may have known that such conflicts were far from uncommon.19 A law in the Digest stipulates that when the master reneged on an agreement to manumit the slave the latter had to approach the city prefect or the provincial governor to seek redress.20 The formulation of the legal principle suggests that slave-owners in Rome were as likely to renege on the deal as were masters in the New World, but the matter has not attracted a lot of attention from students of ancient slavery.21 I assume that this is because of the fact that petitions by slaves have not survived. Roman historians and legal historians have not considered the possibility of such petitions, because they assume that slaves did not have access to the proper channels to state their claims.22 That may well be true in some cases, such as killing or extreme abuse, where the seriousness of the criminal allegations made it more difficult for the slave or the surviving members of his family to enter the legal arena, but is this equally true for all cases? This area requires further investigation, based, for example, on what type of case is dealt with in which slave-holding society. It is illuminating to see that in the case of freedom suits in the southern states of the US slaves successfully gained access to the law, sometimes with the help of whites, sometimes without.23 The absence of a large number of references to manumission as a conflict zone in the Roman world should not automatically lead us to conclude that it was an unimportant issue. In slave societies in the New World freed slaves were issued with freedom papers. It was essential for freedpeople to carry those freedom documents with them at all times in order to show that they had been legitimately manumitted and were no longer slaves. In a slave society with an increasing demand for servile labour but which had imposed a ban on slave trading, freedpeople and even freeborn people of colour were frequent victims of kidnapping.24 Commonly identified as runaways they were quickly taken and sold in another state as slaves. Judith Kelleher Schafer’s study on manumission and enslavement in New Orleans between 1846 and 1862 shows that freedpeople and freeborn people of colour were regularly treated as if they were slaves and thrown in jail as runaways until they could show their freedom papers as evidence that they had been properly manumitted.25 Her study is based on a thorough analysis of the handwritten manuscripts from the five (from 1853 onwards, six) district courts for the city of New Orleans, material that had never been used before as evidence for the history of enslavement and manumission. It is self-evident from Schafer’s book that freedom papers and other legal documents were indispensable for the survival of freedpeople. It raises the question how much legal documentation was needed by slaves and freedpeople in the Roman world. In the 1930s the discovery of a series of wax tablets from Herculaneum brought to light the interesting lawsuit of a woman by the name of

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Petronia Justa. Although many details of the case still remain unclear, it is beyond doubt that the main issue involved the question whether Justa was freeborn or freed.26 It is not certain why she needed to prove this or even whether she was the one who instituted the lawsuit. Jane Gardner has argued that the lack of proper documentation may have resulted from the fact that Justa was manumitted informally, for she assumes that a formal manumission in front of the praetor in Rome would have resulted in some kind of record.27 The most plausible scenario is that Justa wanted to prove her freeborn status (or claim freeborn status in the knowledge that the original circumstances of her birth were vague) because that would have enabled her to enter into a legitimate marriage with a freeborn Roman, something which would have been impossible for her if she had been a Junian Latin.28 There must have been many more examples of this kind of lawsuit, but Petronia Justa’s dossier is so far unique. In a comparative discussion on the use of documentation in slave societies, the main thing that stands out is that Justa’s lawsuit is concerned with her being freeborn rather than freed, and it raises the question about the typicality of such lawsuits and what it tells us about Rome as a slave society. In contrast, I know of no cases for the Roman world in which the defendant had to demonstrate that she (or he) was in fact freed rather than still a slave. The absence of such cases presents a puzzle which it is not easy to solve, although it is quite possible that such cases were indeed produced, but that the evidence has not survived.29 There is one final aspect of manumission that is familiar to both the ancient world and the New World, although it appears in different configurations and therefore the dynamic of the phenomenon is slightly dissimilar for each slave society. In both ancient and modern slave societies slaves were allowed, sometimes even encouraged, to form informal unions and to produce children. The offspring produced by these unions would add to the master’s slave supply. However, most masters were reluctant to free entire family units. They would rather free women separately from the remainder of their families. This proved a heartrending problem for some women who were happy to accept freedom, the result of years of hard work and careful negotiation, but who had to leave other members of their family behind. In the southern states of the US this situation became even more traumatic when laws were introduced that compelled freedpeople to leave the state and settle elsewhere once they had gained their freedom. It was such a circumstance that forced Lucy Andrews from Lancaster District in South Carolina to appeal to the Legislature of the state to be allowed to re-enter slavery. In 1858 Lucy was sixteen years old and she asked for herself and her baby to return voluntarily to a state of enslavement and choose her own master. As an explanation for this somewhat unusual request she mentioned that slaves were far happier than she was ‘in her present isolated condition of freedom’. Her request was denied, and since nobody wanted to employ her she made a second attempt, this time

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Free at Last! specifying that she would like to be the slave of W. Henry Duncan who was known to her as a kind master. Her request was denied again, but she requested again to become the slave of Duncan, this time revealing her true motives. Duncan owned her husband and she was living on the Duncan farm with him. She was ultimately unsuccessful in becoming re-enslaved.30 It is clear that Lucy Andrews’ petition is an extraordinary response, but it is a response to a situation which is all too common for women of colour in the states where manumission was still permitted by law. Her case and that of other women survives in the form of petitions submitted to legislatures and can therefore be studied as first-hand evidence. The same circumstances are far more difficult to study for the Roman world, although the phenomenon of parents and children owned by different masters is well established.31 The evidence survives in far less dramatic fashion, however, and it is impossible to say how frequent the phenomenon was. In certain cases inscriptions allow us to reconstruct that children of the same mother were manumitted at different periods or by different masters, but no narrative is provided and therefore the situation is usually treated in far less emotional terms by modern scholars, as if it were a normal fact of life, not worthy of special comment.32 For an immediate narrative about the disruption of family life due to manumission we need to turn to fiction. In Petronius’ Satyrica the freedman Hermeros asserts that he bought his wife out of slavery because he wanted no one to wipe his hands on her hair (Sat. 57.6). It is worth noting that Hermeros’ statement is proud and aggressive, but that is understandable if one considers that Trimalchio’s party is attended by a number of individuals whom Hermeros suspects are educated and freeborn, and therefore potential slave-owners.33 The sentimental dimension provided by the personal statements made by free women of colour can help us to at least imagine the emotions involved in these circumstances. Overall, there is a great need for a more systematic examination of the disruption of families due to manumission, in the Roman world as well as in New World slavery, with the aim of exploring strategies undertaken by slaves in response to such circumstances, such as running away, trespassing or nocturnal visits. Marriage, work, and property The marriage and social promotion of Acilia Plecusa have already been referred to in the introduction to this chapter.34 The initial tone of that discussion was decidedly optimistic, as it was based on a positive estimation of an unprecedented opportunity provided to a female slave to enhance her social status. Plecusa’s case provides an illustration that the effects of slavery could be unexpectedly positive for some slaves. Slaves are familiar outsiders, but sometimes their status as outsiders is eclipsed by human emotions or by strategies of family survival. A similar scenario is

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire that of the freedman who is adopted to inherit the family name and fortune in the absence of a natural son. Our optimism about the positive effects of marriage as a kind of social promotion for freed slaves should be tempered somewhat by inspecting the limitations imposed by Roman law. In such marriages the natural superiority of the male partner was enhanced even further by the fact that the husband was also his wife’s patron and patronal rights were always considered to carry superior weight. Here are the most important consequences. Freedwomen married to their patrons could initiate a divorce, even without the patron’s consent, but according to the Augustan lex Julia on marriage they were not allowed conubium with a new partner, and they were unable to bring an action for the recovery of their dowry.35 In this kind of marriage there was also no complete separation of property as was the case between a freeborn husband and a freeborn wife.36 It may be suggested that, in addition to other factors, some men preferred to marry one of their slaves because it allowed them more control over their wives, especially in the first and second centuries CE when women enjoyed progressively more legal freedoms than in the first century BCE. Roman law, at least the part of the corpus that survives in compilations, is mainly concerned with freedwomen in a negative way, spelling out rights that they did not have or that did not apply to them. Legal texts painstakingly outline how freedwomen would fare in a number of situations, imaginary as well as realistic, and they open our eyes to the fact that the law would affect these women in most cases disadvantageously. That is a useful starting-point, because it at least offers modern historians a perspective and a very large pool of evidence to work with. However, it would be wrong to assume that this evidence amounts to the only possible definition of the position occupied by freedwomen in Roman society or that it even offers an accurate picture of the experiences of freedwomen. Roman law shows a special concern for potentially complicated situations, and freedwomen serve as a frequent subject of discussion because they were women, and therefore by nature disadvantaged, as well as former slaves, another category that invited special considerations from legal experts. The most notable exception merits some discussion. In 51 CE, when Rome was hit by a severe famine, the emperor Claudius introduced a number of incentives to encourage ship-owners to make available their ships during the winter period, a time when sailing was extremely dangerous because of storms. The significance of Claudius’ measures for the present discussion lies in the fact that one of the groups that were explicitly targeted is that of freedwomen.37 One of the incentives that he offered was the privileges connected with having four children (in this case without the necessity to produce this number of children), and this is exactly the number of children, rather than the three that were the requirement for freeborn women, that freedwomen had to have in order to qualify for the right of three children (ius trium liberorum).38 The privi-

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Free at Last! leges would release freedwomen from tutela (‘guardianship by a male relative for financial and legal affairs’), and they would also gain the right to dispose of their property as they saw fit (Gai. Inst. 3.44). If the freedwoman happened to be of Latin status, she could even acquire Roman citizenship. Suetonius’ text in combination with the legal evidence for Claudius’ measures suggests that Claudius was aiming to stimulate the building of new ships of considerable size (over 10,000 modii = over 70 tonnes) and to use those ships for a period of six years in the service of the annona, the organization introduced by the emperor Augustus to provide the city of Rome with a sufficient supply of grain.39 The outlay for the building of such ships must have been quite considerable and it is tempting to conclude that this is definite proof that there were extremely wealthy freedwomen in Rome in the first century CE.40 An essential question that is perhaps impossible to answer is whether the emperor had information at his disposal that there were wealthy freedwomen who owned ships and already used them in the service of the annona or whether he was simply targeting another group which he hoped would respond to his request.41 It is possible that the freedwomen were used by their patrons as middlemen to be involved in commercial enterprises which were closed to members of the upper classes because of the social stigma attached to direct involvement in trading. However, Claudius’ measure would make this option less attractive, at least from the women’s perspective. When they died, freedmen and women of Latin status would revert back to servile status and all their wealth would come into their patron’s hands. Claudius’ granting of the right of four children to freedwomen exempted them from tutela and allowed them to make a will without their patrons’ consent. Freedwomen, however, were not able to exclude their patrons from a share altogether, and this put them in a more disadvantageous situation than freedmen. The latter could bequeath half of their estate as they wished, while the wills of freedwomen could, under certain circumstances, be set aside completely.42 An important contribution to the study of freedwomen in the Roman world could be made by a research project which looks into all the evidence concerning ownership of property and economic activities. This is an urgent desideratum, and the timing for it is perfect since every year more and more work is being done on the economic activities undertaken by women of the lower classes.43 The iconographical evidence for working women has already been the subject of a number of important studies,44 but the scholarly focus needs to be expanded somewhat in the direction of slaves and freedwomen in order to research their particular contribution to the economy. A remarkable example from Ostia concerns a relief and inscription in memory of Septimia Stratonice, who has been identified as a shoemaker.45 The fact that it has received considerable scholarly attention makes this type of evidence stand out as important, but it requires further arguments with regard to how freedwomen ended up in these

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire businesses, whether they were in charge of them, or how frequently they were in these positions. The reason that I am raising the issue of economic activities is that there is a considerable amount of information available from slave societies in the New World on freedwomen in a number of economic sectors, including cleaning, housekeeping, laundering, the retail trade and the hospitality business. It is to be expected that cautious use of this material will inform or at least delineate the roles played by freedwomen in the Roman economy. Do they dominate certain occupations like cleaning or waitressing, as is the case, for example, in colonial New Orleans or the Brazilian mining-region of Minas Gerais?46 I want to finish with brief comments on three inscriptions that will no doubt play an important role in the kind of investigation I have outlined above. The first text is a funerary inscription for Abudia Megiste, who married her former owner and was active as a trader in grain and vegetables47: Diis Manibus / Abudiae, M(arci) lib(ertae), / Megiste, pissimae, fec(it) / M(arcus) Abudius Luminaris, / patronus idemque coniux bene merenti / negotiatrici frumentariae / et legumenaria(e) ab scala / mediana et libertis / libertabusque posterisque / et M(arco) Abudio Saturnino / filio, trib(ulo) Esq(uilinae) seniorum, vixit annis VIII (CIL 6.9683). Dedicated to the spirits of the most devoted Abudia Megiste, freedwoman of Marcus. She was a trader in grain and vegetables at the middle stairs.48 Marcus Abudius Luminaris, her patron as well as her husband, erected this grave for her because she deserved it, and for his freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants and for Marcus Abudius Saturninus, their son, a member of the Esquiline tribe in the senior group; he died at the age of eight.

Her husband refers to Abudia Megiste as a negotiatrix frumentaria et legumenaria (‘a trader in grain and vegetables’).49 The term negotiator followed by one or more adjectives indicating a certain type of commodity is commonly thought to identify someone who is involved in commerce on a large scale.50 If this is correct, the inscription for Abudia Megiste serves as a very important piece of evidence that women were involved in large-scale commerce. The label conjures up the image of a woman travelling throughout the vast Roman Empire to sell grain and vegetables, or that of a woman in charge of an international trading company.51 Both options, however, are somewhat contradicted by the fact that her husband places her at a fixed location in Rome, perhaps the seat of her business. Marcus Abudius Luminaris is not identified as a partner in Megiste’s business operations. It is possible, however, that she started her business with a peculium when she was still a slave and that she continued it after she had married her former master.52 In any case, even though Luminaris is not identified as a business partner in Megiste’s commercial operation, it is logical to assume that he was involved in one way or another. Since

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Free at Last! Megiste was the wife as well as the freedwoman of Marcus Abudius Luminaris it must be assumed that there was no separation of property between husband and wife. All the money that she made with her commercial activities, then, flowed back into the strongbox of her husband. A fascinating inscription was found along the via Latina between Aquinum and Casinum:53 Flacceia, A(uli) l(iberta), Lais; / Orbia, (mulieris) l(iberta), Lais; / Cominia M(arci) l(iberta) Philocaris / ; Venturia, Q(uinti) l(iberta), Thais / culinam Veneri de suo / fecerunt; loco / precario. Flacceia Lais, freedwoman of Aulus, Orbia Lais, freedwoman of Orbia, Cominia Philocaris, freedwoman of Marcus, Centuria Thais, freedwoman of Quintus, set up a kitchen for Venus, at their own cost; concession revocable.

The inscription concerns four women, all of them freed by different owners, who have pooled their money to start a kitchen (culinam) at the location of a sanctuary dedicated to Venus.54 The women’s cognomina resemble the professional names adopted by courtesans and since their kitchen is associated with a temple of Venus it has been argued that these women were involved in an erotic cult along the lines of the cult of Venus Erycina, located outside the city near the Porta Collina.55 This possibility should not be entirely discarded, but it should also be emphasized that the leasing of a location (loco precario) for the purpose of establishing a kitchen points primarily in the direction of a commercial enterprise for the sale of food items.56 Jane Gardner is undoubtedly right in arguing that this is the first historical example of a women’s cooperative, and she is on the right track to ask the question as to how these women started to work together and what the purpose of their activities may have been. A further set of useful insights can be inferred from other epigraphic evidence. A recently discovered text from the region of Caere details the relationship between a freedwoman and four of her freed slaves:57 Marcia, (mulieris) l(iberta), Olympia; / Marcia, (mulieris) l(iberta), Secunda, l(iberta?); / L(ucius) Marcius, (mulieris) l(ibertus), Celadus, l(ibertus?); / Marcia, (mulieris) l(iberta), Methe, l(iberta?); / L(ucius) Marcius, (mulieris) l(ibertus), Gemellus, l(ibertus?). Marcia Olympia, freedwoman of a woman, Marcia Secunda, freedwoman of a woman, freedwoman by status, Lucius Marcius Celadus, freedman of a woman, freedman by status, Marcia Methe, freedwoman of a woman, freedwoman by status, Lucius Marcius Gemellus, freedman of a woman, freedman by status.

Eck correctly observed that the first-named individual is called freedwoman of a woman, but that she is not called liberta, and that the other four individuals are called liberta or libertus as well as liberta or libertus

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire mulieris.58 As Eck argues, this must mean that the final four individuals listed in this inscription were the freed slaves of the first-named individual. This means that a freedwoman owned at least four slaves of her own and manumitted them, perhaps by testament and they were later buried together with their former mistress. The fact that the freed slaves were two men and two women suggests that these were two married couples, even though this is not stated explicitly in the inscription. Slave-owning by former slaves, and especially slave-owning by freedwomen, is crucially missing from studies on slavery in the Roman world, but it is a subject which has been well covered for the New World, especially for the US and Brazil.59 I have no reason to assume that slave-owning was less widespread among freedwomen in ancient Rome and this should give rise to additional discussion of freedwomen as property-owners. * In this chapter I have argued in favour of a research strategy which develops a broad spectrum of questions, through the use of all the diverse types of evidence that survive from the world of ancient Rome, but also through the critical examination of the evidence from other slave societies and the scholarship that it has generated. This kind of research needs to embrace a very critical approach towards evidence and the kind of information that is extracted from it. Besides the importance of establishing what the evidence tells us and who is communicating it, and for what reason, there is in addition the urgency to include in our investigation questions for which no or very little evidence survives. It is still an unstated rule in historical investigations of the ancient world that the survival of more items of a particular type of evidence makes the information that is carried by it more important, without asking the relevant question as to why it survives in such large numbers. The absence of evidence should not be taken to mean that something did not exist. I have applied these thoughts to the study of freedwomen in the Roman Empire for three main reasons. Firstly, it is a field which is underexamined and therefore has no fixed research agenda, which allows me to set one without the necessity of attacking, criticizing or refuting established opinions. Secondly, my assumption is that the relative lack of systematic research in this area is caused by a perception that not enough evidence survives, which would make the favoured approach adopted by most ancient historians of assembling all the evidence an inadequate strategy. Thirdly, the emphasis in the study of New World slavery for the moment is that women stood a far better chance of being manumitted than men. There is therefore a large amount of scholarship which investigates the fate, success, failures and challenges of freed women of colour in Hispanic America, Brazil, the US, and the French, Dutch, English and Danish Caribbean from which ancient historians can benefit. In those

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Free at Last! societies slavery and manumission are not necessarily better documented, although there may be more physical and paper evidence available, but the essential point is that because of different types of evidence the research agenda is completely different. In tandem with a thorough investigation of the sources which survive for the ancient world itself the questions on this agenda can be profitably used by ancient historians to shape future research. Notes 1. For the Roman presence in the conventus Astigitanus: Haley 1996. For Singilia Barba: Atencia Páez 1988; Ordóñez Agulla 1987-88. 2. CIL II2/5.782. This text was found in 1978; see Sillières 1978, 468-73. 3. Respectively, CIL II2/5.784; CIL II2/5.795; CIL II2/5.796; CIL II2/5.802; CIL 2 II /5.803. 4. Respectively CIL II2/5.830, and AE 1993.1014. Her tomb was discovered by chance underneath the train tracks running from Bobadilla to Granada in a location approximately 6 km west-northwest from the ancient site of Singilia Barba. For the find spot, cf. Romero Pérez 1993; 1993-1994. In May of 2010 she became archaeological news again when her tomb was transferred to the local museum in Antequera which is currently being expanded to become the future Centro de Interpretación. 5. My reading differs slightly from the reading in CIL, where the abbreviations have been restored as follows: prae/f(ecto) fabrum d(ecreto) d(ecurionum) / m(unicipum) m(unicipii) Sing(iliensis) Barb(ensis). This reading suggests that the position of praefectus fabrum was a locally recognized office bestowed by the municipal councillors: praefectus fabrum by decree of the decuriones, who are citizens of the town of Singilia Barba. I believe instead that Fronto was honoured by the citizens of Singilia Barba (municipes municipii) and that Acilia Plecusa added her name to the inscription after she decided to pay for the statue. For the municipes as a group honouring individual benefactors and important representatives of the imperial government, cf. AE 1954.165 (Capena); AE 1979.246 (Perusia); AE 1991.675 (Ferentinum); CIL 10.5653 (Fabrateria Nova). 6. For the precise role of the procurator ad kalendarium Vegetianum: Guichard 1991. 7. The servile origins of Phlegon are also emphasized by Guichard 1991, 301, and by Corbier 2008, 322-3. For the awarding of the ornamenta, see Kleijwegt 1992; Serrano Delgado 1996; Gregori 2008; Camodeca 2008. Abramenko 1992 discusses the few examples of freedmen who were admitted to the municipal council. For a fuller discussion of freedmen in the society and the economy of the Roman Empire, see Verboven in this volume. 8. It is quite possible that this was an honorary appointment. For the position of praefectus fabrum in the early Principate, see Dobson 1993. 9. The exact meaning of amicus needs to be substantiated in order to explain the relationship. For the use of amicus in the context of patronage, see Saller 1982, 14-15. For its application in provincial society, see Saller 1982, 145-94. Haley 2003, 142, follows Guichard 1991 in assuming that Acilius’ wealth derived from the production of olive oil and adds that the family connection with olive oil would also explain, in large part, the friendship between Acilia Plecusa and P. Magnius Rufus Magonianus.

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire 10. Corbier 2008, 322-24. Corbier emphasizes (323) that Acilia Plecusa does not hide her servile origins from the scrutiny of the reader. 11. Mirón Pérez 2005. 12. For women as benefactors in Spain, see Navarro Caballero 2001. 13. Higgins 1999, 9-10, discusses the case of Xica de Silva, a mulata ex-slave who became the concubine to an eighteenth-century diamond contractor. The story has been used uncritically in support of the argument that a female slave could benefit more from being the concubine of a white man than the wife of a black man. 14. Freedpeople of Junian Latin status were freed in view of obstructions imposed by the lex Fufia Caninia and the lex Aelia Sentia, and were therefore not legally manumitted, see Gardner 1986a, 223-4; Weaver 1990; 1991; López Barja de Quiroga 1998; see also Verboven in this volume. 15. Hoefte and Vrij 2004, 157. 16. Barickman and Few 2004. 17. For the ancient world this common assumption must be stated without the aid of personal thoughts of slaves on the matter, while for New World slavery we actually possess their reflections on freedom. For examples, see Blassingame 1977, 34; 84; 110; 112; 135; 140; 212; 232; 250; 268; 355; 377; 395; 405; 417; 423; 424; 519; 688; 689-90; 698-9; 744. 18. On hiring out and self-hire in the US, see Berlin 2003, 221-4; Martin 2004; Schermerhorn 2011. 19. I might add here that both motives present Pedanius Secundus in a bad light, which is what may have been Tacitus’ objective; see Griffin 1976, 281 n. 2, who argues that innoxios (‘innocent lives’) in 14.42.2 is Tacitus’ own judgement on the issue. 20. Dig. 40.1.5. Pedanius Secundus was city prefect of Rome when he was assassinated. 21. A major study on manumission in the Greco-Roman world which adopts a welcome comparative perspective only discusses the case of Pedanius Secundus as part of a discussion on the execution of the slaves in the household as so serious a situation that the rights of the master were violated, and property was destroyed: Weiler 2003, 252. Bradley 1984, 99-100, discusses the reasons for the attack from the perspective of the slave, but he also does not draw attention to the general implications of the murder for the possibility of conflicts surrounding manumission. 22. Slaves are commonly viewed as being at the mercy of their master without any legal protection against abuse; see De Sainte Croix 1981, 141, quoted by de Ligt 2002, 26. De Ligt 2002, 26-38, discusses the ameliorative legislation which exists from the first century CE onwards and uses a comparative framework to interpret its objectives and its accessibility. He points out that in the southern states of the US only a handful of slave-owners was ever convicted of unlawfully killing or maltreating a slave and emphasizes that only whites were allowed to testify in court (p. 33). He eventually labels this type of legislation symbolic. 23. For an insightful illustration of slaves and access to the legal system in New Orleans, see Schafer 2003. Not all slaves or free people of colour were successful in convincing the authorities that their claims were legitimate, but the important point is that they gained access to the law. It would be unwise to argue that this kind of situation was common in the Roman world, too, but it seems equally inappropriate to take as a fixed point of departure the assumption that slaves had no access to the law at all. 24. Kidnapping of runaways: Lubet 2010. For the kidnapping of slaves in the

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Free at Last! Roman world and the legal evidence on this topic: Gardner 1986a, 219-20. The four cases that are represented in the Digest all concern pregnant slave-women: Dig. 1.5.26; 41.3.10.2; 47.2.48.5; 50.16.26. 25. Cf. Schafer 2003, 97-129. This is only a partial snapshot of the many issues involving the desire for freedom in New Orleans. Schafer is also concerned with freedom suits, deposited by slaves who claimed, for a variety of reasons, that they should be freed rather than kept in slavery. For letters of manumission in Bahia, see Schwartz 1974. 26. Most of the wax tablets are sworn statements on Justa’s legal status by individuals who knew her. Upon achieving her freedom Justa’s mother Petronia Vitalis had left Justa in the home of her former owner. Justa claimed that she was born after her mother’s manumission and was therefore freeborn, while her mother’s former owner, Petronius Stephanus, and his wife Calatoria Themis claimed that she was born a slave. 27. Gardner 1986a, 224. 28. I have followed the reconstruction proposed by Jane Gardner: 1986a, 224-5. Gardner makes clear that freedwomen of Junian Latin status would have been seriously disadvantaged compared to men of the same status. For discussion of the case of Petronia Justa, see also Gardner 1986b; Weaver 1991, 166-72; Weaver 1997, 69-71; Lintott 2002, 557-64. 29. Deeds of manumission or manumission contracts have survived for the province of Egypt, but their precise function has not been studied thus far. Examples: Lewis and Reinhold 1990, 173-4 (from Hermopolis; 221 CE); P. Oxy. 1205 (Oxyrhynchus; 291 CE), for which see Westermann 1955, 101 n. 131; P. Oxy. 2843, included in Rowlandson 1999, 179 (nr. 134). 30. The case of Lucy Andrews and those of other women affected by the breaking up of families due to manumission is discussed by Schweninger 2004, 115. Her complete petition is incorporated in an appendix at 118. 31. In CIL 6.18073 from Rome four individuals are mentioned: thirteen-year-old Flavius Gamus who has passed away and is remembered by his grandfather Titus Flavius Abascantus, his father Marcus Cocceius Philetus and his wet-nurse (nutrix) Flavia Nais. Father and son have different gentilicia and this suggests that they were manumitted in different households. 32. It needs to be pointed out that amongst ancient historians it is far more common to discuss the breaking up of families when individuals enter slavery than the breaking up of families after the granting of freedom, see Bradley 1984, 57-62; Joshel 2010, 78-9. 33. Hermeros’ statement has usually been accepted as being true to life (for example by Joshel 1992, 112). For a more detailed discussion of Hermeros’ rant and how it should be read, see Ramsby in this volume. 34. For a fuller discussion as to how these couples can be identified and what the reasons may have been for masters to marry one of their slaves over a freeborn woman: cf. Wacke 2001. Wacke suggests that the phenomenon increased in significance after the introduction of the marriage laws of Augustus. On the frequency with which female slaves were manumitted in order to marry their owners see further Weiler 2001; Weiler 2003, 254-60; Weber 2008. 35. The fact that these women may have had no dowry in the first place does not diminish the argument adopted here, because in both cases they did not have in their possession a dowry which allowed them to enter a new marriage. 36. For this and other limitations imposed on freedwomen marrying their former master, see Gardner 1986a, 82-3, 227.

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire 37. Suet. Claud. 19; for discussion of this passage, see Rougé 1966, 67; Pavis d’Escurac 1976, 215-17; Sirks 1991, 61-7. 38. Cf. Hurley 2001, 143. 39. Gai. Inst. 1.32; Ulp. Frag. 3.6. Pavis d’Escurac 1976, 216; Sirks 1991, 62. Both scholars emphasize that the main problem that the annona experienced was a lack of adequate shipping capacity. 40. Sirks 1991, 64, makes an attempt to calculate the monetary outlay involved. He concludes that the building of one such ship would have cost at least 100,000 sesterces. This is quite a considerable amount of money seeing that in the first century CE soldiers earned between 1,000 and 1,200 sesterces per annum. 41. Sirks 1980, 293, insists that such women existed: ‘There must have been a group of freed women, who were enough wealthy, independent and sufficient in number, to be attractive as subjects of legal encouragement’; see also Gardner 1986a, 224. 42. Gardner 1986a, 194-6. 43. Pioneering research was done by Treggiari: 1976 and 1979. Subsequently Kampen 1981 was the first study to focus on the iconographical evidence in combination with an examination of the written sources. Further important research in this area has been undertaken by Suzanne Dixon, ranging from her study of a freeborn woman from Ostia who owned a large amount of property (Dixon 1992) to her studies of women and textile manufacturing (Dixon 2001a; 2001b; 2004). 44. Kampen 1981. 45. Kampen 1981, 64-9. 46. For New Orleans, see Hanger 1997; 2004. For Minas Gerais, see Higgins 1999. It is important for this kind of research to explore female economic activities within the entire economic framework of the slave society concerned. In Minas Gerais, for example, only men were recruited as slave-workers in the mines, which left all other economic activities, including those that were elsewhere dominated by men, in the hands of women. 47. This woman is referred to by Kampen 1981, 62, 113; Kampen 1993, 118; Joshel 1992, 111-12. 48. This is the only known text that refers to this topographical location. Richardson (1992, 345) speculates that its location should be found somewhere in the commercial area below the Aventine. This corresponds with the fact that the inscription was found near the via Ostiense. 49. Weber 2008, 367, argues that Marcus Abudius Luminaris should be viewed as a representative of the freeborn middle class, as there are no signs that he had been a slave himself. 50. Kneissl 1983 argues that in the imperial period negotiatores were involved in business on a large scale, while mercatores should be identified as small traders. The female version of this occupation, the negotiatrix, is only referred to in two other inscriptions, one from Rome (AE 1973.71) and the other from Castrimoenium (CIL 14.2465). Joshel 1992, 111-2, calls Abudia Megiste a simple tradesperson rather than someone who was involved in large-scale commercial activities. 51. The second option is implied by Weber’s label ‘Großhandelsbetrieb’: Weber 2008, 368, with n. 5. 52. For the role of the peculium in creating economic independence for slaves in the Roman world, see Buckland 1970, 187-207. 53. AE 1975.197; 1980.216; the text was originally published by Cagiano de Azevedo in 1953, but only included in L’Année Épigraphique in 1975. Schilling

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Free at Last! 1980 subsequently discussed the religious dimensions of the inscription. Jane Gardner 1986, 249-50, is the first scholar to draw attention to the important information supplied by the inscription for the world of labour and the position of freedwomen. 54. The idea of a temple is confirmed by the survival of four votive inscriptions to Venus from the same location: CIL 10.5165; 5166; 5167; 5191. 55. This is the view of Schilling 1980. Budin 2009 argues, however, that sacred prostitution in the ancient world did not exist. Unfortunately, the text from Casinum is not included in her discussion, but the case of Aphrodite at Eryx is discussed (184-91) and sacred prostitution at this location is called a myth. 56. In other inscriptions within a religious context a culina is established by private worshippers usually in combination with other constructions – a temple, a wall, etc. The epigraphic evidence for the establishment of a culina is not widespread, and the range of deities is not limited to female deities: Bona Dea (AE 1973.127 = AE 2004.361; Ostia); Junones (CIL 5.781; Aquileia); Jupiter (CIL 9.3075; Sulmo) and Hercules Saxanus (CIL 14.3543; Tibur). 57. AE 1979.214; editio princeps: Eck 1979, 224, nr. 10; also published in Eck and Heinrichs 1993, 213, nr. 327. 58. Eck 1979, 224. 59. See for example Barrickman and Few 2004; Hanger 2004; Karasch 2004; Dantas 2006, 161-6; Dantas 2008, 172-4.

Bibliography Abramenko, A. (1992) ‘Liberti als Dekurionen: Einige Überlegungen zur lex Malacitana’, Laverna 3: 94-103. Atencia Páez, R. (1988) La ciudad romana de Singilia Barba (Antequera – Málaga) (Málaga). Barickman, B.J. and M. Few. (2004) ‘Ana Paulinho de Queirós, Joaquina da Costa, and their Neighbors: Free Women of Color as Household Heads in Rural Bahia (Brazil), 1835’, in Gaspar and Hine 2004, 169-201. Bellen, H. and H. Heinen (eds) (2001) Fünfzig Jahre Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei an der Mainzer Akademie 1950-2000 (Stuttgart). Berlin, I. (2003) Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge, MA and London). Blassingame, J.W. (ed.) (1977) Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge and London). Bradley, K.R. (1984) Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Brussels). Bradley, K.R. (1994) Slavery and Society at Rome (New York and Cambridge). Buckland, W.W. (1970) The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge). Budin, S.L. (2009) The Myth of Sacred Prostitution (New York and Cambridge). Cagiano de Azevedo, M. (1953) ‘Un santuario laziale con il rito della incubazione?’, Bollettino della Sezione di Anagni 2: 1-4. Camodeca, G. (2008) ‘Un decretum decurionum puteolana de decernendis ornamentis decurionalibus’, Index 36: 585-91. Corbier, M. (2008) ‘Famille et intégration sociale: la trajectoire des affranchi(e)s’, in Antonio Gonzalez (ed.) La fin du status servile?: affranchissement, libération, abolition, 2 vols. (Besançon) 2: 313-27. Dantas, M. (2006) ‘Inheritance Practices among Individuals of African Origin and Descent in Eighteenth-century Minas Gerais, Brazil’, in M. Kleijwegt (ed.) The

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Faces of Freedom: The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery (Leiden and Boston) 153-81. Dantas, M. (2008) Black Townsmen: Urban Slavery and Freedom in the Eighteenth-Century Americas (New York). de Ligt, L. (2002) ‘Restraining the Rich, Protecting the Poor. Symbolic Aspects of Roman Legislation’, in W. Jongman and M. Kleijwegt (eds) After the Past: Essays in Ancient History in Honour of H.W. Pleket (Leiden and Boston) 1-47. de Ste Croix, G.E.M. (1981) The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London). Dixon, S. (1992) ‘A Woman of Substance: Iunia Libertas of Ostia’, Helios 19: 162-74. Dixon, S. (2001a) ‘Familia Veturia: Towards a Lower-class Economic Prosopography’, in S. Dixon (ed.) Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World (New York and London) 100-27. Dixon, S. (2001b) ‘How Do You Count Them When They Aren’t There? New Perspectives on Roman Textile Production’, OpRom 25-6: 1-20. Dixon, S. (2004) ‘Exemplary Housewife or Luxurious Slut: Cultural Representations of Women in the Roman Economy’, in F. McHardy and E. Marshall (eds) Women’s Influence on Classical Civilization (New York and London) 56-75. Dobson, B. (1993) ‘The praefectus fabrum in the Early Principate’, in D.J. Breeze and B. Dobson, Roman Officers and Frontiers (Stuttgart) 218-41. Eck, W. (1979) ‘Neue Inschriften aus Südetrurien’, ZPE 36: 219-25. Eck, W. and J. Heinrichs. (eds) (1993) Sklaven und Freigelassene in der Gesellschaft der römischen Kaiserzeit (Darmstadt). Gardner, J.F. (1986a) Women in Roman Law and Society (London and New York). Gardner, J.F. (1986b) ‘Proofs of Status in the Roman World’, BICS 33: 1-14. Gaspar, D.B. and D.C. Hine (eds) (2004) Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas (Urbana and Chicago). Gregori, G.L. (2008) ‘Huic ordo decurionum ornamenta } decrevit. Forme pubbliche di riconoscimento del successo personale nell’Italia romana’, in C. Berendonner, M. Cébeillac-Gervasoni, and L. Lamoine (eds) Le quotidien municipal dans l’Occident romain (Clermont-Ferrand) 661-85. Griffin, M.T. (1976) Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford). Guichard, P. (1991) ‘Sur les procurateurs du Kalendarium Vegetianum et quelques notables municipaux’, in Alimenta: estudios en homenaje al Dr. Michel Ponsich, Gérion, Anejos 3 (Madrid) 297-309. Haley, E.W. (1996) ‘Rural Settlement in the “Conventus Astigitanus” (Baetica) under the Flavians’, Phoenix 50: 283-303. Haley, E.W. (2003) Baetica Felix: People and Prosperity in Southern Spain from Caesar to Septimius Severus (Austin). Hanger, K.S. (1997) Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769-1803 (Durham, NC). Hanger, K.S. (2004) ‘Landlords, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Slave-Owners: Free Black Female Property-Holders in Colonial New Orleans’, in Gaspar and Hine 2004, 219-36. Higgins, K.J. (1999) ‘Licentious Liberty’ in a Brazilian Gold-mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais (University Park, PA). Hoefte, R. and J.J. Vrij (2004) ‘Free Black and Colored Women in Early-Nineteenth-Century Paramaribo, Suriname’, in Gaspar and Hine 2004, 146-69.

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Free at Last! Hurley, D.W. (ed.) (2001) Suetonius: Divus Claudius (Cambridge and New York). Joshel, S.R. (1992) Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, OK). Joshel, S.R. (2010) Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge and New York). Kampen, N.B. (1981) Image and Status: Roman Working Women in Ostia (Berlin). Kampen, N.B. (1993) ‘Social Status and Gender in Roman Art. The Case of the Saleswoman’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.) Roman Art in Context: An Anthology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ) 115-32. Karasch, M.C. (2004) ‘Free Women of Color in Central Brazil, 1779-1832’, in Gaspar and Hine 2004, 237-70. Kleijwegt, M. (1992) ‘The Value of Empty Honours’, Epigraphica 54: 131-42. Kneissl, P. (1983) ‘Mercator-negotiator. Römische Geschäftsleute und die Terminologie ihrer Berufe’, MBAH 2: 73-90 Lewis, N. and M. Reinhold. (1990) Roman Civilization, vol. 2: The Roman Empire (New York). Lintott, A. (2002) ‘Freedmen and Slaves in the Light of Legal Documents from First-Century AD Campania’, CQ 52: 555-65. López Barja de Quiroga, P. (1998) ‘Junian Latins: Status and Number’, Athenaeum 86: 133-63. Lubet, S. (2010) Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial (Cambridge, MA). Martin, J.D. (2004) Divided Mastery: Slave Hiring in the American South (Cambridge, MA and London). Mirón Pérez, D. (2005) ‘Matrimonia y promoción social de las esclavas en la Bética: el caso de Acilia Plecusa’, in Actas del II Congreso Internacional de Historia Antigua: La Hispania de los Antoninos (98-180) (Valladolid) 293-304. Navarro Caballero, M. (2001) ‘Les femmes de l’élite hispano-romaine, entre la famille et la vie publique’, in M. Navarro Caballero and S. Demougin (eds) Élites Hispaniques (Paris) 191-203. Ordóñez Agulla, S. (1987-88) ‘Cuestiones en torno a Singilia Barba’, Habis 18-9: 319-44. Pavis d’Escurac, H. (1976) La préfecture de l’annone. Service administrative imperial d’Auguste à Constantin (Paris and Rome). Richardson, Jr., L. (1992) A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore). Romero Pérez, M. (1993) ‘La necropolis romana de Las Maravillas. Bobadilla. Málaga’, AAA 3: 485-97. Romero Pérez, M. (1993-1994) ‘La necropolis romana de Maravillas. Bobadilla. Málaga’, Mainake 15-16: 195-222. Rougé, J. (1966) Recherches sur l’organisation du commerce maritime en Méditerranée sous l’empire romaine (Paris). Rowlandson, J. (1999) Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook (Cambridge and New York). Saller, R.P. (1982) Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge and New York). Schafer, J.K. (2003) Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862 (Baton Rouge and London). Schermerhorn, C. (2011) Money over Mastery, Family over Freedom: Slavery in the Antebellum Upper South (Baltimore). Schilling, R. (1980) ‘Le sanctuaire de Venus près de Casinum’, in Perennitas: Studi in onore di A. Brelich (Rome) 445-51.

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5. Deciphering Freedwomen in the Roman Empire Schwartz, S.B. (1974) ‘The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684-1745’, HAHR 54: 603-35. Schweninger, L. (2004) ‘The Fragile Nature of Freedom: Free Women of Color in the US South’, in Gaspar and Hine 2004, 106-24. Serrano Delgado, J. M. (1996) ‘Consideraciones sociales acerca de los ornamenta municipales, con especial referencia a los libertos’, in A. Chastagnol, S. Demougin and C. Lepelley (eds) Splendidissima Civitas: Études d’histoire romaine en hommage à François Jacques (Paris) 259-73. Sillières, P. (1978) ‘Nouvelles inscriptions de Singilia Barba (El Castillon, Antequero, Malaga)’, MCV 14: 465-76. Sirks, A.J.B. (1980) ‘A Favour to Rich Freedwomen (libertinae) in AD 51’, RIDA 27: 283-94. Sirks, A.J.B. (1991) Food for Rome: The Legal Structure of the Transportation and Processing of Supplies for the Imperial Distributions in Rome and Constantinople (Amsterdam). Treggiari, S.M. (1976) ‘Jobs for Women’, AJAH 1: 76-104. Treggiari, S.M. (1979) ‘Lower-class Women in the Roman Economy’, Florilegium 1: 65-86. Wacke, A. (2001) ‘Manumissio matrimonii causa. Die Freilassung zwecks Heirat nach den Ehegestezen des Augustus’, in Bellen and Heinen 2001, 133-59. Weaver, P.R.C. (1990) ‘Where have all the Junian Latins gone? Nomenclature and Status in the Roman Empire’, Chiron 20: 275-305. Weaver, P.R.C. (1991) ‘Children of Freedmen (and Freedwomen)’, in B. Rawson (ed.) Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (New York and Oxford) 166-91. Weaver, P.R.C. (1997) ‘Children of Junian Latins’, in B. Rawson and P. Weaver (eds) The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (New York and Oxford) 55-73. Weber, E. (2008) ‘Libertus et coniunx’, in P. Mauritsch, R. Rollinger, and W. Petermandl (eds) Antike Lebenswelten.Konstanz – Wandel – Wirkungsmacht: Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden) 367-81. Weiler, I. (2001) ‘Eine Sklavin wird frei. Zur Rolle des Geschlechts bei der Freilassung’, in Bellen and Heinen 2001, 113-32. Weiler, I. (2003) Die Beendigung des Sklavenstatus im Altertum: ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Sozialgeschichte (Stuttgart). Westermann, W.L. (1955) The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia). White, S. (2002) Stories of Freedom in Black New York (Cambridge, MA and London). Whitman, T.S. (1997) The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland (Lexington, KY). Wong, E. (2009) Neither Fugitive nor Free: Atlantic Slavery, Freedom Suits, and the Legal Culture of Travel (New York City).

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6

Feasting the Dead Together: Household Burials and the Social Strategies of Slaves and Freed Persons in the Early Principate Carlos R. Galvao-Sobrinho Sometime in the late teens or twenties of the Common Era, a funeral procession left the Palatine, carrying the body of a slave named Tyrannus. The cortege meandered through the streets and alleys behind the Circus Maximus, headed to the Porta Capena, the ‘Dripping Gate’, as Juvenal called it (Sat. 3.10), and on, beyond the walls, into the city of the dead, where the body was to be cremated. Slaves and former slaves of the familia joined the procession.1 Trumpeters and flautists opened the way together with torch-bearers, for the bodies of slaves were removed from the city at night. Trailing behind, the professional mourners, hired for the occasion, added drama to the cortege; shrieking, dishevelled, they followed the procession, stretching their hands up to heaven and striking their breasts in a perfunctory cadence.2 Once outside the walls, the body was brought to an ustrinum (a type of crematorium), carefully lifted from the bier, and placed on a pyre.3 The cremation ritual then began. Amid the shrieks of the mourners, the celebrants opened Tyrannus’ eyes, tossed dirt on his body, and cut out a piece of flesh for burial.4 Gifts and cash were handed out to the participants, who called the slave’s name aloud several times in unison: ‘Tyranne, Tyranne }’.5 Next, the pyre was sprinkled with incense, cinnamon, and perfume, the fire was kindled, and the acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the air (Mart. Ep. 11.54; Pers. Sat. 6.35-6 (cinnamon and cassia)). Tyrannus received a special funeral because he was not an ordinary slave. Rome was notoriously unkind to its anonymous dead whether servile or freeborn. Many found their way into collective pit-graves, the infamous puticuli, like those found outside the Porta Esquilina, so vividly described by Horace and Rodolfo Lanciani.6 Hastily removed from the city,7 the dead bodies of slaves and indigent plebeians were carried in narrow stretchers by undertakers, the vespilliones or inscripti, tattooed men, marked by ‘ill-repute’ (infamia), who lived in the outskirts of town, next to the graveyards and burial grounds beyond the city walls.8 Buried in anonymity, many among the poor left no record to posterity and no

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6. Feasting the Dead Together memory.9 As is well known, a decent funeral in Roman society was a mark of social distinction, a luxury and a drama that many aspired to, but few could afford.10 Tyrannus, however, was a slave in the house of Livia Augusta. Born in the household, he worked as bookkeeper and clerk. Three times elected councilman of the ‘great college’, the funerary society of slaves and exslaves of that auspicious household, Tyrannus was in charge of, among other things, assigning niches to slaves and ex-slaves in Livia’s collective sepulchre, a huge columbarium designated for her staff.11 He must have discharged his tasks with distinction, because his peers honoured him with the tribunate and immunity from college fees.12 A leader in the household, elected to office in the college, Tyrannus secured a decent burial for many of his peers and earned the admiration of the familia. Thanks to his efforts and those of his peers who commemorated him on stone, I can write about him today. Thanks also to his peers, Tyrannus’ ashes were tidily gathered, placed in an urn, and laid to rest in a niche, behind an epitaph, in Livia’s household sepulchre, next to the remains of thousands of other slaves and freed persons of the same familia. Livia’s columbarium was a vast structure. More than four hundred epitaphs have been found in situ, but originally there would have been thousands more.13 The monument remained in use by the familia for at least four decades, spanning two generations, from the time of Augustus to the reign of Nero, when it was apparently abandoned.14 This brief account of a slave funeral serves to introduce us to the subject of this paper, which can be summarized as follows. In the very late Republic and in the Augustan age, slaves and freed persons attached to the aristocratic households at Rome, such as Tyrannus, began to bury their dead in large communal household tombs like Livia’s columbarium. The appearance of these tombs was sudden, swift, and dramatic. Hundreds of monuments, most, but not all, columbaria, were built in a short period of time in a process that transformed the funerary landscape of Augustan Rome.15 These tombs were in continuous use throughout most of the first century CE until the time of the Flavians, when, with a few exceptions, they ceased to be built. How do we explain these phenomena? I am not, of course, the first one to have noticed these changes. Columbaria, whether or not they were built for the use of a familia, have been extensively studied from the points of view of funerary architecture, programmatic decoration, pattern of use, and mortuary ritual.16 Much important work has also been published looking at these tombs as evidence on the practices of self-representation of non-elite groups.17 Scholars have likewise successfully mined the rich epigraphy of these monuments for information about the structure of servile households, the slave family, and the organization of private societies (collegia).18 But scholars have in general paid less attention to what these large

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Free at Last! communal tombs might tell us about the manner in which their users, particularly servile users, associated with one another at the time of burial and commemoration. For, as we shall see, the appearance of large household sepulchres in the Augustan age bespoke the desire of slaves and ex-slaves in the houses of the aristocracy to bury, feast, and commemorate their dead together with peers of the same important household. In other words, the novelty in the early Principate was not only the building of sepulchres for the exclusive use of the members of the familia, but more significantly a change in the burial preferences of servile groups.19 Why did the slaves and freed persons of aristocratic households begin to bury their dead together with household peers in communal monuments? And why did they stop doing so by the end of the first century CE? These questions are worth asking for several reasons. First, because changes in burial practices may have been linked to shifts in the strategies of self-definition of servile groups in Rome. As scholars have shown abundantly, funerary ritual and other death-related activities can express sentiments of belonging, reinforce social hierarchies, and define community boundaries, participating actively in the construction of identity and community.20 The appearance and subsequent abandonment of household sepulchres may therefore have reflected important changes in the way in which slaves and freed persons saw their place in the world and perceived themselves as belonging to a group.21 That is, the ‘funerary’ phenomena described above may have been linked to changes in the sense of collective identity – changes that merit further investigation here. Secondly, changes in the way that servile groups associated with one another at the time of death and commemoration suggest shifts in the patterns of association in life. As we shall see, burial patterns have the potential to illuminate aspects of the social experience of groups traditionally underrepresented in the literary and historical record.22 Furthermore, because these shifts can be situated in time, they allow us to historicize the experience of groups rarely portrayed as agents of social change.23 Here I mean change that had the force of altering the experience of slavery and post-slavery. It is worth remembering how ill-informed we are about the way in which Roman slaves and ex-slaves struggled to reduce the effects of marginality and exclusion and how, other than by means of usually futile rebellion, they sought to break away from oppressive forms of dependence, which had a long life beyond slavery.24 Historians of slavery in the New World and Africa have reminded us of the centrality of slave agency in constructing structures of attachment and belonging that operated in captivity and in freedom.25 Studies of slavery in Africa have demonstrated how, to a freed person, liberty was not ‘withdrawal into meaningless and dangerous autonomy, but } attachment to other groups or power within a hierarchical framework’.26 How did Roman slaves and ex-slaves seek to create a meaningful and dignified existence? Can the study of servile burials provide us with any clues?

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Thirdly, changes in burial practices can perhaps also throw light on the fenomeno associativo (that is, the proliferation of private voluntary associations and collegia during the Principate) in the Empire. This large issue is beyond the scope of the present paper, but it is worth noting in passing that at Rome, the proliferation of non-domestic, private societies with funerary and religious functions coincided with the abandonment of household sepulchres and the disappearance of domestic colleges in the late first century CE.27 What was the connection, if any, between the declining interest of slaves and freed persons in associating with their household peers and the rise of private voluntary societies?28 The first goal of this paper is briefly to present the evidence for the emergence in the Augustan age of a new pattern of servile association at burial and commemoration that was firmly centred on the household. This new household burial pattern lasted roughly until the time of the Flavians when collective household monuments ceased to be built. Secondly, I argue that the ‘rise’ and ‘fall’ of household burial reflected broad changes in the patterns of funerary sociability and social strategies of slaves and freed persons as they sought to negotiate their relationship with the familiae and their masters and patrons. Finally, I try to interpret these changes by placing them in the larger social and political context of the early Principate. Augustus’ political and social reforms had enormous impact on the lives of slaves and freed persons, altering, as we shall see, the dynamics of relations of dependence in aristocratic households. I suggest some of the ways in which, first, the emergence and, then, disappearance of household tombs may have been connected to changes in those social dynamics. Burial in familia in the early Principate: a look at the evidence Funerary monuments and the epitaphs associated with them document the changes in burial practices described above. The analysis of epitaphs in their physical context is crucial to this project because it enables us to discern the patterns of association prevailing in a collective monument.29 We infer these patterns from the way in which burials, signalled by epitaphs, were clustered together in communal sepulchres. Epitaphs can inform us about the status of individuals and groups buried in a particular monument (slaves, freed persons, incerti or freeborn); monuments can reveal how these groups came together at the time of burial and commemoration. Alternatively, ‘title’ inscriptions (tituli) and other epigraphic evidence can tell us about the regime of association in monuments whose remains (and epitaphs) have never been recovered (see examples in the Appendix to this chapter). For instance, the ‘title’ of the sepulchre belonging to the slaves and freed persons of Marcella the Younger dictates the regime of association by stating the owner and the intended users: ‘This area belongs to the freedmen, freedwomen, and the slaves of Marcella }

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Free at Last! Their remains are collected in this monument and their names have been inscribed inside.’30 Hitherto, I have compiled data on the regime of association at burial for almost all communal monuments from Rome, whether or not they were used by a household. By ‘communal’ I mean tombs occupied by groups larger than the kin group. Collective tombs built exclusively for the use of the owner and/or his or her own family, whenever that could be determined, were not included. The main sources for the epigraphy are CIL 6, AE, and Tituli volumes 6 and 8.31 The evidence for the monuments themselves comes from a variety of different publications. CIL 6 contains descriptions of the monumenta integra reperta (monuments found more or less ‘untouched’) at various times from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century.32 The Bullettino Comunale regularly publishes tombs and inscriptions found in more recent times.33 The Carta archeologica di Roma and the Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, Suburbium contain additional information on several monuments and their place of finding.34 Recent excavations conducted in the necropoleis of imperial Rome have also revealed a large number of collective tombs, several of which contained in situ ‘title’ inscriptions, but their loculi are often deprived of epitaphs.35 Having collected and analysed the available epigraphic and archaeological data, I classified collective sepulchres into the following four categories according to the prevailing regime of association at burial:36 1. Household sepulchres: monuments or areas built specifically for the burial of slaves and freed persons affiliated with the same or closely related aristocratic familiae.37 2. Non-household sepulchres: sepulchres containing mixed burials of slaves, liberti, incerti, and freeborn individuals in no clearly recognizable pattern. 3. Freedmen/slave familial sepulchres: collective tombs owned/built by a freed person (or, less commonly, a slave) primarily for his or her own use and that of his or her next of kin, own slaves, ex-slaves, friends, and patrons. These monuments differ from household tombs in that they predominantly show a vertical pattern of association, often signalled by the characteristic epigraphic formula: ‘to oneself [i.e., the owner of the tomb], one’s own, one’s freedmen and freedwomen, and their descendants’.38 4. Collegial sepulchres: collective monuments (or sometimes parts of a monument) built or used by members of non-domestic societies and colleges. In the absence of a ‘title’ inscription or some other epigraphic indication, household sepulchres were identified by the criterion of the gentilicium of the deceased buried in the monument. At least 50% of those being commemorated had to indicate attachment to the familia for the sepulchre to

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6. Feasting the Dead Together count as a household tomb.39 And of course, a household collective sepulchre does not have to contain all the slaves and freed persons attached to a household to show a household burial pattern. It may contain only a part or fraction of the familia. Nor does it have to be managed by a college (even though most were). What matters here is the pattern of association, or the way in which slaves and freed persons chose to associate with one another at the time of burial and commemoration – in this case, as a household. Following the criteria outlined above, I have been able to identify 188 communal monuments that can be safely called household, out of which only about a third could be securely dated (see Fig. 6.1).40 There is not enough space here to discuss the criteria used for dating in detail. Suffice it to say that prosopography was the most reliable criterion, but whenever possible, I also took into account building technique, prevalence of certain onomastic and commemorative formulas, style of decoration, archaeological context, brick stamps, and occasionally, artifacts (e.g. lamps, pots, coins, etc.) found in the tomb or some other epigraphic indication (see Appendix). The graph in Fig. 6.1 shows the approximate length of time in which these monuments remained in use as burial grounds by the members of a household. Secondary use of these monuments in later times is not shown here. Dotted lines correspond to monuments identified as household through the gentilicium (27 total). Full lines show household monuments known only through ‘title’ inscriptions or some other indication (30 total).41 This is not an exhaustive sample, but it contains the bulk of the available evidence. The most notable feature of the graph is the sudden appearance of these collective sepulchres in the last years of the Republic and in the Augustan age. With a few exceptions, the overwhelming majority of household monuments were built very early in the Principate. Their rapid appearance in the graveyards of Rome marked a departure from the burial practices of slaves and freed persons of a previous age. In the Republic, the servile dependants of aristocratic households who could afford a burial were either laid to rest in individual graves or in monuments designed for the exclusive use of their own kin and dependants, such as we find in the epigraphy of the necropolis of the ancient Via Salaria, in the evidence from the ‘freedmen reliefs’ (which, in Rome, disappear after the reign of Augustus), or in the republican tombs on the Via Statilia.42 It was also not uncommon for freed persons to be buried together with their patrons in the same tomb.43 While these forms of servile burial never disappeared in the Principate, the preference for a collective form of burial together with the peers of the same household was certainly a new and marked development.44 The second noticeable feature in the graph is the conspicuous decline in household burial under the Flavians when most household sepulchres ceased to be used. Communal monuments and burial grounds filled up quickly, in most cases in the course of two or three generations, but what

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Fig. 6.1. Length of time household collective sepulchres remained in use (n = 57, not comprehensive).

6. Feasting the Dead Together is important here is the interruption of a pattern, not the fate of each single monument. With few exceptions, no new household sepulchres seem to have been built after 100 CE for the use of a familia and its libertine dependants, which again seems to point to a change in the burial preferences of servile groups. What do these changes mean? And how do we explain them? Burial patterns as markers of servile sociability To answer these questions, I propose that we look at these changes in terms of shifts in patterns of funerary sociability, that is, as changes that concern the living who buried and commemorated the dead. My proposition builds on the premise that each epitaph (or, indeed, any burial in a communal tomb) functioned as a marker of collective social intercourse preceding the death of the individual being commemorated and continuing in its aftermath in the rites of burial and cult offered to his or her memory. Death in Rome was a major social event; Roman graves and burial grounds were sites of intense social activity, before and after burial. As we have seen in the example of Tyrannus, funerals were busy social events even among slaves, except for the most indigent. One bondsman in the large household of the Statilii had his funeral attended by no less than one hundred peers from that same aristocratic house.45 But the funeral did not mark the end of the relationship between the dead and those who survived them. The Manes (the shadowy spirits of the dead) were formidably demanding beings, and their demands upon the living meant that any relationship would continue to exist for a long time after the funeral, repeatedly renewing the opportunities for social interaction among the living at the grave site and beyond. As is well known, the main feature of this interaction was the sharing of food.46 The first funerary meal might take place immediately following the deposition of ashes and the animal sacrifice that marked the transformation of the grave into a sacred locus removed from ordinary time and space.47 This was followed by a series of cleansing rituals among those close to the deceased. Then, throughout the year, meals were regularly shared at the grave, connecting the dead to the living and the living with one another. As Lucian wrote, ‘The Romans drench the tomb with myrrh and then they themselves enjoy the food and drink that had been prepared.’48 In the Satyrica, the freedman Habinnas describes to Trimalchio’s guests the menu of a multiple-course funerary feast given in the honour of a dead slave nine days after his death, at the grave site itself.49 Funerary banquets would have been particularly well attended during the major public festivals in honour of the dead, which, at Rome, happened at least three times during the year.50 But commemoration also took place on the first day of each month (Kalends) and many other occasions. On those days, Romans of all ranks, by the thousands, flocked to the suburbs,

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Free at Last! streaming through the city gates, carrying picnic baskets and cheap wine,51 filling the streets of tombs with the sounds of wailing pierced, here and there, by laughter and merriment. Ovid and Statius talk about these scenes in more sombre tones, but the iconography of funerary banquets suggests that these feasts were often joyous occasions.52 The importance of these events is also attested to by graffiti, such as one preserved in cubiculum A in the Hypogeum of the Aurelii in Rome, which notes that ‘Remmeus Celerinus [celebrated] a funerary meal on the Kalends of June in honour of } Epafroditus }’.53 Slaves and freed persons would have particularly cherished those moments when they gathered around the grave or inside a monument to celebrate the memory of their beloved ones – funerary commemoration unfolded outside of time and in protected and inviolable, religious space, where slaves and ex-slaves were temporarily removed from their daily toils, gruelling routines, and the humiliation of servility.54 Thousands of Roman graves were equipped with facilities to serve these events and other more discrete funerary gatherings – dining-rooms, couches, porticoes, enclosures, cellars, ovens, wells, fountains, pools, gardens, orchards, and even temples.55 These settings were designed to encourage sociability and human interaction. Slaves and freed persons invested heavily in funerary commemoration and the forms of sociability it generated. When a freedman of Marcella the Younger dedicated a monument to the household, he fêted several members of one division of the domestic college who, in return, paid for his bronze statue together with an inscription dutifully placed inside the sepulchre!56 But funerary meals were only one category of sociability. Funerary arrangements required a great deal of preparation and negotiation before the time of death. When domestic societies formed in households, its members, like our Tyrannus, engaged in a variety of other non-funerary social activities, necessary for their proper management and organization – assemblies and meetings, electing officers, drafting by-laws, recruiting and admitting members, negotiating fees, co-opting patrons, assigning urns and niches, and drawing lots.57 These tasks provided further opportunities for social intercourse. None of this is, of course, new. My point here is to remind us that each epitaph (or burial) found inside a collective sepulchre was the material residue of a whole range of ritual practices and social activities involving several, and sometimes large numbers of, people associating and interacting in various ways before and after the occasion of death. In a household monument, the partners of this interaction were largely drawn from the same familia. The slaves and freed persons attached to the household would have shared meals and commemorated together in or around the same monument, just as they mourned together the passing of one of their own. In a famous passage of the Satyrica, Trimalchio describes a scene in which the familia mourns the premature death of a slave boy in the household where he had once served.58

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Fig. 6.2. Columbarium of C. Scribonius Menophilus, altar for offerings built into the wall of the monument below a corner niche, second row from the bottom (author’s photo; Su concessione della Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma).

Together, the slaves and ex-slaves of a household would have also paid visits to a common monument to commemorate their dead. As they jostled their way inside through the narrow and dimly lit chambers and stairs, choking with incense, they would have paused before niches to pour libations and place their offerings on altars, sometimes built right into the wall of a monument, below a niche (as shown in Fig. 6.2). Here and there, in small groups, the servile dependants of a familia would have lingered to grieve a beloved one, to read the names of their dead peers, to reminisce about them, but also to marvel at the delicate frescoes covering the walls and flanking the niches containing the ashes of their departed companions (see Fig. 6.3).59

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Fig. 6.3. Columbarium of C. Scribonius Menophilus, main chamber, wall showing frescoes of birds, fruits, garlands, sacro-idyllic landscapes, and Dionysiac motifs (author’s photo; Su concessione della Soprintendenza Speciale dei Beni Archeologici di Roma).

Bearing in mind, then, that these activities engaged the living, I think it is safe to say that the appearance of a household burial pattern in the Augustan age marked not only the new funerary preferences of servile groups, but beyond that, the rise of a new pattern of servile sociability, centred on the familia and revolving primarily around the members of the household. The phenomenon is important because it signalled the growing interest of these groups in associating with their household peers not only at the time of death and commemoration, but also in other, non-funerary contexts. The emergence of household monuments that we see represented in the graph (Fig. 6.1) would thus reflect changes in the way in which slaves and freed persons in the houses of the great reached out to and networked with their peers and other social groups. During the reign of Augustus, and for several decades thereafter, slaves and freed persons appear particularly interested in interacting more frequently and more closely with fellow members of their own households. The emergence of collegia domestica to which our Tyrannus belonged reflects that same desire to connect with one’s household peers. As Michael Heinzelmann notes, the household sepulchre was the product of a new evaluation of and

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6. Feasting the Dead Together a deeper sense of attachment to the familia.60 But more significantly, the appearance of a household burial pattern suggests that slaves and freed persons were coalescing into more cohesive and coherent household communities. Indeed, the ritual and social activities associated with the use of household monuments would have contributed to strengthening the ties of horizontal solidarity among the members of the familia and encouraged the growth of a sense of belonging together.61 Note, for instance, how the dependants of the two Marcellae used the language of kinship to refer to a male household slave who distributed 600 urns to his fellow bondsmen and freed persons: he was affectionately called ‘Tata’ (‘Daddy’).62 The communal sepulchre itself was perhaps the most tangible material expression of the existence of a household community. These structures, sometimes built on a monumental scale, created exclusive spaces for collective ritual. Near the entrance of some of these monuments, their users would jealously stake their claims to those spaces with ‘title’ inscriptions that set them apart from the rest of the world (see Appendix). Placed on the façade of the monument, these signs defined a space of social practices and helped define the symbolic boundaries of the household.63 The striking monumentality of some household monuments also suggests a new sense of pride in belonging together in the familia.64 Grand household columbaria, with their elaborate inner spaces, tall chambers, neatly arranged niches, and colourful, sometimes, lavish decoration mirrored the socially and culturally diverse universe of the large household.65 Grandiose and ostentatious, some of these monuments spoke in the language of celebration, commemorating membership in the familia, not individual stories.66 Thus it is clear that servile groups desired to identify more closely with the familia and to associate with their household peers, yet there is still a need to place these developments in a larger social and historical context. Burial patterns and the social strategies of slaves and freed persons It may be useful to begin by looking at how scholars have explained the appearance of columbaria. After all, large columbaria, whether or not they were built specifically for the use of a familia, were a new feature of the Augustan age, and even though not all household sepulchres were columbaria, this type of tomb was clearly favoured by most servile households. Functionalist explanations have often been advanced for the building of these tombs. Kammerer-Grothaus and Hopkins have in different ways argued that columbaria were an ingenious solution to the problem of population pressure and the rising cost of property in Augustan Rome.67 In other words, these monuments offered a rational and efficient way to dispose of more dead bodies in less space. The closing of the republican

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Free at Last! necropolis on the Esquiline would have also contributed to the rise of communal tombs by reducing the areas available for burial near the city.68 Nicholas Purcell has also pointed to the profit motive: given the growing demand for burial plots in a densely populated metropolis, sepulchral monuments became lucrative investments with a guaranteed return.69 These factors were no doubt important, but they do not account for the building of monuments which were not meant for the funerary market.70 If they played a role in the popularity of columbaria as a funerary architectural form, they cannot explain why slaves and freed persons in the houses of the great began to bury their dead together. It is worth stressing that we are interested here in understanding changes in the burial pattern of specific social groups, not in explaining the rise of columbaria as such. There are important differences between these two phenomena, even though they were obviously related. It is also important to note that the same demographic pressures and economic incentives would have been at work a century later when household monuments ceased to be built. It has also often been claimed that aristocratic patronage of slave and libertine dependants played a central role in the building of household tombs. Indeed, some noble families seem to have contributed to the building of expensive sepulchral monuments by donating land or sometimes financing a monument.71 Yet the epigraphic evidence suggests that this was by no means always the case. In several examples, we find slaves and freed persons taking upon themselves individually or as a group the cost of buying the land and building a sepulchre.72 The maintenance, upkeep, decoration, and expansion of a collective tomb were often the work of the familia and its libertine dependants, who invested liberally and jealously in a monument.73 It is also particularly odd that we find no public expression of gratitude on the part of slaves and freed persons for the alleged liberality of aristocratic masters or patrons when such public recognition (e.g. in the form of an honorific inscription) was always expected in the Roman world. Likewise, it is hard to explain why aristocratic generosity would have suddenly dried up later in the first century CE, when household sepulchres were no longer being built. The extinction of aristocratic lines (and thus of their households) has been proposed as an explanation for the abandonment of a household monument, such as in the case of the Statilii – a family partly absorbed into the imperial family, and partly wiped out by murderous rulers.74 Yet what holds true for an individual case does not explain the interruption of the pattern depicted here (see Fig. 6.1), because as aristocratic families were extinguished, new ones naturally emerged to replace them.75 It seems plausible to assume, therefore, that the building of these monuments resulted primarily from the collective effort and investment of slaves and ex-slaves themselves. And if patronage from above contributed to the building of expensive tombs, such generosity might also have been the outcome of the initiative of the

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6. Feasting the Dead Together prospective users of a tomb who jointly appealed for financial assistance from their superiors. A likely explanation for the desire of servile groups to bond in more meaningful ways with their household peers lies in the changing dynamic of relations between masters and patrons and their servile dependants brought about by the coming of the Principate. The new conditions of servility and dependence evolving after Augustus would have altered the way in which slaves and freed persons saw themselves as members of household communities that seem to have acquired a far greater importance in their lives and, by extension, in relation to those who exercised power over them. The Augustan regime affected slaves and freed persons in a variety of ways. First, the establishment of the Principate shut down the institutional channels which, in the Republic, had made it possible for poor citizens to secure – or to believe that they could secure – a measure of social mobility through participation in the political process.76 The idea of the Republic as a ‘system’ in which sovereignty lay with the body of citizens had enormous ideological force. While that idea could be translated into practice through the exercise of the right to vote in the assemblies, it enabled poor citizens, and not least poor freedmen, to imagine that they, too, could shape policy and, more importantly, change their lot in life, whether through the enactment of agrarian legislation or, less glamorously, through the operations of political clientele in highly competitive electoral campaigns.77 However undemocratic and corrupt republican politics may have been, the exercise of popular sovereignty as a means to advance oneself would have been of special importance to destitute freed persons. Given the high rates of manumission in the Republic and the relative ease with which citizenship could be attained, urban slaves at Rome may have eagerly looked ahead to increased political power through emancipation.78 But the Principate removed the power to shape public policy from the hands of the people, significantly limiting the avenues for economic advancement and social mobility made available through the workings of public institutions. This had the effect of making freed persons (but also slaves) more dependent than ever before on the whim of their former masters for improving their status and moving up the social ladder. It would not have taken long for freed persons to realize how the altered political conditions of the Principate affected their lot. On one occasion, Augustus refused to give a donation to recently manumitted slaves, because they had been freed after he had announced his intention to distribute largesse; here the emperor explicitly singled out freed persons for exclusion from a public benefaction (Suet. Aug. 42). Under circumstances in which the actions of the Principate could directly affect the welfare of freed slaves, and in which the patronage of masters and patrons became central to servile strategies of survival and advancement, it is not

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Free at Last! surprising that slaves and freed persons showed greater interest in connecting with their households and their superiors.79 Secondly, Augustus’ social policies also had a direct impact on the lives of slaves and ex-slaves. Freed persons had always been tied to their patrons through a series of formal and informal obligations,80 but Augustus tightened them and added new ones with a view to erecting a greater social barrier between the freeborn and freed persons and of strengthening patrons’ control over their servile and libertine dependants.81 Such control worked in the interest of public order, but it also proved invaluable to patrons’ financial interests.82 Scholars have long noted that aristocratic money was deeply enmeshed in the business dealings of prosperous freedmen.83 Juvenal, in a famous passage, scorned the freedman who, ‘though born near the Euphrates’, received gifts from his patron even before the praetor, ‘because he ran five shops that made a lot of dough’ (Juv. 1.10116). Juvenal’s point was about money trumping social hierarchy;84 the joke reveals how valuable freedmen could be to their patrons, precisely because their libertine status made them dependent on former masters and accountable to them. Thirdly, Augustus also made manumission more formal and cumbersome. Wiedemann and Scheidel have separately and cogently argued that the lex Aelia Sentia, which contributed to the creation of a category of ‘lesser’ freedmen citizens, may in fact have had less to do with reducing the frequency of manumission than with providing masters with a legitimate justification to postpone emancipation until slaves were older.85 The enactment of this legislation enhanced the control that masters had over their slaves’ lives, making the prospects of manumission or attaining full citizenship increasingly more difficult. Fourthly, as part of the packet of measures passed to suppress popular mobilization and unrest,86 Augustus edited or revived a law limiting the right of association. The Julian law banned political societies and required all private colleges to be authorized by the Senate or the emperor.87 Since at least the second century BCE, colleges had played a major role in the political, religious, and cultural life of the plebs, particularly the plebs libertina. As popular or neighbourhood organizations, they stood ‘outside the state,’ sometimes acting in opposition to its institutions and interests, likewise serving as vehicles for the expression of political opinion and social and economic discontent, even when manipulated by the political elite.88 We find them mobilizing the wards, organizing the masses into voting blocks, lending their support to rival political factions, and engaging in political violence.89 In the suburban fringe of Rome, freedmen ‘masters’ presided over seemingly autonomous village and neighbourhood associations.90 These societies flourished in the turbulent but thriving popular political culture of the Republic, which would find no match in the carefully supervised organization of the Augustan wards that supplanted it.91 As Lott has noted, in a recent study of the neighbourhoods of Rome,

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Augustus’ reforms significantly reduced ‘the political power of the urban plebs’92 and the relative autonomy of action in the public sphere that freed persons had enjoyed during the Republic. The exception made to the ban on private societies was the special category of domestic colleges, which also began to appear in large number in the early Principate. Only in the carefully controlled environment of the household, under the watchful eyes of masters, patrons, and their agents, were slaves and freed persons allowed to associate with one another. In sum, the combined effect of these new policies was to make freed persons and slaves ever more dependent on their patrons and masters not only for personal advancement, but also for many of their daily needs.93 After Augustus, opportunities for personal improvement, social mobility, and even for mutual association shifted decisively to the ‘private’ context of the household. The new structures of servility and dependence resulting from Augustus’ policies would have encouraged slaves and freed persons, now facing a world of limited options, to turn ‘inwards’ to the familia, where they could find security, solidarity, and the surest opportunities for social advancement and mobility. By the same token, these groups would have also sought to invest more fully in their relationship with masters and patrons who decisively controlled access to the resources necessary for lifting themselves to a better life. I would argue, then, that the stronger attachment to the familia and its members observed in the Augustan age reflected this new centrality of the household in the lives of slaves and freed persons as these groups became increasingly vulnerable and acutely aware of their greater dependence on masters and patrons. In other words, the restrictive social and political environment of the early Principate would have prompted servile groups to reposition themselves in relation to the familia and to formulate strategies of attachment that involved bonding in more meaningful ways with their household peers. This repositioning did not necessarily entail a calculated and conscious decision on the part of these groups, but rather, it would have resulted from the development of a new set of durable predispositions that defined a ‘way of being’ and that Pierre Bourdieu called a habitus – ‘a series of moves which are objectively organized as strategies without being the product of a genuine strategic intention.’94 Thus it is possible to postulate a connection between the rise of a household burial pattern and the social and political changes of the Augustan age, though it is slightly more difficult to explain the demise of that pattern a century after Augustus. If, as I have suggested, a household burial pattern bespoke a desire of slaves and freed persons to associate more closely with their household peers, the decline of the pattern could have reflected their growing indifference to the household and a weakening of their sense of attachment to the familia. The replacement of household burial by other funerary arrangements would bespeak not only the interest of servile groups in narratives of funerary commemoration

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Free at Last! that emphasized more spontaneous, individualized and intimate commemorative experiences, but perhaps also their desire to create a world detached from the household and its legacy of servility and dependence. The expansion of the social horizons of slaves and freed persons beyond the limits of aristocratic domus might provide us with one possible explanation for this change – the growing importance of the world outside the familia and the interest in building bridges elsewhere would have had an impact on forms of funerary sociability, shifting horizontal ties to settings outside the household. In other words, the disappearance of household burial would have resulted from the growing tendency among servile groups to broaden their social networks and to associate more expansively and meaningfully with peers beyond the boundaries of the familia to which they belonged. I am not suggesting of course that hitherto slaves and freed persons had not been engaged with the world at large. Far from it; since at least the second century BCE we find freed persons (and slaves) forging ties outside the household, acting independently and serving their masters and patrons as agents, intermediaries, partners, and entrepreneurs. What is new here is something more subtle, namely, the desire of servile groups to shed an identity that defined them primarily in relation to the familia and their attempt to construct a world apart from it, even as they remained tied to their masters, patrons, and household peers by shared economic interests and legal obligations.95 This would have been true, I suggest, not only of independent and successful freedmen – the likes of a Narcissus or a Trimalchio, who belonged in an expanding and freewheeling libertine elite – but also of those ordinary liberti who, as Horace once noted, lived in holes whence they would ‘scarcely emerge without shame’ (Sat. 2.7.12: ‘} unde mundior exiret vix libertinus honeste’).96 One can further illustrate these developments by following two generations of a servile family in the imperial house. Felix Ingenuinus, a slave of Augustus and subsequently of Livia, Tiberius, and the Julio-Claudian emperors, served the imperial family with a post in the office of a regionibus (Tituli 6.24, p. 77). Like his contemporary Tyrannus, he became a councilman in the funerary college of Livia’s household and was assigned a niche in the household columbarium, inscribed with his name and occupation (CIL 6.4022b). Yet Felix never used his niche in that monument. He lived to be 83 years old, died a slave under Claudius or Nero, and was buried by his son, Felicio, an incertus, in a private tomb, possibly in a family plot. The inscription engraved on the stele marking Felix’s grave confirms his occupation, but it tells us far more about him: Felix had worked in the office under the supervision of a certain Donatus, had served as a councilman in the domestic college of Livia’s household, had raised a devoted and loving son, and had died in old age, after accumulating enough resources to afford the costs of his funeral, an epitaph, and a burial plot of his own.97 While in the early decades of the first century, it had certainly been important for Felix, an officer in Livia’s domestic society, to secure a

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6. Feasting the Dead Together burial place in the household tomb next to his peers, by the time of Nero, precisely when the household burial pattern began to decline, that no longer seemed to be the case. Felicio, acting, I presume, according to Felix’s own wishes, proceeded to bury and commemorate his father in a separate, private, and probably familial tomb. The choice would seem to have been informed by this slave’s desire to assert his identity not as just another bondsman in the imperial household, but as an individual with a personal life story, tied to a kin group, and connected to the world at large. Even though Felix’s epitaph calls him ‘Caesar’s slave’, a label that may have worked here as a badge of prestige, in the context of a private tomb, the stone commemorated Felix’s accomplishments and individuality, not membership in a servile community. The abandonment of household burial in the late first century CE clearly bears more investigation, but one is tempted to see the phenomenon as evidence of another momentous change in the lives of servile groups in the capital. For it would seem to reveal slaves and freed persons caught up in the process of redefining their relationship with the familia and of creating alternative structures of belonging. Indeed, the shift away from household burial would point to a critical moment in the lives of a growing number of ordinary Romans of servile background when the household seemingly ceased to be the only (or the main) point of reference and these groups became more assertive, independent, and aware of themselves. This new self-awareness would be seen, then, no less as a cause than as a consequence of that ‘second’ shift in funerary practice. Central to this claim is the proposition that commemoration produced subjectivity by repeatedly situating people in time, space, and in relation to others through the act of ‘remembering together’.98 Commemorative experiences associated with household sepulchres would have induced memories that placed individuals in relation to the household, re-enacting one’s ties with it, and reproducing one’s identity as a member of the familia. The nexus of place, people, objects, mementos, and artifacts that activated and sustained images of the deceased constantly reinforced that sense of identity.99 By contrast, the replacement of household monuments with other types of funerary arrangements would have generated other narratives of the self, whose meaning grew out of the possibility of exercising choice in the kinds of networks to which one would belong.100 One may be tempted to interpret the shift away from household burial as an expression of resistance to the forms of control and domination imposed in the early Principate.101 A new sense of identity would have explained the diminishing interest in the household as the main framework for social interaction. Indeed, the literary sources record several episodes of servile irreverence clustering between the Neronian and the early Antonine periods (Tac. Ann. 3.36, 13.26, 13.32, 14.42-5; Plin. Ep. 3.14, 6.25, 8.14; and Mart. Ep. 2.68). However, it is difficult to tell whether

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Free at Last! the cluster was anything more than an accident of the sources or reflected a new pattern of action. But it is more likely that the declining interest in the household was, in fact, due to a fraying of the sense of community resulting from a gradual process of ‘hierarchization’ and social differentiation among the servile dependants inside a household – a phenomenon that may have been driven by the greater investment of aristocratic masters and patrons in select, talented slaves and freed persons, who, in the flourishing economic conditions of the Principate, proved to be increasingly valuable assets to their expanding financial and personal interests.102 The rise of a new, enterprising, rich, and successful sub-elite of freedmen is of course well attested in the first century CE, and this rise was largely fuelled by aristocratic money.103 The growing interest of the great in empowering some of their closer dependants in order to further their own private, domestic affairs – and, as Los has argued, to earn a piece of the inheritance of the more successful104 – may have disrupted the ties of horizontal solidarity that had bound together the household community. By promoting competition for status, generating inequality, and encouraging a sense of rank and distinction among their slaves and freed persons, masters and patrons may have created the conditions of possibility for the development of a new selfawareness, greater assertiveness, and a growing sense of entitlement to autonomy among their dependants.105 In fact, aristocratic investment in talented dependants may have increased under the restrictive conditions of the Principate which also encouraged slaves and freed slaves to enter into new and more intimate relationships with their familia and, by extension, with their superiors. In such an environment, slave owners may have been more inclined to empower loyal and committed dependants who could provide them with a sure return. Conclusion In conclusion, the evidence presented above illuminates some aspects of the social experience of servile groups in Rome. First, the funerary phenomena I have been discussing allow us not only to chart changes in the patterns of social interaction among these groups, but also to situate these changes in time, thus creating a historical framework to study servile experience ‘from below’. Secondly, if my arguments are correct, those changes emerged in response to the evolving social and political circumstances that shaped relations between slaves and freed persons and masters and patrons – first, in the Augustan age, when these groups, placed in a position of growing dependence on their superiors, came to see themselves as proud members of the familia and forged stronger ties with their household peers; then, in the second half of the first century CE, when, as I have speculated, slaves and freed persons seem to have become more assertive and aware of themselves in a context of increasing social

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6. Feasting the Dead Together and economic differentiation whose effect was to undermine the ties of lateral solidarity that bound them to their household peers. Finally, this study suggests that, far from being inert constituents of society,106 slaves and freed persons were active historical agents who responded to the historical forces that shaped their lives. Like Tyrannus, slave of Livia Augusta, Rome’s slaves and freed persons were capable of formulating strategies to take control of their destiny, constructing new structures of attachment and belonging, and seeking to define the terms of their relationship with their superiors. In a sense, the changes in the burial practices of these groups reflected not only shifts in forms of sociability, but also changing perceptions of their sense of self and place in the world. Notes Acknowledgments: I wish to thank the editors not only for including me in this volume, but also for suggestions and comments that have substantially improved this paper. In working on this project I have benefited from enlightening conversations with Margo Anderson, John Bodel, Dorian Borbonus, Kim Bowes, Laura Chioffi, Michael Maas, Ramsay MacMullen, Júlio César Magalhães de Oliveira, and Simonetta Serra. I owe thanks to all of them. I am also grateful for the criticism of audiences at Berkeley, Houston, Milwaukee, Montreal, Oxford, and Rome, where earlier versions of this paper were presented. Special thanks are due to the staff at the American Academy in Rome and its library, where research for this paper was conducted, particularly to Lexi Eberspacher, who patiently and repeatedly arranged for me to visit several of the funerary monuments studied here. Research for this paper was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, or conclusions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH. 1. Cf. CIL 14.2112, where members of a club are expected to walk in funeral processions and be compensated for doing it. See Toynbee 1971, 46-8. 2. Not surprisingly, no written account has survived of this slave’s funeral. I follow here the traditional description of Roman funerary rites as in Toynbee 1971, 44-61; Hopkins 1983, 217-20; and Bodel 1999, 259-76, with references to iconographic, literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources. Cf. Petr. Sat. 42 (Crysanthus’ funeral). On the praeficae and ritual lamentation in Roman funerals, see also Richlin 2001, 229-48. 3. On ustrina, see Cupitò 2001, 47-52 (Via Salaria, with references); and Polfer 2001, 30-7. 4. Dirt: Toynbee 1971, 49-50. Os resectum: The practice may not have been universal, but it is attested by several authors and in the archaeological record. See Cic. Leg. 2.55: ‘quem ad modum os resectum terra obtegatur }’; Festus, Gloss. Lat. 267: ‘membrum abscidi mortuo dicebatur, cum digitus eius decidebatur, ad quo servatum iusta fierent reliquo corpore combusto’. Cf. Varro, Ling. 5.4.23. See also DAGR, s.v. ‘funus’; RE, s.v. ‘os resectum’; Toynbee 1971, 49; Simon-Hiernard 1987, 93-5; and Messineo 2001, 35-7. 5. Gifts: for instance, CIL 14.2112; Hopkins 1983, 215. Shouting the deceased’s name: Toynbee 1971, 50.

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Free at Last! 6. Hor. Sat. 1.8; Lanciani 1967, 256-7; Waltzing 1970, 1.258; Bodel 2000, 128-35; Patterson 2000, 267; but see now Graham 2006, 63-84. 7. According to the ‘law of Puteoli,’ see AE 1971.88 (ll. 3-7). On this fascinating inscription and the removal of dead bodies from the city, see also Dumont 1987a, 182-6; Hinard 1995, 205-12; Bodel 2000, 135-44 and 2004, 160-2. Slaves were supposed to be removed from the city on the same day and, like children, at night. On children, see Harlow and Laurence 2002, 138. 8. Vespilliones/inscripti: Mart. Ep. 8.75; Suet. Dom. 17; Toynbee 1971, 45. Outskirts of town: AE 1971.88 (ll. 3-7); and Bodel 2000, 135-44. 9. On the cost of tombstones and funerals, see Duncan-Jones 1982, 79-80, 127-8; Graham 2006, 21-7, 60-2. 10. Cf. Mart. Ep. 8.75, where the inscripti exchange a vile cadaver to carry the body of Gallus, who had collapsed in the street. The bibliography on funerary rites, burials and status display in ancient Rome is vast. For instance, MacMullen 1982 (on the epigraphic habit); Hopkins 1983, 205-17; Hesberg and Zanker 1987; Eck 1987; Meyer 1990 (on the importance of display of citizen status in funerary epigraphy); Morris 1992, 164-7; Bodel 1999; and Pearce 2001, 4-5. 11. Tyrannus: CIL 6.4012 (‘tabularius apparitor }’) and 4013 (} decurio III, tribunus’), ‘verna’ in CIL 6.4012 and 4013, where he appears donating niches to slaves and freedmen in the household. Collegia domestica: Waltzing 1970, 1.379425; Hasegawa 2005b, 252-6. Livia’s columbarium is no longer extant. Bianchini’s seventeenth-century drawing and Piranesi’s etchings give us some idea of its monumental dimensions, on which see Ficacci 2000, 239, 272-5. See also Kammerer-Grothaus 1979, 315-29 and Fehl 1997, 89-99. For an attempt to define columbaria using a combination of strict architectural, social and juridical criteria, see Caldelli and Ricci 1999, 64-5. In discussing the concept, Bodel 2008, 189-95, 206-8, 210-19 emphasizes social use rather than architectural form. In what follows, I use the term broadly to signify tombs containing rows of niches for cremation burials, regardless of size, manner of use, chronology, juridical status, and management. 12. On the tribunate as a possible honorific title in collegia, see Waltzing 1970, 1.424. Immunity: CIL 6.4013 (‘} sacris omnium immunis }’). 13. DAGR, s.v. ‘columbarium’, p. 1335; RE, s.v. ‘columbarium’, cols 595-6. 14. See CIL 6.3926-4309. On the criteria for determining period of use of a monument, see discussion below. 15. Enclosed areae and other types of monuments were also sometimes used as collective burial grounds. For instance, the household sepulchre of the Arruntii, see Barbault 1775, plates 21, 22 apud Nash 1962, 309-11. 16. For instance, Kammerer-Grothaus 1979; Eisner 1986; Hesberg and Pfanner 1988; Hesberg 1992, 76-8; Ling 1993; Astolfi 1998; Parri 1998; and Caldelli and Ricci 1999, a thorough study of the columbarium of the Statilii; and FeraudiGruénais 2001. 17. Eck 1987; 1988; 1996a, 229-35; 1998; Joshel 1992 (self-representation in occupational inscriptions); Hope 1997b; Manacorda 1999; Perry 1999 (non vidi); Feraudi-Gruénais 2003, 25-63; and, more recently, Borbonus 2006, focusing on non-elites at large. 18. Treggiari 1975; Flory 1978; Buonocore 1984; Nielsen 1996; Hope 1997a (on Ostia); Caldelli and Ricci 1999; Hasegawa 2005a, 2005b. 19. See also Bodel 2008, 208. 20. Morris 1992; Davies 1997, 1-23; Parker Pearson 1999; and the essays collected in Pearce et al. 2001.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together 21. See, for instance, Petersen 2006, 184-226. 22. Morris 1998, 193. 23. See further the introduction and Ripat’s contribution to this volume. 24. On rebellions, see Bradley 1987, 31, 143-6; Dumont 1987b, 161-306; and Urbainczyk 2008, 4-9, 100-4, rightly emphasizing that contemporaries, slaves and masters, might not have seen rebellions as futile and doomed to failure. 25. Karasch 1987, 298-330 (in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); Kopytoff 1988, 494-502 (in Africa); Miers and Roberts 1988, 33-8 (with references to other essays in that volume); Slenes 1999 (on the slave family in Brazil); Cooper et al. 2000, 1-32; Soares 2001, 54-145, 229-32 (on the place of ‘capoeira’ in the reconstitution of ‘ethnic’ African communities among slaves and freedmen in early nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); Grinberg 2009; Owensby 2009 (on slaves’ knowledge and use of law and the courts to gain freedom in seventeenth-century Mexico); and Kleijwegt’s contribution in this volume. 26. Cooper et al. 2000, 5. 27. Collegia in general: DE, s.v. ‘cultores’, 1299-1300 (to judge from datable inscriptions, few date before the Flavians). Collegia domestica: I have examined almost all the evidence for domestic collegia, the bulk of which is conveniently collected in Waltzing 1970, 4.153-76. Those for which a chronology can be established date to the first century. The collegium in the household of Sergia Paullina (CIL 6.10261-4), dated to the Antonine age, is an exception. CIL 6.9310 may also be assigned to the Antonine period based on prosopography. 28. Waltzing 1970; Ausbüttel 1982, 22-23; Flambard 1987; Patterson 1992; and Nijf 1997, 31-69 (focusing on ‘professional’ societies in the East); and Patterson 2000, 277-80 have clarified the various strategies that these societies used to secure burial and commemoration for their members, among which were freed persons and slaves. 29. See Eck 1996a, 227-30; Nielsen 1996; Parri 1998, 54-60; and FeraudiGruénais 2003. 30. ‘Libertorum et/ Liberta(rum) et famil(iae)/ Marcellae } (qui in ho)c/ monume(ntum)/ (contuler)unt quor(um)/ (nomina in)tro inscr(ipta) (su)nt.’ Fusco and Gregori 1996, 226-32. 31. Panciera 1987 = Tituli 6 and Gregori 2001 = Tituli 8. 32. In addition to the household sepulchres in CIL 6, see Buonocore 1984 for the sepulchre of the dependants of the Volusii Saturnini; and Caldelli and Ricci 1999 for the monumentum familiae Statiliorum. To judge from the epigraphy, the columbaria 1 and 3 in the Vigna Codini, found, respectively, in 1840 and 1852, as well as those discovered along the ancient Via Aurelia were not household monuments. 33. I have consulted only the volumes from 1960 to 2000. 34. CAR 1962-; LTUR, Sub. 2001-. 35. Sepolcretum Ostiensis: Lugli 1919; Thomasson 1954; Ferrua 1959, 1984; and Chioffi 1989-90. St Tecla: Ferrua 1985; Scrinari 1985. Esquiline: Brizio 1876; Albertoni 1983; and Mancioli 1983. Vatican: Mielsch et al. 1986, 1995; Eck 1986; Magi and Ruysschaert 1999; and Papi 2002. Autoparco/Via Triumphalis: Väänanen et al. 1973; Castrén 1973; and Steinby 1987, 2001. Portuensis: Aurigemma 1953; Cianfriglia 1986/7; and Cianfriglia et al. 2004. 36. For the purposes of this analysis, the precise juridical status of monuments is not relevant. On the ius sepulchri, see Crook 1987, 135-6 and Lazzarini 1991. All collective tombs were analysed, whether or not they were columbaria. 37. I have excluded monuments built for the familiae and freed persons of

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Free at Last! incerti (Greek or ‘foreign’ cognomina) and wealthy freedmen such as, for instance, the monument of the Brutti (CIL 6.7582-7589), which would seem to represent a category apart. Furthermore, because it is difficult to determine whether monuments occupied only by liberti were built through the initiative of a household or only of some of its freedmen acting independently, communal monuments used only by liberti (sharing the same gentilicium) with no references to slaves were left out unless there was other indication that the tomb did in fact originate in a household. The categories proposed here were designed to reflect the composition of the social groups that generated the sepulchres. In the epigraphy, a group of freed persons, even when sharing the same gentilicium, does not necessarily represent a household, and for the purposes of this paper, it is crucial to distinguish between a monument built for and by (1) a group of freedmen from the same household, but segregating themselves from it (a non-household monument) and (2) a familia together with its libertine dependants (a household monument). Thus, to be labelled ‘household’, a monument must contain reference to the household slaves or indicate in some other way a household origin (see, for instance, monuments 18 or 22 in Appendix 1). 38. ‘Sibi suis libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum’ (and its variants), see Champlin 1991, 131-54. The provisions of this formula were not always observed as we often find outsiders occupying these tombs, see Lazzarini 1991, 67-76, arguing that the ius sepulcri familiaris included the ius mortuum inferendi; and Hope 1997a, 86-7. Household monuments may also contain mini-collective tombs inside them, marked by epitaphs displaying the aforementioned formula (or its variants) – that is, a tomb with a ‘freedmen/slave familial pattern’ may exist inside a larger collective household tomb. In these cases, I considered only the latter, because the former was subsumed in it. 39. 50% would seem to be an adequate benchmark for the following reasons: first, since many columbaria burials were anonymous (Bodel (2008, 237) estimates up to three quarters in the ten largest monuments) and monuments lost a large number of epitaphs randomly, the fact that half of the surviving sample still shared the same gentilicium would obviously imply a strong association between a monument and a household. Secondly, since my point here was to identify the pattern of association at burial prevailing in a particular monument, 50% association would seem to be the minimum necessary to call a pattern ‘dominant’. And thirdly, most monuments labelled household do in fact show far more than 50% association. 40. Appendix 1 lists dated household monuments and their chronology. It is worth noting here that the vast majority of communal monuments, thousands of them, did not show a household pattern of burial. Because these monuments lack the criterion of the gentilicium, their chronology must be established by other means such as brick stamps, epigraphic formulas, decoration, archaeological context, etc. I am still working on this group of tombs. There are also of course hundreds of sepulchres, perhaps thousands, whose burial pattern cannot be clearly identified. 41. Based on the length of use of household monuments identified by gentilicia, I assumed that these monuments remained in use for roughly two generations, unless there was clear indication to the contrary. 42. Affordability: see Graham 2006, 1-5, 28-47, and 110-14. Freedmen reliefs: Zanker 1975, 270 and Borg’s chapter in this volume. On the necropolis of the Via Salaria, see Caronna 1969; Cioffarelli 1996; and Cupitò 2001. For the republican tombs on the Via Statilia, Colini 1943.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together 43. Fabre 1981, 142-8. 44. There are also instances of republican servile burials in non-household communal monuments, usually small columbaria, but the chronology of these tombs is problematic, and many have in fact been assigned a ‘late republican/Augustan’ date. See Fabre 1981, 159-58; Hesberg and Pfanner 1988, 485; Hesberg 1992, 77-8; and Bodel 2008, 208, 216 (on the novelty of the phenomenon). 45. CIL 6.6221: ‘Donatus Tauri German(us) hic situs est sodales ei funus fecerunt hom(ines) CXXX } curatoribus maximo helicone dapno’. 46. On this practice, see Cic. Leg. 2.55; Stat. Silv. 5.1.235-7: following the deposition of the body: ‘tunc rite tori mensaeque parantur assiduae’; Toynbee 1971, 48-56; Compostella 1992; Lindsay 1998, 69-74; Cupitò 2001, 50-1; Graham 2006, 36-9; and Jensen 2008, 116-28. Funerary art often depicts banquets honouring the dead. For instance, one of the paintings in the hypogeum of the Aurelii contains an animated scene of a funerary feast, on which see Poe 2007, 55-7, 258. Another example is a fresco from the tomb of Clodius Hermes (under San Sebastiano), showing several parties feasting together in memory of the dead. The ubiquitous triclinia associated with tombs found in Ostia, Isola Sacra, Pompeii, and elsewhere hardly need mention. 47. CIL 6.7803: ‘} ut area quae ei cedit monimento comm(uniter) upi liceat et sacrificium facere’ (sic); Dig. 11.7.2 (slave tombs were also loci religiosi). See also Cic. Leg. 2.57 (‘nec tamen eorum ante sepulchrum est quam iusta facta et porcus caesus est’), 2.19.48, 21.22; De Visscher 1963, 65-7; Crook 1987, 133-4; Ducos 1995, 135-41; and Lindsay 1998, 72-3. 48. Lucian, De mercede conductis 28. See also Baldassarre et al. 1996, 35-41 for the archaeological evidence. 49. Petr. Sat. 65-6 (‘etiam si coacti sumus dimidias potiones supra ossucula eius effundere’). See also Lindsay 1998, 72-3; and Ramsby’s chapter in this volume. 50. The Parentalia (February), Lemuria (May), and Rosalia (May/June). Celebrations at the grave also took place on the Kalends, other days of the month, anniversaries, and other festivals. See, for instance, CIL 6.10248; ILS 7213 (153 CE), where the dies violae are also celebrated in March. On these festivals, see also Toynbee 1971, 63-4; Lindsay 1998, 74-6; and Graham 2006, 36-9. 51. One fresco in the so-called Patro’s tomb in the Louvre shows a scene of Patro’s family (and his slaves?) processing to his grave site carrying baskets and, presumably, ritual objects. See Blanc and Martinez 1998; cf. Poe 2007, 319 (images of a funerary procession and banquet in the tomb of Crispia Salvia in Marsala, Sicily). 52. Somber: Ov. Fast. 2.533-70 (Parentalia); 5.480-87 (Lemuria); Stat. Silv. 5.1.228-38. Iconography: Compostella 1992; Dunbabin 2003, 85-9, 103-40, esp. 125-32, who notes that banquet scenes in funerary art were polysemic and may have represented a ‘banquet at the tomb } in the next world } or [in] the deceased’s past life’ (132); and Clarke 2003, 187-219 (on the apotropaic role of laughter when dining in tomb precincts). See also Roller 2006, 36-41, 123-39, 175-9; Davies 2007; and Jensen 2008, 115-17, rightly noting that funerary feasts could get rowdy. 53. AE 1956.236: ‘Re[m]meus Celerinus / K[al(endis)] Iunis refriger(i)um / i[n h]eroum hono[re]m / A[urel(i)] Epap(h)ro[diti]’. See also Finney 1980, 443 n. 16. I owe this reference to Sinclair Bell. 54. As a slave put it, ‘Heic situs sum Lemiso, quem numquam nisi mors feinivit labore’ (ILLRP 932). 55. For instance, CIL 6.10284: ‘hoc monumentum cum cohaerenti areola et

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Free at Last! duabus in gamma porticibus, superposito cubiculo, solario, triclinio }’; CIL 6.10237: ‘mensam } in trichil(a), abacum cum basi, horologium, labrum cum fulmentis marmor(eis), putiale, crustas supra parietem itineris medi cum tegulis, columellam sub horologio Tiburtina, protectum ante porticum, trutinam et pondera } et locum post maceriam ulteriorem emendum ustrinasque } Idemque vitium pomorumq(ue) et florum viridiumque omnium generum seminibus ea loca } ex pecunia publica adornaverunt }’; CIL 6.29958: ‘culina } puteum } triclia’; ILS 7859: ‘stabulum cum praesepiis et cellis huic loco maceria cluso } puteus et piscina }’ etc. Cf. Petr. Sat. 71; Tituli 6.149: ‘hoc monumentum cum [}]ulo et tempulo Herculis Militar[is]’. See also Calza 1940, 52-9 and Baldassarre et al. 1996, 39-41. 56. CIL 6.4421: ‘C. Claudius Marcellae minoris l(ibertus) Phasis decurio monumentum dedicavit et decuriae epulum dedit d(e) s(ua) p(ecunia) huic decuria ex aere conlato imaginem decreverunt.’ 57. The most common, but by no means only, method of assigning niches in a collective burial monument was by lot. See DAGR, s.v. ‘columbarium’, p. 1334; RE, s.v. ‘columbarium’, cols 600-1; and Parri 1998, 55-6. 58. Petr. Sat. 63: ‘Cum adhuc capillatus essem } ipsimi nostri delicatus decessit } Cum ergo illum mater misella plangeret et nos tum plures in tristimonio essemus }’. Cf. CIL 6.23548: ‘Optatus Nireus Anthus / amici sodales / Pactolo / de familia Q. Satrieni Pollionis / nos tibi digna tuae monumenta extrema / favillae fecimus at nobis tu gemitum adsiduom’ (sic). 59. See, for instance, Della Portella 2000, 114-29 and Feraudi-Gruénais 2001. Figs 6.2 and 6.3 in this chapter are images from the inner chambers of the so-called columbarium of Scribonius Menophilus, dated to the Augustan age and found in 1984, along the ancient Via Aurelia, on the grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili. This extraordinary monument and its rich epigraphy have not yet been fully published, but apparently it was not a household tomb. See Catalli 1997. 60. Heinzelmann 2001, 188-90; cf. Hasegawa 2005b, 263-4. 61. See Caldelli and Ricci 1999, 66-8. 62. CIL 6.4709. Cf. Flory 1978, 89, who had already noted the ‘quasi-family’ and affectionate nature of social ties among the members of a familia, who would have functioned as an ‘extended family’ to uprooted captives and house-bred slaves, but this study suggests that the strength of these lateral ties inside the familia also depended on developments outside of it, in the world at large. 63. Cf. ILS 7899, 7912, 7932. 64. See, for instance, Nash 1962, 333-9, Astolfi 1998, Caldelli and Ricci 1999, 55-6, and Della Portella 2000, 124-9. 65. The drawings of Barbault, Bianchini and Piranesi (see Ficacci 2000) give some idea of the scale and lavishness of some of these buildings. See also FeraudiGruénais 2001. 66. Cf. Purcell 1987, 38. 67. Kammerer-Grothaus 1979, 315 and Hopkins 1983, 214-6 (population pressure). Lanciani 1892, 256-7 postulates a concern to do away with the puticuli; Hesberg 1992, 77 is more cautious. 68. Davies 1977, 17; Hopkins 1983, 211-12; and Bodel 1994, 42-52. But see now Graham 2006, 84. 69. Purcell 1987, 38-9. 70. Niches, sometimes rows of niches, were also bought and sold in household monuments, but the clients were usually members of the same or related familia(e) and, sometimes, friends or partners outside the household.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together 71. See Parri 1998, 54; Hasegawa 2005a, 4. A notable example seems to have been the monument of the Statilii, see Caldelli and Ricci 1999, 16, 55-6; see also CIL 6.34477 (‘L. Appulei[us] locum mo[numenti] dedi[t]’). Aristocratic patrons might also pay for some of the amenities of a monument (e.g. CIL 6.10237, where their freedmen contribute far more) or donate loculi to their favourite dependants as in, for instance, CIL 6.21756 (Appendix 1, monument #56). 72. For instance, CIL 6.10258 (‘Libertorum et decurionum famil[iae] P. Licini Silvani eorum qui in eo faciendo decuniam contulerunt’); CIL 6.10326 (‘C. Causinius Scolae l[ibertus] Spinter in hac societate primus cur[ator] factus est et hoc monumentum aedificandum et expoliend[um] curavit et socisq[ue] probavit, habet partes viriles IIII, oll[as] XX }’; though it is uncertain whether he paid for the entire monument or only oversaw its construction); ILS 7879 (‘C. Claudius Marcellae minoris l[ibertus] Phasis decurio monumentum dedicavit et decuriae epulum dedit d. s. p.’); id. 7889 (‘L. Licinius L. l[ibertus] Alexa curator socioru [sic] secundus. Is monumentum ex pecunia collata sociorum aedificavit arbitratu suo idemque tectoria perfecit, et is trichiliniu [sic] sociorum ex sua pecunia opere tectorio perpolit et amicis donum dedit }’). The managerial slaves in a household (dispensatores) often donated burial grounds and sepulchres to the slaves and freed persons attached to an aristocratic house. For instance: CIL 6.9321 (‘in front p. XIII, familiae et libert. Vitellior. Eumaeus disp. dat in agro p. XXXV’), 9320, 9322. In Tibur, a slave founded a college and built a monument with the contributions of its members, see ILS 7347: ‘Hic Eutactus conlegium primus constituit et ex pecunia publica hoc monumentum aedificavit }’. For other examples, see also DAGR, s.v. ‘columbarium’, 1334; RE, s.v. ‘columbarium’, col. 600; Waltzing 1970, 1.258; Fabre 1981, 150-60; and Hasegawa 2005b, 255. 73. For instance, CIL 6.4305 (a freedman gave to the officers of the domestic college in Livia’s household a triclinium, tables, and an enclosure, paid with his own money); 6.26258 (restoration of an enclosure); ILS 7866 (several slaves, probably from the house of Augustus or Livia, ‘pavimentum in ossario } d.s.p.d.’); CIL 6.7867 (‘Nepos decurio pavimentum in ossuario et subscalaria de sua pecunia donum dedit’); CIL 6.7868 (‘Mellax Veidianus [sic] } parietes e camaras scalariorum } d.s.p.d.d.’ Probably in an imperial sepulchre); CIL 6.10377 (in the same monument: ‘L. Veidian[i] decurio } solaria } et pavimentum } de suo fecit’); ILS 7881 (‘C. Memmnius l[ibertus] Alexander, Eros Sex. Pompei d.s.p.d.d. } pa[v]iment[um].’ In the same columbarium as ILS 7879 above); ILS 7901 (‘[L. Abuccius] Nereus et Abuccia Pieris porticum scamna mensas collibertis suis sua pecunia d. d.’ From the household sepulchre of the Abuccii, see Appendix 1, monument #15). See also RE, s.v. ‘columbarium’ for other examples. 74. Caldelli and Ricci 1999, 55-6. 75. Hopkins 1983, 120-49. 76. Institutional change: the decline of the legislating assemblies and, eventually, the transfer of elections for the senior magistracies to the Senate. Tac. Ann. 1.15; Suet. Calig. 16; Dio 59.20.3-4; and Purcell 1996, 798-9. Participation in the political process: the new regime significantly eroded the political rights of all citizens, but it would have had a special impact on freed persons, who enrolled in the four urban tribes and would have been assiduous voters in the assemblies. See Purcell 1994, 679-88; Millar 1998, 13-38; and Ripat, in this volume. On republican ideology and its role in the political process in the late Republic, see Ferrary 1997, 221-31. 77. Freedmen benefited from agrarian legislation and land distribution under Caesar, the triumvirs, and Augustus, when they formed the bulk of the colonists

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Free at Last! sent to places like Urso, Corinth, and perhaps other colonies in Africa and Asia Minor, see Suet. Iul. 42.1; Treggiari 1969, 63; and Salmon 1970, 135-6. Cf. Purcell 1994, 665-6. On the opportunities for connecting with the powerful made available to freed persons (and clients in general) in the competitive environment of electoral campaigns in the Republic, see Ripat in this volume. 78. See Bradley 1987, 45, 81-112; Purcell 1994, 680; and Kleijwegt’s chapter in this volume. 79. See Eck 1996b, 165-74. On freedmen’s dependence on patrons for sustenance, see Dig. 25.3.6.pref., 38.2.33, 37.14.5.1, and further in the text below. 80. Duff 1928, 36-49; Treggiari 1969, 52-81, 215-28; Fabre 1981, 1-36, 217-357; Gardner 1993, 20-38; and Los 1995, 1029-33. But see Garnsey 1981, on independent freedmen, and Kleijwegt 2006. Ex-slaves also came under several disabilities in civil law. For instance, freed persons could not serve in the army, run for public office or aspire to belong in the elite equestrian and senatorial orders (see Crook 1987, 51-5 and Gardner 1993, 7-11, 20-25), though in emergencies freedmen might be recruited (as in Tac. Ann. 2.85 and Suet. Aug. 25). 81. On the Augustan legislation and its impact, see Suet. Aug. 40, 44, 74 (separate lists of freeborn and freed citizens); Dig. 37.14.1-16, 38.1.1-5; CJ 6.35.12 (SC Silanianum of 10 CE: in the case of the murder of a slave-owner by a slave, all slaves who were with him in any place at the time of the murder, were put to the torture, and, if they had not done their best to defend him or her, they were put to death; see also Tac. Ann. 14.42-5); Tac. Ann. 13.32 (SC Claudianum of 57 CE: amended the SC Silanianum to include all freedmen living under the same roof). See also DE, s.v. ‘libertus’; Duff 1928, 30-35; Buckland 1970, 533-51; Fabre 1981, ix-x; Crook 1987, 50-5; Le Glay 1990, 637-38; Gardner 1991, 23-4 and 1993, 39-51; Los 1995, 1032-33 (on the rights of patrons to inherit their freed persons’ property); Treggiari 1996, 893-904; and in this volume, Kleijwegt (on limitations imposed on freedwomen), and Verboven. On the importance of distinction between freeborn citizens and freed persons in connection with the frumentationes and access to water, see also Panciera and Virvoulet 1998, 247-70. 82. Los 1995, 1032-34. 83. This was no less true, as Purcell 1994, 662-68 has shown, in the case of petty business operations such as property speculation (the renting and management of insulae) and the running of tabernae, which formed such a vital part of the economic and social life of the capital and which were often entrusted to the care of slaves or ex-slaves; see Dig. 14.3.3 (on the institores, i.e. slaves used as ‘agents’ in petty business: ‘institor appellatus est ex eo, quod negotio gerendo instet: nec multo facit, tabernae sit praepositus an cuilibet alii negotiationi’) and 14.3.5.1-15 (quoting late republican and Augustan jurists, Ulpian notes that the institores were often used as, for instance, ‘insularii } aedificio praepositi } frumento coemendo praepositi }’); Aubert 1994, 6-39; Frier 1980, 24-5, 29-31; Gonzales 1997, 329-35; and Patterson 2000, 275-6. Cicero had much dislike for Rome’s tabernae, but he owned a taberna complex in Puteoli. On tabernae, see also Mart. Ep. 7.61; and Suet. Claud. 38, 40. 84. Cf. Ramsby, in this volume. 85. On the lex Aelia Sentia see Wiedemann 1985, 175 and Scheidel 1997, 167-8. On the Junian Latins, see especially Duff 1928, 72-5, Crook 1987, 43-6, Weaver 1997, 60-72, and Verboven’s contribution in this volume (where he notes that ‘they had no testamentary rights and when they died, their entire inheritance went to their patron or his heirs’). 86. For instance, the creation of the Praetorians, the urban cohorts, and the

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6. Feasting the Dead Together office of the Praefectus urbi (Tac. Ann. 6.11.2: ‘qui coerceret servitia et quod civium audacia turbidum, nisi vim metuat’); capital punishment of slaves freed by will of a murdered master (Dig. 29.5.3.16); the reorganization of the vicomagistri around the cult of the genius Augusti; regulation of public speech (Suet. Aug. 36: proceedings of the Senate could not be published; Dio 55.27.1-3: pamphleteering suppressed); crackdown on subversion (Suet. Aug. 19 and Dio 55.27.1-3). 87. So Suet. Aug. 32 and Gai. Inst. 3.4.1. For a discussion of this legislation, see DE, s.v. ‘collegium’, 352-5; De Robertis 1955; Waltzing 1970, 1.58-154, 2.395-408; and Ausbüttel 1982, 99-105. The Julian law allowed very ancient societies to remain in existence. Societies with a public function (iusta causa) were also permitted, hence the ubiquity of the fabri centonarii, dendrophorii, and tingarii in the West (cf. the collegium symphoniacorum in CIL 6.4416, authorized by the Senate ludorum causa). Likewise, new associations formed iusta causa were allowed, but had to obtain senatorial or imperial authorization and their activities were more strictly regulated. According to Marcian (Dig. 47.22.1-2), members could not belong in more than one college and could not meet more than once a month, excepting meetings for religious purposes (cult and some funerary activities, which included banquets). The vast majority of the voluntary private societies created in the Principate had a funerary function, even though they may have been created for religious purposes (e.g. the cultores) or as mutual help societies whose members shared a particular craft (the so-called ‘professional’ societies). The existence of collegia funeraticia (funerary societies or burial clubs) as a specific category has been generally discredited (the phrase, coined by Mommsen, does not appear in ancient sources). Most private associations had a funerary function in addition to the religious, civic and social activities undertaken by their members. Providing a burial was indeed part of what justified their existence, that is, their public utility. Some time before Hadrian and maybe even earlier in the Principate, these societies were generally recognized by a senatus consultum (cited in CIL 14.2112) and, apparently, no longer needed formally to request official authorization (but see Plin. Ep. 10.33, 34, 92, and 93), though they remained subject to the Julian law and its stipulations on the frequency of meetings as above. See Randazzo 1991/2, 1998, for a discussion of this senatus consultum regulating the collegia tenuiorum, and Perry 2006 on the historiography of collegia. 88. See Purcell 1994, 671-74; Nippel 1995, 72-3; Millar 1998, 5, 136-66; and Tarpin 2002, 128-35. 89. On the collegiate organization of the vici, see Cic. Dom. 74; Purcell 1994, 673 n. 122, on Flambard’s work. Cf. the more rigid Augustan organization of the vicomagistri, see Robinson 1994, 11-13. Factions: Cicero, Comment. pet. 30; Purcell 1994, 679-98. Mobilizing vicini to riot and violence: Cic. Dom. 74; Cic. Pis. 8; Cic. Sest. 15; Asc. Pis. ad loc.; Asc. Corn. ad loc.; Purcell 1994, 672-80; Nippel 1995, 72-3; Millar 1998, 137; and Tarpin 2002, 128-9. 90. ‘Magistri’ in ILLRP 724-46 (Minturnae). Purcell 1994, 674 (with reference to ILLRP 698-9). On liberti as magistri vicorum et paganorum, see ILLRP 702, 704. 91. E.g. ILLRP 701 (‘suffragio pag(i) prim[i creati]’). See also Tarpin 2002, 164-73 and Lott 2004, 175-79 on changes in the roles and status of vicomagistri, whose recruitment, in time, became increasingly difficult as the vici ceased to be loci of spontaneous political activity. 92. Lott 2004, 118. See also Tarpin 2002, 163-73; and Lott 2004, 117-27.

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Free at Last! 93. See, for instance, Dig. 25.3.6.pref., 34.1.17, 34.1.18.pref., 34.1.13.1, 38.2.33; and CIL 6.10229 (Dasumius’ will): ‘cibaria et vestiaria’. But see also Verboven, in this volume, on the question of the ‘independent freedman’, with reference to the studies of Garnsey and Mouritsen. 94. Bourdieu 1977, 73. 95. The disappearance of signs of ‘libertination’ from second-century CE inscriptions (excepting the imperial freedmen who continue to advertise libertine status) may have been linked to that same desire to construct an identity apart from servility; see Mrozek 1976, 40-3 and Los 1995, 1034-6 with further references. Kleijwegt 2006 would suggest otherwise, but for Rome at least, much of the evidence he adduces for freedmen speaking in their own voice and with pride in their libertine status comes in fact from the Republic and the early Principate. Ramsby, in this volume, notes that, when the freedman Habinnas entered Trimalchio’s dining room ‘followed by a large entourage } [making Encolpius think that] a praetor had arrived’, he ‘momentarily appears as a man without the baggage of his former servitude’. On freedmen’s simultaneous desire for autonomy and interest in maintaining a connection to their patrons, see Verboven in this volume, who writes that ‘patrons continued to derive benefit from their freedmen’s work, but conversely the freedmen derived benefits from belonging to a larger exclusive group under the protection of a dominant patron’. 96. Rich liberti were no novelty, but in the booming economic environment of the early Principate, they increased in number, influence, and wealth. The difference was one of scale. In the Republic, Cicero called Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus, Sulla’s freedman, ‘a most powerful man’ (Cic. Rosc. Am. 6: ‘potentissimus’), but by the mid-first century CE, Pliny the Elder observed that ‘in recent years we saw many freed slaves who were richer than Crassus – not long ago, there were three at once, Callistus, Pallas and Narcissus’ (Plin. HN 33.47, apud Wiedemann 1991, 100. See also Duff 1958, 125-28; Garnsey 1981; D’Arms 1981, 97-120; Weaver 1998, 244-5 (on Agathyrsus, tycoon of the brick industry in the early second century CE); and Verboven in this volume. 97. AE 1990.68 (= Tituli 6.24): ‘[Dis Manib]us / [Feli]x(?) Caesaris / ser(vus) Ingenuinus / a regionibus / urbis qui fuit sub / cura Donati / is fuit decurio / in conlegio / Aug(u)staes / posuit Felicio / filius patri / piissimo bene merenti / vix(it) ann(os) LXXXIII’. 98. Halbwachs 1992; Hallam and Hockey 2001, 4-21, 77-85 (on the importance of material culture – objects and places – in the production of memory). On identity and death, see Davis 1997, 3-5. 99. Hallam and Hockey 2001, 2-6. On the importance the Romans attached to the tomb as a ‘place of memory’, see Lavagne 1987, 162 and Graham 2006, 6-27. 100. Cooper et al. 2000, 5. 101. The work of James Scott (1990) offers a theoretical framework to think about everyday forms of resistance to domination. 102. Hierarchization: for instance, the rise of the dispensatores in aristocratic houses (DE, s.v. ‘dispensatores’, pp. 1922-3; Petr. Sat. 29: Trimalchio; Plin. NH 7.129: on Tyridates, who financed the Armenian war); and the proliferation of slaves with peculium (see below). Social differentiation: a good example of the process in aristocratic households can be found in Dasumius’ will (CIL 6.10229, 108 CE), who rewarded several slaves and freed persons with emancipation, donatives, and legacies, but denied manumission and benefits to others: ‘Menecraten et Paepero[tem rogo ne manumittas et in eodem o]pere illos habeas donec viv[ent, quo habui ego, quoniam n]ullo merito meo tam valde [offenderunt gestione

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6. Feasting the Dead Together improba et ini]qua’. Investment: for instance, Marcus Aurelius Cotta Maximus Messallinus (cos 20 CE) rewarded his freedmen Marcus Aurelius Zosimus with an equestrian’s fortune, dowries for his daughters, and a distinguished military post for his son (CIL 14.2298, found in the Via Appia outside Rome); Trimalchio, of course (Petr. Sat. 75-6); slaves engaged in business (Dig. 14.3.1-20); and Verboven, in this volume with references. 103. Wealth was transferred to slaves and freed persons through grants of peculium, participation in trading and industrial ventures, inheritance, legacy, and so on. See Mrozek 1976; Garnsey 1981 (arguing for the existence of a substantial number of independent enterprising freedmen); D’Arms 1981, 127-8 and 2000, 129; Abramenko 1993; Aubert 1994, 66-70; Los 1995, 1029-33; and Gamauf 2009, 334-9 (observing, on p. 335, that ‘[w]hen a slave proved economic talent by accumulating funds, his master might formally grant the slave’s savings the legal status of a peculium } the slave could [then] be freed from other tasks in order to concentrate on the management of the peculium or be supplied with additional funds’). On imperial freedmen, Weaver 1972. See also Bell and Ramsby’s introduction, on performers, and Verboven’s contribution, both in this volume. 104. Los 1995, 1032-3. 105. The fascinating case of Petronia Iusta, who, claiming ingenuitas, sued her mother’s patron in the 70s CE in the courts of Herculaneum and Rome, is a good example of this assertiveness. Cf., in this volume, Ramsby’s observations on Trimalchio’s use of the insignia and adornments of office and power, which suggests a ‘protest against the limitations placed upon his class } [and] his intense desire to attain a status that his money cannot buy him’. On Petronia Iusta, see Metzger 2000, 151-4 and Kleijwegt, in this volume. 106. Cf. Patterson 1982.

Appendix (1) Household monuments according to the criterion of the gentilicium1 References are to CIL 6 unless otherwise indicated. Dates are obviously approximate and show the range of time of use of a monument. When assigning a date, I did not consider later re-use of the monument.

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Free at Last! (2) Household monuments according to ‘title’ inscriptions or some other epigraphic indication

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Appendix Notes 1. Most of the following are monumenta integra reperta from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, but also listed as monuments are ‘clusters of epitaphs’ sharing the same gentilicium found in the same burial area even when the monument itself was no longer extant or could not be clearly identified. 2. Abbreviations: DM and Dis Man = Dis Manibus. BM = bene merenti. HD = hedera distinguens. The phrase ossa + gen = ossa (‘remains’) plus the genitive of the name of the deceased, that is, ‘remains of X’. Rep = Republican; Aug = Augustan; J-C = Julio-Claudian; bldg = building; opus retic. = opus reticulatum; and opus lat. = opus latericium. 3. Several interrelated families connected to the imperial house are represented. 4. 4687-4880 were found outside the monument. Attribution of this monument to the slaves and freed persons of Marcella has been questioned. According to Manacorda 1978/79, 90, many of the inscriptions were attached to the walls of the monument on the occasion of its restoration in 1847/8. 5. 5932 is a ‘title’ inscription of a monument belonging to the freed persons of Arruntia Camilla. It is not clear if it was found in the monument of the Arruntii or connected to it or in the vicinity. I considered it a separate tomb, even if it was linked to this monument, because Arruntia’s dependants clearly saw themselves as a group apart (see below).

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6. PIR 1.1129 (cos 22 BCE), 1130 (cos 6 CE), 1140 (L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, cos 32 CE), 1147, and possibly 1152 (Arruntia Camilla). Arruntia was the daughter of 1040 and her brick factory was in operation into the early Antonine period. The editors of PIR2 estimated that she lived to summam senectutem, hence the Flavian terminus post quem. See n. 5 above and monument #28 for the possibility of a second sepulchre for her own dependants. 7. PIR2 7.347 (L. Sempronius Atratinus, cos 34 BCE, who may have also had a son), 374 (Sempronia Atratina, sister of #347), and 375 (daughter of 347 and wife of Lepidus). 8. 21771 is a ‘title’ inscription: ‘Sepulchre of the freedmen and freedwomen of C. Maecenas, son of Lucius.’ Place of finding is unknown, so we cannot tell whether it signaled another monument or the same. In the absence of additional information, I treated these inscriptions as belonging to the same sepulchre. 9. This monument may have belonged to the familia and freed persons of a wealthy freedman named Caecilius, but the large number of loculi (70), the elaborate decoration, the presence of a handful of tituli dipinti (9) – later erased, hence signalling that the loculi were assigned to living, prospective users – and the presence of at least two discrete family units of freed Caecilii suggest that the users were the dependants of an aristocratic family. 10. I cannot rule out the possibility that this monument belonged to the familia and dependants of a wealthy freedman named Carvilius. 11. Two epitaphs of Aelii were also found in the monument, which might suggest a later end date, but, given that there were only 2 Aelii out of 43 epitaphs, their presence may have been due to reuse of the tomb in later, post-Hadrianic times. 12. No slaves are represented in the extant epitaphs, but the presence of several family units and the allowance for burial of the freed persons of the freed persons (e.g. 7846) suggests that the monument had a household origin. 13. 8151 is the only possible named slave in this monument. To judge from the circumstances in which these inscriptions were found, the Abuccii may have shared a monument with the Salustii (below). I cannot tell whether or not the two families were related. 14. Prosopography is unhelpful. An L. Abuccius is mentioned by Varro Rust. 3.2.17 (RE, s.v., vol. 1, cols 124-5), but it is difficult to link him to the users of this tomb. 15. 8189 and 33709 refer to the only (possible) slaves in connection with this monument. Here, too, it is impossible to rule out that this monument belonged to the familia and dependants of a wealthy freedman. However, the spectrum of occupations represented among the users of the tomb – faber intestinarius (8173), medicus (8174), opstetrix (sic) (8192 and 8207), etc. – suggests that the tomb belonged to the dependants of a notable family as noted in RE and PIR2. 16. Prosopography is of little help. PIR2 7.83: ‘vir dives, fortasse nobilis’. 17. A handful of inscriptions with no reference to slaves, however the presence of a domestic society (33394) makes this a household monument. 18. A C. Cestilius was possibly tribune of the plebs in 57 BCE (RE, s.v., vol. 3.2, col. 2004). Perhaps one of his descendants or even a freed person was the patron of the users of this monument. 19. Prosopography: we can follow at least three generations of Livineii. RE, s.v., mentions: #2. L. Livineius Regulus, praetor in the 50s BCE; #3. L. Livineius Regulus, son of the former and vir monetalis in 43 and 38 BCE; #4. Livineius Regulus, son of Piso’s defender in 20 CE, banned from the Senate before 47 CE,

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Free at Last! sponsor of a gladiatorial show in Pompeii under Nero and exiled thereafter (Tac. Ann. 14.17); and #5. Livineius Regulus, grandson of the defender of Piso. Another Livineius Regulus, possibly Piso’s defender (Tac. Ann. 3.11) does not receive a separate entry (cf. PIR 2.200/1) and would appear to be the son of #3, father of #4, and grandfather of #5. CIL, ad loc., suggests also a M. Livineius Regulus, possibly brother of #3 or of ‘Piso’s defender’. The patrons here are more likely to have been #3 (as in RE) or his offspring. 20. PIR2 3.194: Ti. Catus Caesus Fronto (in 37320), cos CE 96; and PIR2 3.207-8: his daughters or sisters. 21. Only 37380-2 found in situ, the other epitaphs do not show an association with the Caecilii and were found scattered about inside the monument. This Caecilia Metella would have been the daughter of Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus and the wife of Crassus’ son. Her famous tomb is situated on the Via Appia (epitaph in 1274). 22. No slaves mentioned, but the existence of a domestic college (referred to in 10373 as ‘in familia’, and further in 10372, 37461, and 37463) makes this a household monument. 23. L. Aponius was an eques e cohorte Drusi (Tiberius’ son) (RE, s.v. #5; Tac. Ann. 1.29). Other possibilities are: Aponius, senator in 41 CE (RE, s.v. #2); Aponius, fl. in the 50s CE (RE, s.v. #3); Aponius Saturninus, senator or praetorian under Gaius (RE, s.v. #8, perhaps the same as #2); M. Aponius Sat., Arvalis 57-60 CE (RE, s.v. #9, son of #8 and perhaps the same as #10), and M. Aponius Sat., governor of Moesia in 69 CE, perhaps, later, procos of Asia (RE, s.v. #10, Tac. Hist. 1.79 and 5.26). 24. RE, s.v. #13: C. Stertinius, cos 23 CE, son of M. Stertinius. A L. Stertinius in RE, s.v. #12, fl. under the Flavians, but unlikely that the monument belonged to the dependants of the latter. 25. Chioffi 1989/90, 391-406, has postulated the existence of a communal sepulchre in the Sepolcreto Ostiense, where a cluster of inscriptions of the Ciartii was found. The monument is not extant. The inscriptions refer principally to the freed persons of P. Ciartius, P. Ciartius Sergianus, and his wife Helvia Pia, all of whom seem to be freeborn (even if of servile extraction). Slaves and freed persons of the freed persons of Sergianus and P. Ciartius used the sepulchre. L. Ciartius was senator 102-3 CE, P. Ciartius may have been a relative, but not all their dependants were buried there. 26. Columbarium near the Porta Tiburtina. Thirteen inscriptions (1340213414) were found inside the monument. 13402 is a list of at least 31 freed persons and maybe one slave. Slaves appear in 13402, 13404, and perhaps 13421. The other inscriptions (13415-13419) were apparently found elsewhere. It is impossible to rule out a wealthy freedman patron, but the broad spectrum of occupations represented in the inscriptions (lector, horrearius, ornatrix, faber, pistor, etc.) suggests an aristocratic household. 27. Cluster of inscriptions associated with at least three sepulchral chambers, probably columbaria, because some epitaphs were columbarium tablets (found in the soil, detached from the monument walls). The monuments were mostly used by freed persons (and their freed persons), but slaves appear in a couple of tablets (34499, 34500), which would reinforce the idea of a household origin. CIL suggests that the patrons – L. Appuleius and Appuleia Saturnina – were descendants of Saturninus, the famous tribune of the plebs in 103 and 100 BCE. But there are other possibilities, closer to the Augustan Age, which is the chronology suggested for these inscriptions, based on the epigraphic formulas and orthography: L.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Apuleius Saturninus (from Atinum), praetor in 58 BCE (RE, s.v. #30) and father of Cn. Apuleius Saturninus (RE, s.v. #27, fl. in the 50s BCE). These Apuleii, however, were spelled with one ‘p’. I cannot rule out of course the possibility that this tomb belonged to the dependants of wealthy freed persons of the gens Appuleia. 28. The area along the Via Salaria, especially that immediately outside the city, in the vicinity of the Porta Salaria, contains a vast and ancient sepolcreto with burials dated to the late Republic and early Principate. 29. It is unclear where this ‘title’ inscription was found, but it may be that the sepulchral area it refers to was actually inside the monument of the Arruntii. Yet the presence of a domestic college (‘curante Arruntio Firmo’) suggests a separate household association among the members of Camilla’s familia, hence the separate entry here. 30. PIR2 2.1223. If his L. Cocceius was the cos of 39 BCE, this might have been one of the earliest household sepulchres. 31. Prosopography of the Vitelli: P. Vitellius (PIR 3.502, accused in the conspiracy of Seianus) and L. Vitellius (PIR 3.500), father of the emperor, or L. Vitellius (PIR 3.501), his son and brother of the emperor, or A. Vitellius (PIR 3.497), who may have been P. Vitellius’ brother. Further, P. Vitellius (PIR 3.503), father of A. Vitellius (PIR 3.497) and of P. Vitellius (PIR 3.502). PIR suggests that the sepulchre belonged to the slaves of L. Vitellius (PIR 3.500). Given the prosopography and the fortunes of the Vitelli under the Flavians, the sepulchre probably did not continue to be used much later than 69 CE. An early date is also suggested by the epigraphic formula. 32. Prosopography is unhelpful. Although I cannot rule out that the patron was a wealthy freedman, Maturus was not a common slave name: see Solin 1996, 121 (two instances). 33. PIR2 2.369 lists several possible Camilli: M. Furius Camillus (PIR 3.576), cos 8 CE, maybe Arvalis, defunctus 37 CE. M. Furius Camillus (PIR 3.577), Arvalis 38 CE, son of #576, brother of L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (PIR2 1.1140, adopted into the Arruntii clan after his father’s death), cos 32 CE; L. Furius Camillus M. f. (CIL 18752; PIR 3.575), whose identity is unclear (was he the son of M. Furius Camillus, PIR 3.576? Or the son of a freedman of Marcus?). The formulary of his inscription suggests an early date (no DM, nominative). It is unlikely that the Camillus in question was Ovinius Camillus, a senator under the Severans (PIR2 5.184). 34. I cannot rule out the possibility that Silvanus was a wealthy freedman. Prosopography is not helpful. Although only freedmen are specifically mentioned in the ‘title’ inscription, the reference to familia and the existence of a domestic society suggests a household origin. The phrase ‘eorum qui in eo faciendo pecuniam contulerunt’ reinforces that idea. 35. 10260: college in the household of Sergia Paullina commemorates a ‘fellow slave’ (conservo). The society in the household of Sergia Paullina is a rare example of a domestic college in the second century CE, see Waltzing 1970, 3.343-5. The society certainly included slaves as the commemoration indicates, but we cannot tell whether this particular slave was buried in a collective monument. In other words, since this is not a ‘title’ inscription, the slave may well have been buried in a private tomb, even though the household college commemorates him collectively. The epitaphs of other dependants of this familia also do not indicate whether this was truly a communal sepulchre. Yet the combination of (1) a household college and (2) the finding of 9149 and 10264 in the same place does suggest a communal

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Free at Last! tomb. There is a substantial amount of scholarship on this college, which was thought to have been a Christian society. 36. Prosopography is not helpful. The only P. Munatius is P. Munatius Priscus Decianus (PIR2 5.732), procos of Crete-Cyrene in the first or second century CE. 37. PIR2 5.132 (also CIL 9.4855): L. Nonius Quinctilianus L. f., Sex. nepos, cos 8 CE. The difficulty, however, is the tribe. All Nonii were either Velina or Pomptina. Quinctilianus’ tribe is unknown, but it is unlikely to have been Pap(iria) as in the ‘title’ inscription. On the other hand, the Nonii and Antonia combined suggest an Augustan date. 38. The tomb may date to a time before Octavian’s adoption, given the absence of a reference to Caesar (cf. monuments #38 and 39). 39. No slaves mentioned, but the reference to the ‘house’ of Scribonia suggests a household origin. 40. The inscription was re-used later to indicate the restoration of one of the monument’s walls without injury to the previous owners. 41. This cippus was found amid the ruins of several columbaria in opus reticulatum. 42. Possibilities are: M. Caecilius Cornutus (PIR2 2.33, which attributes the sepulchre to his dependants or those of his son); PIR2 2.34: son of the former, Arvalis in 21 and 20 BCE; PIR2 2.35: career under Augustus and Tiberius – Arvalis in 14 CE, and curator locorum publicorum iudicandorum, 15-20 CE. 43. Could the masters/patrons be freed persons? Unlikely; Solin 1996 does not list Scaura, but Paetus does appear once (p. 57). Paetus, however, was also a freeborn name and the fact that the pair have different gentilicia suggests free birth and high status. 44. Caesar in the plural could be interpreted more generally to mean the ‘imperial house’ or a reference to specific (contemporary) members of the imperial family or to imperial heirs such as, for instance, Tiberius and Germanicus, Gaius and Lucius, Titus and Domitian, etc. Given the formulary, the inscription is unlikely to date later than the first century CE. 45. ‘Senci Surae’ is probably ‘Senecionis Surae’ (see ILS 7854). Senecio, however, was also a slave name, albeit rare (two instances): see Solin 1996, 121. 46. Assuming ‘Senci’ = ‘Senecio,’ prosopographical possibilities are 1. procos Sicily in the 70s BCE or under Augustus and Tiberius (PIR2 7.1039); and 2. legatus or procurator in Cappadocia under Tiberius (PIR2 7.1040). 47. The Sexti Peducaei were a plebeian noble family in the Late Republic. RE, s.v. #6 suggests that this was the columbarium of the dependants of Sex. Peducaeus, tribune of the plebs in 55 BCE, son of Sex. Peducaeus, tribune in 76 BCE (RE, s.v. #5) and Cicero’s friend. Another possibility is RE, s.v. #7, grandson of #5. 48. Found along the ancient Via Nomentana, so this is a different sepulchre from #3 above. 49. The reference to a dispensator suggests an aristocratic family. 50. Panciera suggests a date between 16 and 31 CE. 51. The key inscription is 9534, which is not a ‘title’, but an epitaph in which a slave commemorates the daughter of (apparently) another slave ‘Marciae n. l. f.’ In the epitaph, the formula locus datus decreto decurionum and the existence of a college strongly suggest a communal sepulchre. Further, the use of the phrase ‘Marcia nostra’ would indicate that the parties involved (slaves and the decurions) were all connected to Marcia’s household, indicating that the college was a domestic society and the sepulchre had a household origin. But not all of Marcia’s dependants would have been buried here, see 5273 and 23822.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together 52. I read ‘Marciae n(ostrae) L(ucii) f(iliae)’, but CIL ad loc. suggests ‘l(ibertae) f(iliae)’ and Solin (1996) 5, ‘l(iberti) f(iliae).’ If Marcia was Lucius’ daughter, her father may have been L. Marcius Philippus, cos 38 BCE (RE, s.v., #120). She would have also been Fabius Maximus’ wife as noted in 7884 and 23822. Solin, op. cit. dates 9534 to Augustus’ reign. 53. Not a ‘title’ inscription. There are no references to slaves, but the presence of a domestic society (quaestores) and mention of the patron’s liberality in the building of the monument suggest a household sepulchre. 54. Not a ‘title’ inscription. The stone is an epitaph recording the permission of Postumia’s freed persons to C. Lusius Restitutus to bury his wife in the sepulchre. No slaves are mentioned, but a household origin is suggested by specific mention of the patron’s name. 55. PIR2 6.885, citing CIL 6.2044: Q. Postumius Cai } or Cae or Cal, Arvalis in 66 CE. We would like to see ‘Cat,’ but CIL 6.2044 has in fact only Q. P(ostumius), and 32355 has ‘Ca’ not ‘Cai’. Further, in 20470, ‘Catiae’ is only one possible reconstruction; other possibilities are Cariae or Canae (and Cai }?). But the precise relationship of the Postumius, Arvalis in 66 CE to Postumia ‘Catia’ is unknown, hence my vague chronology in the first century CE. 56. A list of names of slaves and a few incerti, though most likely freedmen, including three Vipsanii. The reference to a domestic college confirms a household origin of the monument. 57. PIR2 7.121: Salvidiena Rufa, a noblewoman, possibly daughter of Q. Salvidienus Rufus, cos 39 BCE. 58. 23991 is a dedication to the deceased freed persons of the Petronii and their descendants (‘DM Libertis Petroniorum Mamertini et Septimiani posterisque eorum’), which implies the existence of a collective sepulchre; the naming of the patrons (here and in 21756) suggests a household sepulchre, even though slaves are not mentioned. Further evidence in 21756, where the parents (a freedman and a slave) commemorate their (slave?) children and thank their patron and master, (Petronius) Sura Mamertinus, for donating a locus to them, their own freed persons, and their descendants. We cannot tell for sure, however, whether or not the donated locus in 21756 was in the communal monument. 59. CIL 23991 ad loc.: Petronius Mamertinus, cos 182 CE; M Petronius Sura Mamertinus, cos 190 CE. 60. 33428 is not a ‘title’. The inscription honours the magister who donated the cippi for the communal sepulchre of slaves and freed persons: PIR2 5.274: ‘fortasse femina nobilis’, but clearly of free birth.

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Colini, A.M. (1943) I sepolcri repubblicani di Via Statilia (Rome). Compostella, C. (1992) ‘Banchetti pubblici e banchetti privati nell’iconografia funeraria romana del I secolo d.C.’, MEFRA 104.2: 659-89. Cooper, F., T.C. Holt and R.J. Scott (2000) Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies (Chapel Hill). Crook, J.A. (1984, reprint 1967) Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC-AD 212 (Ithaca). Cupitò, C. (2001) ‘Riti funebri alle porte di Roma: la necropoli di Via Salaria’, in Heinzelmann 2001, 47-52. D’Arms, J.H. (1981) Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge). D’Arms, J.H. (2000) ‘Memory, Money, and Status at Misenum: Three New Inscriptions from the Collegium of the Augustales’, JRS 90: 126-44. Davies, G. (1977) ‘Burial in Italy up to Augustus’, in R. Reece (ed.) Burial in the Roman World (London) 13-19. Davies, G. (2007) ‘Idem ego sum discumbens, ut me videtis: Inscription and Image on Roman Ash Chests’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds) Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World (Cambridge) 38-59. Davies, D.J. (1997) Death, Ritual and Belief. The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites (London). De Robertis, F.M. (1955) Il fenomeno associativo nel mondo romano: dai collegi della repubblica alle corporazioni del Basso Impero (Naples). De Visscher, F. (1963) Le Droit de tombeaux romains (Milan). Della Portella, I. (2000) Subterranean Rome, tr. C. Higgitt et al. (Cologne). Ducos, M. (1995) ‘Le tombeau, locus religiosus’, in F. Hinard and M.-F. Lambert (eds) La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain (Paris) 135-44. Duff, A.M. (1928) Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford). Dumont, J.-C. (1987a) ‘La mort de l’esclave’, in F. Hinard (ed.) La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen) 173-86. Dumont, J.-C. (1987b) Servus. Rome et l’esclavage sous la République (Paris). Dunbabin, K.M.D. (2003) The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge). Duncan-Jones, R. (1982) The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies (Cambridge). Eck, W. (1986) ‘Inschriften aus der Vatikanischen Nekropole unter St. Peter’, ZPE 65: 245-93. Eck, W. (1987) ‘Römische Grabinschriften. Aussageabsicht und Aussagefähigkeit im funerären Kontext’, in von Hesberg and Zanker 1987, 61-83. Eck, W. (1988) ‘Aussagefähigkeit epigraphischer Statistik und die Bestattung von Sklaven im kaiserzeitlichen Rom’, in P. Kneissl and V. Losemann (eds) Alte Geschichte und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für Karl Christ (Darmstadt) 130-9. Eck, W. (1996a) ‘Iscrizioni sepolcrali romane. Intenzione e capacità di messaggio nel contesto funerario’, in Tra epigrafia, prosopografia e archeologia. Scritti scelti, rielaborati ed aggiornati (Rome) 227-49. Eck, W. (1996b) ‘La dipendenza come concetto ambivalente a proposito del rapporto tra patrono e liberto’, in Tra epigrafia, prosopografia e archeologia. Scritti scelti, rielaborati ed aggiornati (Rome) 165-74. Eck, W. (1998) ‘Grabmonumente und sozialer Status in Rom und Umgebung’, in P. Fasold (ed.) Bestattungssitte und kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit, Kolloquium 1995 (Cologne and Bonn) 29-40. Eisner, M. (1986) Zur Typologie der Grabbauten im Suburbium Roms (Mainz).

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Free at Last! Fabre, G. (1981) Libertus. Recherches sur les rapports patron-affranchi à la fin de la République Romaine (Paris). Fehl, M. (1997) ‘Archaeologists at Work in 1726: The Columbarium of the Household of Livia Augusta’, in B. Magnusson et al. (eds) Ultra Terminum Vagari. Scritti in onore di Carl Nylander (Rome) 89-99. Feraudi-Gruénais, F. (2001) Ubi diutius nobis habitandum est. Die Innendekoration der kaiserzeitlichen Gräber Roms, Palilia 9 (Wiesbaden). Feraudi-Gruénais, F. (2003) Inschriften und ‘Selbstdarstellung’ in stadtrömischen Grabbauten (Rome). Ferrary, J.-L. (1997) ‘Optimates et populares. le problème du rôle de l’idéologie dans la politique’, in H. Bruhns, J.-M David and W. Nippel (eds) Die späte römische Republik / La fin de la République romaine. Un débat franco-allemand d’histoire et d’historiographie, CEFR 235 (Rome) 221-31. Ferrua, A. (1959) ‘Nuove iscrizioni della via Ostiense’, Epigraphica 21: 97-116. Ferrua, A. (1984) ‘Iscrizioni del sepolcreto Ostiense’, RendLinc 39: 285-305. Ferrua, A. (1985) ‘Il complesso cimiteriale di Santa Tecla II. Le iscrizioni’, RendPontAcc 55-6: 421-34. Ficacci, L. (2000) Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings (Cologne). Finney, P.C. (1980) ‘Did Gnostics Make Pictures?’, in B. Layton (ed) The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, March 28-31, 1978, Numen supplement 41 (Leiden) 434-54. Flambard, J.-M. (1987) ‘Eléments pour une approche financière de la mort dans les classes populaires du Haut-Empire. Analyse du budget de quelques colèges funéraires de Rome et d’Italie’, in F. Hinard (ed.) La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen) 209-44. Flory, M.B. (1978) ‘Family in Familia. Kinship and Community in Slavery’, AJAH 3: 78-95. Frier, B.W. (1980) Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome (Princeton). Fusco, U. and G.L. Gregori (1996) ‘A proposito dei matrimoni di Marcella minore’, ZPE 111: 226-32. Gamauf, R. (2009) ‘Slaves doing Business: The Role of Roman Law in the Economy of a Roman Household’, European Review of History 16.3: 331-46. Gardner, J. (1991) ‘The Purpose of the Lex Fufia Caninia’, EchCl 35: 21-39. Gardner, J. (1993) Being a Roman Citizen (London). Garnsey, P. (1981) ‘Independent Freedmen and the Economy of Roman Italy under the Principate’, Klio 63: 359-71. Gregori, G.L. (2001) La collezione epigrafica dell’Antiquarium Comunale del Celio. Inventario generale – Inedite – Revisione – Contributi al riordino, Tituli 8 (Rome). Gonzales, A. (1997) ‘Esclaves, affranchis et “familia” dans la “correspondence” de Pline le Jeune. Hiérarchies internes et promotions liées aux services’, in M. Moggi and G. Cordiano (eds) Schiavi e dipendenti nell’ambito dell’oikos e della familia (Pisa) 329-76. Graham, E.-J. (2006) The Burial of the Urban Poor in Italy in the Late Roman Republic and Early Empire (Oxford). Grinberg, K. (2009) ‘Slavery, Manumission and the Law in Nineteenth-century Brazil: Reflections on the Law of 1831 and the “Principle of Liberty” on the Southern Frontier of the Brazilian Empire’, European Review of History 16.3: 401-11. Halbwachs, M. (1992) On Collective Memory (Chicago).

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Hallam, E. and J. Hockey (2001) Death, Memory and Material Culture (Oxford). Harlow, M. and R. Laurence (2002) Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome: A Life Course Approach (London and New York). Hasegawa, K. (2005a) The Familia Urbana during the Early Empire. A Study of Columbaria Inscriptions (Oxford). Hasegawa, K. (2005b) ‘The Collegia Domestica in the Elite Roman Household: The Evidence of Domestic Funeral Clubs for Slaves and Freedmen’, in C. Deroux (ed.) Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 12: 250-66. Heinzelmann, M. et al. (eds) (2001) Römischer Bestattungsbrauch und Beigabensitten in Rom, Norditalien und den Nordwestprovinzen von der späten Republik bis in die Kaiserzeit (Wiesbaden). Heinzelmann, M. (2001) ‘Grabarchitektur, Bestattungsbrauch und Sozialstruktur – Überlegungen zur Rolle der familia’, in Heinzelmann 2001, 179-92. Hesberg, H. von (1992) Römische Grabauten (Darmstadt). Hesberg, H. von and M. Pfanner (1988) ‘Augusteisches Columbarium in der Villa Borghese’, JdI 103: 465-87. Hesberg, H. von and P. Zanker (1987) (eds) Römische Gräberstrassen. Selbstdarstellung, Status, Standard (Munich). Hinard, F. (1995) ‘La Loi de Pouzzoles et les pompes funèbres’, in F. Hinard and M.-F. Lambert (eds) La mort au quotidien dans le monde romain (Paris) 205-12. Hope, V. (1997a) ‘A Roof over the Dead: Communal Tombs and Family Structure’, in R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds) Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (Portsmouth) 69-90. Hope, V. (1997b) ‘Constructing Roman Identity: Funerary Monuments and Social Structure in the Roman World’, Mortality 2: 103-21. Hopkins, K. (1983) Death and Renewal (Cambridge). Jensen, R.M. (2008) ‘Dining with the Dead: From the Mensa to the Altar in Christian Late Antiquity’, in L. Brink and D. Greene (eds) Commemorating the Dead. Texts and Artifacts in Context. Studies of Roman, Jewish, and Christian Burials (Berlin and New York) 107-43. Joshel, S.R. (1992) Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, OK). Kammerer-Grothaus, H. (1979) ‘Camere sepolcrali de’ liberti e liberte di Livia Augusta ed altri Caesari’, MEFRA 91.1: 315-29. Karasch, M.C. (1987) Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1850 (Princeton). Kleijwegt, M. (2006) ‘Freed Slaves, Self-Presentation and Corporate Identity in the Roman World’, in M. Kleijwegt (ed.) The Faces of Freedom: The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery (Leiden) 89-116. Kopytoff, I. (1988) ‘The Cultural Context of African Abolition’, in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds) The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison) 485-502. Lanciani, R.A. (1967, reprint 1892) Pagan and Christian Rome (London). Lavagne, H. (1987) ‘Le tombeau, mémoire du mort’, in F. Hinard (ed.) La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen) 159-65. Lazzarini, S. (1991) Sepulcra familiaria: un’ indagine epigrafico-giuridica (Padova). Le Glay, M. (1990) ‘La place des affranchis dans la vie municipale et dans la vie religieuse’, MEFRA 102: 621-38. Lindsay, H. (1998) ‘Eating with the Dead: the Roman Funerary Banquet’, in I. Nielsen and H. Sigismund Nielsen (eds) Meals in a Social Context: Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World (Aarhus) 67-80.

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Free at Last! Ling, R. (1993) ‘The Paintings of the Columbarium of Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome’, in E.M. Moormann (ed.) Functional and Spatial. Analysis of Wall Painting (Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress on Ancient Wall Painting, Amsterdam, 8-12 September 1992), BABesch Supplement 3 (Leiden) 127-35. Los, A. (1995) ‘La condition sociale des affranchis privés au 1er siècle après J.-C.’, AnnÉconSocCiv 50: 1011-44. Lott, J.B. (2004) The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome (Cambridge). Lugli, G. (1919) ‘Scavo di un sepolcreto romano presso la Basilica di S. Paolo (prima relazione)’, NSc 285-354. MacMullen, R. (1982) ‘The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire’, AJP 103: 233-46. Magi, F. and J. Ruysschaert (1999) ‘Necropoli Vaticane’, in Riscoperta di Roma antica (Rome) 101-7. Manacorda, D. (1978-9) ‘Tremellius Scrofa e la cronologia delle iscrizioni sepolcrali urbane della prima età imperiale’, BC 86: 89-107. Manacorda, D. (1999) ‘Per l’edizione del secondo colombario Codini. Il problema epigrafico nel contesto archeologico’, in XI Congresso Internazionale di Epigrafia Greca e Latina (Roma 18-24 settembre 1997) (Rome) 249-61. Mancioli, D. (1983) ‘La necropoli Esquilina sulla Via Labicana-Prenestina: gli scavi della Compagnia fondiaria’, in Roma Capitale 1983, 156-62. Messineo, G. (2001) ‘Dalle necropoli del suburbio settentrionale di Roma’, in Heinzelmann 2001, 35-45. Metzger, E. (2000) ‘The Case of Petronia Iusta’, RIDA 47: 151-65. Meyer, E.A. (1990) ‘Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: the Evidence from Epitaphs’, JRS 80: 74-96. Mielsch, H. et al. (1986) Die heidnische Nekropole unter St. Peter in Rom. Die Mausoleen A-D (Rome). Mielsch, H. (1995) Die heidnische Nekropole unter St. Peter in Rom. Die Mausoleen E-I und Z-Psi (Rome). Miers, S. and R. Roberts (1988) ‘The End of Slavery in Africa’, in S. Miers and R. Roberts (eds) The End of Slavery in Africa (Madison) 3-68. Millar, F. (1998) The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor). Morris, I. (1992) Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge). Morris, I. (1998) ‘Remaining Invisible: The Archaeology of the Excluded in Classical Athens’, in S.R. Joshel and S. Murnaghan (eds) Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture. Differential Equations (London) 193-220. Mrozek, S. (1976) ‘Le rôle économique et social des affranchis à la fin de la République et au début de l’Empire’, Rodczniki Dziejów Spolecznych-Gospodarczych 37: 33-45. Nash, E. (1962) Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (New York). Nielsen, H.S. (1996) ‘The Physical Context of Roman Epitaphs and the Structure of “the Roman Family”’, AnalRom 23: 35-60. Nijf, O. van (1997) The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Amsterdam). Nippel, W. (1995) Public Order in Ancient Rome (Cambridge). Owensby, B.P. (2009) ‘Legal Personality and the Processes of Slave Liberty in Early-modern New Spain’, European Review of History 16.3: 365-82. Panciera, S. (1987) La collezione epigrafica dei Musei Capitolini. Inediti, revisioni, contributi al riordino, Tituli 6 (Rome).

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6. Feasting the Dead Together Panciera, S. and C. Virvoulet (1998) ‘Les archives de l’administration du blé public à Rome à travers le témoignage des inscriptions’, in La mémoire perdue. Recherches sur l’adminstration romaine (Rome) 247-66. Papi, C. (2002) ‘Le iscrizioni della necropoli vaticana. Una revisione’, RendPontAcc 73: 239-65. Parker Pearson, M.P. (1999) The Archaeology of Death and Burial (College Station, TX). Parri, L. (1998) ‘Iscrizioni funerarie, colombari e liberti. Il terzo ipogeo di Vigna Codini’, AeR, ns, 43: 51-60. Patterson, J.R. (1992) ‘Patronage, Collegia and Burial in Imperial Rome’, in S. Bassett (ed.) Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-1600 (Leicester) 15-27. Patterson, J.R. (2000) ‘Living and Dying in the City of Rome: Houses and Tombs’, in J. Coulston and H. Dodge (eds) Ancient Rome. The Archaeology of the Eternal City (Oxford) 259-89. Patterson, O. (1982) Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA). Pearce, J., M. Millett and M. Struck (eds) (2001) Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World (Oxford). Perry, J.S. (1999) ‘A Death in the Familia: The Funerary Colleges of the Roman Empire,’ Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Perry, J.S. (2006) The Roman Collegia: The Modern Evolution of an Ancient Concept, Mnemosyne Supplement 277 (Leiden). Petersen, L.H. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Poe, A.C. (2007) ‘The Third-Century Mausoleum (“Hypogeum”) of the Aurelii in Rome: Pagan or Mixed-Religion Collegium Tomb’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Rutgers University. Polfer, M. (2001) ‘Reconstructing Funerary Rituals: The Evidence of Ustrina and Related Archaeological Structures’, in Pearce et al. 2001, 30-7. Purcell, N. (1987) ‘Tomb and Suburb’, in von Hesberg and Zanker 1987, 26-41. Purcell, N. (1994) ‘The City of Rome and the plebs urbana’, in J.A. Crook, A. Lintott and E. Rawson (eds) Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 146-43 BC (Cambridge) 644-88. Purcell, N. (1996) ‘Rome and its Development’, in A.K. Bowman, E. Champlin and A. Lintott (eds) Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 BC-AD 69 (Cambridge) 782-811. Randazzo, S. (1991-2) ‘Senatus consultum quo illicita collegia arcentur (D. 47, 22,1,1)’, BIDR 94-5: 49-90. Randazzo, S. (1998) ‘I “collegia tenuiorum”, fra libertà di associazione e controllo senatorio’, SDHI 64: 229-44. Richlin, A. (2001) ‘Emotional Work: Lamenting the Roman Dead’, in E. Tylawsky and C. Weiss (eds) Essays in Honor of Gordon Williams. Twenty-Five Years at Yale (New Haven) 229-48. Robinson, O.F. (1994) Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration (London and New York). Roller, M.B. (2006) Dining Posture in Ancient Rome (Princeton). Roma Capitale 1870-1911. L’Archeologia in Roma capitale tra sterro e scavo (Mostra, Roma 1983-1984) (1983) (Venice). Salmon, E.T. (1970) Roman Colonization under the Republic (Ithaca).

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Free at Last! Scott, J.C. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven). Scheidel, W. (1997) ‘Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire’, JRS 87: 156-69. Scrinari, V.S.M. (1985) ‘Il complesso cimiteriale di Santa Tecla I. La necropoli pagana’, RendPontAcc 55-6: 389-420. Simon-Hiernard, D. (1987) ‘Remarques sur le rite de l’os resectum’, in B. Oberlin (ed.) Nécropoles à incineration du Haut-Empire. Table ronde de Lyon 1986. Rapports archéologiques préliminaires de la région Rhone-Alpes (Lyon) 93-5. Slenes, R.W. (1999) Na senzala, uma flor: esperanças e recordações na formação da família escrava, Brasil Sudeste, século XIX (Rio de Janeiro). Soares, C.E.L. (2001) A capoeira escrava e outras tradições rebeldes no Rio de Janeiro (1808-1850) (Campinas). Solin, H. (1996) Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen: ein Namenbuch (Mainz). Steinby, E.M. (1987) ‘La necropoli della via Triumphalis. Pianificazione generale e tipologia dei monumenti funerari’, in von Hesberg and Zanker 1987, 85-110. Steinby, E.M. (2001) ‘La necropoli della Via Triumphalis. Il rito funerario nel I secolo d.C.’, in Heinzelmann et al. 2001, 31-4. Tarpin, M. (2002) Vici et Pagi dans l’occident romain (Rome). Thomasson, B.E. (1954) ‘Iscrizioni del sepolcreto di via Ostiense’, ORom 18: 125-47. Toynbee, J.M.C. (1971) Death and Burial in the Roman World (London). Treggiari, S. (1969) Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford). Treggiari, S. (1975) ‘Family Life among the Staff of the Volusii’, TAPA 105: 393-401. Treggiari, S. (1996) ‘Social Status and Social Legislation’, in A.K. Bowman, E. Champlin and A. Lintott (eds) Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 BC-AD 69 (Cambridge) 873-904. Urbainczyk, T. (2008) Slave Revolts in Antiquity (Stocksfield). Väänanen, V. et al. (1973) ‘Edizione delle iscrizioni’, in V. Väänanen (ed.) Le iscrizioni della necropoli dell’Autoparco Vaticano (Rome) 21-94. Waltzing, J.P. (1970, reprint 1895) Étude historique sur les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origines jusqu’à la chute de l’Empire romain d’Occident (Hildesheim and New York). Weaver, P.R.C. (1972) Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge). Weaver, P.R.C. (1997) ‘Children of Junian Latins’, in B. Rawson and P.R.C. Weaver (eds) The Roman Family in Italy (Oxford) 55-72. Weaver, P.R.C. (1998) ‘Imperial Slaves and Freedmen in the Brick Industry’, ZPE 122: 238-46. Wiedemann, T. (1985) ‘The Regularity of Manumission at Rome’, CQ 35: 162-75. Wiedemann, T. (1991) Greek and Roman Slavery (London and New York). Zanker, P. (1975) ‘Grabreliefs römischer Freigelassener’, JdI 90: 267-315.

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‘Saintly Souls’: White Teachers’ Advocacy and Instruction of Greek and Latin to African American Freedmen1 Michele Valerie Ronnick I think of the slaves. And how one can imagine oneself among them I do not know; It was all so unimaginably different And all so long ago. Louis MacNeice, ‘The Gloomy Academic’2

The motives of masters and the hopes and fears of their slaves were likely not so different in ancient times from those held by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American slaves and slave holders. Even if the process of manumission was generated by self-interest, a sense that the freed slave’s success in a trade could bring financial benefit to the soon-to-be former master, there was at least a willingness to see in the slave, despite the designation of inferiority that accompanied servitude, the potential for achievement greater than the parameters of slavery allowed. It has been shown that some US slave-owners permitted their slaves to achieve various levels of education and even, at times, manumission, won with money or by merit, though not nearly enough to correspond to the claims that southern, slave-owning intellectuals made that they were giving considerable attention to the betterment of and protection over their African slaves.3 Weighing heavily on the other side of the scale were those who believed that some humans, particularly black Africans, were born with servile dispositions by nature and were naturally suited for enslavement. We can see an easy correlation between their attitudes and the postulation of slaves as the ‘living tools’ theorized by Aristotle (Arist. Pol. 1253b). Of course there is some evidence in the ancient world to countermand the narrowness of this harsh idea: with the names of Aesop, Terence, Epictetus as well as those born from freedmen fathers like Horace, we find many whose inborn talent overcame their servile origin and helped them reach levels of achievement. Seneca the Younger put the dilemma in poignant terms when he pointed to our common humanity: ‘Consider that

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Free at Last! the very man whom you call a slave was born from the same seeds, enjoys the same sky, breathes, lives and dies like you!’ (Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori!: Sen. Ep. 47.10). Centuries later this theme of the brotherhood of man, nourished and encouraged by the Christian abolitionist movement, drove much of the anti-slavery debate. Given the right opportunity, those of African descent who had been enslaved and were newly entitled to themselves and the fruits of their labour could contribute to society as well as any freeborn individual – such was the mindset of President Lincoln.4 The key factor was access to education and opportunity. The outcome of the Civil War made education an urgent priority as these new American citizens sought to engage fully in civic participation. The school curriculum they sought was none other than that which was provided to white students, and knowledge of classical languages and literature was the cornerstone of that education. One valuable approach to delineating the relationship of classical studies and people of African American descent during the nineteenth century is to examine the motivations and careers of the white people who taught Greek and Latin to the newly freed American slaves. Although the evidence of this work abounds in our historical records (archives, biographies and the like) and can even be seen in works of fiction such as W.E.B. Du Bois’ first novel Quest for the Silver Fleece published in 1911, whose plot centres on the impact that a school for black students run by a white woman from New England has in Tooms County Alabama, it has never been collected. Sad to say, we do not even have a rudimentary census of names of these intrepid teachers. To be sure, their work was never easy and the teaching of Greek and Latin (or even rudimentary skills in reading or mathematics for that matter) was widely, vehemently and often violently denounced.5 Fear was widespread that these ‘nigger teachers’, these ‘anti-planter bigots’, were spreading doctrines of social equality that would destroy the southern caste system and create massive discontent among African Americans. The women who took up this work were especially reviled, described by one person in Alabama as ‘poor, slab-sided old maids who are coming south to teach the Negroes to lie and steal’.6 Nonetheless, at the close of the Civil War, teachers, ready to teach all sorts of subjects, arrived in the South in fairly large numbers. By 1869, according to one historian’s analysis of the period, 9,503 black and white teachers were employed in freedmen’s schools throughout the nation with male teachers making up as much as one-third of the workforce – a societal indication of the times that the work was considered prestigious enough.7 By 1870, approximately five thousand teachers were instructing about 250,000 students in the South alone.8 These were mainly white females from the North, but male and female teachers of African descent would play a role later on.9 Their aims were varied, but the moral imperative to

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ educate the downtrodden and uplift souls by religious proselytism were dominant factors. Their impact was large and lasting. As Hoffman points out, these teachers’ ‘estimations of what African American students could achieve laid the seeds of debates later in the century about industrial versus liberal education. Whatever the contradictions of this movement, it was unified by the notion that education was a tool of liberation, a route to agency and choice.’10 The impact of this idea of liberation and agency affected not only the students, but also the instructors, for both were involved in one way or another in what we today call ‘civil rights work’. To those instructors of Greek and Latin, the subjects which formed the backbone of liberal arts education, the Latin phrase liberales artes itself was fraught with meaning because by literal translation those were the subjects studied by free men in the Graeco-Roman world. They were not available to or considered suitable for slaves in antiquity. It is important to note that when slaves were freed in the United States, many flocked to programmes whereby they could at last partake of the educational opportunities denied them and their forebears for several generations. According to W.E.B. Du Bois’s survey of ten representative Negro colleges in post-Civil War America, ‘on the average, their B.A. curriculum consisted of 38 per cent ancient languages’.11 The remainder was devoted to the study of other subjects, such as mathematics, history, philosophy, English modern languages and Bible study. But the prevailing attitude was that ‘black uplift had the corollary of white debasement’.12 The teachers doing this work were seen as troublemakers who were willing ‘to forgo white society to minister to the needs of another race’.13 For educating the freed slaves, these teachers were harassed, threatened, ostracized and forgotten. Those operating at the college level, although they had higher profiles than those teaching on the secondary level, were all but invisible to their colleagues at white universities and colleges. A similar phenomenon applied to these instructors who – no matter the level their own social origin or quality of their own college education – disappeared almost entirely from white society and from the white academic world as soon as they began working at schools for blacks: ‘a white citizen of Atlanta once asked [Edward A. Ware, the first president of Atlanta University] how he could be willing to live with his wife and children among black people, as he did, to which Mr. Ware promptly replied: “Oh, I can easily explain that; I’m simply color blind.”’14 Other educators who dared to speak out against slavery or denounce violence against blacks from academic positions held at white universities and colleges were also attacked. A good example of this dynamic occurring at a white university is found in the career of the classicist Andrew Sledd (1870-1939) and the so-called ‘Sledd Affair’. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, Sledd completed his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in 1894 at Randolph-Macon College, earned a second master of arts degree in Greek in 1896 at Harvard

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Free at Last! University and a doctorate in Latin from Yale University in 1903. In 1898 Sledd came to Emory College to teach Latin. In 1902 he was riding on a night train which observers thought was transporting a black man accused of murder to jail: ‘at four stations in less than forty miles as many mobs were gathered to mete out summary vengeance to the merely suspected black’.15 This episode and others like it disturbed Sledd and in July 1902 he published an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled ‘The Negro: Another View’ that denounced lynching.16 There he recalled details of the lynching and mutilation of a black man named Sam Hose that occurred in 1898, writing: ‘The burning of Sam Hose took place on a Sabbath Day. One of our enterprising railroads ran two special trains to the scene and two train-loads of men and boys, crowded from cow-catchers to the tops of coaches, were found to go and see the indescribable sickening torture and writhing of a fellow human being. And souvenirs of such scenes are sought – knee caps and finger bones and bloody ears. It is the purest savagery } It is a wild and diabolic carnival of blood.’17 Controversy, fomented by an influential woman called Mrs Rebecca Latimer Felton, erupted over his article. Sledd was verbally assailed on campus and in the newspapers, near and far.18 On 6 August 1902 in a nearby town a ‘crowd of boys made an effigy of Sledd, wrapped its arms around the effigy of a Negro and dragged the two straw figures through Covington behind a horse and wagon’ up to the front of the county courthouse where Sledd’s effigy ‘was strung up in a tree and set ablaze’.19 The following day, at the request of Emory’s president James Dickey, Sledd was forced to resign from his position as professor of Latin. Another classicist who was deeply concerned about slavery came from an earlier generation. This was the abolitionist Charles Dexter Cleveland (1802-1869) who was also educated in New England. Before matriculating at Dartmouth College, Charles had spent his teenage years working in a counting house in Boston. He was no doubt influenced by his father, Reverend Charles Cleveland, who had spent many years involved in various charitable works. As an undergraduate at Dartmouth, young Cleveland wrote ‘an epoch making letter to the faculty of Dartmouth College demanding admission for a student denied it only because of his race’.20 In his junior year, he published The Moral Characters of Theophrastus in the Graeca Majora, and while a senior published An Epitome of Grecian Antiquities.21 After graduating in 1827, Cleveland taught at the Baltimore Classical School for three years, served as professor of Latin and Greek at Dickinson College and later at the City University of New York before settling in as headmaster at the Philadelphia Ladies’ School from 1834 to 1861. As a professional classicist, he published a number of textbooks, including A Compendium of Grecian Antiquities, First Lessons in Greek, Xenophon’s Expedition of Cyrus, a revised edition of Adam’s Latin Grammar, First Lessons in Latin, Second Latin Book, and A Compendium of Classical Literature.22

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ In his An Epitome of Grecian Antiquities, Cleveland opened a chapter entitled ‘Freedmen and Slaves’ by pointing out that the Spartans, while boasting ‘that they were the freest people on earth’, in fact ‘kept their slaves in the greatest subjection’.23 During the years 1844 and 1845, he joined his college friend and cofounder of the Liberty Party, Salmon P. Chase, from Dartmouth’s class of 1826, in speaking out against slavery.24 Chase himself had been admitted to the bar in Ohio in 1829, and after a time had defended so many runaway blacks that he became known as the ‘attorney general for runaway Negroes’.25 Cleveland was involved in the so-called ‘Pearl Incident’ in April 1848, during which time an unsuccessful attempt was made to sail 76 slaves out of Washington, DC via the Potomac River to freedom in northern states.26 Such was Cleveland’s reputation as an educator that according to his son Samuel McCoskry Cleveland ‘[f]or twenty-five years, all the odium that his activity in the Anti-Slavery cause drew upon him did not for a moment abate the public confidence accorded to his professional power’.27 Nonetheless his son also reported that the general populace ‘doomed him to the slow martyrdom of social scorn. They shut doors against him. They elbowed him from every position to which he had a wish or a right, except public respect, and they could not elbow him from that unless they pushed his character from its poise.’28 A year later Cleveland was a participant in another famous case concerning a fugitive slave that came to be known as the Henry ‘Box’ Brown Affair. On 23 March 1849, Cleveland was among those present when Brown arrived in Philadelphia inside a three-by-two foot box that he had used to ship himself out of slavery in Richmond, Virginia to freedom in Philadelphia. The scene of Brown emerging from the box surrounded by a group of onlookers that included Cleveland was immortalized in a lithograph entitled ‘The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown’, made in Boston on 10 January 1850.29 So revered was Cleveland for efforts like these that a new building was named in his honour in 1901 on the campus of Hampton University, Booker T. Washington’s alma mater.30 Called Cleveland Hall, the building was designed as a girls’ dormitory and paid for by Cleveland’s former pupils in Philadelphia. Dedicated on Founders Day in January of 1901, it honoured Cleveland’s labours as ‘an abolitionist } a promoter of the underground railway and a noted anti-slavery orator’.31 Neither Sledd nor Cleveland, however, had direct contact teaching Greek and Latin to students of African descent. But other classicists, whose careers are described below, did. Oberlin College Oberlin College is a very unusual institution, one which from its earliest beginnings in 1833 was willing ‘to experiment with the unconventional principles of equal access to education across lines of class and sex’.32 Just

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Fig. 7.1. Giles W. Shurtleff’s statue in Oberlin, Ohio, designed by Emily Peck and dedicated in 1911 (courtesy of Victoria Karim, Oberlin College).

two years after its founding the board of trustees passed a resolution that ‘the education of the people of colour is a matter of great interest and should be encouraged and sustained in this institution’.33 Thus a number of black students were able to study classical languages at Oberlin, including Richard Theodore Greener (1844-1922), the first black member of the American Philological Association; Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964), who had to convince Oberlin officials to allow her to break the gender barrier and enrol in the men’s classical course in 1881; and the former slave William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926), who in 1881 became the first person of African descent to publish a textbook for ancient Greek and who spent a lifetime teaching classical studies as a professional in the academy. Despite the school’s liberal views, however, Oberlin College did not hire a person of African descent to teach until 1948 when the mathematician Wade Ellis (1909-89) joined the faculty.

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ Even so, Scarborough, who earned his bachelor’s degree at Oberlin in 1875, fondly recalled two of his Greek and Latin professors in his memoirs. These were W.H. Ryder (1842-1918), professor of Greek, and Giles W. Shurtleff (1831-1904), professor of Latin (Fig. 7.1). With the support of prominent black Ohioans, Shurtleff was made Lieutenant Colonel of the 5th regiment of United States Colored Troops during the Civil War.34 In his autobiography, Scarborough transcribed two brief letters of endorsement written by these men for him during his sophomore year. The letters recommended his character and abilities as a part-time tutor.35 He praised Shurtleff as ‘the brilliant Latin teacher’ and Ryder as ‘the learned instructor in Greek’.36 Atlanta University Atlanta University was founded to educate African American students by the American Missionary Association in 1866. Its first three presidents, Edmund Asa Ware, Horace Bumstead and Ware’s son Edward T. Ware, were steeped in the classical curriculum. Each had been educated at Yale University: Ware and Bumstead were classmates who graduated in 1863, and the younger Ware graduated in 1897. Bumstead was one of the Latin teachers at Atlanta University before becoming the school’s president. As Bumstead’s students later recalled, ‘It was a joy to hear him render in beautiful English the translation of a passage in Livy, or Horace, or Virgil }.’37 Several women taught in the normal school which was the name for high school level institutions in the nineteenth century. These include Miss Annadel C. King who was ‘a skilled and exacting teacher of Latin’, but who worked at Atlanta University ‘only nine years’, for the ‘intensity of } devotion to her work, added to health none too robust’, resulted in ‘burning out her life’.38 Another was the sister of the first President Ware, Miss Emma C. Ware, who ‘taught especially the lowest high school class’ and whose ‘especial interest lay in teaching with exact thoroughness the beginners in Latin’.39 Miss Ware taught for two decades and she was remembered as ‘the one teacher for whom nothing could be partly right. Even the mispronunciation of a Latin word brought a zero for the recitation.’40 One of the few women who taught on the collegiate level was Mrs. Robert N. Coates who came to Atlanta University with her husband in 1901 and ‘was in the early years an occasional instructor in college Latin’.41 Another instructor who was on the faculty for two years was Reverend William Merrick Bristoll. A graduate of Yale, class of 1860, Bristoll came to Atlanta University in 1873 as professor of Latin and also as college librarian, but left for reasons of health.42 All college instruction was handled by white men and women like these until 1886 when the first black instructor was hired. This was John Young, who was assigned the

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Fig. 7.2. Cyrus West Francis (Atlanta University Photographs Collection-Individuals, Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center).

Fig. 7.3. Thomas Noyes Chase (Atlanta University Photographs Collection-Individuals, Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center).

teaching of Latin and mathematics on the college level and did so at the school from 1886 to 1890. Two other men teaching on the college level along with Edmund Ware and Horace Bumstead formed what has been called ‘Atlanta University’s quartet’.43 These were Professors Cyrus West Francis (1838-1916) and Thomas Noyes Chase (1838-1912) (Figs 7.2, 7.3). Professor Francis earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1863 and his bachelor of divinity in 1867, both from Yale University. Bumstead and the elder Ware were both his classmates and his friends. Late in 1867 Francis came to Atlanta University and remained associated with the school as a faculty member, pastor and/or librarian until 1894. One of Reverend Francis’ pupils was the former slave Richard R. Wright, Sr. Born around 1853 in Dalton, Georgia, Wright became one of the leading figures of black higher education in the state. Raised for a time by his mother who instilled in her son the value of school, he made his way in considerable hardship to Atlanta with the expressed goal of studying Greek with Reverend Francis at Atlanta University.44 Once there, Wright drew the attention of Francis’s colleague Professor Chase who met Wright in 1869. Chase had earned a bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth in 1862 and was a professor of Greek at Atlanta University from 1869-88. He was ‘precise, practical and positive’ and ‘was so insistent upon the right stress for Greek syllables that his English

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ speech, as his students said, was noticeably affected by the lowering of his head as he scanned Homer’s poetry or pronounced a Greek verb’.45 Chase was impressed with Wright and many years later described him as ‘one of the brightest students Atlanta University has had’ and as ‘its most prominent graduate’ } (he) ‘has come to be the best known and most influential colored man in the state of Georgia, and best of all, he has maintained an untarnished reputation, and his example and teachings have always been on the side of morality and virtue’.46 Wright continued to value the study of classics all his life and as president of Georgia State Industrial College from 1900 to 1921 fought many battles in order to keep Latin in the school’s curriculum.47 Scarborough, too, had memories of both Edmund Ware and Thomas Chase for they were his instructors of Greek in his years at Atlanta University. Chase in fact wrote a letter years later supporting Scarborough’s efforts in 1885 to obtain a position teaching Greek at Howard University.48 Fisk University Atlanta University’s colleague and quondam rival in this educational work was Fisk University, which was founded in Nashville by the American Missionary Association also in 1866. Fisk’s first principal was the classicist Adam K. Spence (1831-1900), a student of the great M.L. D’Ooge (Fig. 7.4). After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1858 at the University of Michigan and teaching varying amounts of Greek, French and Latin for

Fig. 7.4. Adam Knight Spence (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University).

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Fig. 7.5. Mary Elizabeth Spence as a young girl and her friend Mollie [indecipherable] (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University).

twelve years there, he came to Fisk in 1870. He was a champion of Negro education and had ‘no inhibitions as to the limits of the education of Negroes’.49 According to Spence: ‘If the Negro is inferior to whites, give him superior training; if he is superior, give him inferior training; but if equal give him the same.’50 Reflecting years later on the course of his career he mused: ‘Like early navigators, we were out on new seas of discovery. Would we come to the charmed circle beyond which the Negro mind could not go? We would try and when we came to that fatal place, we would stop, not sooner } but we never came to that stopping place.’51 Spence helped establish the college preparatory course at Fisk, and ‘by 1873 there were 9 courses in Latin, 6 in Greek’, making a total of fifteen,

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ a significant number when compared to the eleven courses established to cover the subjects of English, mathematics and history combined.52 Emphasis was clearly placed on the importance of excellent instruction in the classical languages, and according to one of his best known pupils, W.E.B. Du Bois, Spence taught him ‘to know what the Greek language meant’.53 Du Bois, who graduated from Fisk in 1888, proudly declared years later that Fisk University had ‘maintained Greek longer than most northern colleges for the reason that it had in Adam K. Spence, not simply a finished Greek scholar, } but a man of singularly strong personality and fine soul. It did not make much difference whether the students were studying Greek or biology – the great thing was that they were studying under Spence.’54 Of the four children born to Spence and his wife Catherine Mackie Spence, only one, Mary Elizabeth Spence (1865-1962), survived to maturity (Fig. 7.5). She was five years old when she arrived in 1870 in Nashville with her parents. Like the children of other white faculty members she was educated at Fisk. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1887 and her master’s degree in 1892. During her long life spanning 97 years, she was closely associated with every aspect of the Fisk University community.55 Mary Spence followed in her father’s academic footsteps. She was a classicist who taught high school and college classes in both the ‘Normal Department’ and the ‘College Department’ at Fisk.56 She believed firmly in the classical curriculum and was disturbed to see growing emphasis placed on manual training for African American students. In 1915, having heard that Talladega College, Alabama’s oldest historically black college, ‘did not require Greek or Latin for its B.A. degree’ any longer, she wrote in alarm to tell her father’s former pupil W.E.B. Du Bois this. ‘All over the South,’ she said, ‘pressure has been brought to bear in favor of industrial and vocational training.’57 When she retired thirteen years later it was as a professor of Greek. Du Bois’ professor of Latin at Fisk was Helen Clarissa Morgan (18451914) (Fig. 7.6). After earning her bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College in 1866, she joined Fisk’s faculty in 1869, but not under the best conditions: ‘It was only four years after the close of the Civil War. There in rude barracks, which had been built for the soldiers of the Union, she lived and wrought with her fellow teachers, in the face of hostile public sentiment and enduring social ostracism.’58 Morgan taught at Fisk University for 38 years. She was deeply dedicated to her work and became ‘the first woman appointed full professor in a coeducational institution in the country’.59 She wrote a letter of recommendation on behalf of Du Bois, who had earned his bachelor’s degree from Fisk in 1888, to Harvard University’s admissions’ committee. According to one of Du Bois’ biographers, ‘Morgan’s description of Willie’s work in Latin was as detailed as it was enthusiastic, speaking of Willie’s “manliness, faithfulness to duty and earnestness in study”.’60 Professor Morgan never forgot her days at Oberlin College and in 1896

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Fig. 7.6. Helen Clarissa Morgan (courtesy of Special Collections, John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University).

the Oberlin College librarian, Azariah S. Root, noted in his annual report that she had donated to the college library ‘a number of volumes largely in classical subjects’.61 In 1911 Oberlin College awarded her an honorary degree. The official declaration stated: ‘It is eminently fitting that Oberlin College which first among institutions of learning opened the doors of college halls to the Negro should recognize the scholarship which, through a long period of years, has been dedicated with unselfish devotion to the advancement of the negro race. Such honor we gladly pay today [to Miss Helen Morgan] } an unflinching soldier of the common good.’62 In another tribute made the year she died, the author wrote: ‘There are few who have wrought more nobly, or have made a larger contribution to the uplift of a downtrodden race, and to the solution of one of the most serious problems ever set for a nation to solves [sic], than has she.’63 Lincoln University Lincoln University was first chartered by the abolitionist Reverend John Miller Dickey (1806-78) in 1854 as the Ashmun Institute in honour of Jehudi Ashmun (1794-1828). In 1866 its name was changed to honour Abraham Lincoln. According to the school’s first black president, Horace

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ Mann Bond, it was ‘the first institution founded anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent’.64 The school offered Greek and Latin to its students from its inception. During its first three years as Lincoln University, E.R. Bower was professor of Greek and C. Geddes, a tutor in Greek and Latin.65 Along with a number of short-term instructors too numerous to name here, the bulk of the instruction in Greek and Latin was delivered by the following faculty: Gilbert T. Woodhull, Professor of Greek and Latin 1869-70; Charles Avery, Professor of Classics and Hellenistic Greek and New Testament Literature 1870-97; John B. Rendall, Professor of Latin 1871-83; John H. Cassedy, Professor of Latin 1883-1925; Reverend William Hallock Johnson, Charles Avery Professor of Classics and Hellenistic Greek and New Testament Literature 1913-38; Philip Sheridan Miller, Instructor in Latin and Pedagogy 1924-25 and Assistant Professor of Latin and Pedagogy 1925-26; John H. Cassedy, Professor of Latin and Church History 1930-55; and Benjamin Schwartz, John H. Cassedy Associate Professor of Classics 1956-75. During the early years of Professor Woodhull’s and Rendall’s tenure at Lincoln, William Drew Robeson (1845-1918), the father of the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976), was a student. Having escaped from slavery on the Robeson Plantation in North Carolina in 1860 or 1862, he worked his way thorough Lincoln University earning his bachelor’s degree in 1873 and his master’s and a bachelor’s degree in theology in 1876.66 Reverend Robeson was steeped in Lincoln’s classical curriculum and he made certain in later years that his son understood that ‘Latin, Greek, philosophy, history, literature – all the treasures of learning must be the Negro’s heritage as well’.67 As a high school student at Somerville High School in Somerville, New Jersey, Paul would review ‘the day’s lessons in Virgil and Homer’ with his father.68 Professor Miller (1896-1955) was the first faculty member teaching classics at Lincoln to hold a PhD, having written a dissertation entitled ‘Studies in Dionysius the Great of Alexandria’ at the Friedrich-Alexanders-Universität in Erlangen in 1932, and he became a life-time member of the American Philological Association in 1933. In 1949 Miller stepped outside the discipline of Classics to publish an essay entitled ‘Racial and Nationalistic Hurdles in the Teaching of Literature’ in the Journal of Negro History.69 There he pointed out some problems in teaching classics to students of African descent because ‘the influence of race and class is present in the study of literature’.70 Miller showed a level of sensitivity that no Classicist, and few scholars in general, had expressed before in print. He saw the traditional subject matter as ‘essentially the literature of an aristocratic society’, in which ‘the social institution of slavery [was] accepted without apology’.71 ‘Latin has been identified with the genteel tradition’, he wrote, and ‘when John C. Calhoun said that he would recognize the Negro as his equal if, and when, he could master Latin and

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Free at Last! Greek, he was speaking in the genteel tradition’.72 Miller doubted ‘whether the older generation of teachers was conscious of these hurdles. Before our class consciousness and race consciousness became worldwide, students may not have taken to heart the struggles on the pages of Roman History’ in which ‘Spartacus may appear as good and honest to them as M. Licinius Crassus’ or ‘Jugurtha, the African prince, more a hero than Marius’.73 The Classics professor, Miller concluded, ‘must be a humanitarian as well as a humanist guided by the old motto from Terence: Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto (‘I am a man, and I think that nothing human is foreign to me’).’74 By the mid-1970s Lincoln University’s classics programme had suffered a series of cut-backs. Greek was eliminated and the programme was reduced to two years of Latin. Conclusion The anti-slavery and abolitionist movement in New England inspired many educators, including these classicists, to take action. It ‘produced not only a “type,” but also a “will,” and this still ingenuous portion [of educators] believed devoutly in the New England common school and in the New England college as the indispensable instruments of civilization’.75 They were, to quote W.E.B. Du Bois, ‘radical in their belief in Negro possibility’ and refused to accept race prejudice or be deterred from their educational work.76 The Greek and Latin teachers surveyed here were instrumental in laying the foundation for this humane attitude in the United States. By the turn of the century, according to Du Bois, ‘the black colleges had “trained in Greek and Latin and Mathematics, 2,000 men; and these men trained full 50,000 others in morals and manners, and they in turn taught thrift and the alphabet to nine millions of men } in a single generation they put thirty thousand black teachers in the South” and “wiped out the illiteracy of the majority of the black people of the land”’.77 William Sanders Scarborough, participant and witness to this history, recalled those in the vanguard as ‘cultured, sympathetic, self-sacrificing men and women who left homes of comfort and ease to help a newly freed people to acquire all they could give, yes, more than this – to endure ostracism, insult and calumny } I’ve often wondered in passing years who among ourselves today would face for the race all that these brave people faced in that trying period.’78 Acknowledgement of the contributions made by these men and women by their modern-day counterparts, the academicians of today, including those in Classics and in other fields, has been long overdue. Notes 1. The phrase ‘saintly souls’ comes from Du Bois 1903, 64: ‘This was the gift of New England to the freed Negro } [which] saintly souls brought to their favored

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ children in the crusade of the sixties, that finest thing in American history, and one of the few things untainted by sordid greed and cheap vainglory.’ 2. These are the last five lines of the canto, found within the greater poem ‘Autumn Journal’, first published in 1939, and can be found now in Dodds 1967, 29-30. 3. See Genovese 1992, 16-17 and 60-8 on the debate between those (such as George Tucker and James Henley Thornwell) who promoted the idea of gradual emancipation and thereby the eventual dismantlement of slavery in the South, and those (such as Calvin Wiley and James Lyon) who used racial and textual arguments to defend the practice of cradle-to-grave dependency of the African slave. 4. Basler 1955, 1: 411-12. 5. For more on this topic see Waterbury 1890, Swint 1966, Small 1979 and Strane 1990. 6. Small 1979, 389. 7. Small 1979, 381. 8. Hoffman 2003, 120-1. 9. For information on black Classicists who taught black students see Gold 2000, Ronnick 2005, and Walters 2007. Both William Scarborough (First Lessons in Greek, 1881) and Helen Chesnutt (The Road to Latin, 1939) published textbooks for their students’ use. 10. Hoffman 2003, 121. 11. McPherson 1975, 207. 12. Small, 1979, 389. 13. Small, 1979, 385. 14. Towns 1942, 118. 15. Sledd 1902, 71. 16. In April 2002, Emory University hosted a symposium concerning Sledd’s actions entitled ‘Professing Justice: A Symposium on the Civil Rights Legacy of Professor Andrew Sledd’. See Reed 1988 and Arnold 2009. 17. Sledd 1902, 70. 18. Arnold 2009, 35-7. 19. Reed 1988, 476. 20. Lockhart 1994, 102. 21. Cleveland 1826 and 1827. 22. Cleveland 1854, 1832, 1835, 1836a, 1836b, 1845, and 1861. 23. Cleveland 1827, 48. 24. For their words see the collection by Cleveland and Chase 1867. 25. Niven 1995, 78. 26. Pacheco 2005, 66-70. 27. Pacheco 2005, 68. 28. Still 1872, 727. 29. Ernest 2008, 118. 30. The building is known today as Virginia-Cleveland Hall. It is a dormitory for freshman girls and also houses student dining facilities. 31. Anon. 1901, 2. 32. Horton 1985, 477. 33. Horton 1985, 477. 34. Washington 1991, 18-20. 35. Scarborough 2005, 51-2. 36. Scarborough 2005, 53.

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Free at Last! 37. Towns 1942, 129-30. 38. Adams 1930, 64. 39. Adams 1930, 58-9. 40. Towns 1942, 133. 41. Adams 1930, 63-4. 42. Adams 1930, 87. 43. Adams 1930, 59. 44. Haynes 1952, 32, 33, 45, 48. 45. Towns 1942, 122. 46. Kletzing and Crogman 1902, 517. 47. Patton 1980, 572-4, et passim. 48. Scarborough 2005, 41, 354. 49. Patterson 1956, 245. 50. Lewis 1993, 59. 51. Patterson 1956, 245-6. 52. Patterson 1956, 245. 53. Lewis 1993, 64. 54. Du Bois 1918, 174. Spence Hall, the Student Union Building at Fisk University, was named in Spence’s honour in 1959. 55. The African American scholar John Wesley Work, Jr. (1871-1925) mentioned both of them in the introduction to his book Folk Song of the American Negro (1915) for their interest in and promotion of the musical arts. Work himself was a classicist. After earning his bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and his master’s degree in 1898 from Fisk, he taught Latin and Greek there from 1906-23. 56. Anon. 1905, 31-40. 57. Lewis 1993, 549. 58. H.T.M. 1914, 5, 8. 59. Lewis 1993, 59. 60. Lewis 1993, 76, continues: ‘Morgan’s careful comments track[ed] her student through the twenty-first book of Livy, 5/5ths (sic) of the Odes of Horace, 3 satires, 3 of the shorter Epistles and the entire Ars Poetica, and the Agricola of Tacitus.’ 61. Root 1897, 7. 62. Anon. 1911, 378, 380. 63. H.T.M. 1914, 5. 64. Bond 1976, 3. 65. Information about Lincoln University’s faculty, unless otherwise noted, comes from the online catalogue listings provided by The Langston Hughes Memorial Library, Special Collections found at: http://www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/index.html (accessed May 2010). 66. Brown 1997, 10, 15. 67. Brown 1997, 17. 68. Duberman 1988, 16. 69. Miller 1949. 70. Miller 1949, 137. 71. Miller 1949, 136. 72. Miller 1949, 137. 73. Miller 1949, 136. 74. Miller 1949, 137; Ter. Haut. 1.1.77. 75. Bond 1966, 358. 76. McPherson 1975, 223.

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ 77. McPherson 1975, 223. 78. Scarborough 2005, 37-8.

Bibliography Adams, M. (1930) History of Atlanta University (Atlanta). Anon. (1901) ‘New Hall at Hampton, Dedicated Yesterday – Named in Honor of Charles D. Cleveland’, New York Times (29 January): 2. Anon. (1905) Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Fisk University, 1904-1905 (Nashville). Arnold, E.T. (2009) ‘What Virtue There Is in Fire’: Cultural Memory and the Lynching of Sam Hose (Athens). Basler, R.P. (ed.) (1955) The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick). Bond, H.M. (1966) The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (New York). Bond, H.M. (1976) Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania (Princeton). Brown, L.L. (1997) The Young Paul Robeson: On My Journey Now (Boulder). Chesnutt, H. (1949) The Road to Latin: A First-year Latin Book (Philadelphia) Cleveland, C.D. (1826) The Moral Characters of Theophrastus, in the Graeca Majora, Literally Translated into English. To Which are Subjoined Explanatory and Philological Notes (Andover). Cleveland, C.D. (1827) An Epitome of Grecian Antiquities (Boston). Cleveland, C.D. (1833) First Lessons in Greek: Upon the Plan of the ‘First Lessons in Latin’ (Boston). Cleveland, C.D. (1835) Xenophon’s Expedition of Cyrus, with English notes, prepared for the use of schools and colleges, with a life of the author (Boston). Cleveland, C.D. (1836a) Adam’s Latin Grammar: with numerous additions and improvements, designed to aid the more advanced student by fuller elucidations of the Latin classics (Philadelphia). Cleveland, C.D. (1836b) First Lessons in Latin (Boston). Cleveland, C.D. (1845) Second Latin Book. Being the first part of Jacobs’ and Döring’s ‘Elementarbuch,’ or Latin reader, with an enlarged and critical vocabulary and notes adapted to the author’s Latin grammar (Philadelphia). Cleveland, C.D. (1854) A Compendium of Grecian Antiquities (Philadelphia). Cleveland, C.D. (1861) A Compendium of Classical Literature (Philadelphia). Cleveland, C.D. and S.P. Chase (1867) Anti-slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845 (Philadelphia). Dodds, E.R. (ed.) (1967) Collected Poems: Louis MacNeice (New York). Du Bois, W.E.B. (1903) Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago). Du Bois, W.E.B. (1911) Quest for the Silver Fleece (Chicago). Du Bois, W.E.B. (1918) ‘Negro Education’, The Crisis 15:173-8. Duberman, M.B. (1988) Paul Robeson (New York). Ernest, J. (ed.) (2008) Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself (Chapel Hill). Genovese, E.D. (1992) The Slaveholders’ Dilemma: Freedom and Progress in Southern Conservative Thought, 1820-1860 (Columbia). Gold, B.K. (2000) ‘She Heard the Gates of the Temple of Learning Clang as They Closed’, CW 94: 67-71. H.T.M. (1914) ‘Tribute to Miss Morgan’, The Oberlin News (27 May): 5, 8.

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Free at Last! Haynes, E.R. (1952) The Black Boy of Atlanta (Boston). Hoffman, N. (2003) Woman’s ‘True’ Profession, Voices from the History of Teaching (Cambridge, MA). Horton, J.O. (1985) ‘Black Education at Oberlin College: A Controversial Commitment’, Journal of Negro Education 54: 477-99. Kletzing, H.F and W.H. Crogman (1902) Progress of a Race: or, The remarkable advancement of the Afro-American Negro from the bondage of slavery, ignorance and poverty, to the freedom of citizenship, intelligence, affluence, honor and trust (Naperville, IL). Lewis, D.L. (1993) W.E.B. Du Bois Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (New York). Lockhart, P.N. (1994) ‘Cleveland, Charles Dexter’, in W.W. Briggs, Jr. (ed.) Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists (Westport, CT) 102-3. McPherson, J.M. (1975) The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (Princeton). Miller, P.S. (1949) ‘Racial and Nationalistic Hurdles in the Teaching of Literature’, Journal of Negro History 18: 134-7. Niven, J. (1995) Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (New York). Pacheco, J.F. (2005) The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac (Chapel Hill). Patterson, J.N. (1956) ‘A Study of the History of the Contribution of the American Missionary Association to the Higher Education of the Negro’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University). Patton, J.O. (1980) ‘Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr., and Black Higher Education in Georgia, 1880-1920’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Chicago). Reed, Jr., R.E. (1988) ‘Emory College and the Sledd Affair of 1902: A Case Study in Southern Honor and Racial Attitudes’, Georgia Historical Quarterly 72: 463-92. Ronnick, M.V. (2005) ‘Introduction’, in Scarborough 2005, 1-22. Root, A. (1897) Annual Report of the Librarian of Oberlin College for the Year Ending August 31, 1896 (Oberlin). Scarborough, W.S. (1881) First Lessons in Greek: adapted to the Greek grammars of Goodwin and Hadley, and designed as an introduction to Xenophon’s Anabasis and similar Greek (New York). Scarborough, W.S. (2005) The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship (Detroit). Sledd, A. (1902) ‘The Negro: Another View’, The Atlantic Monthly 90: 65-73. Small, S.E. (1979) ‘The Yankee Schoolmarm in Freedmen’s Schools: An Analysis of Attitudes’, The Journal of Southern History 45: 381-402. Still, W. (1872) Underground Railroad: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c., narrating the hardships, hair-breadth escapes, and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom, as related by themselves and others or witnessed by the author: together with sketches of some of the largest stockholders and most liberal aiders and advisers of the road (Philadelphia). Strane, S. (1990) A Whole-Souled Woman: Prudence Crandall and the Education of Black Women (New York). Swint, H.L. (ed.) (1966) Dear Ones at Home; Letters from Contraband Camps (Nashville). Towns, G. (1942) ‘The Sources of the Tradition of Atlanta University’, Phylon 3: 117-34.

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7. ‘Saintly Souls’ Walters, T.L. (2007) African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition. Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison (New York). Washington, V.F. (1991) Eagles on Their Buttons: A Black Infantry Regiment in the Civil War (Columbia). Waterbury, M. (1890) Seven Years Among the Freedmen (Chicago). Work, Jr., J.W. (1915) Folk Song of the American Negro (Nashville).

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8

Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? Eleanor Winsor Leach While travelling on the Via Tiburtina, the Younger Pliny has come upon a vintage monument, a bronze tablet inscribed with a senatorial tribute to the freedman Pallas who had served as secretary a rationibus to the Emperor Claudius. The opening of a letter to his colleague Julius Montanus prescribes what his responses should be: ‘You will laugh, then you will fume, then you will laugh if you’ve read what, without reading, you’d not be able to believe’ (ridebis, deinde indignaberis, deinde rideberis, si legeris quod nisi legeris non potes credere: Plin. Ep. 7.29.1). Whether Montanus does or does not engage in the predicted alteration of responses, he must inevitably read the inscription because Pliny has incorporated its brief text into the letter: ‘To this man by reason of his fidelity and respect toward patrons, the Senate decreed praetorian regalia and a hundred fifty thousand sesterces, and he was satisfied with the honour of this’ (huic senatus ob fidem pietatemque erga patronos ornamenta praetoria decrevit et sestertium centies quinquagies, cuius honore contentus fuit: Ep. 7.29.2). The implicit significance of Pallas’ gesture seems clear. The Senate has effectively demeaned him by offering money alongside its praetorian decree, but Pallas has countered and sought to salvage his status by taking the honour without the cash. If Pliny does get this significance, he will in no way allow it. But is Pliny really laughing? At least not in the flow of socio-political polemic that follows in which he himself degrades the honour by assigning it to fortune rather than to judgment, and then pronouncing at length: ‘Especially this inscription reminds me how flimsy and foolish were these [honours] that upon occasion were tossed into this mud hole, into this cess-pit, and which in the end the scoundrel had the effrontery to receive and reject and even to produce for future generations as an example of restraint’ (maxime tamen me titulus admonuit, quam essent mimica et inepta, quae interdum in hoc caenum, in has sordes abicerentur, quae denique ille furcifer et recipere ausus et recusare, atque etiam ut moderationis exemplum posteris prodere: Ep. 7.29.3). With the words me titulus admonuit Pliny notes the appeal to memory as pretending to construct an exemplum. But how will Montanus react? Will he ask why the item merits so vehement a reaction (sed quid indignor)? Returning to his initial succession of laughter and indignation, Pliny

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? resolves the dichotomy. Laughter is the only appropriate response, by which token the example should stand as a warning to any one of Pallas’ class who might be deriving inspiration from such a charade. Although Pliny strives for dramatic immediacy, one may wonder about the novelty of his discovery when we see that he might easily have heard of this monument and its establishment from his uncle, who mentions and explains its sponsorship in a passage concerning the particular kind of soil that is used to whiten the feet of slaves on the block: There is another cretaceous earth called silversmiths’ powder as used for polishing silver; but the most inferior kind is the one which our ancestors made it the practice to use for tracing the line indicating victory in circusraces and for marking the feet of slaves on sale that had been imported from overseas } Such is the mark set on these herds of slaves for sale and the disgrace attached to us by capricious fortune! – persons whom even we have seen risen to such power that we actually beheld the honour of the praetorship awarded to them by decree of the Senate at the bidding of Claudius Caesar’s wife Agrippina, and all but sent back with the rods of office wreathed in laurels to the place from which they came to Rome with their feet whitened with white earth! (HN 35.201).

Of course Pliny’s devotion to his uncle can scarcely be expected to recall every small detail in his writings, but the overlapping reference to ‘capricious fortune’ (insolentis fortunae), if not a recollection, does at least indicate that social attitudes of uncle and nephew are shared. Is this, then, the sum of Pliny’s opinion of freedmen? Two letters of Book 9 reveal thinking of a different sort. In the first of these Pliny writes to Sabinianus in an attempt to mediate a stand-off between his correspondent and a freedman who has made a touchingly dramatic appeal: Your freedman, with whom you had said you were enraged, came to me, and casting himself down at my feet, clung to them as if they were yours. Much weeping; much begging; even much suppressed. All in all he made me the pledge of true penitence since he is aware of his failing.1

In taking up this appeal, Pliny’s strategy is not to reproach Sabinianus, but rather to cajole him by acknowledging not only his right to be angry with a freedman but also the validity of his reason. The fellow has done some wrong. Acknowledging Sabinianus’ moral superiority allows Pliny to plead on the humane grounds of the relationship between a patron and his dependent. Such a relationship makes forgiveness the more laudable when the cause of anger is righteous. Furthermore the man is young; he has been weeping; continued implacability will be a torment to both parties, and now Pliny adds his own qualified pleas to those of the penitent: ‘I fear that I may seem not to ask but to compel, if to his prayers I join my own, however I will join them the more fully and effusively the more sharply and gravely I admonished him having warned with threats

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Free at Last! that I would never ask again’ (vereor ne videar non rogare sed cogere, si precibus eius meas iunxero; iungam tamen tanto plenius et effusius, quanto ipsum acrius severiusque corripui, destricte minatus numquam me postea rogaturum: Ep. 9.21.4). Of course we know that Pliny is an effective advocate, and this little sample of his technique produces its desired result. Letter 9.24 applauds Sabinianus on his reception of the ‘well-loved’ freedman with attendant praises of his susceptibility to Pliny’s constructive good influence and a little homily on preserving domestic concord. But the Pallas letter also has its sequel of a different sort. Indignation does not rest but seeks further incitement propelling Pliny to the senatorial archive to discover the story behind the story: ‘Afterwards it seemed to me a worthwhile enterprise to go in search of the senatorial decree itself. I discovered it to be so lavish and verbose that the boastful inscription seemed modest and even diffident’ (Postea mihi visum est pretium operae ipsum senatus consultum quaerere. Inveni tam copiosum et effusum ut ille superbissimus titulus modicus atque etiam demissus videretur: Ep. 8.6.2). The Livian echo in visum est pretium operae declares that Pliny is turning historian in the most professional manner as he visits the source of what was said and sanctioned, where he finds a complex record of postures and gestures that fire his indignation all the more. No wonder that the tribute went to a slave, he declares, for those who offered it were themselves ‘slaves’ (quippe offeruntur a servis: Ep. 8.6.4). A detailed account follows of tribute heaped upon tribute until the culminating shame of the monetary negotiations is to be told (iam quae sequuntur? Ep. 8.6.8). In a rhetorical flourish of enargeia, Pliny now re-creates the disgraceful scene revealing the three parties with reversed dignity: ‘imagine Pallas, } imagine Caesar, } imagine the senate!’ (imaginare Pallantem, } imaginare Caesarem } imaginare senatum: Ep. 8.6.11). But, does Montanus think it ends here? In no way. Just wait to hear even more outrage (Ep. 8.6.13: Finem existimas? Mane dum et maiora accipe). As he winds up to the predictable conclusion – ‘how fortunate are we not to be living in such shameful times’ – he tests Montanus’ response to the narrative, ‘I doubt not that you feel as I do’ (non dubito similiter adfici te: Ep. 8.6.17). How effectively, he might seem to be asking, has he told the story? Indeed, shameful times are the real point of the story, for it is not really Pallas the person who fires Pliny’s indignation, but the power with which Claudius had invested him and the acquiescence of the Senate in respecting this power.2 Added to this was his awareness that Pallas could easily refuse the monetary donation of the Senate because he was notoriously rich. For Pliny this is patronage misdirected which allows the patronized to prevail over the patron, while the structure of interdependencies exemplified by the abject freedman’s appeal, in Pliny’s advocacy and Sabinianus’ concession, can be seen as a model of decorous patronage. Pliny defames Pallas as muck (caenum), filth (sordes) and a reprobate (furcifer), and although this last is a common term of comic abuse, he scarcely intends it to be funny.

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? Yet just as he does not ordinarily indulge in such language in his letters, Pliny also does not ordinarily condemn freedmen generically as a class. Rather he takes them for granted as an established social institution. Elsewhere his sentiments are akin to what he reveals in the Sabinianus letters. In a complicated judicial assessment on the fate of the freedmen in the household of Afranius Dexter who was found dead of undetermined causes, he argues for acquittal over and against the alternative punishments of execution or relegation (a form of exile).3 He himself practices manumission and in another letter to his grandfather-in-law Calpurnius Fabatus he praises the generous manumission that will add new citizens to Como (Ep. 7.32). He even has a somewhat back-handed policy of equalizing freedman guests at table. No, as he tells his correspondent, he does not differentiate class by the quality of food or drink served; when he invites freedmen to dinner, he drinks the same wine that he gives to them – naturally not the most expensive (Ep. 2.6). What of course he does not tell is what kind of freedmen these might be, and in what relationship to himself: intellectuals? agents? personal administrators? The complexities of Pliny’s judgments about and regard for Roman freedmen are indicative of the many ways the class had assimilated itself into Roman society; they had become indispensable enough to earn accommodation and leniency provided that they observed the decorum of hierarchy and rank. To broaden the literary spectrum of these observations, Pliny’s dinners with freedmen seem a more sober variety of the excessive egalitarian impulses ubiquitous at the most famous of all dinner parties involving freedmen, and the one that has for decades established the persona of the freedman in cultural imagination: the banquet staged by Trimalchio as seen through the eyes of Encolpius, Petronius’ narrator in the Satyrica. Whereas an essay by William Arrowsmith argued sympathetically for the freedman as an understandable human being, sympathetic in the insecurities expressed by the recurrent memento mori theme in house and decoration, the study most influential in shaping the course of subsequent scholarship has been Paul Veyne’ s article ‘Vie de Trimalchion’.4 Although his real purpose was to refute certain of M.I. Rostovteff’s proposals concerning the development of a bourgeois capitalist economy in the early empire, Veyne’s analysis had the far-reaching effect of calling attention to the freedman’s ambivalent social position caught in a borderland between slavery and citizenship, being released from the humiliation of the former, yet restricted in the ways in which the privileges of the latter state could be utilized. ‘The freedman’s rank,’ as he observed, ‘is a transient condition that he neither inherits nor passes on to his descendants. Rather the class is one that reformulates itself with every generation.’5 Although untouched by any egalitarian sympathy for Trimalchio, Veyne’s focus on his representative profile has made him ever since a pivotal figure in investigation of freedmen. But one feature of Veyne’s essay has perhaps been more influential than it should be when he

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Free at Last! proposes to consider Trimalchio as a ‘real person and place his biography among others given by this epoch. The Satyricon will appear as profoundly realistic, and even typical; it is an excellent historical document.’6 While his designation of ‘real person’ was in fact only a hypothetical way of considering this fictional freedman’s economic success, unfortunately the label itself seems literally to have stuck to all aspects of the person with an unfortunate extension to all members of his class. So for Jane Whitehead, Trimalchio’s self-presentation is a ‘biography’ and the Cena Trimalchionis is pure and simple a satire on the freedman class.7 Such evaluations lay the ground for Lauren Hackworth Petersen to characterize the overall purpose of her Freedman in Roman Art and Art History as ‘liberating the Roman freed slave from Trimalchio’s grip’.8 She pursues her aim in a variety of ways, but largely by exploding the concept of a crude or tasteless ‘freedman style,’ as she shows how the richly decorated House of the Vettii or the marble monuments on the Via Sepolcro couch their visual messages in terms of common Roman culture.9 With emphasis on work and social contribution, her analysis draws heavily upon visual evidence to demonstrate the class-pride of freedmen in many varieties of occupation and at diverse levels of prosperity from the Augustales of Campania to the humble working persons of the Isola Sacra necropolis. Although many interpreters have thought that the appropriate way to discuss these forms of material culture is by likening them to objects described in the Satyrica, Petersen’s straightforward view not only brings out the considerable artistic appeal of the monuments but also works to contextualize their significance within a larger framework of Roman social institutions. She guides us toward an understanding of the individual and collective identities of freedmen in their own terms of definition. Proceeding from similar premises, the scholars represented in this volume attempt to go a few steps further and extend their reach more broadly beyond single monuments. It is a commonplace in essays on the topic that direct evidence in the form of discursive self-presentation by freedpersons is lacking, yet the essays in this volume attempt to surmount that very challenge by asking whether we can indeed see freedmen as they saw themselves either individually or collectively. How freeborn Romans respond to freedmen and to their social integration proves instructive regarding the structure of their society, especially as the Roman Empire faces the challenge of absorbing exterior elements. The social importance of freed slaves comes across as a primary issue in this collection to which the majority of these essays aim to give optimistic – or at least constructive – answers, working from the premise that gaining a better understanding of the freedperson is partially a matter of looking more inquisitively at the evidence for their lives and activities. In some cases this involves the employment of somewhat unfamiliar material, and in some cases the interpretation of well known material from new

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? perspectives. In both approaches material culture is of critical importance, along with current approaches to material culture as a repository of social information. In contrast to the approaches in Petersen’s work or in the collection edited by Eve D’Ambra and Guy Metraux, this project sees defending the artistry of the monuments as less important than reading the social messages they encode.10 In this collection I see two different modes of perceiving social integration. Network theory – as defined in Pauline Ripat’s piece – is a currently popular way of examining the directions of communication and influences within social structures. Whereas she applies the concept as a template for speculation about the movement of information up the social hierarchy (especially as she finds suggested in the Commentariolarum Petitionis), the concept can also be applied to Koenraad Verboven’s study of the importance of freed slaves to the Roman economy. These combined approaches show freedmen primarily from an external point of view as conveyors of goods and services, both tangible and intangible. The second mode is the way in which the solidarity of freedmen and their inter-identification as a class can be perceived in a sense of community. Here we may come closer to penetrating an interior view of the freedman’s world. As Teresa Ramsby shows, such an atmosphere colours the fictive gathering around Trimalchio; Carlos Galvao-Sobrinho investigates the instinct for defining group identity that prompted slaves and freedmen to unite their final destinies in the columbaria that flourished from the late Republic through the Augustan age. In her essay, Ramsby counterbalances two kinds of perception – that of ourselves as readers against the visions implied within the novel itself. Her essay reminds us to read the literary portrait from a literary point of view, and thus she does not simply set out to liberate freedmen from Trimalchio, but rather to liberate Trimalchio himself, by indicating that he is not simply a fictive representation of a stereotypical rich Roman freedman but rather a representation of a fictive narrator’s view of a rich Roman freedman, layered with satirical caricatures of élite social customs, and perhaps even those of the imperial court. Although the contemporary reader cannot help seeing certain features in the rich description of Trimalchio’s surroundings and habits as bizarre, especially the highly orchestrated program of service with its seemingly endless succession of elaborately contrived platters, we need to understand these details as inventions of the fiction not necessarily snapshots of real customs, whose satirical import is directed at customs in general rather than freedmen as a class. Most scholars are able to place the overdone menu within the traditions of food satire, going back at least to Varro’s Menippeans, but previously best represented in Horace’s second satire by Catius, the enthusiastic cooking school disciple (Sat. 2.4), and by the pretentious banquet of the socially ambitious Nasidienus (Sat. 2.8). In Lindsey Davis’ latest novel the

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Free at Last! roast boar stuffed with sausages comes to the banquet table under the name of ‘Trojan Hog’.11 We should also understand the musical and balletic features of the evening within a context where spectacle was virtually an expected feature of a hospitable entertainment. Pliny always entertains his dinner guests with tastefully chosen readings, but allows that some persons may be bored by these and prefer a more energetic performance, perhaps by a few Spanish dancers (Ep. 1.15). In letter 9.17 he writes to a friend (Julius Genitor) who has found a dinner party noisome because of the wits, catamites and clowns walking around the tables. The dinner may sound a little less organized, perhaps, than Trimalchio’s pageants, and more unsettling than amusing, but Pliny sees reason to apologize for the host on the grounds that persons should be allowed to indulge their personal tastes. Other matters seen through the eyes of Encolpius (the narrator) are more ambiguous: why do the signs declaring household rules and social engagements face outwards? Ramsby goes beyond previous scholars in mediating the perspective by which Encolpius shapes a view of Trimalchio and his fellows, revealing himself to be not only (in novelistic terms) the personally unreliable narrator that Zeitlin famously saw in him,12 but also an alien intruder into an environment which he considers it his prerogative to exploit. Because there is no hierarchical aristocrat at the summit of this social pyramid, Encolpius feels justified in claiming this place for himself. He resembles to some degree Pliny’s fastidious friend, Julius Genitor, in the above-mentioned letter whose host, it is worth noting, was probably not of the freedman rank, which in turn reminds us that highly placed élite members of society could also exhibit poor taste at dinner parties. As Ramsby grants, Encolpius is an attentive observer. We must take his descriptions of persons and material culture as a given, and as aspects of the book’s famous verisimilitude; they may be exaggerated, but they are not to be ascribed to the narrator’s imagination – they are what Petronius gives him to see. Yet Petronius also gives him responses that can easily cut backwards and turn the satire upon the kind of pretentious observer that he himself is. Although we can have no notion on what basis of experience Petronius could sketch so many detailed cameo images of the dinner guests, their combined interactions put together the pieces of a coherent social world. In considering these interactions and the philosophies revealed by the conversation – a remarkable piece of social journalism – Ramsby notices how the speakers, in contrast with Encolpius’ parasitical rootlessness, are contributing members of society. While Trimalchio does seem to stand somewhat apart from his peers within the confines of his highly organized household, the freedmen convey a sense of lives engaged within a time and a place. Their talk ranges over the entire spectrum of local affairs from education to prices to politics. Perhaps their opinionated pronouncements on the conduct of their aediles do bear out

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? Ripat’s speculation that non-élites might have something to tell their social superiors concerning their popular reputations. As a basis for demographic calculations, Verboven’s inscriptions tell us more than other sources about the growing population. The relative percentages of freedpersons engaged in commerce and within the population in general are surprising, although Verboven cautions that the difference in burial customs among classes may weight the preponderance of proportions inaccurately toward freedmen. Evidence also attests to the integration of this population, although the presence of freed-slave-descendants in the governing bodies should not be confused with their forebears whose distinction was limited to the office seviri Augustales. Verboven coincides with and expands Ramsby’s observations on the professional identities of freedpersons with abundant evidence from funerary inscriptions. In the first place, as he points out, it was most frequently the mastery of some skill or trade that gained persons their freedom and continued to be the basis of their identity thereafter. Thus he shows that the kinds of pride revealed in the banquet conversation are also documented in material culture. Among his peers Habinnas the stone-mason stands out for his command of a socially important profession. Ramsby calls attention to his presence as the most distinguished member of Trimalchio’s circle and gives him a meta-representational significance as the agent of memory with capability to facilitate the immortality that Trimachio, like all Romans, desires. Verboven observes that skilled professions are the most likely to be recorded or illustrated in inscriptions, as Galvao-Sobrinho notes with reference to the specialized identities recorded in the tituli of household staff members in Livia’s columbarium. Additionally, Marc Kleijwegt notes in his essay the four enterprising freedwomen who set up a kitchen in connection with a religious sanctuary in Gaul. For corroborating examples, one might look to the terracotta depictions on the tombs of Isola Sacra: the often depicted midwife and her less well-known husband the surgeon; the knife-maker at his forge and the harbour boatman in his skiff.13 Ripat claims that relationships trump economic resources as a source of power, and that might be true in the political realm she addresses. But in terms of the day-to-day life of Roman society, as Verboven’s essay makes clear, the employment of freed persons in responsible positions pervaded all areas of Roman life, from rhetorical instruction to financial contracting. As Veyne pointed out, however, freedmen can be subject to exploitation; Trimalchio’s situation is unusual and ‘unique in his independence, having inherited a fortune from his former master and having no living patron’.14 Verboven notes the several kinds of dependence under which freedmen may operate,15 but he argues that legal limitations on the kind of authority a patron may exercise keep the obligations from being oppressive, while he notes the ways in which continuing relationships between patron and libertinus can be mutually beneficial. Galvao-Sobrinho cites a study of

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Free at Last! freed slaves in modern Africa indicating that group attachments and hierarchy in liberation stand guard against withdrawal into an autonomy that can be dangerous within the society. From the patron’s point of view, continuing dependency often involves retaining the skills for which a freedman has been trained. Educating slaves, as Verboven notes, is an expensive investment, and may present owners with a dilemma to which manumission is one solution. Even so mortality casts an ever-present shadow. Both Cicero and Pliny give evidence for this, as Cicero worries about Tiro (Fam. 16.15) and Pliny expresses concern for the health of Encolpius, a libertus who is his golden-voiced reader (Ep. 8.1: the poor fellow’s symptoms sound distinctly tubercular). Freedwomen may also want to be remembered for their occupations, as scholarship of recent decades has shown, perhaps most notably by Natalie Kampen.16 Although we have little evidence about their education, Kleijwegt’s four women who established a kitchen must have learned their skills in some previous establishment, but this kind of evidence is somewhat unusual. The epigraphical portrait of Acilia Plecusa with which Kleijwegt begins his essay is an excellent example of social networking. As Kleijwegt indicates it is commonly their marriages that give freedwomen visibility, often as part of a mutually freed couple, but at times an unequal match. As a freedwoman who married her equestrian patron, Acilia achieved sufficient status within her community to be granted sponsorship of honorary inscriptions not only for her husband but also the upper-class fellow citizens whom she calls amicus and amica. About the lady’s back-story, Kleijwegt is cautious, finding no evidence for a substantial civic benefaction although a large tomb bespeaks wealth. Where did the money come from? Even freedwomen may have found their commercial niches, and Kleijwegt cites the Claudian bounty to ship-owners as a possible source of freedwomen’s wealth. Trimalchio admits to involving his wife in his shipping ventures, although not in her own name, and Naevolia Tyche of Pompeii who outlived her husband Faustus, has placed a ship on the side of his marble monument set up outside the Herculaneum gate.17 More explicitly than his fellow scholars Kleijwegt does remind us that manumission might have its downside. Even such an apparently successful libertina as Acilia Plecusa raises questions. How readily did she, in her unequal marriage situation, find the social acceptance that would allow her to fulfil the role of a Roman matron? Kleijwegt realistically takes up the restrictions on married freedwomen that place them in a somewhat different, borderland grey-zone from their male counterparts. Because their lives are so difficult to reconstruct from our vestigial epigraphical and portrait evidence, he turns to slave-holding societies of later periods. Both in ancient and in more recent slave-holding societies, owners were self-serving in encouraging their slaves to be prolific and profitable. And we must not forget that manumission would not have brought joy when it resulted, as it often did, in the separation of families. Specific anecdotal

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? examples from American society show numerous instances of family members partitioned among different households or estates. Although Roman sources give only inferential evidence on this topic, Kleijwegt points to inscriptions with different nomenclature to suggest the rearing of children in different households. Is it then surprising that Roman funerary monuments seldom show more than two offspring of a freed family and more commonly only one? In fact the prosperous contractor family of the Haterii produced several children, but few would seem to have survived childhood. Another complication into which he gives insight is masters who retract their promises of manumission or heirs to an estate who fail to fulfil the pledges of the deceased. Pliny gives one case in this Roman world, concerning the arbitration of a woman’s will that attempted to bequeath a legacy to a slave who had not been properly manumitted; over objections from some co-heirs he argued that the intention of the deceased should be respected and the legatee both manumitted and given his inheritance (Ep. 4.10). But not everything was dependent on the former master. As two essays in this collection especially point out, funerals and final resting places were carefully planned by members of the freed slave population. Looking back to Petronius for a moment, we note that Trimalchio’s tomb-plan is individualized and its iconographical components add up to a life-story. Galvao-Sobrinho and Borg give insights into this lasting presence in their respective discussions of funerary custom and monuments of diametrically different types, on the one hand the burial communities of large columbaria and on the other the individual portrait tombs constructed for small family groups. Interestingly their chronologies are partially overlapping, and they coincide with developments in the social hierarchy of late Republic and Augustan periods which saw an increase in the size of aristocratic slave-owning households, but also an increase in the prosperity of freedpersons. Of the two kinds of commemoration, columbaria are perhaps the less familiar to students of Roman culture. Even among slaves, as Galvao-Sobrinho points out, a funeral is a sociable event. A good funeral gives prestige to the deceased and survivors alike. Manes (‘spirits of the dead’) preserve identity across classes, and funerary feasts provide for renewed social interaction among the living even as their recurrence keeps the dead happily alive in the company of their familiares (‘friends and kin’). Galvao-Sobrinho focuses on the phenomenon of columbaria as an index of social changes with emphasis on the kinds of collective identity their successive configurations serve. He tracks their evolution in two stages and seeks to explain the reasons for these changes. During the late Republic, household sepulchres came suddenly into existence, progressively increasing in size and capacity to reach their heyday in the Augustan and early Julio-Claudian periods. Galvao-Sobrinho’s enumeration of 188 known examples of communal sepulchres is substantial, and serves as a clue both to the number of domesticated slaves

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Free at Last! in society during the period, and to the centrality of their domestic dependencies in the structure of their lives. Galvao-Sobrinho cites several explanations given for the rise of such monuments, such as the necessary utilization of available space, and the closing of the old Esquiline burial ground in the Augustan period. Moreover, one might presume that the less money one expended upon tomb building, the more money was available for a fine showy funeral. But Galvao-Sobrinho himself seems, and I think rightly, to prefer ideological explanations. Restrictions that Augustus placed upon manumission and also the occupational opportunities for independent freedman-entrepreneurs may, Galvao-Sobrinho suggests, have enforced dependencies. What seems new here is a solidarity among the familia as a context for defining personal identity, especially as it would have been enacted in the rounds of collective ritual and the regular feasting for which columbaria provided the venue. Burial associations become clubs whose various organizational and administrative functions could also engage their members in social intercourse. Consequently we see over time a decline in the number of household tombs, but an increase in such voluntary associations as guilds – the indication of a continuing desire for peer bonding in the collaborative curation of property and celebration of rituals. While he finds it easy to explain the rise in such social networks, he more hesitantly, though I think appropriately, finds answers regarding their later decline. He attributes this to a context of social readjustment by which succeeding generations of freedpersons’ children acquired the resources for private familial tombs and developed a stronger confidence in their identity as individuals amid a broadening of social networks. As an example he cites the burial of Felix Ingenuinus who, after having served as a member of successive Julio Claudian households until the time of Nero, did not occupy the niche in the household columbarium labelled with his name and offices, but was buried in a private family monument constructed by Felicissimo, his son. Ownership and social confidence appear as the keynote of the monuments that Barbara Borg presents in her paper on the portrait iconography of freedpersons’ individualized sepulchral reliefs, a commemorative practice whose origins are dated contemporaneously with those of columbaria but which outlasted them into the empire. In these autonomous commemorations we see a different side of community; the bonds of the nuclear freedperson family manifested in solidarity and pride of social status. Her essay proposes interrelationships between freedpersons and élite society in a different light as the imitative adoption of a symbolic vocabulary of hair-styles, costume and posture expressive of standard Roman social values to mark out positions in a social hierarchy and the extension of this vocabulary to contrasting a sober and directed lifestyle against the unregulated conduct attributed to servile life. Dealing in large part with élite portraiture which she considers the model for developments in the styles employed by freedmen, her essay also

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? raises questions about portrait verisimilitude in the light of recent interpretive scholarship less ready to judge the aesthetics of the faces than to consider their semiotic. The fact is that a very large proportion of the unidentified male portraits generally dated to the late Republic and Augustan period have very distinct characteristics. No two are really alike unless, of course, they can be taken for one and the same person (as the so-called Crassus in Copenhagen and Munich) while the best-known persons (such as Pompey and Caesar) show a portrait repertoire that keeps pace with the progress of their careers. The idea that portraits represent their subjects as they want to be seen is not merely a matter of the replication of features, but also the adoption of symbols suitable to the subject of the portrait. In discussing aristocratic male portraits, she usefully calls attention to the interdisciplinary approach of Luca Giuliani, who identifies ‘mimic formulas’, that is to say, meaningful gestures and features that are codified and then added to individual likenesses, combining the personal with the communicative.18 These readings build upon a point made by Bianchi-Bandinelli that in élite portraits at least the representation of age is not merely a question of ‘realism’ but the expression of ideological positioning. But where he limited the relevance of this observation by attaching it to the conservative Sullan faction of the early Republican first century,19 later scholars have seen it as a way of encoding some of the ‘keywords in contemporary rhetoric’, virtues related to achievement, power and dignitas as opposed to Hellenistic pathos.20 Different ranks of society, however, most likely had different reasons for pride. While the forward thrust jaw of the aristocrat from Ocriculum – who has become iconic for this style – may represent an habitual performance of will acted out in a legislative or other public context, an unmistakably aged freedman in the company of his wife and son may simply be advertising, with a similar expression, the longevity that was itself an achievement in a society of early death rates. Additionally, the aristocratic borrowings in freedperson portraits tend to be stylistically retrospective, those of men more than women. Elderly males resemble Republican senators at the same time as younger élites are adopting Augustan grooming, whereas the women beside these grave faced patresfamiliarum are wearing the fashionable, tightly-bound nodus coiffure that proclaimed the matronly chastity of Livia and Octavia, that we see also on the elderly dame (likely a civic benefactor) from Polombara Sabina in the Roman National Museum.21 But fashion creeps up. Although the characteristics of men’s portraits remain relatively stable, women do make use of the stylistic succession as a kind of chronological semiotic, although commonly at a generation’s removal from the centres of élite fashion. This is more evident in the multigenerational reliefs that become frequent in the later first century and the second where the successive ages of women of a family are distinguished by the differences in their period coiffures so that we see the ‘melon waves’ of the Julio-Claudian dames alongside

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Free at Last! Flavian curls. Even so, they never fully replicate such high-piled masses as we see in the so-called Fonseca bust of the Capitoline or even the women of Titus and Domitian’s families.22 As virtually all these essays demonstrate, Roman manumission was a gradual process. Trimalchio’s declaration of readiness to liberate his entire household was adverse to the prescripts of Augustan laws. For this reason as well as others, we can expect that very few persons were turned loose into larger society with no strategies for subsistence. By comparison, the mass emancipation following the Civil War was of staggering proportions and had the opposite effect. For life after manumission, education is the key to success. In this respect ancient libertini were far more prepared than slaves from southern American societies, and thus we can see a contrast between Romans who did promote an education of some slaves at least, and members of the southern hierarchy who denounced and even forbade the education of slaves. Michele Ronnick quotes the abolitionist Charles Dexter Cleveland with the analogy that the Spartans ‘while boasting that they were the freest people on earth kept their slaves in greatest subjection’.23 In the face of American deprivation, Ronnick presents some very impressive statistics concerning the number of teachers who responded to the need by migrating to the South within the years immediately following Emancipation. Especially instructive for instructors and instructed alike is the recognition of artes liberales as the most substantial foundation for education. But when Ronnick turns her attention to the kinds of opposition, social ostracism and even physical brutality that such pioneering spirits encountered, the individual cases are harrowing. One may well understand the need for a moral imperative, often powered by religious conviction that kept many teachers at their posts. As she turns in the second part of her essay to the specific histories of pioneers, both white and black, in promoting the availability of liberal education, Ronnick shows, as elsewhere in her work, a combination of her own moral imperative and disciplinary pride in the specific contributions of Classicists. In this respect the research that she has made her own is a fitting conclusion to this collection. Notes 1. Plin. Ep. 9.21.1: Libertus tuus, cui suscensere dixeras, venit ad me advolutusque pedibus meis tamquam tuis haesit. Flevit multum, multum rogavit, multum etiam tacuit, in summa fecit mihi fidem paenitentiae verae quia deliquisse se sentit. 2. Paradoxically, the story as Tacitus 12.53 gives it involves slaves. Claudius advances a proposal to the senate that any woman who marries a slave should herself be enslaved. When Claudius revealed Pallas as the inventor of this prescript for public morality, the senate (two distinguished senators) proposed the decree. 3. Plin. Ep. 8.14. As Whitton 2010 points out, Pliny’s action in dividing the categories of the vote is actually in opposition to court protocol.

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8. Response Essay: What has Pliny to Say? 4. Arrowsmith 1996; Veyne 1961. 5. Veyne 1961, 221. 6. Veyne 1961. 213. 7. Whitehead 2003, 300. 8. Petersen 2006, 10. 9. On decoration of the Vettii, see Richardson 2000, 130-9 who has pointed out that the artists who painted the large mythological panels in the Red and Gold Rooms were among the most skilled of their time. See also Leach 2004 and Petersen 2006, 1-5, who allows for uncertainty on the part of recent scholarship as to the freedmen identity of the brothers, while pointing out that the argument about quality is circular. Those who denigrate the paintings do so in the belief that their commissioners are tasteless freedmen, as e.g. Clarke 1991. But preconceptions of ownership should not be allowed to prejudice aesthetic judgments. 10. Petersen 2006; D’Ambra and Metraux 2006. 11. The book by Lindsey Davis is Nemesis (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2010). 12. Zeitlin 1971. 13. Peterson 2006, 184-203 and 231-7. 14. Veyne 1961, 215. 15. Verboven’s explanation of the meaning and parameters of obsequium is useful; notably in epistle 8.14 Pliny uses obsequium as the term for a suicide effected by members of the household. 16. Kampen 1981. 17. For more on this, see Petersen 2006, 65-70, and Leach 2006, 3-4; some persons do propose that the ship is intended to symbolize a journey into the hereafter, but that seems not at all to make sense in company with the scene of the facade surface of a distribution of largesse. 18. Giuliani 1986, 14. 19. Bianchi-Bandinelli 1970, 79. 20. See Borg in this volume. See also Kleiner 1992, 38-46 and 78-81. 21. The Hellenistic hairstyles that Borg mentions as characterizing the semiotic of women’s portraiture are in fact to be seen in the honorific patronage portraits of women established in the East, such as the second century BCE portraits of Baebia and Saefula, the wife and mother of a Roman magistrate in Magnesiumon-Menander. Even so, their adoption in Rome only begins with the post-Augustan, imperial period. Republican and Augustan women invariably wear the completely Roman nodus coiffure. 22. One wonders about the negotiations needed to install such monuments along the public thoroughfares; Trimalchio never does explain how he acquired land for his projected tomb. At Pompeii the land for some of the most distinctive monuments are granted by the decuriones, but this is also true of the land on which Kleijwegt’s distinguished freedwoman establishes her monuments. 23. See Ronnick in this volume, citing Cleveland 1827, 48.

Bibliography Arrowsmith, W. (1996) ‘Luxury and Death in the Satyricon’, Arion 5.3: 304-31. Bianchi-Bandinelli, R. (1970) Rome: the Center of Power: 500 BC to AD 200 (New York). Clarke, J.R. (1991) The Houses of Roman Italy 100 BC-AD 250 (Berkeley). D’Ambra, E. and G. Métraux (eds) (2006) The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and Freedmen in the Roman World (Oxford).

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Free at Last! Giuliani, L. (1986) Bildnis und Botschaft (Frankfurt am Main). Kampen, N. (1981) Image and Status: Roman Working Women in Ostia (Berlin). Kleiner, D.E.E. (1992) Roman Sculpture (New Haven). Leach, E.W. (2004) The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples (Cambridge). Leach, E.W. (2006) ‘Freedmen and Immortality in the Tomb of the Haterii’, in D’Ambra and Métraux 2006, 1-18. Petersen, L.H. (2006) The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge). Richardson, L. (2000) A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters of Ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae (Baltimore). Veyne, P. (1961) ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, AnnÉconSocCiv 16: 213-47. Whitehead, J. (2003) ‘The Cena Trimalchionis and Biographical Narration in Roman Middle Class Art’, in P. Holliday (ed.) Narrative and Event in Roman Art (Cambridge) 299-325. Whitton, C.L. (2010) ‘Pliny: Epistles 8.14, Senate, Slavery and the Agricola’, JRS 100: 118-37. Zeitlin, F. (1971) ‘Petronius as Paradox: Anarchy and Artistic Integrity’, TAPA 102: 631-84.

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Index References to illustrations are in italic. Aeschines, 39 Aesop, 177 Aesopus, Claudius (actor), 57 Agrippa, 35 Alexander the Great, 32 Alföldy, Geza, 89 Andreau, Jean, 2 Archias, 57 Artemidorus, 60 Atlanta University, 183-5 Atticus, 60, 63n.32 augustales (seviri), 42, 91, 97, 200, 203 Augustus, 70, 80, 118, 133, 143, 144, 145 (see also Octavian) Bacchus, 73 Beard, Mary, 67, 80 Bodel, John, 11, 40, 66, 83n.27 Boulvert, Gerard, 2 Bourdieu, Pierre, 145 Bradley, Keith, 2, 3 Caelius, 53, 55 Caesar, Julius, 4, 8, 9, 34, 35, 1.7, 36, 52, 53, 55, 206 Catiline, 55, 56 Cato, 56, 94 Cena Trimalchionis, 5, 11, 12, 66-81, 200 Chaintraine, Heinrich, 2 Chrysogonus (freed slave of Sulla), 6 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 6, 7, 9, 11, 33, 34, 35, 51, 53-60, 77, 89, 100, 156n.83, 158n.96, 204 Cicero, Quintus Tullius, 11, 51, 54, 55, 57-9 circulator, 57 circuli, 57 circus, 0.1, 17n.23, 130, 197 Claudius, 6, 42, 117, 118, 146, 198, 208n.2 Cleveland, Charles Dexter, 180-1 collegia, 90, 91, 98, 131ff., 140, 151n.27 colliberti, 98 columbarium, 26, 131ff., 6.2, 6.3, 146, 203, 206 Compitalia, 73 Courtney, Edward, 71, 77 Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 11, 35, 1.10, 94, 100, 190 Curtius, Ludwig, 30, 32, 39 Demosthenes, 39, decuriones, 89, 91, 122n.5, 209n.22 desultores, 0.1, 17n.23

dextrarum iunctio, 17n.23, 28, 29, 40, 41, 42, Diadumenus, Lucius Caltilius, 7, 0.2 Diocletian, price edict of, 94, Domitian, 42, 57 Douglas, Frederick, 14 DuBois, W.E.B., 178, 179, 187, 190 Encolpius, 66, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 82n.11, 83n.18, Epictetus, 60, 177 ‘epigraphic habit’, 70, 82n.13, 90, 91 Fisk University, 185-8 freed persons, female, 13, 92, 110-22 funerary inscriptions of, 66, 90, 92, 130-49, 6.1 funerary monuments of, 7, 12, 13, 18n.33, 25-43, 1.1-5, 1.8, 1.9, 1.11, 1.12, 73, 74, 77, 78, 90, 92, 130-49, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 population estimates of, 91-2 and attitude toward occupations, 92, 93 and familia, 13, 19n.49, 42, 98, 99, 130-49, 154n.62, 206 and manumission, 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 111, 113-16, 122, 143, 177, 199, 204, 205, 206, 208 and social network theory, 51, 52, 201 Galba, P. Sulpicius, 55 Gardner, Jane, 115, 120 Garnsey, Peter, 3, 96, 97 George, Michele, 73 Giuliani, Luca, 33, 34, 38, 39 Habinnas (freedman), 12, 67, 77-80, 85n.52, 137, 158n.95, 203 habitus, 28, 36, 38, 40, 145 Hackworth Petersen, Lauren, 40, 41, 73, 75, 200, 201 Hadrian, 39 Heintze, Helga von, 30, 31, 39 Herculaneum, 90, 114 Herculanean tablets, 90 Hermeros (freedman), 76, 77, 116, 124n.33 Hopkins, Keith, 2, 89, 141 Horace, 146, 177 imagines, 76 incerti, 133, 134, 152, 169n.56 infamia, 9, 130 ingenui, 41, 51, 102n.18 Iucundus, Caecilius, 93, 97 ius commercii, 89

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Index ius conubii, 89, 117 ius mortuum inferendi, 152n.38 ius sepulcri familiaris, 152n.38 Jongman, Willem, 90, 103n.41 Joshel, Sandra, 3 Junian Latins: see Latini iuniani Justinian, 94 Juvenal, 3, 15, 144 Kellum, Barbara, 4 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 14 Kirschenbaum, Aaron, 3, 100 Latini iuniani, 89, 96, 99, 101, 112, 118, 123n.14, 124n.28, 156n.85 lex Aelia Sentia, 89, 95, 99, 123n.14, 144, 156n.85 lex Fufia Caninia, 123n.14 lex Iunia Norbana, 89, 95 lex Julia, 117 lex Papia Poppaea, 96 lex Visellia, 89 Lincoln University, 188-90 Lucian, 137 Macrobius, 7, 8 mandatum, 100, 103n.50 Manes, 137, 205 manumissio vindicta, 17n.23, 83n.30 (see also freed persons: manumission) Marcella the Younger, 133, 138, 141 mater familias, 27 matrimonium iustum, 29, 41 Mercury, 74 metoikoi, 88 Mommsen, Theodor, 66 Mouritsen, Henrik, 2, 90, 97 Natural History, 6 Nelis, Damien, 67, 71 Nelis-Clément, Jocelyne, 67, 70 Nero, 6, 30, 31, 42, 81, 89, 146 Oberlin College, 181-3 obsequium, 95, 100 Octavian, 32, 1.6 (see also Augustus) operae, 95, 96, 97, 99, ordo decurionum, 91 ornamenta decurionalia, 111 ornamenta praetoria, 42, 196 Ovid, 138 paterfamilias, 12, 35, 1.11, 56, 71, 72, 83n.18, 98 Paulus (jurist), 94 peculium, 99, 119, 158n.102, 159n.103 Petronia Justa, 115, 159n.105 Petronius, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11, 14, 15, 66-81, 92, 93, 116, 199, 202, 205 physicians, 9, 28, 94 Piso Caesonianus, L. Calpurnius, 33, 34 Plato, 77

plebs media, 90 Plecusa, Acilia (freedwoman), 110, 116 Pliny the Elder, 6, 7, 9, 15, 158n.96 Pompey, 30, 36, 1.13, 52, 55, 207 populares, 55, 62n.18 praecones, 57 Pulcher, Appius Claudius, 55 Res Gestae, 70 Romanitas, 12, 45n.57, 76 Ross Taylor, Lily, 2, 13 Saturnalia, 73 Satyrica, 2, 4, 6, 11, 14, 66-81, 93, 116, 137, 138, 199, 200 Scarborough, William Sanders, 14, 182-3, 185 Scheidel, Walter, 89, 91, 92, 144 Seneca the Elder, 8, 15 Seneca the Younger, 8, 177-8 sevir augustalis, 73, 74, 91 Slater, Niall, 71 slavery Aristotle’s theory of, 88, 177 New World, 12, 95, 112-16, 119, 121-2, 132, 177 population estimates of, 91-2 and Roman law, 88, 99 Sledd, Andrew, 179-80 Smith, R.R.R., 39 Sophocles, 39 Statius, 138 Suetonius, 31, 118 Sulla, 6, 207 Syme, Ronald, 4 Syrus, Publilius, 6, 7, 8, 9 Tacitus, 6, 113, 114 Terence, 177, 190 Tiro, Marcus Tullius, 7, 204 Trajan, 6, 89 Treggiari, Susan, 2, 3, 50, 51, 57 Trimalchio, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 46n.70, 66-81, 92, 93, 96, 100, 116, 137, 138, 146, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 208 univira, 41 Valerius Maximus, 54 vernae, 98 Verres, 59 Veyne, Paul, 2, 9, 66, 98, 199, 203 virtus, 28-9, 36, 39 Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 4 Weaver, Paul, 2 Webster, Jane, 66 Weiss, Alexander, 3 Whitehead, Jane, 77 Wiedemann, Thomas, 89, 144 Zanker, Paul, 2, 26, 29, 30, 39 Zeitlin, Froma, 70, 202

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