Plautus Slavery

Part II: Ancient Roman authors described the slavery in ancient Rome to be very brutal, consisting of severe forms of verbal and physical abuse. Slaves were beaten, whipped, and forced to work for their masters without the fair amount of clothes, food, and tools. Plautus is a Roman screenwriter, and he wrote the play “The Conduct and Treatment of Slaves” to educate the audience on how slaves were treated by their masters during the end of the Second Punic War which took place during 201 B.C. Plautus starts the play off by introducing a brutal slave owner named Ballio, who treats the slaves very unfairly by beating and whipping them and also verbally abusing them. “Never did I see men more like asses than you!” (1), is just one example

of the verbal profanities Bellio screams at his slaves, which continue to get worse when he threatens to torture them further.

The next part of Plautus’s play is named “How to Manage Farm Slaves”, which highlights how Cato the Elder treated slaves and how he maintained his farms.

Plautus explains that when the farms were smaller the slaves were treated somewhat fairly, but when the farms grew larger in size; treatment of slaves became more brutal and violent. In this section of the play, the audience gets a detailed description of the quality of the clothes and food each slave received, stating “As for clothes, give out a tunic of three feet and a half, and a cloak once in two years...once in two years, good shoes should be given” (2). This is different than the first slave owner Bellio, who treated his slaves horribly and did not offer the same clothing or food as Cato the Elder did. This gives the audience a further examination on the treatment of slaves depending on the slave owner, and how slaves would be awarded if they did hard labor. The next section of the play is called “How a Faithful Slave Should Act”, which explains to the audience why slaves were faithful to their master, and what their motivations were. For example, slaves had a deep fear of cruel punishment, which is what kept slaves from acting out or against their master. Slaves wanted to please their master as best as they could, because they hoped they would eventually be awarded. A slave named Messenio states “He must take more care of his back than his appetite, his legs than his stomach…” (3), this shows that slaves wanted to

maintain good health so that they would continue doing hard labor for better treatment.

Lastly, Plautus discusses the slaves uprising against the Roman masters; categorizing the last section as “The Last Great Slave Revolt”. In 73 B.C, the slaves had a violent uprising which caused great terror among the Romans. Plutarch is addressed in this section, explaining how the start of the slave rebellion started, stating “Two hundred of these formed a plan to escape, but their plot being discovered, those of them who became aware of it in time to anticipate their master, being 78 got out…” (3). This rebellion is considered the “Gladiator War” which highlights gladiators fighting for their freedom against slave owners and the Roman Republic, and provides extreme inspiration to the audience. This rebellion started out small, but eventually consisted of many gladiators and was called “ The War of Spartacus”, and was the last slave rebellion against the Roman Republic.