[Sidenote:  Female slaves.]

The position of women in slavery merits some attention, in view of the huge multitudes that were held in bondage.  Roman law acknowledged no legal rights on the part of slaves[196].  The master had absolute power of life and death.[197] They were exposed to every whim of master or mistress without redress.[198] If some one other than their owner harmed them they might obtain satisfaction through their master and for his benefit; but the penalty for the aggressor was only pecuniary.[199] A slave’s evidence was never admitted except under torture.[200] If a master was killed, every slave of his household and even his freedmen and freedwomen were put to torture, although the culprit may already have been discovered, in order to ascertain the instigator of the plot and his remotest accessories.[201]

The earlier history of Rome leaves no doubt that before the Republic fell these laws were carried out with inhuman severity.  With the growth of Rome into a world power and the consequent rise of humanitarianism[202] a strong public feeling against gratuitous cruelty towards slaves sprang up.  This may be illustrated by an event which happened in the reign of Nero, in the year 58, when a riot ensued out of sympathy for some slaves who had been condemned en masse after their master had been assassinated by one of them.[203] Measures were gradually introduced for alleviating the hardships and cruelties of slavery.  Claudius (41-54 A.D.) ordained[204] that since sick and infirm slaves were being exposed on an island in the Tiber sacred to Aesculapius, because their masters did not wish to bother about attending them, all those who were so exposed were to be set free if they recovered and never to be returned into the power of their masters; and if any owner preferred to put a slave to death rather than expose him, he was to be held for murder.  Gentlemen began to speak with contempt of a master or mistress who maltreated slaves.[205] Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) modified the old laws to a remarkable degree:  he forbade slaves to be put to death by their masters and commanded them to be tried by regularly appointed judges; he brought it about that a slave, whether male or female, was not to be sold to a slave-dealer or trainer for public shows without due cause; he did away with ergastula or workhouses, in which slaves guilty of offences were forced to work off their penalties in chains and were confined to filthy dungeons; and he modified the law previously existing to the extent that if a master was killed in his own house, the inquisition by torture could not be extended to the whole household, but to those only who, by proximity to the deed, could have noticed it.[206] Gaius observes[207] that for slaves to be in complete subjection to masters who have power of life and death is an institution common to all nations, “But at this time,” he continues, “it is permitted neither to Roman citizens nor any other men who are under the sway