talking cattle
Cruelty cannot be measured objectively, and there are large gaps in human history that written sources cannot fill. If we consider only well-studied cases, then Roman and American slavery can be considered the most cruel. Slaves without formal slave status, such as Spartan helots, prisoners of Soviet or German concentration camps, are not considered, as are involuntary workers in Arab countries or in factories of Western companies in Asia.
During the Late Republic and Early Empire, the quality of life for Roman slaves depended on the type of work they worked. Some of the slaves were shoemakers, weavers, merchants, engravers, and even jewelers and architects. The lives of such slaves were valued, they were granted “sick leave” and vacation, they lived in relative prosperity, and they were treated humanely. For this reason, protected Inscription of a 12-year-old slave who, due to death, was unable to complete his education and become a skilled jeweler. Skilled slaves according to status we were getting closer liberating the people and the superiority of the poor.
Life was very different for agricultural slaves who lived in a large commercial villa. According to Roman law, they were considered equal to animals. should keep them in flocks.
Cato the philosopher advised plantation owners to treat old and sick slaves in the same way as oxen that had served their punishment. Other writers suggested keeping slaves where the livestock they supervised lived.
For disobedience, they were chained and placed in a special barracks, after which they became servus vinctus. Such a worker was considered worthless, his price was much lower, and under Augustus the servus vinctus was deprived of the chance to gain his freedom under any circumstances.
Even worse than working in a villa was slavery in mines or basement workshops, ergastuls, where a slave could be sold (or transferred) for bad behavior. There they were kept in chains, injured and forced to work until they died, treated as expendable.
All known Roman punishments were applied primarily to unskilled slaves. For the slightest offense they were whipped, tortured with a hot iron, maimed in any way, and in extreme cases, they were sentenced to a painful execution – crucifixion. The decision to punish a slave was made by the owner, and although senseless cruelty was condemned by Roman society, historians know that there were many sadistic slave owners.
The most famous example is Vedius Pollio, who ordered a child to be thrown to the lampreys for a broken crystal vase. The little maid was only saved by the personal intervention of Emperor Augustus.
Black slaves lived in similar conditions on plantations in the southern United States. Standard punishments for them were whipping and chaining, as well as a special, uncomfortable steel collar from which it was impossible to reach. The larger and profit-oriented the plantation, the more cruel its owners tended to be. So escaped slave William Brown said that slaves had to pick 80 pounds (36 kg) of cotton a day and received one blow of the whip for every pound missing. Flogging was also given for lack of respect for white people, for example because they were viewed as insolent. Criminal liability for the murder of a slave arises only in cases where the death occurred knowingly and without reason.
While a rebellion was being suppressed, all kinds of cruelty were permitted. A black person could be mutilated, including castration and having their ears cut off. Goal baited with dogs on the rack with a combination of whip and knife blows, or making a movie part of the body. Runaway slave Louis Kane said, how one of his comrades was branded, put in stocks, and had a bell hung around his neck for trying to escape. The months spent in the stocks broke the slave’s will and he became a “good black man” (as the narrator himself puts it).
On small farms, slaves were generally treated more humanely; They acted as reluctant helpers rather than beasts of burden.
tied man
Life was much easier for slaves who did not serve as “machines” for profit in a developed economy. In classical Athens, only slave owners could sue on behalf of slaves in court, and if guilty, they were sentenced to a flogging rather than a fine: one blow for one drachma. According to dragon laws, any citizen could sue the owner for cruel treatment of slaves and could sue for the extrajudicial killing of a slave. (Laws implemented in Athens in the late 7th century BC) It was time to die.
In this case, the state was less concerned about the suffering of slaves than about the degradation of society through arbitrariness and cruelty: A person who killed slaves for pleasure could not be an otherwise virtuous citizen. Since slaves could easily be confused with free citizens, the law did not even allow you to hit a slave you did not know on the street.
Most slaves belonged to households where it was customary to greet them with nuts and fruits after their purchase. Unlike Rome, large market-oriented farms (latifundia) were not common in Greece, and the slave on the farm did the same work that free people would normally do. For disobedience, slaves could also be punished with a whip, but there is no mention in written sources of particularly brutal executions and tortures similar to Roman ones. Aristotle called for treating slaves like children: not just giving them orders, but also explaining the meaning of the job. In general, many Greek philosophers believed that slavery was unjust but could not imagine a society without slavery.
And if the Romans (like the Americans) constantly feared a slave uprising, then Greek slaves served under the hoplites during the war. (heavily armed infantry) and participated in the Battle of Marathon. Before the battle of Salamis, in which Xerxes’ fleet was defeated, a decree was issued that citizens should “save themselves, their women, children and slaves” in battle.
Slaves – serfs (not to be confused with serfs of later periods) in Ancient Russia had similar rights. The captives became slaves. For example, in 1169 Novgorodians caught There were so many Suzdalians captured that they sold them for 2 nogatas each, cheaper than goats. They also became slaves due to crimes, debts, or selling themselves. Slaves worked in the homes and estates of nobles and were also engaged in crafts. Serfs could be sold or bought, but they were allowed to own property and obtain loans, and murder was only permitted for crimes committed by court order.
Viking slaves lived lives similar to Athenians and Russians. The Scandinavians were actively involved in the slave trade, and this was one of the reasons for the raids. The bulk of the captives were sent south to Islamic countries for export, but many were also used to work in Scandinavia. They were called slaves. Slaves were technically a form of chattel property, like livestock, and they had no control over their own lives. They were assigned to do boring household chores such as doing laundry, cleaning, and churning butter, as well as working in the fields. Thrall was able to produce and sell things for himself in his spare time. Sometimes the accumulated money allowed the person to ransom himself and become a leysing – a freedman. During the invasion of other tribes, slaves who killed the enemy in battle were also freed.
This does not mean that Norse slavery was not cruel: the punishment of slaves was always at the discretion of the owner, and the Vikings had harsh morals. Beautiful Thrall women were known to be raped on a regular basis. However, the Scandinavians did not have the financial motivation to force a person to work to death, which occurred on large plantations, as in ancient Athens or Russia.
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It may be considered the least cruel form of slavery adopted by the ancient Aztecs. Aztec slaves played an important role in the economy and came from three sources: prisoners of war, criminals, and debtors. In all three cases, slave status was purely personal and not inherited, children were always born free, and freedom could be purchased with accumulated goods. People could also sell themselves or their children into slavery.
Slaves wore special clothes called “cueitl”. It was a skirt that hugged the hips, one end overlapping the other, and was secured with a belt-like belt. Usually after the death of the owner, the most valuable slaves were selected and the rest were inherited. If a slave was regularly lazy and unruly, he was forced to wear a special collar with a stick sticking out of it as punishment.
Aztec slaves could do all kinds of work, but most were servants in the homes of nobles. Many were sent to work as shovelers or laborers on cocoa plantations. Besides forced labor, slaves were otherwise free and could marry and own property, including other slaves. existed in the same way tradition Emancipation from slavery: When trying to sell a person against his will, he could escape from the market, deliberately step on feces and rush to the ruler’s palace. In this case, a purification ritual was performed, he was given new clothes and he was released.
The only thing that significantly darkened the life of Aztec slaves was the possibility of sacrifice to the gods. Additionally, when a noble person died, 40 slaves were burned along with him to help him in the afterlife.
It can be said that it was precisely the developed economy and commodity-money relations, as in Rome, that worsened the situation of slaves, because slaves turned into a source of income that had to be exploited as intensively as possible.