Plautus

Plautus, a playwright of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, was not a slave or former slave, but in his
comedies are slave characters who give some perspective on what it meant to be a slave. One
slave character, Messenio, describes life working in a grain mill:

MESSENIO to himself.
This is the proof of a good servant, who takes care of his masters business, looks after it,
arranges it, thinks about it, in the absence of his master diligently to attend to the affairs of his
master, as much so as if he himself were present, or even better. It is proper that his back
should be of more consequence than his appetite, his legs than his stomach, whose heart is
rightly placed. Let him bear in mind, those who are good for nothing, what reward is given them
by their masterslazy, worthless fellows. Stripes, fetters, the mill, weariness, hunger, sharp cold;
these are the rewards of idleness. This evil do I terribly stand in awe of. Wherefore tis sure that
to be good is better than to be bad. Much more readily do I submit to words, stripes I do detest;
and I eat what is ground much more readily than supply it ground by myself. Therefore do I obey
the command of my master, carefully and diligently do I observe it.
Plautus, Menaechmi

From the mid-3rd century BC Rome experienced a large increase in its slave population through
overseas expansion and enslavement of foreign populations. In the J ustinian Digest, a 6th
century AD compilation of Roman laws, we learn how people fell into the state of slavery in the
Roman Empire:

Justinians Digest
Slaves are brought under our ownership either by the Civil Law or by that of Nations. This is
done by the Civil Law where anyone who is over twenty years of age permits himself to be sold
for the sake of sharing in his own price. Slaves become our property by the Law of Nations
when they are either taken from the enemy, or are born of our female slaves.
Digest 1.5.5.1

As defined by this source, the slaves of Rome came from three sources: the first were
individuals who had sold themselves into slavery; the second source came from those captured
in war, and finally, those who were born of slaves. A person who was captured and sold into
slavery was considered lost forever:
In every branch of the law, a person who fails to return from enemy hands is regarded as having
died at the moment when he was captured.
Digest 49.15.18

One other source of slaves in the Roman Empire was through the practice of exposing
unwanted infants. There is insufficient evidence to determine the number of slaves who were
picked up by slave traders as infants, but it could have been a significant contribution to the
slave population. There are no accounts surviving of exposing infants, but the founding myth of
Rome provides an insight into both exposing infants, and the possibility of survival.
Slaves captured in war would eventually find themselves in the slave markets of the Empire. In
the city of Rome there were two such markets. One was located behind the senate house in the
Forum and a second, for more specialised slaves, was near the Saepta Julia in the Campus
Martius. Ancient sources detail the humiliation suffered by slaves in these markets:

Seneca
When you buy a horse, you order its blanket to be removed; you pull off the garments from
slaves that are advertised for sale, so that no bodily flaws may escape your notice; if you judge
a man, do you judge him when he is wrapped in a disguise? Slave dealers hide under some sort
of finery any defect which may give offence, and for that reason the very trappings arouse the
suspicion of the buyer. If you catch sight of a leg or an arm that is bound up in cloths, you
demand that it be stripped and that the body itself be revealed to you.
Seneca, Letters 80.9

Horace
1st century BC poet Horace even leaves us with an example of what a slave dealer would say
at the market to advertise his merchandise.
Heres a handsome lad, lovely from head to toe,
Eight thousand sesterces and its done, hes yours,
Born in-house, quick to obey his masters orders,
Trained in Greek letters, adaptable to any task,
Wet clay that can be moulded however you wish:
Hell even sing as you drink, artlessly but sweetly.
no one will easily see the like from me.
Hes only skipped once, as they do,
And hid under the stairs fearing the strap on the wall.
Horace, Letters 2.2.1-19

The slave dealer tells the buyer of the slaves abilities, making them sound attractive, while not
overtly lying. The boy has studied Greek but he does not say he can speak Greek. He can sing
but is not trained. He is also careful to assure the potential buyer that this slave will not run
away giving the example that when afraid the boy merely hid from his master, but did not try to
run.
Working life of a slave
It was possible for a slave to work in almost any position, except in positions of government.
This being so, the working life of a slave could vary considerably. From ancient sources it is
clear that the most difficult lives were suffered by slaves who worked in mines or quarries.

Diodorus Siculus
to continue with the mines, the slaves who are engaged in the working of them produce for
their masters revenues in sums defying belief, but they themselves wear out their bodies both
by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers because of the
exceptional hardships they endure. For no respite or pause is granted them in their labours, but
compelled beneath blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away
their lives in this wretched manner, although certain of them who can endure it, by virtue of their
bodily strength and their persevering souls, suffer such hardships over a long period; indeed
death in their eyes is more to be desired than life, because of the magnitude of the hardships
they must bear.
Diodorus Siculus 5.38.1

Work in the fields and particularly in the mills was also gruelling for slaves. Writer Apuleius (2nd
century AD) describes what is seen by one of his characters in a Roman mill:

Apuleius
what a pack of dwarves those [mill] workers were, their skins striped with livid welts, their
seamed backs half-visible through the ragged shirts they wore; some with loin-cloths but all
revealing their bodies under their clothes; foreheads branded, heads half-shaved, and feet
chained together. They were wretchedly sallow too, their eyes so bleary from the scorching heat
of that smoke-filled darkness, they could barely see, and like wrestlers sprinkled with dust
before a fight, they were coarsely whitened with floury ash.
Apuleius, Metamorphoses 9.12.13

A Roman household needed many servants to care for the family and the house. These
domestic slaves generally had a higher quality of life than those who laboured in the fields, mills,
mines or other labour-intensive jobs. Insight into the life of a domestic slave has been left by
Seneca.

Seneca
When we recline at a banquet, one slave mops up the disgorged food, another crouches
beneath the table and gathers up the left-overs of the tipsy guests. Another carves the priceless
game birds; with unerring strokes and skilled hand he cuts choice morsels along the breast or
the rump. Hapless fellow, to live only for the purpose of cutting fat capons correctly unless,
indeed, the other man is still more unhappy than he, who teaches this art for pleasures sake,
rather than he who learns it because he must. Another, who serves the wine, must dress like a
woman and wrestle with his advancing years; he cannot get away from his boyhood; he is
dragged back to it; and though he has already acquired a soldiers figure, he is kept beardless
by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, and he must remain awake
throughout the night, dividing his time between his masters drunkenness and his lust; in the
chamber he must be a man, at the feast a boy. Another, whose duty it is to put a valuation on
the guests, must stick to his task, poor fellow, and watch to see whose flattery and whose
immodesty, whether of appetite or of language, is to get them an invitation for to-morrow. Think
also of the poor purveyors of food, who note their masters tastes with delicate skill, who know
what special flavours will sharpen their appetite, what will please their eyes, what new
combinations will rouse their cloyed stomachs, what food will excite their loathing through sheer
satiety, and what will stir them to hunger on that particular day.
Seneca, Letter 47

Some of these jobs can be related to the modern day (cooks and waiters) but others do not
(what can we call the slave who keeps points of each guest based on how much they flatter the
host and how they behave?). Seneca points out the difficulties of each of these jobs, and in
particular highlights the sexual vulnerability of all slaves, both male and female. A slave was the
property of his or her master, and was subject to both physical and sexual abuse.

How slaves were treated depended largely on their master and his attitude to slaves. Columella,
in his Res Rusticae, a type of handbook on farming, advises owners on how to treat their
agricultural slaves including the clothing they should be provided with and how to achieve the
greatest amount of labour from slaves while being as just as possible so that the slaves do not
find their lives so difficult that they would wish to rebel.
Seneca points out the difficulties of each of slaves jobs, and in particular highlights the sexual
vulnerability of all slaves, both male and female. A slave was the property of his or her master,
and was subject to both physical and sexual abuse.

How slaves were treated depended largely on their master and his attitude to slaves. Columella,
in his Res Rusticae, a type of handbook on farming, advises owners on how to treat their
agricultural slaves including the clothing they should be provided with and how to achieve the
greatest amount of labour from slaves while being as just as possible so that the slaves do not
find their lives so difficult that they would wish to rebel.

Columella
In the care and clothing of the slave household he should have an eye to usefulness rather than
appearance, taking care to keep them fortified against wind, cold, and rain, all of which are
warded off with long-sleeved leather tunics, garments of patchwork, or hooded cloaks. If this be
done, no weather is so unbearable but that some work may be done in the open.
(Columella, Res Rusticae, 1.8.9)

There is, moreover, no better way of keeping watch over even the most worthless of men than
the strict enforcement of labour, the requirement that the proper tasks be performed and that the
overseer be present at all times; for in that case the foremen in charge of the several operations
are zealous in carrying out their duties, and the others, after their fatiguing toil, will turn their
attention to rest and sleep rather than to dissipation.
(Columella, Res Rusticae, 1.8.11)

Nowadays I make it a practice to call [the slaves] into consultation on any new work, as if they
were more experienced, and to discover by this means what sort of ability is possessed by each
of them and how intelligent he is. Furthermore, I observe that they are more willing to set about
a piece of work on which they think that their opinions have been asked and their advice
followed In addition he should give them frequent opportunities for making complaint against
those persons who treat them cruelly or dishonestly. In fact, I now and then avenge those who
have just cause for grievance, as well as punish those who incite the slaves to revolt, or who
slander their taskmasters; and, on the other hand, I reward those who conduct themselves with
energy and diligence. To women, too, who are unusually prolific, and who ought to be rewarded
for the bearing of a certain number of offspring, I have granted exemption from work and
sometimes even freedom after they had reared many children. For to a mother of three sons
exemption from work was granted; to a mother of more her freedom as well.
(Columella, Res Rusticae, 1.8.15)

Many slaves were not fortunate enough to have a level-headed master such as Columella
describes. Ancient philosopher and writer Seneca (1st century AD) provides several examples
of the cruelty and injustice that slaves endured while he councils staying within reasonable
limits in the physical punishment of slaves.
Seneca
It is creditable to a man to keep within reasonable bounds in his treatment of his slaves. Even in
the case of a human chattel one ought to consider, not how much one can torture him with
impunity, but how far such treatment is permitted by natural goodness and justice, which
prompts us to act kindly towards even prisoners of war and slaves bought for a price (how much
more towards free-born, respectable gentlemen?), and not to treat them with scornful brutality
as human chattels, but as persons somewhat below ourselves in station, who have been placed
under our protection rather than assigned to us as servants. Slaves are allowed to run and take
sanctuary at the statue of a god, though the laws allows a slave to be ill-treated to any extent,
there are nevertheless some things which the common laws of life forbid us to do to a human
being. Who does not hate Vedius Pollio more even than his own slaves did, because he used to
fatten his lampreys with human blood, and ordered those who had offended him in any way to
be cast into his fish-pond, or rather snake-pond? That man deserved to die a thousand deaths,
both for throwing his slaves to be devoured by the lampreys which he himself meant to eat, and
for keeping lampreys that he might feed them in such a fashion. Cruel masters are pointed at
with disgust in all parts of the city, and are hated and loathed; the wrong-doings of kings are
enacted on a wider theatre: their shame and unpopularity endures for ages.
(Seneca, Clem. 1.18.2)

Seneca despises those who are cruel to their slaves, but physician Galen (2nd century) has a
different message in his discussion on cruelty. What does Galen criticise in the following
passage?

Galen
When I was a young man I imposed upon myself an injunction which I have observed through
my whole life, namely, never to strike any slave of my household with my hand. My father
practiced this same restraint. Many were the friends he reproved when they had bruised a
tendon while striking their slaves in the teeth; he told them that they deserved to have a stroke
and die in the fit of passion which had come upon them. They could have waited a little while,
he said, and used a rod or whip to inflict as many blows as they wished and to accomplish the
act with reflection. Other men, however, not only (strike) with their fists but kick and gouge out
the eyes and stab with a stylus when they happen to have one in their hands. I saw a man, in
his anger, strike a slave in the eye with a reed pen. The Emperor Hadrian, they say, struck one
of his slaves in the eye with a stylus; and when he learned that the man had lost his eye
because of this wound, he summoned the slave and allowed him to ask for a gift which would
be equal to his pain and loss. When the slave who had suffered the loss remained silent,
Hadrian again asked him to speak up and ask for whatever he might wish. But he asked for
nothing else but another eye. For what gift could match in value the eye which had been
destroyed?
(Galen, On Passions and Errors of the Soul, trans. Paul W. Harkins, p. 38-9)

Galen writes that a master may strike a slave with a whip or rod as many times as he likes, as
long as he has reflected first. To use a hand or an everyday object such as a stylus to punish a
slave means the master has acted out of anger. Galens advice is to not beat a slave out of
anger, but to inflict punishment calmly. Galen therefore, does not have the moral objections that
Seneca has to physically harming slaves.
You have as many enemies as you have slaves.
-Roman proverb

As this Roman proverb indicates, Romans were in constant fear of their slaves. They were after
all, enslaved people who were present in every part of their masters lives. They lived in their
homes, worked their fields, and existed in large numbers throughout the city. Seneca tells us
that once a proposal was put before the senate to dress all slaves in the same way. This
proposal was turned down as the senate feared slaves recognising how great their numbers
were (Seneca, de Clem. 1.24). The fear was well-founded as ancient sources demonstrate
through tales of slaves murdering their masters and of large groups of slaves rising up in
rebellion.

Tacitus
..the city prefect, Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by one of his own slaves; either because
he had been refused emancipation after Pedanius had agreed to the price, or because he had
contracted a passion for [another slave], and declined to tolerate the rivalry of his owner. Be that
as it may, when the whole of the domestics who had been resident under the same roof ought,
in accordance with the old custom, to have been led to execution, the rapid assembly of the
populace, bent on protecting so many innocent lives, brought matters to the point of sedition,
and the senate house was besieged.
(Tacitus, Ann. 14.42.2)

To discourage slaves from conspiring to murder their masters a law was enacted that all slaves
of a household would be tortured and executed if their master was murdered. This law
motivated slaves to do all they could to prevent their masters death.

Pliny
A shocking affair, worthy of more publicity than a letter can bestow, has befallen Largius
Macedo, a man of praetorian rank, at the hands of his own slaves. He was known to be an
overbearing and cruel master, and one who forgot or rather remembered too keenly that
his own father had been a slave. He was bathing at his villa near Formiae, when he was
suddenly surrounded by his slaves. One seized him by the throat, another struck him on the
forehead, and others smote him in the chest, belly, and even I am shocked to say in the
private parts Macedo was kept alive for a few days and had the satisfaction of full vengeance
before he died, for he exacted the same punishment while he still lived as is usually taken when
the victim of a murder dies. You see the dangers, the affronts and insults we are exposed to,
and no one can feel at all secure because he is an easy and mild-tempered master, for villainy
not deliberation murders masters.
(Pliny, Letters, 3.14)
The Servile Wars
Brutality and lack of control were cited as the conditions leading to the first major slave rebellion
in c. 135 BCE:

Diodorus Siculus
Almost everyone as he got richer adopted first a luxurious, and then an arrogant and
provocative pattern of behaviour As a result of these developments, slaves were coming to be
treated worse and worse, and were correspondingly more and more alienated from their
owners. All men who owned a lot of land brought up their consignments of slaves to work
their farmssome were bound with chains, some were worn out by the hard work they were
given to do; they branded all of them with humiliating brand-marks. The Sicilians who
controlled all this wealth were competing in arrogance, greed and injustice with the Italians.
Those Italians who owned a lot of slaves had accustomed their herdsmen to irresponsible
behaviour to such an extent that instead of providing them with rations they encouraged them to
rob.
(Diod. Sic. 34.2.26-27, trans. T. Wiedemann)

One of the greatest threats to Rome by a slave rebellion was the revolt of Sparticus, known as
the Third Servile War. Depicted in the 1960s Stanley Kubrick film, this story of Spartacus has
survived through several sources, including that of Appian (2nd century).

Appian
Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the Romans, but had
since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator, and was in the gladiatorial training-school at
Capua, persuaded about seventy of his comrades to strike for their own freedom rather than for
the amusement of spectators.
(Appian, The Civil Wars 1.14.115)

This war, so formidable to the Romans (although ridiculed and despised in the beginning, as
being merely the work of gladiators), had now lasted three years.
(Appian, The Civil Wars 1.14.118)

[The slaves] all perished except 6000, who were captured and crucified along the whole road
from Capua to Rome (The Via Appia).
(Appian, The Civil Wars 1.14.120)

The Romans reacted harshly towards the surviving slaves to ensure that slaves would not rebel
again. The Via Appia from Capua to Rome is about 121 miles. To crucify 6000 slaves along this
road it would be necessary to place a cross every two metres. For those travelling along the
road it would have been a terrible sight and an effective warning to slaves.

If a slave could not remove this collar the motivation of payment would turn any person into a
slave catcher willing to turn the runaway slave over to his or her master for the reward.
Although slaves were punished and means were taken to prevent them from running away,
slaves still tried to find freedom in this way. Epictetus, a former slave, writes mockingly to
someone who acts like a runaway slave who needs to find food while on the run.

Epictetus
ARE not you ashamed to be more fearful and mean-spirited than fugitive slaves? To what
estates, to what servants, do they trust, when they run away and leave their masters? Do they
not, after carrying off a little with them for the first days, travel over land and sea, contriving first
one, then another method of getting food? And what fugitive ever died of hunger? But you
tremble, and lie awake at night, for fear you should want necessaries. Foolish man! are you so
blind? Do not you see the way whither the want of necessaries leads.
(Epictetus, 3.26.1)

According to Epictetus, we can assume that fugitive slaves were successful in finding food, as
well as travelling over land and sea, presumably to freedom.

Holidays
How is it possible to have a day off from being a slave? This is a valid question, but for the
Romans it was thought to be possible. Generally slaves were considered to defile or pollute
religious or ceremonial holidays, but there were certain ones in which they were able to
participate. These were the Matronalia on 1 March, the festival of Fors Fortuna on 24 June, the
Saturnalia from 17-23 December and the Compitalia from the 3-5 January (Bradley, 40).
Dionysius describes the rites of the Compitalia festival in the following text. According to
Dionysius, why did the Romans allow slaves to celebrate this holiday?

Dionysius of Halicarnassus
After this he commanded that there should be erected in every street by the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood chapels to heroes whose statues stood in front of the houses, and he made a
law that sacrifices should be performed to them every year, each family contributing a
honey-cake. He directed also that the persons attending and assisting those who performed the
sacrifices at these shrines on behalf of the neighbourhood should not be free men, but slaves,
the ministry of servants being looked upon as pleasing to the heroes. This festival the Romans
still continued to celebrate even in my day in the most solemn and sumptuous manner a few
days after the Saturnalia, calling it the Compitalia, after the streets; for compiti, is their name for
streets. And they still observe the ancient custom in connexion with those sacrifices, propitiating
the heroes by the ministry of their servants, and during these days removing every badge of
their servitude, in order that the slaves, being softened by this instance of humanity, which has
something great and solemn about it, may make themselves more agreeable to their masters
and be less sensible of the severity of their condition.
(Dion Hal. 4.14.3-4)
Freedom

In Roman society there were only free citizens and slaves. There was also a category of people
known as freedmen. This status was for former slaves who had been granted their freedom.
The presence of these freedmen meant slaves had a real hope of one day achieving their
freedom. Freedom was granted for many reasons. Pliny for example, explains that he grants
freedom to any slave who is on the point of death.

Pliny
I have been much distressed by illness among my servants, the deaths, too, of some of the
younger men. Two facts console me somewhat, though inadequately in trouble like this: I am
always ready to grant my slaves their freedom, so I dont feel their death is so untimely when
they die free men, and I allow even those who remain slaves to make a sort of will which I treat
as legally binding. They set out their instructions and requests as they think fit, and I carry them
out as if acting under orders. They can distribute their possessions and make any gifts and
bequests they like, within the limits of the household: for the house provides a slave with a
country and a sort of citizenship.
(Pliny, Letters, 8. XVI)

Pliny gives freedom to slaves on the point of death as a kind of mercy. To grant a person
freedom only when they will have no opportunity to enjoy it does seem quite unjust, but Plinys
good intentions are demonstrated by his will to carry out the dying wishes of his slaves. Slaves
under law could have no possessions, as anything they had belonged to their master.

Epictetus, a former slave, presents the interesting perspective of the life of a slave after
freedom. According to Epictetus, what happens to a slave once they become a freedman?

Epictetus
A slave wishes to be immediately set free. Think you it is because he is desirous to pay his fee
[of manumission] to the officer? No, but because he fancies that, for want of acquiring his
freedom, he has hitherto lived under restraint and unprosperously. If I am once set free, he
says, it is all prosperity; I care for no one; I can speak to all as being their equal and on a level
with them. I go where I will, I come when and how I will. He is at last made free, and presently
having nowhere to eat he seeks whom he may flatter, with whom he may sup. He then either
submits to the basest and most infamous degradation; and if he can obtain admission to some
great mans table, falls into a slavery much worse than the former; or perhaps, if the ignorant
fellow should grow rich, he doats upon some girl, laments, and is unhappy, and wishes for
slavery again. For what harm did it do me? Another clothed me, another shod me, another fed
me, another took care of me when I was sick. It was but in a few things, by way of return, I used
to serve him. But now, miserable wretch! what do I suffer, in being a slave to many, instead of
one! Yet, if I can be promoted to equestrian rank, I shall live in the utmost prosperity and
happiness. In order to obtain this, he first deservedly suffers; and as soon as he has obtained
it, it is all the same again. But, then, he says, if I do but get a military command, I shall be
delivered from all my troubles. He gets a military command. He suffers as much as the vilest
rogue of a slave; and, nevertheless, he asks for a second command, and a third; and when he
has put the finishing touch, and is made a senator, then he is a slave indeed. When he comes
into the public assembly, it is then that he undergoes his finest and most splendid slavery.
(Epictetus, 4.1.40-58)

Dionysius tells of how the granting of freedom to slaves changed from the time of the Republic
to the Empire. Why does he object to these freedmen becoming Roman citizens?

Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Now that I have come to this part of my narrative, I think it necessary to give an account of the
customs which at that time prevailed among the Romans with regard to slaves

Most of these slaves obtained their liberty as a free gift because of meritorious conduct, and this
was the best kind of discharge from their masters; but a few paid a ransom raised by lawful and
honest labour.

This, however, is not the case in our day, but things have come to such a state of confusion and
the noble traditions of the Roman commonwealth have become so debased and sullied, that
some who have made a fortune by robbery, housebreaking, prostitution and every other base
means, purchase their freedom with the money so acquired and straightway are Romans.
Others, who have been confidants and accomplices of their masters in poisonings, receive from
them this favour as their reward. Some are freed in order that, when they have received the
monthly allowance of corn given by the public or some other largesse distributed by the men
in power to the poor among the citizens, they may bring it to those who granted them their
freedom. And others owe their freedom to the levity of their masters and to their vain thirst for
popularity. I, at any rate, know of some who have allowed all their slaves to be freed after their
death, in order that they might be called good men when they were dead and that many people
might follow their biers wearing their liberty-caps; indeed, some of those taking part in these
processions, as one might have heard from those who knew, have been malefactors just out of
jail, who had committed crimes deserving of a thousand deaths. Most people, nevertheless, as
they look upon these stains that can scarce be washed away from the city, are grieved and
condemn the custom, looking upon it as unseemly that a dominant city which aspires to rule the
whole world should make such men citizens.
(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a teacher of rhetoric in the late first century
BCE, History of Rome 4.24.5)

In a letter from Cicero (1st century BC) we learn that a former slave of the family, Tiro, was set
free. Why was Tiro freed?

Cicero
In the matter of Tiro, my dear Marcus you have done what gave me extreme pleasure, when
you preferred that he whose position was so unworthy of him should be our friend rather than a
slave.
(Cicero, Fam. XVI, 16)

Abandonment

At the time of Claudius (mid-1st century AD) a law was enacted to protect slaves from being
abandoned when they were sick or elderly.

Suetonius
When certain men were exposing their sick and worn out slaves on the Island of Aesculapius
because of the trouble of treating them, Claudius decreed that all such slaves were free, and
that if they recovered, they should not return to the control of their master; but if anyone
preferred to kill such a slave rather than to abandon him, he was liable to the charge of murder.
(Suet. Claudius, 25)

Death
An eternal release from slavery was of course, death. Owners had a responsibility to bury their
dead slaves, for purposes of hygiene, but were not required to cremate slaves as was the
custom for Roman citizens. Slaves who died in Rome after being abandoned would have been
buried in a mass grave at Potters Field on the Esquiline Hill up until the area was covered over
and turned into the Gardens of Maecenas in 74-78 BC. In the cemetery on the Esquiline Horace
tells us that:

Once slaves paid to have the corpses of their fellows,

Cast from their narrow cells, brought here in a cheap box
(Horace, Sat. 1.8.28)

The desire of slaves to receive a decent burial led to the building of columbaria underground
tombs with niches in the walls where cremated remains were placed in urns. Three columbaria
in Rome, known as the Vigna Codini, were used in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD and held the
cremated remains of freedmen and slaves. It is unknown exactly how these columbarium were
funded, whether by the slaves themselves or by their owners, but their existence demonstrates
that some slaves at least, were able to obtain some dignity in death that they may never have
had in life.

Funerary inscriptions to Roman slaves further show the regard some owners had for their
slaves.

Eros, Posidippus cook, slave, lies here

Eros died a slave. His is only known by his first name a name commonly given to slaves. His
identity comes from having been owned by Posidippus and from his occupation. This inscription
however, meant that he would not be forgotten by those who had known him.

To the spirits of the dead. For Lucius Annaius Firm(ius?), who lived 5 years, 2 months, 6 days, 6
hours, who was born on the 7th July and died on the 10th September. Annaia Ferusa set this up
for her dearest household slave.

The mistress Annaia Ferusa calls Lucius a household slave, yet as the boy had three names,
indicating he was a Roman citizen, it is likely that he died a freedman. Perhaps Lucius was
freed just before death, as Pliny did for his slaves (see section: Freedom). The words of the
text convey the strong affection of this mistress for her child-slave.