Greek and Roman Slaveries

5 Masters and Slaves

Relations between masters and slaves were undoubtedly fundamental to how slave systems operated. In theory, this was a unilateral relationship: masters held all the cards, and slaves had no rights worth speaking of. Masters habitually used violence against their slaves (5.3), even using professionals to torture their slaves (5.4); in most periods and societies, masters faced few obstacles or consequences for inflicting the cruelest punishments on their slaves (5.1). The threat of violence meant slaves were perennially fearful of their masters (5.2). Despite the advantage of force, ruling slaves often proved an intractable problem (5.6). Part of the conundrum was that what masters required was deeply contradictory: slaves who were obedient tools without wills of their own but also able to employ their judgment when necessary for fulfilling their appointed tasks (5.9–10). Given the variety of tasks that slaves performed, violence could prove counterproductive (5.12). Managing human beings and their various needs, even if these were kept to a minimum, had its own requirements (5.11); masters had to try hard to habituate their slaves in the responses they wanted (5.7). Accordingly, most masters usually needed to elicit some goodwill and collaboration from their slaves and reach some kind of accommodation (5.14). Many masters also liked to be seen as benevolent rulers; these factors created openings that slaves could take advantage of (5.5, 5.13). As a result, ...