Greek and Roman Slaveries

10 After Slavery Manumission, Freedmen, and Freedwomen

This chapter explores the processes through which slaves gained their freedom and the constraints, opportunities, and challenges that freedpersons faced. There were various paths to manumission: slaves could take advantage of their personal relations with their masters through loyal service (10.5, 10.10) or as a consequence of sexual relations and unions (10.3–4). Slaves worked hard to create the savings needed to buy their freedom (10.9); they could also join together to collect resources and negotiate a collective manumission (10.6) or use their family links (10.2) or social networks to secure the necessary funds (10.7–8). Achieving freedom often brought slaves in front of terrible dilemmas (10.1).

Manumission posed serious problems for slaveholding societies; the interests of masters could clash with communal priorities and the hopes of freedpersons, generating major debates (10.12–3). Manumission did not necessarily bring independence; ancient societies had various forms of conditional freedom because freedpersons often continued to serve their masters or depend on them (10.14–7). The desire for freedom could sometimes bring unexpected problems (10.18). At the same time, though, manumission could bring to some freedpersons, particularly those belonging to powerful masters, opportunities that were unavailable for most free people (10.19–22).

Freedpersons had to negotiate their new status, which involved both continuities ...