Behind the scenes at a slave auction
When a buyer attends a slave auction, he only sees the end product as it stands on the auction-block as the auctioneer extolls its virtues and calls for -
"Your bids on this prime piece of slave-flesh, gentlemen".
The buyer is unaware of what is happening behind the scenes; of the sheer misery and the stark terror of the slaves as they await their turn to be sold and their reluctance to co-operate with the auctioneer's assistants.
This new slave, his muscular naked body oiled to perfection to better display its impressive physique, had listened as other slaves before him had been driven up onto the selling platform. He listened in mounting horror as the auctineer had ordered the wretched slaves to povocatively pose their bodies and to "bend and spread" their ass-cheeks. He listened to the crude, ribald comments and laughter of the buyers and he knew that soon he would be the subject of their lewd remarks.
Now, it his turn to climb the stairs to the waiting auction-block and overcome with fright, his legs fail him and he falls onto his hands and knees. No amount of abuse or cajolling from the overseers will get him to his feet.
The overseers are reluctant to use their whips or straps on the slave - afterall, they don't want to mar his appearance as the auctioneer displays him to the buyers - and the decision is made to allow the slave to crawl up the steps on all fours. Even then, it is hesitant and so an overseer resorts to hard ass slapping to motivate it.
Eventually, the slave realises it has no other alternative than to co-operate and it begins the climb upwards to the auction-block and its assignation with the waiting buyers.
Video sourced from the internet; the text is mine.
Behind the usual fabulous erotic atmosphere of this post, what strikes me in this piece of prose is the uncommon and absolutely correct psychological investigation and profundity.
ReplyDeleteIt’s absolutely true …….. and most slave-traders knew this ……. that “BREAKING & TAMING A SLAVE” meant first of all to BREAK HIS MIND and HIS PSYCHE, often much more than “breaking” and making harmless his muscles ……. first of all through the humiliation and debasement “to a level of beasts” so to destroy, into the slave, even the last “traces” of human dignity.
For example the “ritual” according to which generally in ancient Rome slaves were displayed for sale, were auctioned to the highest bidder, or were sold by private treaty, and finally were presented to their buyers and new owners, in the traditional cruel ceremony of the “taking of possession” ………. beyond all shackles, chains, manacles, yokes, collars and leashes and all the other “acts & sceneries” that often were aimed mainly to tickle the sadism of buyers more than were needed for really subduing the slaves, were first of all an ingenious and subtle play of psychological breaking of the slave’s last traces of human dignity.
Even a big Roman owner of herds and herds of slaves, like Cato the Elder, in his manual on how to manage and run farms “DE AGRICULTURA” (“About Agriculture”), dedicates two full chapters to the “art” of taming new slaves and of transforming them in docile and submissive domesticated “animals”.
Of course he recognizes that means of physical constraint like chains and whips etc.etc. are indispensable when needed, as well as –when necessary- fierce punishments …… included, by the way, even CASTRATION, recommended as the “last & definitive solution” for too strong and too wild male slaves.
However a fundamental importance in the domesticating of new slaves is given first of all to their “psychological breaking” through continuous and countless everyday’s humiliations, degradations and abuses.
“LET HIM REALIZE THAT HE’S NO MORE A MAN” could be the first and most important motto in the creation of a new slave.
Karel