The Reluctant Slave
Despite the inevitability of his fate, this new slave refuses to cooperate and take his place on the auction-block.
Naturally, the slave-dealer wants to present his livestock in pristine condition as he is of the opinion that most buyers are "turned off" by a whip marked animal. He is correct in assuming most buyers prefer to buy an unblemished slave rather than one that bears the mark of the lash as this could mean the slave is untamed and rebellious.
However, there are exceptions to this and there are other buyers who derive sadistic pleasure from seeing a wretched slave carrying the stripes of the handler's whip on his torso as he poses his naked body on the auction-block.
Here, we see the heavily shackled slave baulking as he is forced out of the holding-pen and taken the short distance to the auction-block where the auctioneer waits to extoll his "virtues" to the enthusiastic buyers.
The slave's struggles are futile; the slave-dealer uses brawny handlers who are themselves naked, "trustee" slaves capable of wrestling and manhandling difficult slaves who refuse to cooperate.
Struggle as much as he likes, but the slave will soon find he is standing on the block and displaying his strong body to an appreciative audience.
Picture sourced from the internet; the text is mine.
In my historical readings of ancient Authors, I have always been fascinated when some of them …… especially historians in narrating the large number and the fate of the enemy prisoners of war, destined obviously to slavery …….. mention, most generally with nonchalance and almost incidentally, the big problems that especially valiant warriors, after their capture and enslavement, were creating for the slave traders that followed the victorious Roman Legions and that immediately bought the prisoners after their capture, sometimes even still on the battle-field.
ReplyDeleteA few Roman Authors even sympathize with those traders, stating that the job of the slave-merchant, however very profitable, is a very hard-job, even with many risks of several types.
In many cases, especially when selling strong and defiant young males who had been brave soldiers, the slave-traders’ biggest problem was how to force those stubborn and rebellious animals to let the merchant sell and auction them without too many “problems” both for the buyers and for the trader himself.
Besides the “reluctance” …… that, as Chris rightly underlines, unluckily couldn’t always be won with a very sound flogging and beating, for not “damaging” the merchandise before their sale …… several of these untamed and rebellious males were often really dangerous, due to possible revolts, for the physical safety itself both of the clients and of the trader. So, for them it was necessary to securely immobilize them, during their public auction or private sale, with unusually heavy and big shackles, chains, yokes etc.
Last but not least, there was also a third category of “reluctant slaves” that were the real NIGHTMARE of many Roman slave-merchants: i.e. those amazingly stubborn and rebellious animals that, for avoiding at all costs the supreme dishonor and shame of being sold into slavery, were even capable of TRYING TO COMMITT SUICIDE !
From the several mentions of ancient Latin Authors it seem that this phenomenon was much more frequent than we can think today, again in particular among prisoners of war, who refused to be sold as slaves.
This was a true nightmare for Roman slave-traders because suicides among the slaves still to be auctioned, might cause severe economical losses …… also because the strongest and most valiant young enemy warriors captured in war, were often fetching quite high prices, being sold as future gladiators, wrestlers, boxers ….. or being sold as “bodyguard-slaves” to wealthy Patricians …… or as sturdy “beasts for burden and hard labor” for rich owners of farms, of mines, of galleys etc.
Therefore slave-merchants were obliged to carefully guard night and day those most mutinous slaves of theirs, and use with them all the possible cautions for avoiding that those wild animals could even kill themselves before their auction (even in the most “fanciful & unexpected” ways, as in some cases narrated by some Authors).
Poor slave-traders, what a “headache“ with these stubborn and rebellious animals who refused to be sold without problems !
Karel