Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

410 14. the family in the late roman world
The landlords who were forced – by sheer necessity – to expose or sell
the children of their slaves would have been farmers with insufficient
reserves to face up to famines or similar adversities. We are therefore
dealing with small farms where there was close, daily contact with the
slaves. In such contexts, the cession of a sanguinolentus born of slaves tended
to generate an emotional climate similar to that between free citizens. The
right of redemption, which admitted the possibility, at least in theory, of
future reunion, helped to reduce the trauma of the event, exactly as it did
in the case of free citizens. This established the humanitarian principle that
recognized the aspiration of slave family nuclei to remain united, without
impairing thereby the right of the domini to dispose freely of their res. Like
other arguments calling for a more humane treatment of slaves, this one
had also had its advocates in the past. But it was only under Constantine
that it was clearly and formally defined. The humanitarian inspiration of
the Constantinian legislation is confirmed by a law on the fundi patrimoniales
vel enfyteuticarii. The dismemberment of the possessiones, the emperor stipulated,
must be carried out in such a way as to safeguard the integrity of the
servorum agnatio, for ‘who could tolerate that children should be separated
from parents, sisters from brothers, wives from their husbands?’ 66
The strengthening and diffusion of such moral scruples, combined with
the decline in the slave supply and the impoverishment of the free farmers,
had paradoxical consequences on family stability, for it would appear from
certain documents that the slave agnationes were more stable than the families
that were free but poor. The new epistles of Augustine indicate that the
phenomenon intensified in the western areas during the early decades of the
fifth century. As a judge, Augustine found himself handling a difficult juridical
problem, concerning cases of children illegally sold by free parents and
of free adults who had fallen into the hands of slave-dealers. On the subject
he appends a revealing note: ‘the mangones deport those they buy, almost all
of whom are free citizens . . . Very rare, on the other hand, are the cases of
real slaves sold by their lords.’ 67 In the same years, the Vita of Melania the
Younger cites another episode that was an eloquent sign of the times: it told
of slaves, freed in large numbers by their lords, rejecting their freedom and
carrying their opposition to the verge of revolt. 68 Here it was clearly a case
of ‘cottaged’ slaves (casarii), divided into ‘family’ nuclei not substantially
unlike those of the coloni, as far as economic functions were concerned. For
such people, especially when they belonged to a powerful domus unit, slavery
offered many advantages, principally that of stability. Freedom, on the other
66 C.Th. ii.25.1�CJ iii.38.1 (325: Seeck (1919) 88). Though this constitution specifically concerns
Sardinia, the principle was certainly general; see Giardina (1988) 138. For confirmation of this principle,
in connection with the needs of the census, CJ xi.48.7 (371: Seeck (1919) 131).
67 Aug. Ep. 10*, CSEL lxxxviii.46ff.
68 Pall. Hist. Laus. 61.5; Vita Melaniae 10f. (SChrét. 90); Giardina (1982) 128f.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008