history essay of Roman Culture and Society

The Ambiguous Status of Roman Slaves

As a gladiator , a man gained immediate status even though the gladiatorial oath forced him to act as a slave to his master and "to endure branding , chains , flogging , or death by the sword (Petronius Satyricon . Gladiators were required to do what their lanista [the trainer] ed and therefore were revered for their loyalty , courage and discipline

Gladiators were the superstars of their day , with usually an extensive fan following . Yet a vast proportion of them were slaves . How can a person be a superstar

and continue to be a slave ? Such a thing would be inconceivable in our society , or perhaps in any society , but not in the Roman world . The paradoxical truth of gladiators underscores the rather strange and ambiguous attitudes Romans had toward their slaves . In fact gladiators were worse than slaves . They were just circus animals . But then , the Roman slaves were usually treated not even as animals , but just as things

Gladiatorial combat was the chief among Roman spectator sports , and Roman citizens would watch these bloody contests with as much crazed enthusiasm as in our day we watch basketball or soccer , for instance While our top sportsmen are among the crime-de-la-crime of society enjoying high social status by being some of the more prominent rich and famous , Roman gladiators were famous but not rich - just slaves . Some of the gladiators were free-born men , who in fact voluntarily chose their deadly profession of for the lure of money . They received considerable payment in return for which they had to take a gladiatorial oath these warriors thus voluntarily chose a lifestyle of slavery willing to serve their master for a long time to come in the capacity of chattel . This fact highlights how slavery was sometimes seen simply as a regular profession in the Roman world . There may be many of us who may think that we are slaving off under our bosses for the sake of a meager income , but this would be nothing in comparison to the abject slavery and serfdom that prevailed in the gladiatorial and many other professions in the Roman Empire , as well as in many other cultures across various epochs . All this goes to show the pre-modern conception of slavery , especially the one in Roman times , was curiously different in some significant ways from what we would normally expect the conditions associated with slavery to be

The ambiguity in the social status of Roman slaves springs from the fact that the Roman society displayed remarkable social mobility , and offered significant opportunities for even slaves to become freemen and raise their social status . Those who had achieved freedman status could move almost effortlessly into the class of masters and patrons and own slaves themselves . Further on , as strange as it may seem to us , slaves could own slaves when still themselves of slave status , and it was a common enough practice . Former slaves could indeed become one among the rich and famous , possessing considerable wealth...