Talk:Slavery in ancient Rome

message: I've found a reference we could use for "sometimes slaves stood on revolving stands", but should we? Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities (1898) has for Catasta "A raised platform upon which slaves were exposed for sale, so that the intending purchasers might more readily examine their points (Tibull. ii. 3, 60; Pers. vi. 77). The platform was sometimes made to revolve, as appears from Statius ( Silv. ii. 1 Silv., 72)...." The Statius line (Silvae 2.1.72) is "non te barbaricae versabat turbo catastae" - very very roughly, "the storm/spinning-top of the barbaric sale-platform was not turning you".  I can't judge whether Statius is being literal, metaphorical ("rota fortunae" became a cliché), or even merely describing slaves being made to turn around, but I've tried looking for other mentions of the catasta and keep failing to find mention of it turning. Sandra Joshel, for example, mentions the catasta several times in chapter 4, The Sale of Slaves, in her Slavery in the Roman World, describing quite vividly how slaves were presented on it, but without ever mentioning it revolving. Is it worth including something so weakly attested that others omit it? NebY (talk) 15:33, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have a strong opinion on this but agree that the turning is possibly a poetic trope (ha, pardon the pun). Sometimes the old reference works have these little nuggets, though, that no one's paid attention to since. Would be nice if another secondary source turns up. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:20, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: (Oh well played.) Yes, and I'll keep an eye out. For now, I'm inclined to drop it into a footnote rather than start the sentence with something uncertain and tagged, when the following can be fairly easily referenced - which I could make a start on too, though not immediately. NebY (talk) 12:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revolving stands 

message: We currently have a subsection heading Emancipation, followed by a sentence explaining that emancipatio had nothing to do with slavery in ancient Rome. We keep the heading because a hidden note explains "Please keep this subheading. Other articles link to it, and its meaning is precise." That note was placed in 2010, when another editor had tried changing the heading to Freedom. The section now concerns manumission, an even more precise term. Should we place a hidden  for emancipation, , there and rename the section Manumission? Incoming links would still work and we wouldn't have to start with a digression. NebY (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: NebY (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emancipation - heading or anchor 

message: Wondering if we mentioned the time Roman crowds delayed the execution of four hundred slaves, I was surprised to find the case of Lucius Pedanius Secundus in #Rebellions instead, along with that of Larcius Macedo.Pliny the Younger, Letters, III 14 The former was killed by a single slave; the killers of the latter fled but didn't raise a revolt. Our source, Bradley, mentions both as examples of "smaller outbursts of violence from slaves against masters", supporting his argument that the Sicilian uprisings were not "intended to be massive from the outset" but grew from such small-scale acts of desperation; he himself doesn't call those two events uprisings, though we do.
Emma Southon describes the case of Pedanius Secundus as "one of those moments with Tacitus where he presents a behaviour as stupid and laughable to his Roman aristocratic audience and assumes they'll agree with him but which modern audiences read entirely differently." A riot besieged the Senate, then with stones and torches delayed the execution. Nero rebuked them by edict and had troops line the route, but mercifully vetoed the expulsion of Pedanius' freedmen (three years previously in 58, says Southon, the law requiring the death of the slaves had been renewed to include the death of the freedmen). Mouritsen mentions the event as an example of "anecdotal evidence for solidarity between freedmen (even slaves) and the rest of the plebs".
We mention panic among slaveholders but not that popular response. Would it be appropriate to mention it there or even mention the murders and executions under a different heading (presumably much more briefly than this)? NebY (talk) 20:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rebellions or revulsion 

message: This edit and the preceding text reminded me of a quandary mentioned by Marc Kleijwegt, more clearly attested in New World slavery, that "most masters were reluctant to free entire family units" so women who might otherwise be happy to accept freedom had to leave others behind. Evidence is doubly scant, of course. As for Laes's survey showing "more than 30 percent of women traded were of prime childbearing age (20 to 25)", I can't help wondering (I don't have access) if perhaps it was 30+% of trades instead, suggesting some were acquired for the short term and resold. NebY (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Female slaves and manumission