Hadrian’s defense of Dacia is followed by fifty years of peace and growth, but the prosperity of the region is founded on the labour of tens of thousands of enslaved people.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to A history of Romania.

Season 1, Episode 10: The silenced masses

In the previous chapter of our story, Hadrian repulsed attacks on the Roman lands north of the Danube at the beginning of his reign in 118 CE. Once victory was secured, he divided Dacia into three provinces that would be easier to govern, and encouraged native Dacians as well as colonists to join the army. The region remained peaceful for the rest of Hadrian’s reign, as well as for that of his successor Antoninus Pius, and for a few years beyond that too.

Accordingly, from 118 to 167 CE, the three Dacian provinces enjoyed nearly fifty years of uninterrupted peace, development, and affluence. If we look at that this period from the point of view of political or military history, not much happened. But taking this approach would ignore crucial aspects of Roman society north of the Danube. To understand what life in these provinces actually looked like, we’ll spend the next two episodes exploring the lives of ordinary people during these five decades of peace.

By the middle of the 2^nd century, the Roman provinces of Dacia Porolissensis, Dacia Superior, and Dacia Inferior had between them four cities; hundreds of villages and agricultural estates; dozens of mines to extract gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, salt, and stone; numerous lumberyards to harvest wood; workshops to handle ceramics, leather, wool, and bone; brickyards to supply construction projects; and customs stations to trade with the peoples beyond the border.

This developed economy largely relied on slavery. Enslaved people were found in all sectors and were employed in all sorts of ways: farming, crafting, mining, but also keeping records, administering offices, managing estates, healing the sick, and educating children. Their positions varied depending on the needs of their masters and on their own skillsets. What united them all was their distinct legal status.

In Roman law, an enslaved person was called servus, translated as slave. These individuals were severed from their family and ancestors, couldn’t choose their own name, couldn’t own anything, couldn’t enter into legal contracts, and didn’t have control over their own bodies; their masters were allowed to beat them, torture them, abuse them sexually, and even kill them. Though they were still considered human beings, the law saw them as living property owned by their master.

What the Romans called “slaves,” I’ll call “enslaved people” for two reasons. One, it helps emphasize that, unlike what was written in Roman law, these were people with their own personalities, needs, and aspirations. And two, using the term “enslaved” as opposed to “slave” highlights that these individuals were actively kept in a state of slavery through the threat and application of violence by their masters, who were supported by the state; being enslaved was not who they were, but what was done to them.

Anyone in the Roman world could be enslaved, regardless of their ethnicity, and historians estimate that around 10 to 20% of the population of the empire lived in slavery at this time. A person could be enslaved after being captured in war, failing to pay a debt, receiving a criminal sentence, being kidnapped, or simply being born to an enslaved mother. Towards the middle of the 2^nd century, the population of the three Dacian provinces was between 600,000 and 1,200,000 people, meaning that somewhere between 60,000 and 240,000 people were enslaved within their borders.

The largest part of them worked in agriculture. Families of colonists who had come to the Dacian provinces usually bought or rented a plot of land from the state and relied on farming to survive. The poorest among them cultivated the fields themselves, while those who could afford it bought one or more enslaved people to work alongside them.

The wealthiest colonists owned extensive rural properties, but these were smaller than the huge latifundia found elsewhere in the empire. The reason is because, in the Dacian provinces, plots had been given to individual veterans and colonists, and the wealthy hadn’t yet had time to buy up land from smaller farmers around them, so even the largest villas were more modest than a typical latifundia.

Even so, owners of Dacian estates bought dozens of enslaved people and forced them to work the land. When there weren’t enough enslaved people to buy or they were too expensive, owners also employed paid labourers, who were usually poorer colonists or native Dacians. This combined workforce performed all the tasks necessary to keep these estates running and produced agricultural goods like grains, meats, cheeses, wines, and wool.

Labourers were supervised by an overseer, who was often an enslaved man who had the full trust of the master. An overseer was taught to read and write so as to be able to implement his master’s orders, lead everyday operations, and maintain records. As such, the owner, which was usually a Roman citizen, received regular reports and income while residing in a nearby city, where he lived a sophisticated lifestyle and could pursue political offices.

A typical rural estate for the region was found near the city of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa; it had extensive farmland, pastures, and even a portion of forest. The land was centred around a villa with multiple rooms, a heated bath, an interior garden, and adjacent rooms for household staff. This luxury allowed the master to live in comfort when he visited.

Close by were workshops for carpentry and ironworking, as well as barracks where the enslaved labourers slept and lived. These barracks also sheltered animals and stored tools, which is a striking illustration of how the Romans viewed enslaved people: as just another work implement.

The entire compound was separated from the cultivated land by a stone wall about a metre tall, which was meant to slow down raiders. Additionally, a stone tower seven metres tall was built to supervise the estate, jail disobedient labourers, and serve as a refuge in case of attack.

Dacian villas such as this one were located along provincial roads and near cities to be able to easily transport their agricultural goods to large markets. The owners of these estates often had businesses in the cities in which they lived, and, in the winter, they brought their enslaved workforce from the fields to their urban workshops.

These places manufactured the majority of the goods used in the Dacian provinces. Enslaved labourers who worked in them year-round developed particular skills and became potters, weavers, engravers, shoemakers, leatherworkers, jewelers, and more.

Just like in the countryside, masters appointed an overseer to administer their workshops. One family in the city of Apulum had such extensive businesses that they had four overseers. These trusted agents could legally represent their master in certain affairs, and could even erect buildings on their behalf.

In their households, masters also had dozens of enslaved people to cook their food, clean their chamber pots, wash their clothes, and do all the other manual labour they didn’t want to do. Enslaved people who had received advanced education could serve as teachers for their master’s children, doctors for his family, or accountants for his business.

Besides private individuals, cities also owned enslaved people, like in the case of temples which needed workers to maintain the grounds and prepare ceremonies. For instance, Syrillio was a keeper of the temple of the imperial cult in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. His funerary stone states that he died at 78 years-old and was buried by his free son and daughter-in-law. We’ll see how people in slavery could become free later on in this episode, but for now, I want to draw attention to the fact that Syrillio lived for 78 years, which is solid even in our times. Service roles were less taxing on the body than those in fields or workshops, which means that enslaved people in these positions often lived longer and had a higher chance of becoming free.

By the way, in this episode, I’ll mention several names of enslaved people, labourers, traders, and soldiers. You don’t have to remember any of these names, only to hear them. In history, I believe it’s important to not only talk about kings and generals, but ordinary people too; often, these individuals are obscured in the masses and are anonymous in our sources, so whenever we have the opportunity, I think we should speak their names and give their stories a place in our histories.

The person who owned the largest number of enslaved people was the emperor himself. Many were born in the palace in Rome, were taught to read, write, and do arithmetic, and were sent to the provinces to fulfill minor administrative posts.

These posts included proofreaders who verified calculations in the registers of customs stations; cashiers who received and recorded various payments in mining offices, temples, and army headquarters; treasurers who distributed money to labourers and soldiers; accountants who archived information about the census, taxes, and expenditures in provincial capitals; overseers for army stables and storehouses; and scribes and copyists.

Some people who were enslaved in imperial service could reach extremely powerful positions. A man named Hermias became procurator of the goldmines in the first years of Roman Dacia, meaning he was in charge of the extraction of gold and led the establishment of the province’s mines. After years of work, he was freed by Trajan, who knew him well, and took the name Marius Ulpius Augustus libertus Hermias. When he died during the reign of Hadrian, his ashes were transported to Rome and placed in a tomb reserved for the enslaved people who had worked for the imperial family.

As the organizer of the goldmines, Hermias was a rare case. Below him, tens of thousands of people were forced to retrieve the precious metal in horrendous conditions.

Gold could be extracted by washing gold-bearing sand as the Dacians had done before the conquest or by mining under the open sky. But the method the Romans used the most was to dig underground tunnels to follow gold-bearing veins. These spaces were cramped and dangerous, and toiling in them wore down the body. Some free people who had no other choice came to work in the mines for extremely low pay, but the majority of the workforce was enslaved.

The state leased out mines to wealthy individuals and provided legionary soldiers to keep their enslaved workers in line; in the worst conditions, enslaved people were forced to sleep in the very shafts they mined.

Masters relentlessly pushed their workers to extract more gold, and many died with tragic regularity. This created a constant need for labour, which encouraged opportunists to kidnap and sell people who were powerless or on the margins of society. We’re lucky enough to have found contracts in the mines that tell us a little bit about these unfortunate individuals, and they included men, women, and children.

One contract concerns a woman bearing the Greek name of Theudote, who was sold by one soldier to another. Theudote was probably not Greek since, by the 2^nd century, the Hellenic world was pacified and wasn’t a major source of enslaved people. More probably, she was from a tribe on the borders of the Dacian provinces, and had been captured in a raid by Roman soldiers. Though prisoners were supposed to be given to the authorities, some soldiers kept them for themselves, gave them fictional names to hide their true origin, and sold them for personal profit.

In this case, the buyer was Claudius Iulianus, a soldier who worked in the goldmines, meaning he forced people to mine through threats and beatings. Iulianus paid much more than his annual salary for Theudote, which implies that, besides his job as a guard, he also took money from wealthy mine owners to find and buy people to bolster their workforce.

Another contract hints at the story of a six-year-old girl named Passia. She had been abandoned by her parents and was surviving on the streets when she was kidnapped by a man named Maximus Batonis. He then brought her to the goldmines to sell to one Dasius Verzonis. The contract between them stated that Passia was healthy, that she was not a thief, a troublemaker, nor a runaway from another master, and that if any of this proved false, Maximus would have to pay Dasius twice the price of sale. The contract was signed in front of seven witnesses, all of them experienced miners who had been transplanted from their homes in Dalmatia to lead operations in Dacia. With the deal done, Dasius added one more human being to his list of properties, and sent six-year-old Passia into the mines.

We actually have an eyewitness account of conditions in Roman goldmines. A Greek historian named Diodorus of Sicily wrote about them in the 1^st century BCE, and though the time and place is different from ours, Roman mining methods remained broadly similar, so the situation he describes is analogous to the one in the Dacian provinces. I’ll read a portion of his account here, as it’ll help us understand the reality of the enslaved people who toiled in the mines. As you listen, try to imagine Theudote and Passia struggling to survive in this environment.

Diodorus says: “The operations are in charge of a skilled worker who distinguishes the gold-bearing stone and points it out to the labourers; and of those who are assigned to this unfortunate task, the physically strongest break the rock with iron hammers and cut tunnels through the stone. These men, working in darkness as they do because of the bending and winding of the passages, carry lamps bound on their foreheads; and since much of the time they change the position of their bodies to follow the particular character of the stone, they throw the blocks, as they cut them out, on the ground; and at this task they labour without ceasing beneath the sternness and blows of an overseer.

The boys there who have not yet come to maturity, entering through the tunnels into the galleries, laboriously gather up the rock as it is cast down piece by piece, and carry it out into the open to the place outside the entrance. Then those who are above thirty years of age take this quarried stone from them and, with iron pestles, pound a specified amount of it in stone mortars, until they have worked it down to the size of a vetch. Thereupon the women and older men receive from them the rock of this size and cast it into mills of which a number stand there in a row, and taking their places in groups of two or three at the spoke or handle of each mill, they grind it until they have worked down the amount given them to the consistency of the finest flour.

And since no opportunity is afforded any of them to care for his body and they have no garment to cover their shame, no man can look upon these unfortunate wretches without feeling pity for them because of the exceeding hardships they suffer. For no leniency or respite of any kind is given to any man who is sick, or maimed, or aged, or in the case of a woman for her weakness, but all without exception are compelled by blows to persevere in their labours, until through ill-treatment they die in the midst of their tortures.

The slaves who are engaged in the mines produce for their masters revenues in sums defying belief, but they themselves wear out their bodies both by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers. Compelled beneath the blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away their lives in this wretched manner, although certain of them who can endure it, by virtue of their bodily strength and their persevering souls, suffer such hardships over a long period; indeed, death in their eyes is more to be desired than life, because of the magnitude of the hardships they must bear.”

While many enslaved people died in the mines, others working on farms, in workshops, in households, and in the administration were thankfully able to gain their freedom at some point in their lives.

A person could only be freed by their master through manumission, which was seen as a merciful act that recognized the loyalty and service of the enslaved person. Most manumissions were done through testaments, in which the master wrote the names of the people he wanted freed upon his death. This means that people who saw their master regularly, like those who worked alongside him on his farm or who served him in his household, had more of a chance of being freed than those who worked far away from him on large estates, in workshops, or in mines.

Of course, there were also darker reasons for manumission. In numerous cases, masters sexually exploited enslaved women, then freed them and married them legally.

Instead of waiting for their master to gracefully free them once he was dead, enslaved people could try to convince him to let them buy their own freedom. A first step in this direction was to join collegia. In Roman society, collegia were mutual support associations for individuals with similar jobs or interests, such as merchants or priests.

Some collegia were specifically reserved for enslaved people, and they provided a place where they could celebrate festivities together, form bonds of friendship and family, and be buried in an honourable manner.

Enslaved people had to get their masters’ permission to join a collegium, and once they did, they had to pay a small monthly fee to finance the association’s activities. To get the sum required, many enslaved people sold produce from their small gardens which their masters allowed them to keep. The money which remained after paying for festivities and funerals was sometimes used by collegia to buy the freedom of their members.

Enslaved people in more privileged positions – such as overseers – were sometimes allowed to manage property as if it was their own in the course of their duties. This type of property was called peculium and could include tools, herds, money, and even other enslaved people. Though it could be taken back at any moment since it legally belonged to the master, peculium allowed some enslaved people to accumulate money of their own and use it to buy their freedom.

Those working in the imperial administration often managed funds and property as well, and could put aside money in the same way. However, they had no direct connection to their master – the emperor. To be freed, the governor or financial procurator of their province had to recommend them for manumission to the emperor. In these cases, their money didn’t serve to buy their freedom so much as to bribe their superiors for a recommendation.

Once these overseers and administrators were released from slavery, a portion of their peculium became their own legal property, and, in this way, they were able to begin their lives as free people with some wealth already amassed. Of course, these individuals were only a minuscule minority of the enslaved population, most of whom began their free lives with nothing. We have more evidence about overseers and administrators because they were better off financially and were able to erect monuments and gravestones that endured, but we have to remember that the vast majority of enslaved people didn’t have these opportunities and are mostly overlooked by our sources.

Once free, formerly enslaved people became liberti, meaning freed persons, and formed a separate legal category of their own. Their former master became their patron; they were now considered part of his family and they added his clan and family name to their own personal name. A freed person had the obligation to show loyalty to their patron and to help him in judicial matters; if they failed to do so, they could be re-enslaved. The link between a libertus and their patron was only severed if the freed person became a citizen.

Most liberti continued the work they had done while enslaved, whether in the imperial administration, in households, workshops, or on farms, which is why masters were often not opposed to freeing them. Yes, a master lost some control over his workers, but he would still have their services – and receive a nice pouch of coin for freeing them; and if he was ever displeased with how his worker was acting, he could always threaten re-enslavement.

Many freed persons also continued to live near their patron, and sometimes, the two parties developed ties of affection. We have numerous cases in which a patron put liberti in his will alongside his children; and other cases in which, in the absence of heirs, a patron willed his wealth to his liberti and asked them to execute his will, maintain his grave, and be buried alongside him.

In the Roman legal hierarchy, liberti were below peregrini, meaning the inhabitants of the empire that had been born and remained free. Liberti were considered formerly enslaved people all their lives, and only their children had the status of peregrini; but even so, social stigma could follow these freeborn children, and many abandoned their father’s enslaved name and adopted Latin or Greek names to better assimilate into society.

Liberti were excluded from political life, so they instead poured their energies in economic affairs to advance their social status. We have many examples of freed persons who became independent farmers, artisans, traders, some who owned workshops, and others who entered the administration and rose through merit.

The richest liberti could increase their social prestige by joining the ordo Augustalium, which was the cult of the imperial family. In exchange for funding the temple in their city, they became Augustales, or members of the imperial cult. As such, they were given a special insignia they could wear in public and were assigned special seats at public occasions. Though they had no political power, these liberti were able to sit next to city magistrates and exercise unofficial influence.

An example of such a freed person is Ulpius Domitius Hermes. He became an Augustalius and, since he had no children, he left his fortune to five of his friends, all of whom had also been formerly enslaved and were now part of the imperial cult. Hermes had reached the highest social position a libertus could hope to attain, and doubtless served as an example to many who were still enslaved.

By the end of Antoninus Pius’ reign in the middle of the 2^nd century, the number of enslaved people in the Dacian provinces peaked and began to slowly decrease as no major wars brought in captives, and as enslaved people continued to be freed. Of course, slavery would continue to be a key part of the Roman economy for a long time yet, but ever so slowly, more and more people were able to escape exploitation and begin their lives anew on their own terms.

In two weeks, we’ll turn to the cultural aspects of life in the Dacian provinces, and then go beyond their borders to see how the free Dacians developed over the course of this same fifty-year period of peace.