Public slaves in Greece and Rome

Question 1

(Demosthenes 22.71 J.
In the matter of the taxes you laid down the just principle that the city must trust, not but the city’s own slaves.

Answer 1

Highlights the fact that city slaves had a level of agency and influence in society as they checked the finances and spending of those in control and held them accountable

Question 2

Aristophanes play Women of the Thesmophoria 1002).:
Scythian Archer*. But what’s your name?
Euripides: Artemisia.
Scythian Archer: Will remember it. Artemuxia.

Answer 2

here he is mocking in a racist way the fact that the archer has an accent

Question 3

(Women of the thesmaphoria 923).
Archer, seize him, fasten him to the post, then take up your position there and keep guard over him

Answer 3

Shows that the slaves were even acting as police

Question 4

Lysistrafa 4.34).
Where is the archer now? Arrest this woman, tie her hands behind her (

Answer 4

Shows that the slaves were even acting as police

Question 5

(Assemblywomen 1431.
the archers dragging more than one uproarious drunkard out of the market-place

Answer 5

Shows that the slaves were even acting as police

Question 6

(Roman Antiquities 4.62.4).
So, the Sibylline Books, sacred oracular texts, were said to have originated in the time of Rome’s first king and been put under the guardianship of prominent priests and pubic slaves, according to Dionysius of Halicamassus

Answer 6

priests and public slaves worked together thus even in religion,

Question 7

Tacitus the historian (l .43)
tells a story of a slave of the temple of Vesta hiding the Roman senator Piso in his room at the temple.

Answer 7

This suggests that city slaves had accommodation provided thus valued

Question 8

Aeschines, Against timarchus, 1.54 fourth century BC Athens)
‘“Among the men who spend their time there is one Pittalacus, a slave-fellow who is the property of the city. He had plenty of money, and seeing Timarchus spending his time thus he took him and kept him in his own house

Answer 8

shows how city slaves had money and maybe even better lives than those free

Question 9

Aeschines Against Timarchus
One night when [some other Athenian citizens) were drunk they, with certain others, whose names do not care to mention, burst into the house where Pittalacus was living. First they smashed the implements of his trade and tossed them into the street—sundry dice and dice-boxes, and his gaming utensils in general; they killed the quails and cocks, so well beloved by the miserable man; and finally they tied Pittalacus himself to the pillar and gave him an inhuman whipping, which lasted until even the heard the uproar”

Answer 9

shows how even though city slaves had money and some status they were still slaves and could still be subjected to the same abuse without consequence