Slaves in the Military Flashcards
Howell Cobb, a Georgian senator during the civil war.
* “The moment you resort to negro soldiers your white soldiers will be lost to you… The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. “
In US South they did not want to arm slaves as it meant that their racism was not warrant
this is different to the Ottoman empire which relied on arming slaves
also Sparta
similar to Athens and Rome though
Brown, C. L. “The Arming of Slaves in Comparative Perspective”.
“in societies where kinship often shaped political allegiance, slaves represented a particularly dependable source of loyal service. Slave soldiers, by definition, possessed no family ties”.
in the arabic empire, they needed slaves as the empire was made of tribes who had loyalty to only wheres these Christian boys could be converted and have no identity other than soldier
- Historian Ibn Khaldun, 1401 century.
- [Turks] were brought from the House of War (i.e., the non-Muslim world) to
the House of Islam (i.e., the Muslim countries) under the rule of slavery,
which hides in itself a divine blessing, and is exposed to divine providence;
cured by slavery, they enter the Muslim religion with the firm resolve of
true believers and yet with nomadic virtues unsullied by debased nature,
unadulterated with the filth of pleasure, undefiled by the ways of civilized
living, and with their ardor unbroken by the profusion of luxury. The slave
merchants bring them to Egypt in batches, like sand-grouse to the watering Flaces and government buyers have them displayed for inspection and bid or them, raising the price above their value. They do this not in order to
subjugate them, but because it intensifies loyalty, increases power, and is
conducive to ardent zeal.
he sees no issue, he is biased, he thinks it is fine to separate families for slavery
(Digest 49.16.11 Marcian).
* Slaves are forbidden all military service; otherwise they suffer capital punishment
This is a roman source, slaves could not fight in military
(Digest 49.16.8 Ulpian).
* Persons whose status is in dispute, even if they are in actual fact freemen, ought not, for the time being, to enroll in military service, especially if legal proceedings have been instituted, whether an action is being raised to reduce them from liberty to slavery, or the reverse. Nor should persons who, though of free birth, are servin as slaves in good faith [enlist], nor those who have been ransomed the enemy until they have discharged their debt
Roman source, freedmen, and anyone debatable cannot join the army very elite
(Thedosian Code 7.13.8 given by the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius Augustuses; dated 380 ce).
We decree that no slave shall be given for enlistment in the excellent squadrons of our choice soldiers…
again refusing slaves to join the military, something only the elite could do
(Seutonius, Life of Augustus 25.2. Similar remarks by historians Velleius Paterculus 2.111.2 and Cassius Dio, 55.31.1 ).
* Except as a fire-brigade at Rome, and when there was fear of riots in times of scarcity, [Augustus] employed freedmen as soldiers only twice: once as a guard for the colonies in the vicinity of Illyricum, and again to defend the bank of the river Rhine; even these he levied, when they were slaves, from men and women of means, and at once gave them freedom; and he kept them under their original standard, not mingling them with the soldiers of free birth or arming them in the same fashion.
example of a tough time in the Roman period when they had to use slaves in the military. This might have happened more than they are willing to admir
Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, pgs. 277-8.
* To accuse a political enemy of using slaves was a way of delegitimizing his cause. Enrolling slaves was what usurpers and tyrants did. Proculus, who tried to seize power in ad 280 was said to have enlisted 2,000 of his own slaves in the campaign„. The abhorrence for enlisting slaves in the state’s army was progressively eroded. This taboo has nearly always existed in slave systems and has nearly as often been violated when circumstances required, but in the late empire we glimpse a particularl desperate debate over the use of slaves in the army and the breakdown of a long-standing Roman prohibition on the recruitment of slaves
He claims it was seen as embarrassing to have slaves in the army, hence why the Romans did not want them to participate
(Pliny Natural History 7.43.139 - Supposedly the funeral speech for Quintus Metallus).
* He had to his credit ten of the greatest and best achievements which wise men spend their lives trying to attain. Namely, he wished to be a warrior of the first rank; an outstanding public speaker; a most courageous general; one who has won great military victories under his own auspices; to hold the highest offices; to have great wisdom; to be considered the foremost senator; to acquire a great deal of money in an honest fashion; to leave behind many children; and to be held in great fame by the community. All of these aims were achieved by him, and by no-one else.
This is the Funeral speech for Quintus Metallus a states man but his main thing is military success
(The epitaph of the famous Athenian poet and playwright Aeschylus)
*
In Geta, rich in wheat, he died, and ties beneath this stone: Aeschytus the Athenian, son of Euphorion. His valour, tried and proved, the mead of Marathon can tell, The tong-haired Persian also, who knows it all too well
Aeschylus was a playwright and yet his epitaph makes note of his military skills
valour= bravery in battle
