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Posted By: SirJill Jun 20, 2003 - 06:54 pm

What if you can't find it? I am doing reasearch or sudo reasearch for a bit of background for all of my vampire novels. I've noticed a rather freaky connection between my Vampire/fledgling system and the Patron/client system of ancient Rome. The specific piece of info that I'm looking for is how Slaves were manumitted (freed). I heard somewhere that all the master had to do was slap the slave across the face but I don't think that's it.
The net isn't helping at all. I keep getting all this junk about Sparticus and where the slaves came from, but not how they were manumitted. Grr.

Would appreciate any refrence suggestions and info you could give me.

What am I supposed to do if I don't want to make it up and can't find out how they were manumitted? Has this happened to anyone else while doing reasearch for a novel?

Posted By: Ding_man Jun 20, 2003 - 07:25 pm

Well, maybe they were never freed. Maybe they lasted with the Roman Empire. Thats just an honest guess.

Posted By: sarahl2 Jun 20, 2003 - 08:04 pm

i tried 'manumitted slaves rome' on google, and several pages came up with some information about this.

At http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/women%20and%20slavery%20in%20ancient%20rome.htm
they said:

"As an incentive some slaves received a wage and could accumulate it to buy their freedom. Some masters granted freedom in their will. Slaves who were manumitted (freed) became freedmen or freedwomen, not citizens, but they could marry and their children would be citizens."

- and -

"Slaves were never granted their freedom without also having the means to support themselves. Some were given a small plot of land, while others were set up as shop keepers and artisans. The freedman or freedwoman was expected to remain loyal to the former master and he in his turn was expected to provide ongoing support in time of need. Freedom was not a way of getting rid of a slave that was too old or sick to work."

then, at http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/96/Madden96.html

"There is some evidence to suggest that female slaves were manumitted more often than males and marriageable females (it would seem) most often of all. The principal reason for this is thought to be marriage."

to me, it sounds like there wouldn't have been much fanfare, or any sort of ceremony to being freed. their treatment and whether or not they were granted freedom hinged on their owner's temperament. personally, i'd play around with google a bit, and see what's there.

~{S}~

Posted By: Daelish Jun 20, 2003 - 08:05 pm

http://home.triad.rr.com/warfford/Roman_Empire/slavery.html

Do a search (click edit, click find) for manumit, the first 2 hits are useless. The third hit is the age that most slaves are manumitted and the paragraph below that shows the 2 legal means of manumittance. (edited because I listed wrong the first time)

The whole article itself may be very useful to you as it is a detailed article on the traditions, activities, and treatment of slaves in the roman empire.

Posted By: Eleika Jun 23, 2003 - 07:42 pm

In "Household Gods", which admittedly is a work of fiction, but I think they did their research well, a slave could be temporarily manumitted by the owner simply declaring it, and six witnesses signing a paper that recorded it. But upon the death of the master, the slave reverted to slavery again. I think. Otherwise, it was really expensive, but you could purchase official freedom which bought them freedom forever.

Posted By: SilverCatofBast Sep 09, 2003 - 08:28 pm

You know what sucks?
I've been doing alot of research on Rome, and I *KNOW* I have links to stuff about roman slaves... lots of links...
But I found one in my favorites that was broken, and not a single one more.
Dang, must have linked to connected sites...
Anyhow, going on...
I can't find the links, but I remember that there was some interesting stuff on the treatment of slaves, but on one of the sites about sexism back then had some info.
At one point, when the Roman Empire was having a bit of a population crisis, they decided to give out incentives to make slaves bulk up the working class.
While at no point was a slave allowed to raise their own child, and the child would be a slave no matter what (even if it was the master's child) - slave women who had given birth four times were freed by the state and given some sort of means of living (a shop, a job, whatever).
I'm pretty sure it was four kids, if your wondering. I'm one of four in my family and mom found it oddly interesting.
I'm not sure how relavent the info is... maybe one way for the vamps to be 'freed' is to become a sire themselves?
Weird...
Later!

Posted By: SirJill Sep 22, 2003 - 04:13 am

SilverCat, I think I've heard that too. About the four children, I mean. I've found a decent set of research books about Rome and ancient Greece in my local library so hopefully I can figure something out. I did, however, find a really useful and fun book about Rome. And, surprisingly, it's fiction. It's called "The First Man In Rome" and it's by Collen McCoullough...not sure of the spelling on the surname. Got some really wonderful maps in there. Hopefully, by reading it, I'll be able to find something!

Also, thanks for the suggestion about Siring. I had thought of that before and cast it aside, finding too many problems with it. Now, the problems see more like story lines! Thanks!

SJ

Posted By: gypsychic Sep 22, 2003 - 05:09 am

Found a pretty detailed article here:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dpd/delphinus/art/gutin.html