How much evidence do we have that Roman's really had female

>>2207962
How would you treat a female slave?

>>2207962
What about sex slaves sold at brothels and those bought as slaves by private individuals?

>>2207962
>How much evidence do we have that Roman's really had female slaves?

Overwhelming evidence.

Tons of paintings and frescoes show slave women. The stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus complained about how frequently horny Roman men fucked their female slaves. Diocletian's economic edicts included comprehensive price controls that set different going rates for slaves depending on whether they were male or female and their age group. Slaves weren't covered under the laws governing "stuprum," the Roman legal system's blanket term for sex crimes like rape and molestation.

>from reading about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the vast majority of slaves were male.

That's because most European buyers in the Transatlantic Slave Trade were seeking manual laborers for backbreaking agricultural and mining work. Women were also purchased for these jobs, and as servants for the colonists, but the bulk of the initial demand was for men. The Spanish and other colonial powers originally enslaved the local Native Americans, but needed another source of cheap labor after the original inhabitants died off from overwork and disease.

Romans made heavy use of slaves in agriculture, but they also used slaves in practically every field you can think of and for specialized tasks. Literate slaves were in high demand, while in the Americas the slavers generally did everything in their power to stamp out literacy among their slaves.

>Also, on the issue of female slaves - just as I can find claims all over the internet about a "patriarchy" and "wage gap" in modern times, I can find lots of claims about female slaves being routinely 'raped', but do we have any evidence for this other than supposition?

Too tired at the moment to dig much further than the previous examples tonight, but it's observed in modern slavery, and was a frequent occurrence with the aforementioned Transatlantic slave trade. There's a reason most "black" people in the US have some European ancestry.

>>2208049
Not OP but I've always wondered, were children born from slaves, well, slaves for the romans? Or did the kids go off free? I imagine if kids were born slaves than slave breeding should've been a thing to get even more slaves.

>>2208049

OP here, thanks so much for your detailed response, I'll look at your sources.

>Too tired at the moment to dig much further than the previous examples tonight, but it's observed in modern slavery, and was a frequent occurrence with the aforementioned Transatlantic slave trade. There's a reason most "black" people in the US have some European ancestry.

But this is something very hard to prove. Even if there are a lot of children being born, this doesn't prove coerced sex. Obviously, there's a massive power imbalance involved which could imply a sort of rape... but with the trans-Atlantic case, weren't very many slave-owners living in a highly Christian culture which would have looked down on the rape of women, even slaves? Wouldn't this be the ultimate taboo?

>>2208062
Slave owners tend to give few shits about taboos, they're slave owners after all.

>>2208011
With sex.
Buttsex.

>>2208062
No because roman slaves were considered property, not people.

"men, take what's yours!" is a fairly common roman graffiti referring to female slaves.

the power imbalance is the coercion itself. all sex with that power dynamic is intrinsicly rape, although romans didnt consider it rape anymore than they would consider using your hand rape.

>>2208068
except slavery wasn't even slightly taboo in ancient rome.

>>2207962
>female slaves being routinely 'raped'
That which has no rights cannot object, it is only it's owner's property.
The owner can free her and adopt the children.
Also, should a slave kill the master, all of the master's slaves are sentenced to death.

>>2208076
He was talking about the christian taboo of raping women during the atlantic slave trade

>>2208058
The child would be a slave owned by the master. The master would do whatever they saw fit with the child. A slave could buy or be rewarded their freedom, in which they would become a freed(wo)man. They could know work and own property but were not citizens of Rome (this had its disadvantages but I can't remember them). The children of freedmen would be Roman citizens.

>>2208099
So was slave breeding a thing?

>>2208087
>Also, should a slave kill the master, all of the master's slaves are sentenced to death.
Kinda seems unfair to my 21st century liberal sensibilities.

>>2208111
it is quite smart in fact

>>2208111
It's a preventative measure.
To make sure others slaves stop and dissuade ones who'd try to kill their owner.

>>2208111
It was controversial even among contemporary Romans who saw nothing wrong with slavery in general; some of the wealthier Roman plantation owners would have tons of slaves. There was an infamous case where a guy killed his master and it resulted in hundreds of people being executed, which sparked a public outcry and caused said laws to be hotly debated.

>>2208131
Fellow law student, or are you just really knowledgeable about Rome?

>>2208124
Not really.

Sounds like a surefire method of creating full blown revolts and mass escape attempts. If you and all the other slaves are dead men walking already, you might as well rise up and have a slim chance of survival instead of sitting around waiting to be executed.

See the Dazexiang Uprising in China for a textbook case. An army was being transferred from one region to another to fight one of the Qin dynasty's wars, and missed the date they were supposed to join with other forces due to severe flooding cutting off their route. The commander then summoned his officers for a chat:

"Gentlemen, what's the penalty for being late?"

"Death."

"And what's the penalty for rebellion?"

"Death."

"Well, we're late."

>>2208171
>you might as well rise up and have a slim chance of survival instead of sitting around waiting to be executed.

Except vast majority of slave owners didn't have loads of slaves. Even if the slaves did take arms and rebel they'd be taken out within the first few days by the Roman soldiers. Of course slave rebellions occurred numerous times in Roman Italy but they all ended slaughtered to the last man.

Most slaves did in fact understand how fucking powerful Rome was.

>>2208062
You're welcome. Rape and sexual abuse of slaves is a well attested aspect of the Transatlantic slave trade; we actually have first hand eyewitness accounts from former slaves of it. Here's one from the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, who was enslaved by a merchant company owner that bought and sold slaves in the US and Caribbean colonies:

"While I was thus employed by my master, I was often a witness to cruelties of every kind, which were exercised on my unhappy fellow slaves. I used frequently to have different cargoes of new Negroes in my care for sale; and it was almost a constant practice with our clerks, and other whites, to commit violent depredations on the chastity of the female slaves; and these I was, though with reluctance, obliged to submit to at all times, being unable to help them. When we have had some of these slaves on board my master's vessels, to carry them to other islands, or to America, I have known our mates to commit these acts most shamefully, to the disgrace, not of Christians only, but of men. I have even known them to gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old."

Harriet Ann Jacobs escaped and wrote extensively about her and other women being raped and sexually abused by their masters. For context, her grandmother was free and knew what was happening:

"My grandmother could not avoid seeing things which excited her suspicions. She was uneasy about me, and tried various ways to buy me; but the never-changing answer was always repeated: “Linda does not belong to me. She is my daughter’s property, and I have no legal right to sell her.” The conscientious man! He was too scrupulous to sell me; but he had no scruples whatever about committing a much greater wrong against the helpless young girl placed under his guardianship, as his daughter’s property. Sometimes my persecutor would ask me whether I would like to be sold. I told him I would rather be sold to any body than to lead such a life as I did."

continued from >>2208228

"On such occasions he would assume the air of a very injured individual, and reproach me for my ingratitude. “Did I not take you into the house, and make you the companion of my own children?” he would say. “Have I ever treated you like a negro? I have never allowed you to be punished, not even to please your mistress. And this is the recompense I get, you ungrateful girl!” I answered that he had reasons of his own for screening me from punishment, and that the course he pursued made my mistress hate me and persecute me. If I wept, he would say, “Poor child! Don’t cry! don’t cry! I will make peace for you with your mistress. Only let me arrange matters in my own way. Poor, foolish girl! you don’t know what is for your own good."

The passage below is from earlier in the book, covering shortly after she hit puberty and he started targeting her. Elsewhere in the book Jacobs mentions that the master had fathered 11 children with slaves that way, and talks about this kind of abuse being such a common practice that she knew how other plantation owner's wives felt about their husbands doing it.

"My master, Dr. Norcom, began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master's age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods, although they left me trembling."

>>2208096
There are also "Christian taboos" against stealing and killing each other, but there was no shortage of that in and between the predominately Christian kingdoms of Europe.

>>2207962

The huge majority of blacks imported to the americas went to south america.

Slaves there weren't meant to reproduce. They just were imported, worked on sugar plantations until they died and then new slaves were imported.

Obviously must slaves were males since they are better for physical work

>>2207962
Trans-atlantic slavery was to feed industrial-scale cash-cropping.

Roman slavery was just about domestic servants and the less desirable cottage industries (because they were smelly, tedious, violent, hard work, pestilent and deadly, or cultural taboos, etc). It lasted a lot longer in Rome, but managed to be more 'everyday' pervasive and yet less disenfranchising. Of course, slaves literally had no rights, not at first, but I think the average Roman citizen would have been confused (while maybe a little impressed) at the sort of treatment American plantation slavery doled out.

Slaves who were part of the family were treated probably about as well as an average maid is now. Beating or mistreating them without good reason was frowned upon. Later on, they did have rights, and summarily executing a slave was not allowed (although punishments for such were not that harsh).

And yes, just like bosses fuck their maids and babysitters today, Roman men most certainly fucked their female slaves. As far as I understand, it was considered rather base to over-indulge in fucking the servant girls though, if you were pater-familias, and bastard children would be problematic (most likely killed at birth). I believe you were also not allowed to rape female servants if they were themselves married. Though as today, Roman wives would be kind of against their husbands buying very pretty slaves. These would fetch very high prices, and likely go to brothels anyway, if not becoming some pleb's waifu.

As I understand it, Roman slaves also had an easier possible way out of slavery than American slaves did. They could and did buy their freedom.

>>2208171
Spartacus, bruh.

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>that scene when pullo "punishes" Gaia by fucking her on the table

>>2208150
Just a Roman history buff. Interesting to know that case comes up in law school; does a fair amount of other Roman legal history come up?

>>2209744
>stealing and killing each other,
These taboos exist in every culture worth mentioning. Singling out Christendom as being hypocritical for being unable to contain the human condition is rather biased.

>>2208099
Citizenship allowed a Roman to stand for office among other benefits.

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>>2207962
>ywn marry a qt 3.14 germanic slave girl
why even live?

>>2207962
I can understand having sexual relations with qt gallics and germanics but black slaves???

>>2210343
Variety is the spice of life

>>2208108
Not like it sometimes happened with african slaves in the new world.
Slaves had families, and the children were slaves who would probably fulfill the same role.

>>2207962
I don't see why would females be spared in slavery.

>>2210343
>live in bumfuck nowhere Georgia
>your bitch cousin/wife is an ugly cunt
>local girls are swamp dwelling inbreds
>you still have to convince them to touch your dick
>you have literal ownership of multiple working age girls
easy choice

>>2207962
There are written records of it. Also, Latin has a specific word for female slaves.

>>2207962
Is this a fucking joke thread?