Servi et Ancillae, I

salvēte, amīcī et sodālēs! Today we’ll begin a series of posts exploring stories about servī et ancillae in the Tres Columnae story-line. As I mentioned yesterday, my face-to-face students sometimes say they identify with non-free characters in the “Big Three” reading-method textbook we use … but when we step back and look more closely at the lives of Roman slaves (or of slaves in any slave-holding culture), I hope they realize how utterly dissimilar their experiences are from those of even the best-treated slave! For one thing, my students do own themselves, so to speak – or at least they can’t legally be sold, by their parents or by anyone else. For another, the laws and social mores that protect them are so much stronger than those governing Roman dominī et servī. No matter how bleak their situations (and I have some students with pretty bleak family situations!), they really can’t compare to the experience of someone who

• could be sold or given away, any time, without warning and without recourse;
• could be beaten or killed, any time, for any “reason” his or her dominus might come up with;
• had no legal rights – not even the right to testify in court, unless he or she was offered up for torture; and
• by law, should be killed if someone else rebelled against his/her master, and he/she “should have known” but didn’t stop it – just to name a few of the constraints on servī et ancillae in the Roman world.

The last time I mentioned slavery as an issue, there was an interesting comment from one of our readers about how, on the whole, Latin textbooks have romanticized or at least prettified the experience of Roman slaves. Our reader noted that, in general, textbooks focus on household slaves, who have names that their masters know and interact relatively frequently with their masters; they also have relatively valuable skills, so they’re less likely to be killed and replaced than, say, an agricultural slave or one laboring in a mine, a fullery, or some other industrial setting. That struck home for me – and over time we will explore the lives of some extremely unfortunate servī, including some of Caelius’ agricultural workers. We may even meet some unfortunate slaves who in fullonicā labōrant – a job that, to my squeamish face-to-face students, seems about as bad as anything could possibly be!

But we’ll begin, like the textbooks, with servī et ancillae in domō. I think I have good reasons for this decision:

• First, the Tres Columnae storyline itself begins in domō … et in īnsulā … so we’ll encounter ‘ servī et ancillae Valeriī there from the beginning. As our world expands, we’ll meet other servī et ancillae, but we have to start somewhere.
• Second, given the overwhelming differences between Romans’ experience and that of twenty-first-century children in the developed world, I think it makes sense to begin with areas that are relatively similar. Family life then and now are different in significant ways, but in other ways, families are families. By including servī et ancillae there, we begin to develop that sense of “otherness” about the Romans that should develop, along with a sense of “sameness,” as our learners deepen their understanding of the Romans … and of themselves.
• Finally, even though our learners (let’s hope!) aren’t slave-owners, they’re familiar with the idea of domestic servants (the paid kind), housecleaning services, and the like – some because their parents employ housecleaning services, others because they do, after all, watch TV, and still others because their parents work in these capacities. So, again, it’s not as much of a stretch to imagine the lives of servī et ancillae in Roman houses as it would be to picture those who work in more horrible situations.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, we’ll be looking at several stories from Lectiōnēs XII, XIII, and XVIII in this week’s series of posts. They focus on familia Valeria, as everyone (except some of the servī et ancillae, of course) is preparing to go on an overnight trip to Pompeii for a gladiator fight. By now, our learners have gotten reasonably familiar with Valerius’ three principal household servants:

• Milphiō, who seems to do just about everything;
• Casina ancilla, who mostly cleans the house and complains about it; and
• Gallicus coquus, who has a bit of a temper and seems to be easily distracted.

For example, they’ve seen this story from Lectiō XI, featuring the preparations for the dinner party that Rīdiculus mūs and Sabīna mustēla unfortunately interrupt.

in domō Valeriī servī ancillaeque strēnuē labōrant et cēnam parant.

“ubi est catīnus argenteus?” exclāmat Gallicus īrātus. “quis eum invenīre potest? quis eum nancīscī potest?”

Milphiō in armāriō catīnum quaerit et, “heus! in armāriō inest!” clāmat.

Casina culīnam circumspectat et “heus! in mēnsā est!” clāmat.

“nōs ambō catīnōs nancīscimur!” exclāmant.

Gallicus, “grātiās vōbīs ambōbus agō,” exclāmat, “sed ubi est piscis magnus hodiē māne ēmptus? et ubi sunt lentēs Aegyptiī? et ubi sunt bulbī condītī? et….”

“nōnne omnia haec in mēnsā sunt?” susurrat Casina.

“hercle! in mēnsā sunt! vōbīs grātiās maximās agō, quod rēs tam celeriter nancīsciminī,” clāmat Gallicus laetus. “sed heu! vae mihi! ubi sunt cochleāria aurāta et –”

“in manū tuā! sed mihi necesse est exīre et in ātriō labōrāre!” clāmat Milphiō. “et mihi quoque!” clāmat Casina.

Milphiō et Casina Gallicō vale dīcunt et ē culīnā celeriter ēgrediuntur. “heus! cūr Gallicus noster ita sē vexat?” Milphiō Casinam rogat. “nesciō,” respondet Casina, “sed hoc tantum sciō: nōs oportet vīllam tōtam purgāre!”

In today’s story, though, we get to know more about Casina’s private pain:

per tōtam domum Valeriī festīnātur et clāmātur. servī enim et ancillae rēs colligunt. Caelia servīs mandāta dat. “festīnāte, servī,” exclāmat Caelia, “vōs oportet festīnāre, quod ego et dominus sextā hōrā proficīscī in animō habēmus. nōs decet hōrā sextā ēgredī, quod ad urbem Pompēiōs ante noctem pervenīre volumus.”

Casina īrāta in cubiculō labōrat et urbem Pompēiōs plōrat. “urbem Pompēiōs, urbem Pompēiōs! vah! mē taedet urbis Pompēiōrum!” susurrat. “nōnne in urbe Pompēiīs est amphitheātrum? cotīdiē clāmātur.  nōnne in urbe Pompēiīs est theātrum? cotīdiē clāmātur.  nōnne in urbe Pompēiīs sunt tabernae optimae? cotīdiē clāmātur.  vae urbī Pompēiīs!” et lacrimīs tacitīs sē trādit.

Milphiō cubiculum intrat et, “heu! Casina! num lacrimās?” attonitus rogat. et Casina, “heu, quam mē taedet urbis Pompēiōrum!” respondet. Milphiō, “quid dīcis? num quid malī urbs Pompēiī tibi affert?” Casina tamen valdē lacrimāre et flēre incipit. Milphiō Casinam amplectitur et, “quid est? quid est, cūr flēs?” iterum iterumque rogat. tandem Casina sē colligit et, “ō Milphiō, Milphiō, certē hoc nescīs: urbs Pompēiī mihi odiō est. in urbe enim Pompēiīs est iste vēnālīcius, quī servōs dominō nostrō vēndere solet. in urbe Pompēiīs ego et īnfāns meus decem ante annīs vēnīmus. in urbe Pompēiīs īnfāns meus est mortuus. nōnne corpus nunc iam nōn sepultum iacet? heu! heu! īnfantem mortuum! heu! heu! mē miseram!”

quid respondētis, amīcī?

This is possibly the saddest story I’ve written for the Tres Columnae project – it certainly was one of the most difficult for me, as a parent, to write! I simply can’t begin to imagine Casina’s pain … not only at the loss of her child, but at her inability even to have him properly buried, or to go and commemorate her loss. Poor Casina! No wonder she’s a bit abrupt with people … and no wonder she hates the very mention of the word Pompeii! We’ll give our learners several scenarios for how Casina (and the baby) came to be sold by iste vēnālīcius, and I hope we’ll get some great possible stories to incorporate in the project. My thought is that

• Milphio will have several dreams about what happened to Casina.
• He’ll ask her what really happened.
• She’ll never tell him … unless she does.
• But what do you think about that?

Tune in next time, when we’ll learn more about some other servī et ancillae. intereā, grātiās maximās omnibus iam legentibus et respondentibus.