[sort of OT-history] slavery in the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire

[Davelozzi]

Okay my question is sort of OT but it was inspired by a situation in my campaign. My players all just decided to leave the feudal kingdom that the campaign has been based in and march across the neighboring empire hoping to free the slaves when they get to the capital (if they get to the capital, I should say ).

The empire, although still rather immense, is actually just the remaining portions of a much larger ancient empire, so I've been envisioning it as a a fantasy version of the Byzantine empire, but one in which worshipping the old pagan gods is still the norm and slavery still exists.

Now on to the question - although it really has no bearing on what happens in my campaign, I've started to wonder...

What happened to slavery in the Eastern Roman empire? As far as I can remember, slavery still existed at the time that the empire split and the western portion was overun. But from what I know (admittedly, not much) about the Byzantine empire, they didn't practise slavery. What happened? Was there a time when the slaves were all freed or did the institution just slowly fall our of favor?

 

[Orichalcum]

What happened to slavery?

Heya! Piratecat referred me over, as Roman social history's a professional specialty of mine, at least hopefully. (Exams in less than 48 hours.)

So, the main thing that happens to slavery in the eastern Roman empire is Christianity. The early Christian movement becomes increasingly anti-slavery (although it's fine with serfs) in the whole "we are all children of God" movement. At the same time, a lot of the sources of slavery die out - there aren't any big successful foreign wars that produce lots of prisoners of war, people stop exposing their newborn babies on dungheaps so that slave dealers can pick up the good-looking ones (again because of Christianity, which picks that up from Judaism), and slave populations are rarely capable of reproducing themselves. Slavery's still legal, and there are plenty of slaves in rich people's houses, but it isn't as widespread a phenomenon, because there simply aren't enough of them.
As a potentially fun roleplaying bit, standard legal procedure in the Byzantine world involves torturing all of someone's slaves for evidence against them, because you can't trust a slave as witness unless they've been tortured. Hope this provides some ideas.
--Orichalcum, currently running a reasonably realistic although mythic Roman Empire campaign - look out for the Alea Iacta Story Hour after my exams.

 

[Davelozzi]

Cool, thanks, Orichalcum for the info and PC for the tip off.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Dave, you stole my avatar! It was too big to fit - how did you do it man!


On topic - you can really hand it to the PCs if they meet slaves that do not want to be freed. A horrible condition but one that, for a lucky few, elevated their social position and gave them more power than they would have otherwise dreamed of.

 

[S'mon]

According to the Codex Justinian (Byzantine, circa 530 AD) slavery is "Against the Laws of God (ius natura) but universal in the Laws of Man (ius gentium)" - ie the Byzantines thought slavery was bad but still practiced it anyway. Of course this wasn't the racialist slavery of 17th-19th century America, which in many respects seems a lot worse than Roman-style slavery.

 

[S'mon]

On topic - you can really hand it to the PCs if they meet slaves that do not want to be freed. A horrible condition but one that, for a lucky few, elevated their social position and gave them more power than they would have otherwise dreamed of.

If it's a Roman-style empire they would likely aspire to be 'freedmen', thus retaining all the benefits of slavery (master, employment, food on the table) without most of the disadvantages.

 

[Davelozzi]

Dave, you stole my avatar! It was too big to fit - how did you do it man!

Sorry, I can't help you with that. My avatar was "bestowed" upon me by Piratecat for transgressions in the best Ravenloft adventure thread.

On topic - you can really hand it to the PCs if they meet slaves that do not want to be freed. A horrible condition but one that, for a lucky few, elevated their social position and gave them more power than they would have otherwise dreamed of.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do but you can be sure that they're in for a rude awakening of some sort when they get there.

S'mon, thanks for the additional info!

 

[Davelozzi]

Dave, you stole my avatar! It was too big to fit - how did you do it man!

Sorry, I can't help you with that. My avatar was bestowed upon me by Piratecat for transgressions in the best Ravenloft adventure thread.

On topic - you can really hand it to the PCs if they meet slaves that do not want to be freed. A horrible condition but one that, for a lucky few, elevated their social position and gave them more power than they would have otherwise dreamed of.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do but you can be sure that they're in for a rude awakening of some sort when they get there.

S'mon, thanks for the additional info!