Greek and Roman Slaveries

7 Enslaved Persons and Their Communities

Slavery is an imposed identity, and ancient slave systems usually operated as if enslaved persons had only one identity that mattered, that of being slaves. But enslaved persons possessed multiple identities that were partly related to their roles as slaves and partly independent from slavery.¹⁰³ Enslaved persons could, of course, internalize their classification as slaves and act on the basis of this identity (7.1), but they could also maintain ethnic and religious identities from their previous lives as free persons (7.2, 7.5, 7.7). Enslaved persons could often think of themselves as free people in captivity (7.4, 7.6). Furthermore, it is important to think about people born as slaves; did they maintain the ethnic or religious identities of their ancestors, or did they forge new identities as native, but slave, inhabitants of their societies (7.3)?

Enslaved persons constructed a variety of communities on the basis of their diverse identities. The most elementary was that of slave families. Slave families could be an important means of slave control: they produced the new generation of slaves; slaves with families would be less inclined to flee; while the threat of family separation was a potent weapon in the hands of the masters (7.8). Slave families were often formed by slaves belonging to the same household; as a result, communities of slaves who belonged to the same master could stress their link to their particular master (7.11, ...