WI: Anti Slavery Roman Republic

[iddt3]

Historically Rome had no problem with slavery, and I would argue that it was a major driver of Late Republican expansion, as well as later Republican instability. What if that was not the case? I don't think the reason really matters, maybe instead of Geese warning Rome, it's a Slave (Supplicia canum) when the dogs are asleep. Regardless, by the Early Republic, Rome sees slavery as something fundamentally unRoman, slave ownership by Romans or in Roman territory is illegal, and being involved with the slave trade in any way is career suicide for any ambitious young Roman looking to climb the cursus honorum.

So how does the Republic evolve without one of the main engines of it's expansion? How would it affect class dynamics? Would this keep the Late Republic from falling apart, or is that inevitable for other reasons?

 

[the man in the fly castle]

Well, even you abolished slavery, there still have other system to replace of it, I mean, Serfdom.

 

[JanWellem]

Well, even you abolished slavery, there still have other system to replace of it, I mean, Serfdom.

Indeed, instead of driving smallholders away from their farms to illegally annex those to their latifundia and have slaves till the land, the Roman elites would've done what they did IOTL anyway, just a couple of centuries earlier, and force the smallholders into peonage, if not outright servitude. But Rome likely wouldn't have grown the way it did IOTL since selling off conquered people into slavery was, aside from loot taken in the conquest, a major way to refinance the war costs on a short term basis. There also would've been much more opposition to Roman rule by the traditionally slaveholding elites if Roman rule meant an end to said institution in conquered areas.

 

[iddt3]

Indeed, instead of driving smallholders away from their farms to illegally annex those to their latifundia and have slaves till the land, the Roman elites would've done what they did IOTL anyway, just a couple of centuries earlier, and force the smallholders into peonage, if not outright servitude. But Rome likely wouldn't have grown the way it did IOTL since selling off conquered people into slavery was, aside from loot taken in the conquest, a major way to refinance the war costs on a short term basis. There also would've been much more opposition to Roman rule by the traditionally slaveholding elites if Roman rule meant an end to said institution in conquered areas.

That was in the context of a collapse in international trade though. If you want your specialist aquaculture/animal husbandry/ industrial scale agriculture latifunda to take off, you're going to need paid labor.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Historically Rome had no problem with slavery, and I would argue that it was a major driver of Late Republican expansion, as well as later Republican instability. What if that was not the case? I don't think the reason really matters, maybe instead of Geese warning Rome, it's a Slave (Supplicia canum) when the dogs are asleep. Regardless, by the Early Republic, Rome sees slavery as something fundamentally unRoman, slave ownership by Romans or in Roman territory is illegal, and being involved with the slave trade in any way is career suicide for any ambitious young Roman looking to climb the cursus honorum.

So how does the Republic evolve without one of the main engines of it's expansion? How would it affect class dynamics? Would this keep the Late Republic from falling apart, or is that inevitable for other reasons?

Hard to see. As gross as it was, slavery was very deeply embedded into the entire world the Romans existed in. From the top to the bottom, it was very interwoven. That doesn't mean you can't get rid of it, but man, it is hard to see *how*. It would mean a Rome so different we wouldn't recognize it.

 

[jmc247]

Do you mean if they used compulsory labor under a different name or use paid labor? It was in human history very hard for paid labor in ag to work before the modern era. There was no government help or subsidies or safety net. Two years of drought and bad harvest in a region if the farms can’t pay their workers they leave and all the farms go down and the societal chaos and potential collapse ensues.

It’s hard to underestimate how bad the options were in terms of farming for human civilization until quite recently.

 

[iddt3]

Do you mean if they used compulsory labor under a different name or use paid labor? It was in human history very hard for paid labor in ag to work before the modern era. There was no government help or subsidies or safety net. Two years of drought and bad harvest in a region if the farms can’t pay their workers they leave and all the farms go down and the societal chaos and potential collapse ensues.

It’s hard to underestimate how bad the options were in terms of farming for human civilization until quite recently.

Compulsory labor is verboten. I'm not sure about that, after all Rome and Greece both initially built their armies out of Citizen farmers. And a labor shortage might drive early automation improvements, given a surplus of cheap labor was largely what held that back OTL.

 

[PecuTheGreat]

Let me see, instead of slavery let's just say an expanded patreon client system. These would be freemen attached to a great Patreon by history and opportunity, there'll also be those attached by debt and they can be treated more like slaves but in general most of the population and most of the economy is done by clients working for their patreons.

I would say the system would be most reminiscent of serfdom but probably more flexible, u know maybe clans and tribes would be even better comparisons. Initially it would start of in a manner reminiscent of, if not indistinguishable to clans, with clients basically joining their Patreon's household as part of an extended household(I think this is how freed slaves also worked) and the clients would normally be below the patreon in social rank (so patricians over plebs and senatorial rank over equestrian rank) which creates weird situations when the client rises over the patreon in other ways like wealth or military rank, where the patreon is enobled by having such a successful client who of course owes that to him while that the same time is still obligated to be supporting their patreon and can't force a high tax out of the client, this can end in a situation where the client finds a way(usually through bribing the patreon or overtaxing in resources of the patreon) to raise his social status and end the relationship.

It would also be possible in theory for a patreon to have a client of a higher social status, this would be very humiliating to the client and while the patreon can get some extra reputation through that, would be seen as a deviant from the normal social order.

Anyways, we have have it that in time, entire tribes and states of Barbarians would be client to Roman patricians like instead of Caeser officially vassalziing some Breton tribes for Rome, he made them his personal clients and this would be a way of power for like wealthy Plebians and lowest rank Patricians, making Patreons out of newly conquered peoples and states and tribes on the borderland. Maybe alt Plebian Sulla marchest into Italy with an army half composed of groups from the far east and uses Gaulic clients to hold other provinces.

(I am relying a bit on how Diop describes traditional Sahelian West African society for this)

 

[PecuTheGreat]

Let me see, instead of slavery let's just say an expanded patreon client system. These would be freemen attached to a great Patreon by history and opportunity, there'll also be those attached by debt and they can be treated more like slaves but in general most of the population and most of the economy is done by clients working for their patreons.

I would say the system would be most reminiscent of serfdom but probably more flexible, u know maybe clans and tribes would be even better comparisons. Initially it would start of in a manner reminiscent of, if not indistinguishable to clans, with clients basically joining their Patreon's household as part of an extended household(I think this is how freed slaves also worked) and the clients would normally be below the patreon in social rank (so patricians over plebs and senatorial rank over equestrian rank) which creates weird situations when the client rises over the patreon in other ways like wealth or military rank, where the patreon is enobled by having such a successful client who of course owes that to him while that the same time is still obligated to be supporting their patreon and can't force a high tax out of the client, this can end in a situation where the client finds a way(usually through bribing the patreon or overtaxing in resources of the patreon) to raise his social status and end the relationship.

It would also be possible in theory for a patreon to have a client of a higher social status, this would be very humiliating to the client and while the patreon can get some extra reputation through that, would be seen as a deviant from the normal social order.

Anyways, we have have it that in time, entire tribes and states of Barbarians would be client to Roman patricians like instead of Caeser officially vassalziing some Breton tribes for Rome, he made them his personal Patreons and this would be a way of power for like wealthy Plebians and lowest rank Patricians, making Patreons out of newly conquered peoples and states and tribes on the borderland. Maybe alt Plebian Sulla marchest into Italy with an army half composed of groups from the far east and uses Gaulic patreons to hold other provinces.

(I am relying a bit on how Diop describes traditional Sahelian West African society for this)

A wealthy/great Patreon could have up to 10,000s of clients, again kinda like a clan or tribe (or maybe even fuedatory) the Patreons would be largely kept in line by traditions and power structures, not law and as such a Patreon basically ignoring their client whether fighting for the other side in civil war or fleeing to another province to just live as a freeman is not unheard of.

 

[Sceonn]

A simple legal limit to how long a person can be held in slavery depending on the cause behind the enslavement would be a more conformist way to go about it in the classical world. Although even in such a case depending on how strong the state is or how corrupt the system becomes can easily see 10 years become 50.

 

[JanWellem]

A simple legal limit to how long a person can be held in slavery depending on the cause behind the enslavement would be a more conformist way to go about it in the classical world. Although even in such a case depending on how strong the state is or how corrupt the system becomes can easily see 10 years become 50.

Not that such a difference would've mattered to slaves literally worked to death in Roman mines, whose life expectancy, not unlike those of slaves on Carribbean sugar plantations, once there, was measured in months rather than years, with 24 (months) being pretty much the upper limit. But of course those slaves were to a significant part "disruptive elements" to the Roman state, like e.g. enemy prisoners of war or captured rebels, whose premature demise was almost as much part of the goal of their use in inhumane and physically highly detrimental conditions as was the work that could be extracted from them before they expired. The Nazis later coined the term "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" - "Annihilation / extermination through work" for said practice, but they were neither the first nor sadly the last to employ it.

 

[Mr.Wigglemunch]

I can see this happening in a couple of ways, or a mixture.

First possibility I believe is feasible is Spartacus, akin to Eunus in the first servile war, proclaims himself a prophet and appeals to both slaves and impoverished plebeians (off the back of the Populares). He either dies a martyr or has substantially more success. His 'religious' teachings serve the basis for emancipation sooner or later.

Second, the more radical side of the Populares have far more success - the contradiction between slave land armies working the latifundia and the masses of unemployed plebeians is resolved in another manner than Augustus' large public works and the Marian reforms to the army.

Third, some combination of the two - I think Spartacus going full warrior Jesus and addressing and appealing to the plebs in the manner of Tiberius Gracchus is both fascinating nor implausible. I find Tiberius' speech fragments incredibly insightful to radical political thought at the time:

"The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light and, having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridiculous error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the common soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and altars; when not any amongst so many Romans is possessed of either altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own, or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the world, but in the meantime had not one foot of ground which they could call their own" - from Plutarch's Parallel Lives

Regarding how this pans out with class relations I can see as has already been stated either colonii happening sooner, indentured labour and extended patronage and clientele systems.

 

[jmc247]

Compulsory labor is verboten. I'm not sure about that, after all Rome and Greece both initially built their armies out of Citizen farmers. And a labor shortage might drive early automation improvements, given a surplus of cheap labor was largely what held that back OTL.

Famines did at times tigger Bronze and Iron Age civilizations to technologically adapt. Though more often then not societies responded by…

1. Waging war on their neighbors to take their food and force their people to work for them.

2. Human sacrifice to the gods which reduced the number of mouths to feed.

3. Cannibalism

When human societies food is threatened things get ugly.

 

[iddt3]

I can see this happening in a couple of ways, or a mixture.

First possibility I believe is feasible is Spartacus, akin to Eunus in the first servile war, proclaims himself a prophet and appeals to both slaves and impoverished plebeians (off the back of the Populares). He either dies a martyr or has substantially more success. His 'religious' teachings serve the basis for emancipation sooner or later.

Second, the more radical side of the Populares have far more success - the contradiction between slave land armies working the latifundia and the masses of unemployed plebeians is resolved in another manner than Augustus' large public works and the Marian reforms to the army.

Third, some combination of the two - I think Spartacus going full warrior Jesus and addressing and appealing to the plebs in the manner of Tiberius Gracchus is both fascinating nor implausible. I find Tiberius' speech fragments incredibly insightful to radical political thought at the time:

"The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light and, having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridiculous error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the common soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and altars; when not any amongst so many Romans is possessed of either altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own, or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the world, but in the meantime had not one foot of ground which they could call their own" - from Plutarch's Parallel Lives

Regarding how this pans out with class relations I can see as has already been stated either colonii happening sooner, indentured labour and extended patronage and clientele systems.

I'm less concerned with the why than the outcome, though by the time of Spartacus the Republic is already in it's death throes. That's an interesting PoD all on its own.

A wealthy/great Patreon could have up to 10,000s of clients, again kinda like a clan or tribe (or maybe even fuedatory) the Patreons would be largely kept in line by traditions and power structures, not law and as such a Patreon basically ignoring their client whether fighting for the other side in civil war or fleeing to another province to just live as a freeman is not unheard of.

Yeah the whole Roman Patreonage system was one of the things that might full some of the gaps, but the outcome isn't the same. While clients are power and votes and prestige, they weren't usually wealth in the way slaves were.

Around the time they've secured Italy, a Republic with no slaves will face a very different set of choices and incentives. I think Roman paranoia still drives them into war with Carthage, and they're still well positioned to win it, but how do they govern the territory in Spain? For that matter, what's their relationship with the Greek world?

 

[sarahz]

Indeed, instead of driving smallholders away from their farms to illegally annex those to their latifundia and have slaves till the land, the Roman elites would've done what they did IOTL anyway, just a couple of centuries earlier, and force the smallholders into peonage, if not outright servitude. But Rome likely wouldn't have grown the way it did IOTL since selling off conquered people into slavery was, aside from loot taken in the conquest, a major way to refinance the war costs on a short term basis. There also would've been much more opposition to Roman rule by the traditionally slaveholding elites if Roman rule meant an end to said institution in conquered areas.

This assumes of course that the Roman elite were able to, or were not replaced by another elite. There are few situations where this could happen, although the fall of the Republic itself i suppose did very much remove the Senatorial elite from political and military power and replace them with effectively a military dictatorship and then a bureaucratic state in the East only later partially giving way to feudalism. The only real opportunity that came that might have changed this would be if somehow the Gracchi had succeeded. Their programmer was very much about breaking up the landed estates and also as importantly moving the power from the Senate to the Tribunes. It is a long stretch for it to succeed, but it is just about plausible that a POD based on their plan actually working could occur. Other than that you would probably need the Spartarcist revolt to actually somehow win. That's a tall order.