Rebellions and Runaways
Moses Finley remarked, "fugitive slaves are almost an obsession in the sources". Rome forbade the harbouring of fugitive slaves, and professional slave-catchers were hired to hunt down runaways. Advertisements were posted with precise descriptions of escaped slaves, and offered rewards. If caught, fugitives could be punished by being whipped, burnt with iron, or killed. Those who lived were branded on the forehead with the letters FUG, for fugitivus. Sometimes slaves had a metal collar riveted around the neck. One such collar is preserved at Rome and states in Latin, "I have run away. Catch me. If you take me back to my master Zoninus, you'll be rewarded."
There was a constant danger of servile insurrection, which had more than once seriously threatened the republic. The 1st century BC Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that slaves sometimes banded together to plot revolt. He chronicled the three major slave rebellions: in 135–132 BC (the First Servile War), in 104-100 BC (the Second Servile War), and in 73-71 BC (the Third Servile War).
Read more about this topic: Slavery In Ancient Rome
Famous quotes containing the word runaways:
“Now the runaways would run no more and never
again would their hair be tangled into diamonds,
never again their shoes worn down to a laugh,
never the bed falling down into purgatory
to let them climb in after
with their Lucifer kicking.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)