The Bitter Chain of Slavery': Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome

Towards the middle of the fifth century AD the Christian presbyter and moralist Salvian of Marseilles composed a highly polemical tract, On the Governance of God, in which he explained to the decadent Romans around him how it was that the destructive presence in their midst of barbarian invaders was the result not of God's neglect of the world but of their own moral bankruptcy. In their general comportment the Romans, though Christians, were full of moral failings and were far more morally culpable than the slaves they owned. Their slaves committed crimes such as stealing, running away, and lying, but they did so under the comprehensible and forgivable compulsion of hunger or fear of physical chastisement, whereas the Romans were simply wicked and had forfeited all claims to forgiveness because of their terrible behaviour. Among other things the Christian slaveowners had completely desecrated the institution of regarding their female slaves as natural outlets for their sexual appetites and considering adultery unexceptional, they thought nothing of acting upon their impulses and of satisfying their desires. As a result, Salvian said in an ironic metaphor, they had become the bad slaves of a good Master, which meant that the barbarian invaders, while pagans, were in fact their moral superiors. In Salvian's judgement it was this moral superiority that accounted for the barbarians' stunning invasionary success