Flamininus was the Roman commander who was credited with significant military battles against Philip V in Greece at the beginning of the second century CE. While the Greek biographer Plutarch wrote an account of his exploits – including a parallel account of this episode, see Flamininus 13 - today I’m looking at how the Roman history Livy presents him, specifically how Flamininus talks about Roman soldiers whom the Greeks enslave after battle.
At times, Livy’s Roman patriotism is blindingly obvious, such as how he describes the Greeks as happy that Flamininus had just condescendingly instructed them on the dangers on too much freedom:
“The Greeks heard these words almost as if they came from a father. Tears of joy streamed from the eyes of all, to the point of actually causing the consul himself distress as he spoke… Then silence fell, and Flamininus asked them to seek out any Roman citizens in slavery amongst them and send them to him in Thessaly within the following two months… One may gain an idea of their number from Polybius’ comment that the transaction cost the Achaeans a hundred talents after they had fixed the amount of compensation for the masters at 500 denarii per head. On that reckoning Achaea contained 1,200 and you can calculate on the basis of that number likely to have been in the whole of Greece.”
34.50, trans. J.C. Yardley
In this passage Livy makes clear that he gains his information from Polybius, a Greek historian who lived around a hundred years earlier than him. Whether or not Polybius himself had written Flamininus’ request in such a dramatic fashion is hard to determine. But instead what interests me is how for these writers it was so clear that even though these Romans soldiers were enslaved, in a real way they were not real slaves. That is, they had not become people whom the Romans could simply forget. Instead, they were people who needed to be rescued from slavery through ransom.
Indeed, bringing these men home appears to have been one of Flamininus’ big achievements. Livy also records the spectacular triumph that Flamininus hosts, which is so over the top that it lasts for three days. The historian notes that the third included the march of the captives as well as the entire army that had returned from the provinces. He then concludes by noting that “What provided a spectacular sight in the triumph was the men who had been brought out of slavery marching along with shaved heads.” (34.52 trans Yardley).
This attention to the marchers’ heads pairs nicely with Livy’s comments about the politics around the colonists adopting the freedmen’s hat in order to express their gratitude to Romans (see my previous post). In this case, the soldiers’ shaved heads are a testament to both their own status as veterans and also to the dedication of the Roman army to look after its men. Their shaved heads also speak to how they are not really freedmen, even though they were rescued from slavery. Freedmen in this kind of celebratory context would wear the pilleus hat to mark themselves; since these men do not wear hats they are not freedmen. But they also do not have regular hair and so are markedly different from the other soldiers who have returned from Greece.
This passage is also useful for challenging the idea that enslavement is a private relationship between a slave-owner and the slave. Which is to say, the kind of idea that one gets if one assumes that the rhetoric around slaves as property is true. However, if one looks careful at the historical examples, it becomes clear that neither slave-owner nor slaves use this idea consistently. That is, while the law books might say that slaves are property, slave-owners and slaves find different ways to live through this relationship. In this case, the Romans knew that these soldiers were not the property of some Greeks but were instead the sons and fathers of Romans at home. They therefore used their pressure through the Roman government to bring them home. The Greeks may have enslaved these soldiers but these soldiers were not socially dead.
At times, Livy’s Roman patriotism is blindingly obvious, such as how he describes the Greeks as happy that Flamininus had just condescendingly instructed them on the dangers on too much freedom:
“The Greeks heard these words almost as if they came from a father. Tears of joy streamed from the eyes of all, to the point of actually causing the consul himself distress as he spoke… Then silence fell, and Flamininus asked them to seek out any Roman citizens in slavery amongst them and send them to him in Thessaly within the following two months… One may gain an idea of their number from Polybius’ comment that the transaction cost the Achaeans a hundred talents after they had fixed the amount of compensation for the masters at 500 denarii per head. On that reckoning Achaea contained 1,200 and you can calculate on the basis of that number likely to have been in the whole of Greece.”
34.50, trans. J.C. Yardley
In this passage Livy makes clear that he gains his information from Polybius, a Greek historian who lived around a hundred years earlier than him. Whether or not Polybius himself had written Flamininus’ request in such a dramatic fashion is hard to determine. But instead what interests me is how for these writers it was so clear that even though these Romans soldiers were enslaved, in a real way they were not real slaves. That is, they had not become people whom the Romans could simply forget. Instead, they were people who needed to be rescued from slavery through ransom.
Indeed, bringing these men home appears to have been one of Flamininus’ big achievements. Livy also records the spectacular triumph that Flamininus hosts, which is so over the top that it lasts for three days. The historian notes that the third included the march of the captives as well as the entire army that had returned from the provinces. He then concludes by noting that “What provided a spectacular sight in the triumph was the men who had been brought out of slavery marching along with shaved heads.” (34.52 trans Yardley).
This attention to the marchers’ heads pairs nicely with Livy’s comments about the politics around the colonists adopting the freedmen’s hat in order to express their gratitude to Romans (see my previous post). In this case, the soldiers’ shaved heads are a testament to both their own status as veterans and also to the dedication of the Roman army to look after its men. Their shaved heads also speak to how they are not really freedmen, even though they were rescued from slavery. Freedmen in this kind of celebratory context would wear the pilleus hat to mark themselves; since these men do not wear hats they are not freedmen. But they also do not have regular hair and so are markedly different from the other soldiers who have returned from Greece.
This passage is also useful for challenging the idea that enslavement is a private relationship between a slave-owner and the slave. Which is to say, the kind of idea that one gets if one assumes that the rhetoric around slaves as property is true. However, if one looks careful at the historical examples, it becomes clear that neither slave-owner nor slaves use this idea consistently. That is, while the law books might say that slaves are property, slave-owners and slaves find different ways to live through this relationship. In this case, the Romans knew that these soldiers were not the property of some Greeks but were instead the sons and fathers of Romans at home. They therefore used their pressure through the Roman government to bring them home. The Greeks may have enslaved these soldiers but these soldiers were not socially dead.