CHAPTER VI. UNIVERSALITY OF PUBLIC OPINION AS TO MASTER AND SLAVES.
System acquiesced in by Slave-Class—Insurrections and Rebellions from other Causes than Hatred of Slavery—Rising under Spartacus—Conditions wanting for Success—Contrast of Modern Aspirations after Freedom—Example from enslaved Roman Citizens—Preference of Slaves for their Condition.
Although the historical facts cited in the preceding chapter demonstrate satisfactorily enough that what, in our times, is called public opinion was amongst the ancients universally in favour of human slavery as a social institution, nevertheless we shall here adduce a few additional facts in confirmation of that proposition, before we pass on to our next, which will go to show that it was more owing to the prevalence of such opinion, than to the force of laws, that direct slavery endured so long; and that, viewing the question impartially and as a whole, that form of slavery was, with all its abominations, less galling and oppressive, and less destructive of life, liberty, morals, and happiness, than is the present system of indirect or disguised slavery, to which our modern civilization dooms the vast majority of Christendom,—at least, the vast majority of the proletarian and working classes.
The testimonies we have quoted from Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca were pretty decisive as to the light in which slavery was regarded by the teachers of antiquity. Cato’s treatment of his slaves, the still more atrocious conduct attributed to such brutes as Vedius Pollio, and the habitual treatment of their helots by the citizens of Sparta, show clearly enough that the proprietary classes carried out, to the letter, the theory of their philosophers and poets; but the most decisive evidence of all is, unquestionably, that furnished by the various servile wars and insurrections to which we have made reference. The fact that in no one recorded instance did the slaves of antiquity rebel against slavery as an institution,—the fact, that in no one of the ten servile rebellions which, under the Romans, took place in Italy and Sicily did the insurgent slaves declare for liberty for all slaves, nor invoke the principle of Equality against the pretensions of the master-class,—the fact that, upon these and all similar occasions, the rebel-slaves never dreamt of emancipating any but themselves, uniformly betraying an utter disregard of other people’s rights when they got the upper hand, and manifesting that no higher motive actuated them than to break their own chains, or transfer them to the persons of their masters,—these and the like facts banish all doubts on the subject, and render it matter of positive certainty that no class or description of men, amongst the ancients, disavowed the principle of slavery, or dreamt of abolishing it as an institution of society.
We have seen how Eunus and Athenio, the two successful leaders of the two Sicilian insurrections, used their successes, not to proclaim equal rights and equal laws for all, but to rob and massacre, to ape the paraphernalia of royalty, and to impose upon others, as well as to rivet upon their own followers, the chains they had struck from off themselves.
If ever a slave-insurrection might have been expected to fly at nobler game, to strike at the very root of oppression, and to hoist the banner of universal freedom for all slaves, it was the insurrection of the gladiators under Spartacus, adverted to in our last, which was by far the most formidable of all the servile wars that occurred under the Republic. It was a war which must have succeeded in abolishing slavery, had it only been a war of principles—that is to say, a war against the institution itself; for it had every other essential element of success. It was provoked by a most atrocious abuse of power on the part of the master-class, by an outrage upon humanity so flagrantly indefensible that, but for the prevailing prejudices in favour of slavery as an institution, the conduct of the government in making common cause with the wrong-doers would be altogether inexplicable.
First, there was a good cause, to begin with—a cause to justify the very stones of Rome to rise in mutiny. Then, the bondsmen were in this instance regular fighting-men, trained for combat in the arena. They had first-rate captains at their head, in the persons of Spartacus, Crixus, and Œnomaus, of whom Spartacus was more than a match for the ablest generals sent against him. Moreover, these gladiators might be said to represent the entire brotherhood of slaves throughout the Roman empire; for they had amongst them Greeks, Thracians, Gauls, Spaniards, Germans, &c.—slaves from all parts.
If ever insurgent bondsmen might be expected to strike a blow for general liberty, to proclaim emancipation not for themselves only, but for the universal brotherhood of slaves, it was this formidable body. They had numbers, science, discipline, and commanders of consummate skill and courage. They represented not the slave-class of Italy alone, but the slaves of every country then subject to, or in alliance with, the Romans. To crown all, they had an unexampled run of military successes. Florus, Appian, and Plutarch give us copious and minute details of this famous war, which lasted about three years, and, from their accounts, we cannot help believing that the gladiators must have been successful, had they made their war a war of principle,—or, to speak more correctly, had the public opinion of their day allowed such a thing to be possible. From the moment Spartacus was raised to the post of commander-in-chief, the war might be said to be one continued series of brilliant victories for the gladiators. He defeated, in succession, not less than five Roman armies, led by prætors or consuls. At last the Senate, after charging Crassus with the responsibility of the war, found itself obliged to recall Lucullus from Thrace, and Pompey the Great from Spain, to unite their forces and their generalship with those of Crassus—so formidable was the foe, so imminent the danger. Not Hannibal himself struck more terror into Rome’s proud rulers than did Spartacus the slave-gladiator.
But while history accords to Spartacus many noble qualities, and admits his consummate talents and bravery as a general, it tells us enough, on the other hand, to show that neither himself nor his companions in arms had any notion of fighting for general liberty, nor any other object in view than to accomplish their own escape from their merciless oppressors. In this respect Spartacus but shared in the universal opinion of his day. Possibly he had mind enough, himself, to comprehend the wisdom and the necessity of making this war a war of principle. A man of his superior parts was fully equal to that; but as such an idea could not have been appreciated, nor even comprehended, by his followers, he was too sensible to broach what would have, to them, appeared downright insanity. Like all men similarly circumstanced, he was forced to appeal merely to the lower order of motives. To promise them personal freedom and the spoils of war was his only means of keeping his followers together. Accordingly, we learn from Plutarch that the proposed end of all his victories was to pass the Alps, gain over the Gauls, and then, with their assistance, make their escape, each to his respective country and home.
At all events, the idea of abolishing the institution of slavery appears never to have entered their minds. Had the slaves of that age been capable of comprehending such an idea, it is almost certain Spartacus would not have been conquered. The prevalence of such an idea would have united the whole slave population, not only in Italy, but everywhere else, under his standard, and there would have been a simultaneous rising of the whole race. So exalted, so ennobling a motive would have made his officers proof against bribery, corruption, and jealousy, and would have effectually prevented that mutinous spirit amongst his followers to which, more than to the strength of his opponents, historians ascribe his downfall.
An ignorant people, actuated only by inferior motives, by considerations purely personal or selfish, cannot be emancipated from slavery. The narrow selfishness of such people will ever expose them to be cajoled or bribed into intestine divisions; and as the want of principle will preclude them from associating the rights and liberties of others with their own, in any struggles they may make, so will the aid of these others be wanting to them in their hour of need, and their ultimate discomfiture prove the inevitable consequence and just reward of their ignorant selfishness.
Indeed, it is to this narrow-minded disregard of principles on the part of the slave-class—a disregard founded wholly in a selfish ignorance of their true interests—we are to ascribe the continued prevalence of the slavery of our own times, as well as of that which vainly sought to disenthral itself by force under Spartacus. What happened to the insurgent slaves under Eunus and Athenio in Sicily, and to the gladiators under Spartacus in Italy, is just what will happen to the Red Republicans in France, and to the Chartists in England, should they ever attempt to recover their political and social rights otherwise than by a movement founded purely upon principle and wholly exempt from selfish or merely personal calculations on the part of men and leaders. Upon no other conditions is success possible, as we shall endeavour to demonstrate, with all but mathematical exactness, in the progress of this inquiry.
History has been defined, “philosophy teaching by example.” It is in order to illume the future by the light of the past that we prosecute this inquiry. A vulgar belief prevails extensively, both in this country and upon the Continent, that human slavery is almost wholly the work of priests and religion, and that the genius of Christianity in particular is hostile to liberty and progress. Those who hold such opinions are apt to attach an undue importance to the words “monarchy” and “republicanism,” and to fancy that there was more real liberty under the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, before Christianity was heard of, than it would be now possible to establish in any country concurrently with the kingly office, and with Christianity being a part and parcel of its fundamental law. Such persons are also apt to suppose that the slavery of ancient times was wholly the work of positive laws, operating by coercion to keep down an adverse public opinion, and to account in pretty much the same way for the abuses and oppressions of our own time, ascribing them almost wholly to individual rulers or governments, and scarcely at all to the ignorance and corruption of the public opinion around them. Believing such notions to be, in a great measure, erroneous and prejudicial to the cause of real reform (which must take possession of a people before it can of a government), we have been at some pains, and shall be at still greater, to make the true origin and character of slavery better understood than they appear to be. In so doing, we think we shall be able to show that an ignorant and unprincipled people cannot have a good or wise government, and that an intelligent, right-principled people would not tolerate, and therefore could not long have, a bad one. If we be right in this sentiment, a reform of public opinion must needs precede a reform of parliament; and as one great object of this treatise is to endeavour to operate such a reform, we shall avoid, as much as possible, mere assertions without proof; and therefore, even at the risk of being sometimes tedious, we shall continue to bring forward facts and details, as we proceed, in elucidation of our positions.
Now, without going into theological questions (which nothing shall induce us to do), let us request a certain class of French philosophers, who are at present labouring to solve the “social question,” to ask themselves how it happened that, before Christianity was heard of, the theory and practice of human slavery had got such a firm hold of the whole pagan world, that not even the slaves themselves ever dreamt of calling the institution into question.
In the middle ages we have had Jacqueries, corresponding with the slave-insurrections under pagan Rome; but it is notorious that, in those Jacqueries, the principle of fraternity and equality was invoked by the disaffected. In the 16th century the Anabaptists of Munster rose against aristocracy and privilege, and, for a season, put down their lords and masters with as high a hand as Eunus and Athenio put down theirs in ancient Sicily. But mark the difference: the Anabaptists sought an order of things in which all should work, and none be drudges or slaves; the followers of Eunus and Parthenio sought quite a different thing,—they sought only to exchange places with their masters, and they had no objection at all to human slavery, provided they were not slaves themselves.
What is true of John of Leyden and his followers might be applied to our own Fifth-Monarchy men in Cromwell’s time, and to the French revolutionists of 1793 and 1795 under Babœuf. If they sought to pull down those above them, it was upon the principle and the understanding that neither themselves nor anybody else should take the places of the dethroned oppressors. Something similar might be predicated of certain Socialist sects in modern France and Germany. If they are for making a clean sweep of the aristocracy, it is not that they may take their places. If they are against privilege, it is against the principle that they contend, and not against the mere accident that they themselves are not privileged parties.
This remarkable difference in the revolutionary movements of ancient and modern times cannot but strike every thinking man who will take the trouble to compare them. Nor let it be said that the difference arises solely from the disaffected having been slaves in the times of paganism and freemen in the times of Christianity. Cataline and his co-conspirators were not slaves, nor the friends of slaves: yet they acted precisely upon the same motives and principles as those ascribed to Eunus and Athenio. Cataline did not promise his brother-revolutionists a régime of liberty and equality for all orders of men; quite the contrary. In the first place, he indignantly repudiated all co-operation with slaves; and instead of equal rights and equal laws for all, he promised one portion of his followers a cancelling of all their debts; another portion, magistrates, sacerdotia, rapinas—i.e. magisterial offices, the preferments and property of the Church, and general plunder; and to all he promised women, wine, horses, dogs, &c., according to their age and tastes. If we are to believe Sallust, he was to begin with setting fire to Rome, proceed with the massacre and spoliation of his enemies during the confusion, and end by putting his associates and friends in the place of the men they wished to get rid of. In other words, Cataline’s doctrine was (to use an old Roman phrase), that every man must be either prædo or præda—either the thief or the spoil, or, as Voltaire expresses it, either hammer or anvil; and he was determined to be the thief, or the hammer. The doctrine of equality, at any rate, had no share in his system.
What history describes Cataline to have been is equally predicable of the whole of the revolutionary school in which he had had his political training. Sylla and his lieutenants, on the one hand, representing patrician revolutionists, and Marius, Sulpitius, Saturninus, &c., on the other, representing the plebeian revolutionists, had acted, every man of them, upon the principles ascribed to Cataline. Not a chief or demagogue of them all, on either side, said a word or proposed a measure that savoured of justice or legality for all people. Principle was entirely out of the question. It is doubtful, indeed, whether either leaders or people understood anything at all of the matter. There is certainly nothing in history to evidence that they either knew or cared for any other rules or principles of government than those good old-fashioned ones, which the several agencies of gold, intrigue, and the sword resolve themselves into—the right of the strongest. To such republicans as Sylla, Marius, Clodius, Sulpicius, &c., our modern ideas of a république démocratique et sociale would be about as intelligible as a proposal to light old Rome with gas or to communicate senatus consulta by the electric telegraph.
Before despatching this branch of our inquiry, let us cite just one more fact from history, which we regard as perfectly decisive on the question—a fact sufficient of itself to convince any reasonable man that slavery, as an institution, had the public opinion of all classes in its favour in the times we are treating of; so much so, that not even Roman citizens and warriors, sold into slavery, thought of questioning its propriety.
In the second Punic war, some 1,200 Roman citizens were made prisoners by the Carthaginians, and by them disposed of to merchants, who, in the regular way of trade, sold them as slaves amongst the farmers of Peloponessus, by whom they were set to work in the fields. Now, if any class of slaves ought to be imbued with the sentiments of human equality, it is, undoubtedly, men like these, who had not been born in slavery, and who, from the very constitution of the Roman army, must have been men of family and station. Let us see. Plutarch tell us, in his Life of Flaminius, that some years after, when the Achæan cities demanded succour of the Romans against Philip of Macedon, Titus Quintus was sent to them with some legions, and made himself master of the disputed territories. While engaged in these operations, his soldiers fell in, one day, with the 1,200 Roman citizens who had been sold into slavery by the Carthaginians, and found them delving the ground, like any other slaves. As might be expected, the soldiers and the slaves embraced one another as fellow-countrymen and old friends; but mark the sequel: not a word is there in Plutarch or elsewhere to intimate that either soldiers or slaves regarded this bondage of Roman citizens as anything monstrous or degrading. On the contrary, after embracing, the soldiers went their way, and the citizen-slaves resumed their task-work. Flaminius, as being master of the country, might have set them at liberty at once, if he liked: he did no such thing. It would have been to violate the rights of property. It is true, those slaves afterwards obtained their liberty; but it was only through a voluntary subscription raised by the cities of the Achæan league, which, in gratitude for the services rendered by Flaminius, redeemed the bondsmen and made a present of them to their benefactor. And even when released by Flaminius they did not resume their former rank of citizens: that rank was irredeemably forfeited. They became freedmen only; which imposed upon them a sort of fealty to their patron, whose vassals they thenceforward were in the eye of the law. This one historical incident speaks volumes. It shows how completely the system of slavery was ingrained in the minds and habits of the people, as well as in their laws and institutes. Here was a victorious Roman general and soldiers so respecting the institution, that not even their own fellow-citizens, made prisoners by their most hated foes, were regarded as fit objects for freedom, until it pleased their masters or owners to give them up to the general for a sum of money; and had it not been for the subscription of the cities, the slaves would have reconciled themselves to their lot of slavery as to a thing quite natural and proper under the circumstances.
After this, let it not be said that it was the force of law or the strength of governments that maintained slavery in ancient times. No; it was the universality of the public opinion in its favour. Had it been otherwise, the slaves might have emancipated themselves in any of those revolutionary crises which were of such frequent occurrence, and when neither law nor government had any force adequately to cope with them. But, even in their own most successful insurrections against the tyranny of their masters, they never dreamt (as we have seen) of abolishing slavery. Nay, on one occasion, when Marius, unable to cope with Sylla’s faction for want of sufficient troops, solicited the slaves to rise in behalf of the democratic party, and offered them their liberty if they would but join his ranks, only three individuals, we are told, out of the whole slave population gave in their names to be enrolled.
In the following chapter we shall endeavour to account for this, and show that, as a general rule, the slaves acted wisely, in preferring to remain slaves (when they knew so little of real liberty) to becoming “free and independent labourers,” without arms, votes, lands, money, or credit, after British fashion.
