Prof Andrea Giardina
Slavery in Ancient Rome

(2)
The sources attest, above all during the reign and the republican age, a sacral approach of the Roman towards the main events, from most complex inherent to the life of the state, to the simplest legacies and to the daily events. I ask if, in the cited ages, it is recognizable a sacral sphere in the roman approach to the slavery or if everything can be brought to a pure utilitaristic sphere.

A “sacral approach” to the slavery did not exist. However, some aspects of the relationship between dominus and slave had some religious connotations. We have seen how the slave was an object in the hands of the lord. But a cruel lord, that used to beat, torture or sentence to death his slave without any reason or with vain reasons, was considered by the members of his own class a censurable man. In other words, was strong the conviction that also with the enslaved had to be used a behaviour respectful of the pietas. This concept, that would be reductive to translate with "mercy", was steeped both in moral and religion.
The pius man was appreciated not only by the other men (free or enslaved who were) but also by the Gods. The stoicism (we can all remember the words of Seneca) showed a certain comprehension for the condition of slaves (ET homines sunt..., “they are men, anyhow") but it never arrived to sentence the moral necessity to abolish the slavery. The same conclusion was arrived by the Christianity, that exhorted the lords to deal in the mild way their slaves, but exhorted at the same time these ones to accept their own condition. It was diffused the conviction that the slavery corresponded to a right jus, just a nature jus.