Schism

Preview - R.F.H. Chapter 1 Ending Slavery part 2

EARLY EVIDENCE

The upright box, covered in a mosaic of blue lapis lazuli, red limestone and white shells, stands less than a foot high.  The thin end panels taper up at the top and only have space for three images each, but the long sides stretch the action out into something like long cartoon panels, though the subject matter is a bit more serious.

One side shows images of a feast and people carrying heavy loads and tending to animals, but the other side of the nearly 5,000 year old Sumerian artifact known as the Standard of Ur shows what may be the earliest recorded evidence of slavery.  On this panel, captured prisoners, who have been stripped of all clothing, are taken before a conquering king, almost assuredly to become slaves.

Much more detail on the function of slaves in early human society is provided by the code of Hammurabi, which was written during the Babylonian king’s reign, from approximately 1795 to 1750 BC.  It gives detailed laws concerning slavery, including the return of sick slaves to their seller and trial periods for female slaves.

Slavery also existed in ancient Egypt.  Not only prisoners of war became slaves, but sometimes Egyptian citizens sold themselves into slavery to pay debts or to avoid forced hard labor. In an early form of manumission, Egyptian slave owners were able to adopt their slaves and grant them freedom.  The children of slaves were also sometimes adopted, given their freedom and treated as one of the master’s own offspring.

As civilization spread throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean, it left other records of slavery.  Slave owners were often outnumbered by slaves in ancient Greece and there were many classes of slaves.  Some were allowed to reside in their own homes, while others lived and worked and died in brutal conditions.

The Roman Empire continued the practice of enslaving captives, turning many Greeks and other conquered peoples into slaves, and some of their rights fluctuated under Roman rule.  Slaves could no longer own property, but if they were able to purchase their freedom, they became full citizens with the right to vote.  But even with these rights, their living conditions could still be brutal and their lives were often short.

But slavery was not limited to these areas.  It flourished in the rest of the world as well.  Every major civilization has left records of some form of slavery.  Incan citizens had to spend part of every year in forced labor.  Vikings, who called their slaves thralls, expanded the trade of slaves throughout Europe.  And though slavery seemed less widespread in ancient China, there was a time when the families of convicted criminals became someone else’s property.

In all of these countries, conditions were hard for slaves.  In many places murdering a slave was not a crime and many of them were worked to death in mines or were forced to fight in wars or slaughter each other as entertainment.  Their lives tended to be short, without comfort and subject to the whim of those that ruled them.

But while slavery continued to spread and gain power throughout the world, there were a few who stood against it.  And most of them paid a very high price.

EARLY OPPOSITION

The road from Capua to Rome was gently raised in the middle to let water run off to the ditches and low curbs on each side.  Even though the road was nearly two hundred and fifty years old, the paving stones still fit together tightly. 

Of the two main roads from Capua to Rome, the Appian Way was the quicker route, shorter by nearly fifteen miles than the Via Latina, and it stayed closer to the western coast of Italy.  And, in the spring of 71 BC there was a crucified body every hundred feet along the 130 mile stretch of the Appian Way between the two cities.