Marcus Aurelius and slavery in the Roman Empire

Something of a departure from the usual content today — what follows is my attempt to answer the question, “Why didn’t Marcus Aurelius the Stoic fight to end slavery?” I hope you enjoy the read. I’d appreciate any and all comments!

See a Zotero folder documenting my research for this essay.

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In the Meditations Marcus Aurelius extols the ideas of independence and self-determination, echoing many of his Later Stoic intellectual ancestors and contemporaries. In 1.14 he speaks of the treasures of a “balanced constitution” and a “monarchy which values above all things the freedom of the subject.” It is difficult to reconcile egalitarian precepts like these, though, with Marcus’ behavior as leader of the Roman Empire for 19 years. The Roman institution of slavery, for example, seems to be in direct contradiction with his own ideals. Although Aurelius likely interacted with or benefited from the work of slaves daily while writing the Meditations on campaign, he makes little mention of this practice in his work. Why would Aurelius not fight against slavery in the Roman Empire, given his strong commitment to his philosophy and the significant power he wielded? It may appear at first glance that Aurelius simply refused to consider any sort of action. But we can’t make complete conclusions by scanning the Meditations alone. A study of the emperor’s philosophical tradition reveals a much more nuanced picture: the ethics and personal beliefs sourced from his Stoic predecessors combined to present several substantial obstacles to an aggressive campaign for the abolition of slavery.

The practice of slavery was prevalent throughout the Roman Empire at the time of Aurelius’ ascension. About 30 percent of the population of the city of Rome consisted of slaves. The duties of slaves in the empire varied widely. In urban Rome, those in servitude might be employed by the city to maintain public buildings or coordinate construction projects. Wealthy private citizens often owned several slaves who acted as nurses, tutors, or housekeepers. Others would be sent to work in factories or on farms.¹ Slaves acting as domestic servants often had good chances of economic success or even freedom, while those working in large groups away from the cities were likely forced to resign to a lifetime of subjugation.² Together slaves played a crucial role in sustaining the empire, supporting projects in both the public and private sectors.

There is surprisingly little discussion of this slavery so important to the empire in Later Stoic texts (of which Aurelius’ Meditations forms a part). The Stoics remain curiously quiet on the social and political institution of slavery in their time, but do make significant comments about how one should best treat a slave. In Seneca’s famous 47th letter to Lucilius, he skirts around the larger question of the norm of slavery and instead attempts to prescribe how they should be treated: “But this is the kernel of my advice: Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.”³ All of the Later Stoic writing on this specific topic stresses the equality of all men in a spiritual or cosmic sense. While such a tenet is only implied in Seneca’s letter, Marcus Aurelius states it more plainly in his Meditations. He asks us to “[c]onsider how [we] stand in relation to [our companions], and how we were born to help one another.”⁴ Though a free Roman and a Roman slave obviously differed in their social positions, the Stoics thought it important to recognize that both were humans and both therefore deserved humane treatment.

But the Stoics seem to feel less direct sympathy than we might expect for their own fellow human beings, relegated to servitude under a human master. This is perhaps because they were more concerned with a very different kind of slavery: that of a free man to desire, emotion, or irrationality. “Slavery” for the Stoics referred, rather, to an unacknowledged dependence on an external factor for internal tranquility and peace. Seneca asks his contemporaries to turn inward when contemplating slaves, and realize how they too are bound to their own, more abstract masters:

‘He is a slave.’ His soul, however, may be that of a freeman. ‘He is a slave.’ But shall that stand in his way? Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear. … No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.⁵

A slavery “self-imposed” was more terrifying to the Stoics than any external social circumstance. Such servitude led man after man astray from his duties, suffering from a “disgraceful” irrationality and lack of wisdom. Following Seneca, Marcus Aurelius uses the same metaphor to describe how one’s mind may be dominated and enslaved by thoughts of an unhappy status quo or an uncertain future: “No longer allow [your ruling center] to act as a slave … no longer allow it to be discontented with its present lot or flinch from what will fall to it in the future.”⁶ This other form of captivity, named “moral slavery” by later scholars, was of far superior importance to Stoic thinkers. The Stoics knew that this servitude to such invisible masters pervaded the minds of plebeians and patricians alike, and they saw righting this malady as a more primary goal. Moreover, Aurelius and his companions were well aware that while moral slaves could free themselves immediately of their own volition, this was not the case with traditional slaves. The Stoics believed, then, that “[b]y comparison with the slavery that was a condition of the soul, legal slavery was of marginal importance. It was an external—like health and illness, wealth and poverty, high and low status—over which we had no control. As such, it was neither good nor bad but, rather, indifferent.”⁷ The Stoics saw this distinction between fixed external factors and mutable internal factors as central to everyday life. They chose to regard the features of their lives not under their direct control with a knowing indifference—a relaxed and rational concession of power over things outside of the individual.

This indifference was prevalent throughout the writing of the Later Stoics. In the context of enslavement, they would think it important to recognize the random chance that could cast one person into slavery and another into a sedentary life in the aristocracy. Both conditions would be bestowed at birth, outside of an individual’s control. The result of this coin-flip decision by what the Stoics dub “Fortune,” then, would ideally not have any bearing on the happiness of the individual in life. What leads the path of a person’s life—the rational mind, or the “ruling center” by Aurelius’ terminology—should be, in the Stoics’ view, independent from and unhampered by any physical or social circumstance.⁸ Seneca claims that “it is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man’s whole being,” because our rational center “cannot be transferred as a chattel.”⁹ Once we recognize the independence of this ruling rationality in ourselves, suggest the Stoics, we are no longer hindered by the emotions that any circumstance may trigger. Epictetus exhibits the same sentiment in a more general context in his Encheiridion, holding that “[m]en are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”¹⁰ Our happiness, according to the Stoics, can be independent from our physical state. Thus in this view life as a well-treated slave could be just as tranquil and happy as life as a commoner or an aristocrat.

However much this philosophical reasoning allows us to excuse our Stoic ruler from a fight against slavery, Marcus Aurelius did in fact strive to protect the rights of slaves. Anthony R. Birley indicates a “consistent policy” throughout Aurelius’ reign of giving every slave “the maximum possible chance of attaining freedom.” The jurist Marcellus attributed to Aurelius a “partiality for freedom” with respect to cases involving manumission.¹¹ Other sources state the leader’s preference for the freedom of slaves even more strongly. Arnold M. Duff indicates a trend of legislating and ruling in the favor of slaves among several of the Antonines:

Hadrian and his two successors, under the influence of the Stoics, began an energetic campaign for the amelioration of slavery. … Hadrian put an end to the anomaly that provincial towns were not, like the state, allowed to free their slaves; in the reign of Marcus Aurelius the right of manumission was granted to collegia. … [O]ne of the most striking evidences of the humanitarian movement is the history of fideicommissary manumission which evolved itself into legal form between Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. About twenty senatus-consulta and imperial constitutiones are known to us with reference to fideicommissa. … Of those twenty rescripts and decisions all are in favour of the slave. If it was quite clear that the testator wanted a certain slave to be freed, then he had to be freed, and no legal forms or theories could prevent it.¹²

Duff shows evidence of perhaps weakening support for the institution of slavery in a specific sector of law, through both decisions of the senate (senatus-consulta) and imperial proclamations (constitutiones). But by modern standards, this sort of piecemeal progress is maddeningly insufficient. Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire for nearly two decades. Why did he not take further steps to eradicate legal slavery as an institution?

It is possible, in fact, that Marcus had such a plan in mind but simply refused to put it into action. Marcus’ own writing clearly shows that he struggled to balance ideas sourced from his personal philosophy with the expectations of his Roman counterparts. Late in the Meditations he makes an entry, seemingly resigned to the unfairness of his post: “You should not hope for Plato’s ideal state, but be satisfied to make even the smallest advance, and regard such an outcome as nothing contemptible. For who can change the convictions of others?”¹³ Here we see Marcus as something of a realist, spelling out the struggle he sees between an ideal government and what his society currently regards as an acceptable state. The most groundbreaking changes, he says, must be made in the “smallest advance[s].” Surprising legislation or sudden imperial action could lead to political turmoil or even large-scale revolt. Little could be more groundbreaking, of course, than the abolition of slavery in the Roman Empire. Aurelius evidently did his part to better the treatment of slaves, but was likely wary to continue to more involved social change for fear of upsetting his political allies and the Roman public.

Aurelius also mentions the hopelessness of attempting to “change the convictions of others.” This is perfectly in line with Stoic thought: such a goal would be marked as unwise and even dangerous by any of his Stoic companions as well, simply because its fate of success or failure lies outside of the self. Marcus would see the “convictions of others” as an external, a factor which deserved no emotion but indifference. Though he may have had the strongest and most unorthodox opinions about manumission and the treatment of slaves, it appears that he kept them to himself, staying in line with his recommendation in 9.29. Aurelius knew that to impose such a radical change in such a brief period of time would have wreaked havoc on the Roman economy, and to attempt to force his “convictions” on others would be a breach of his own philosophical ideals.

It is unfortunate that we have only a record of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and not also of his unfiltered daily thoughts. But by reading the Meditations and understanding the opinions of his intellectual counterparts, we can begin to glimpse the hard conclusions he must have had to reach on the topic of slavery. While legal slavery was an institution obviously not befitting an “ideal state,” Aurelius knew that such a prevalent practice could not simply be swept away in a decade, or even a century. The Stoic view of this ancient form of slavery further deterred the school’s thinkers from launching a full attack on the institution. Through the Stoic lens, we imagine that “good” slaves would have been content with their place, pleased with the cards that the proverbial Fortune had dealt them. The more pressing societal problem in the Stoic view had to do with the far more numerous “moral” slaves, bound to their own ephemeral pleasures. This reasoning is by no means a complete excuse for Marcus Aurelius’ inaction. Through this wider historical and philosophical lens, however, we can understand the enormous and intricate internal conflict which he must have faced on this issue. Our philosopher-king was a mortal in struggle, permanently torn between maintaining the status quo and campaigning for such revolutionary change.