If I had 500 slaves...

[DusterBoy]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

O'course it was. . . can't have a slave educated, he'll just get uppity (and worse, infect others with his sedition)

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

Let's not delude ourselves, slavery was and is (because it is still practiced surreptitiously in many parts of the modern world) a truly monstrous practice. In the real world it is something impossible to justify. And if your status as a slave is solely based on a factor such as your nationality or skin color it becomes even worse.

[Markdoc]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

Let's not delude ourselves' date=' slavery was and is (because it is still practiced surreptitiously in many parts of the modern world) a truly monstrous practice. In the real world it is something impossible to justify. And if your status as a slave is solely based on a factor such as your nationality or skin color it becomes even worse.[/quote']

 

Absolutely right. Romans could - and did - adopt slaves (or more typically, children of slaves). It wasn't that rare - there's a section of roman law dealing precisely with this issue, laying down rights, inheritance, surnames, etc, and we know it did happen. In addition, there are plenty of references to freed slaves, often done in the owner's will. Cicero (and Tiro) left us a detailed record of his slave Tiro, who he freed. He regarded Tiro as a confident and friend - and this attitude was apparently not considered terribly unusual.

 

However, we also know that a Roman slave was property. Slave owners could - and records confirm, did - rape, mutilate or kill their slaves with legal impunity. Children were seperated from parents and sold: slaves could not have family. Slaves were sold into the mines (more or less a sentence of death: life expectancy was only 2-3 years) into brothels (an unwilling female slave or young boy would be gang-raped into submission: all perfectly legal). In the Roman Digest, the compilation of laws, legal problems and legal reasoning created for the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century AD, there's a whole section dealing with the sale of slaves who had been mutilated by their owners. The whole thing is concerned with their prices and warranties (yes, you could get a warranty on a slave) - the fact that their previous owner had taken a knife or branding iron to them was so normal it excites no comment - and indeed, was clearly common enough, it needed its own section of laws.

 

To make it explicit, roman law described the authority of the owner as "Dominium". That means he/she could do anything they liked to a slave and the slave had no legal protection, nor right of appeal. The slave was literally considered legally dead. An enslaved person had his will read, his marriage formally ended, his contracts cancelled - all exactly as if he had died. He ceased to be a person and became a thing.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

In most of the South' date=' it was even against the law to teach African-Americans basic literacy skills.[/quote']

 

I wonder if anyone pointed out at the time that it was quite legal to teach a dog or horse to read.

 

In other words, passing a law against educating someone is implicitly admitting that they are capable of learning.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I remember the first time someone taught a palindromedary to speak....

[Susano]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

Let's not delude ourselves' date=' slavery was and is (because it is still practiced surreptitiously in many parts of the modern world) a truly monstrous practice. In the real world it is something impossible to justify.[/quote']

 

No it's not. If history shows us anything, it's that it's fairly easy to justify slavery. Now, I didn't say it was right, but certainly, slave owners had all sorts of reasons to explain why it was okay to own other people. Stating the slaves weren't "people" was probably the simplest one. "They lost the battle" would be the next.

[Ragnarok]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

What he said ^^

[Lucius]

Re: If I had 500 slaves...

 

Probably doesn't need to be said, but....

 

If you had 500 slaves...

 

Then even if each is only a 25 pt slave, you would pay 50 pts to have that many as Followers.

 

on the other hand, if you LEASE 500 slaves...

 

If I LEASED 500 slaves: Summon 512 25-point creatures, Expanded Class of Beings (Limited Group: Heavy Labor Slaves; Any slave up to 25 pts; +1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (100 Active Points); 1 Charge which Recovers every 1 Month (Only so much traffic the market will bear; -3), Extra Time: Window of Opportunity (1 Month, Only to Activate, The slaver comes around once a month to settle accounts, provide new slaves, etc.; -2 1/2), Antagonistic Hostile (must be forced to work) (-1/2), Arrives Under Own Power (Driven in coffles; -1/2), IIF Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus (money doesn't grow on trees); Slaves aren't free - by definition; -1/2)

 

The same 500 slaves of 25 pts each cost 12 Real Points plus some gold and silver!

 

The point (pardon the expression) is not just to save points. If for some reason you really wanted to write up five hundred slaves in Hero terms as something costing points, Follower would work only if you have LOYAL slaves who will generally be obedient and trustworthy; joking aside, the "lease" deal I wrote up more realistically reflects a body of workers who will perform only if and as forced to.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

 

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