Serva's Roman Fantasy

[Serva]

This is off to a great start, Serva, just right for CruxForums, both the story itself and the discussion it's already provoked -
thanks for a very promising contribution!

I'll move it into our 'When in Rome' area, as it's very much on that theme - everyone will be automatically redirected,
everyone who's contributed will get a message, and it will stand out more in that forum for people who are looking for Roman tales.

Thank you very much for your kind words Eulalia!

And thank you for moving the thread! I wasn't sure where to put this initially.

 

[TheLimey]

I was not immediately whipped. Many slaves are, especially those destined by the fields, who are treated as barely a step above beasts. But they deemed my demeanor so servile and submissive that it wasn't necessary. I was, however, given a lecture of sorts, by Dominus himself. A warning. He told me that if I tried to ran away he would have my legs broken. That if I touched a weapon he would have me crucified. That if I was lazy or disobedient or unpleasant I would be locked in the sweatbox. I was nude before him, with my head down, my leg stinging from the fresh tattoo, the collar so conspicuous against my skin... as he spoke of his demands and expectations... I sank lower and lower.

I see this as a tour. Just you and the Dominus.

You walk through out of the central courtyard, and towards the Ergastulum, which is mainly below ground, the narrow windows close to the surface outside, but out of reach in the cells inside.

The trusted slave in charge of this is female, an Ergastularia, and she enjoys the trust of the Dominus. With her alongside, you are shown a damp cell, shown the post in a chamber where whippings are held. You see the whip, and catch sight of the scourge used prior to a crucifixion.

Then you are shown the sweat boxes, and you can smell how rank they are even without someone inside. The Ergastularia even opens one to show you the inside.

It's here that the rules are explained, and here that you shrink in fear.

My will was defused. I was a collared and marked slave girl, over a hundred miles from home in the country of my conquerors, and I belonged to one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the Republic, someone who had an integral role in the destruction of Athens... from Rome he was one of those who instigated, and profited most from it.

Ut victor spolia

 

[TheLimey]

Thank you so much for your praise! This is really motivates me to share more!

When you say a slave-manager, do you mean, a fellow slave, but one in a position of authority over other slaves?

Perhaps she is the Ergustalaria?

 

[Quiet Paul]

Serva, this is already becoming a wonderful story. Thank you!

 

[Serva]

I see this as a tour. Just you and the Dominus.

You walk through out of the central courtyard, and towards the Ergastulum, which is mainly below ground, the narrow windows close to the surface outside, but out of reach in the cells inside.

The trusted slave in charge of this is female, an Ergastularia, and she enjoys the trust of the Dominus. With her alongside, you are shown a damp cell, shown the post in a chamber where whippings are held. You see the whip, and catch sight of the scourge used prior to a crucifixion.

Then you are shown the sweat boxes, and you can smell how rank they are even without someone inside. The Ergastularia even opens one to show you the inside.

It's here that the rules are explained, and here that you shrink in fear.

Ut victor spolia

While I normal imagine the ergastularius being, well, a man, a female one might not be out of the question. Sometimes women were used as gladiators, (gladiatrices, sing. gladiatrix), though those bouts always had a gimmicky and lewd character. Some Romans found the idea of women gladiators very offensive but there was clearly a market for that. They would fight with other gladiatrices, with animals, and even with male dwarfs.

I could see an old gladiatrix being bought by a landowning patrician and placed as ergastularia. Maybe a Scythian, as in the Greco-Roman world the Amazons were frequently associated with the Scythians and other peoples of the steppe.

Or said ergastularia could simply be a field slave who was promoted, maybe by ratting out fellow slaves who were plotting an escape.

I do normally imagine the ergastulum is partially below ground. For those new to this, an ergastulum was a dungeon or prison used for punishing slaves.

As KageKanem mentioned before, punishments are more effective if carried out in public. So imagine the whipping post, while very near the ergastulum's main building, would be outside, in full view of the fields and villa. Something else to be found inside an ergastulum, other than the ordinary below-ground cells, are pits. In medieval Europe they would be called oubliette, but it's the same thing. A hole in the ground with a grate above, where prisoners are banished and forgotten.

I do like the thought of receiving my lecture at the end of this little tour.

He tells me that he paid a small fortune for me and he expects me to make every single denarius worth it.

 

[KageKamen]

I get back and it's already this long? Well, I guess I'd better get started...

Serva's Roman Fantasy


I am a slave girl in a Roman latifundium in Italy, somewhere in the fertile Ager Falernus south of Rome. The estate is enormous, it's main economic activity being large-scale food production by the cultivation of wheat and barley, apples, pears, almonds and figs and of course, wine. The grapes is pressed in the latifundium itself. There are also herds of sheep, goats and cattle. The Dominus is a very wealthy man of senatorial rank, a patrician through and through born of endless generations of patricians.

About how many slaves (and how many free?) are there on this estate? How much time does the Dominus spend here, and where does he go the rest of the year?

I am an Athenian unmarried girl of high class; my family owned farmland and animals and we had a big house in Athens.

If this is the case, you must surely have grown up surrounded by slaves yourself - from the nursemaid who changed your diapers to your very own personal maid(s). How did you think of them, and treat them? Were you close to any?

They take the city by assault and what follows are days of plunder, rape and murder.

But thousands survive, and we all become slaves. When they herd me out of the city in shackles I see rows of crosses along the road, and on them, the writhing, bleeding bodies of the rebellion's leaders, as well as those of many soldiers.

It is a feeling like nothing else in the world. Dread seeps throughout my body and clutches at my throat. My heart hammers and my stomach sinks, and I feel cold and numb and my vision blurs. Everything seems unreal and I feel as if dreaming, but it is a nightmare. The metallic taste of fear clings to my mouth. Most of us look lost and confused. My shoulders and my head slump as if they were being pulled. I cannot straighten up.

Certainly a powerful shock. Who of your friends and family died in the sack? Who were enslaved? And whose fates do you just not know?

While you portray one of your earliest moments as a slave well here, I'd love to go a bit earlier, and get both your growing realization that you were going to be a slave and the actual process of it occuring - everything summed up in "we all become slaves" above. Where there any of your peers who chose death rather than slavery? Did you consider it?

Eventually, I am exhibited at market, in Italy, in Brundisium or even in Rome herself.

I am not displayed with the masses of slaves out to the public. The dealer who acquiried me specializes in catering to patricians. I am told that because I am so young, because I am Greek and of high class, and because I am so beautiful, I will be a sheltered, coveted house slave and that I should be grateful.

I am displayed inside a private courtyard in the slave market. I hear the public auctions going on outside, and the rattle of chains.

There comes a man to see, a patrician by the look of his clothes. He is followed by a number of his slaves, one of whom holds a parasol over his head. From the moment he lays eyes on me I feel violated. His gaze is knowing and invasive and it rakes me from head to toe as if he was drinking in my nudity through his eyes. I squirm... but to my eternal shame I don't even make a sound. I don't move, I just take it, like a slave.

He fondles me. He pinches one of my nipples to hear me yelp. He ends up buying me for thousands of denarii.

From the very beginning I know I am a sex slave, even if most of my waking hours are spent doing housework. He never lets me forget why he bought me.

An interesting experience. Even though you were spared the public auctions, you surely caught a glimpse of them - perhaps your first, depending on how sheltered you were in Greece.

How were you displayed for sale - naked? Chained? Did any other buyers examine you? Were you prepared in any special way beforehand?

Yes it was by boat, taken at the port of Piraeus south of Athens. I was naked and in chains, heavy shackles for my wrists and ankles, and we were crammed tight in the hold of the ship. It wasn't a galley. Those are war ships built for speed and manueaverability. It was a fat, deep-hulled trading ship. We were crammed in so tight I felt naked bodies pressed against mine the whole trip. We were taken to the upper deck in shifts, to walk around and excercise.

I presume you were taken by coffle to and from the boat, though - what was that like? How long was the voyage? Did you speak and interact with your "neighbours" aboard ship? I expect you had no privacy at all, and did you even have a bucket between you?

When they took me up I witnessed another slave be keelhauled. That is, they tied him by the ankles and then dragged him along the keel of the ship, underwater, from bow to stern. The barnacles ripped open his flesh like so many knives. He came out vomiting water and flapping like a fish, barely conscious. They keelhauled him a second time and when they pulled him up he was dead. I do not know what his crime was.

Had you seen death before, in the invasion or otherwise? Had you even seen a corpse, before the invasion?

Still naked and shackled I am put in a cage on top of a wagon after I am bought. I notice my new owner has a large travel retinue... freshly-bought slaves as well as what look like old and trusted attendants. The other slave he has bought follow behind my cage, on foot, coffled together and ladden like mules. Dominus has bought other things and the new slaves must bear them on the road. Armed guards walk on either side of the caravan. Whenever one of them looks at me my eyes drop instantly, and I shrink back like a pathetic coward. There is not an ounce of fight or resistance in me. I am a slave and I know I will die a slave.

The journey takes a couple of days.

Lucky you, to get to ride the cart - no-one else does? Does anyone speak or interact with you on the trip? Are you let out at all?

How was your resistance broken so thoroughly, that all hope has vanished?

Crosses. I see ten to twelve of them, and ten to twelve bodies nailed to them. Half seem dead already, or at least unconscious. The smell of shit, piss and rusty blood fills my nose. I cower in the cage, against the bars, I hide my face in my hands. I hear one of them, a woman, wailing in agony, though I do not understand her words. Her legs are purple, bloated and misshapen; they had been broken.

The fear is like a drug. It literally makes me dizzy. I look at my hands and they do not seem my own. Only the weight of the shackles tell me it's my body. My dread and terror are suffocating. The feeling... it is like being mesmerized. It is like being spellbound. I feel detached from reality.

A dozen crosses in use? Did this place see a revolt lately or something? Is that why the master went buying new stock?

The first thing that happens is that I am tattooed. There is a workshop or shed for a blacksmith not far from the villa; an old slave woman tattooes me there, with an inked needle. She pricks my calf until I bear a name along it, on the outside: CASTVS IGNOTVS SCANIA.

Then the smith collars me. It is a band of dark, thick metal that he bends into rough shape with a pair of tongs. Then I place my head on an anvil, with the open collar's overlapping ends behind my neck. With another set of tongs he punches a rivet through the ends, closing it forever.

My collar is like this:

View attachment 876380

Better than a branding, at least - I bet you can see and hear the other slaves getting their's. And they can see and hear you not, too...

I was not immediately whipped. Many slaves are, especially those destined by the fields, who are treated as barely a step above beasts. But they deemed my demeanor so servile and submissive that it wasn't necessary. I was, however, given a lecture of sorts, by Dominus himself. A warning. He told me that if I tried to ran away he would have my legs broken. That if I touched a weapon he would have me crucified. That if I was lazy or disobedient or unpleasant I would be locked in the sweatbox. I was nude before him, with my head down, my leg stinging from the fresh tattoo, the collar so conspicuous against my skin... as he spoke of his demands and expectations... I sank lower and lower.

Although you weren't in a position to appreciate it at the time, I bet in retrospect you realised that very few slaves get "the Talk" directly for the master. Was it the first time he spoke to you directly? And what happened to you next?

It's so humiliating. I see the letters take shape and I realize the tattoo's purpose: to indicate my owner. My body is no longer my own. It belongs to him! He can do whatever he wants with it. I am marked as an animal would be, but I am grateful it is not a brand. But it is permanent all the same... I will have it on my skin until the day I die. I feel so weak and impotent. Why do I sit there meekly and let them tattoo me? I do not know, yet I cannot move. I cannot speak.

Good for you that you do not rebel - if you messed up the tatoo it would be a brand for sure.

Can you read and write, in Latin or Greek? Speak Latin?

 

[KageKamen]

I see this as a tour. Just you and the Dominus.

Of course the other new slaves will get it too, but only from a foreman.

While I normal imagine the ergastularius being, well, a man, a female one might not be out of the question. Sometimes women were used as gladiators, (gladiatrices, sing. gladiatrix), though those bouts always had a gimmicky and lewd character. Some Romans found the idea of women gladiators very offensive but there was clearly a market for that. They would fight with other gladiatrices, with animals, and even with male dwarfs.

I could see an old gladiatrix being bought by a landowning patrician and placed as ergastularia. Maybe a Scythian, as in the Greco-Roman world the Amazons were frequently associated with the Scythians and other peoples of the steppe.

Or said ergastularia could simply be a field slave who was promoted, maybe by ratting out fellow slaves who were plotting an escape.

Certainly the sight of her will dispel any idea that Roman women will be any kinder to you than their men.

(Which is a bit unfair - she could be a lovely woman with three kids she adores, but right now what matters a lot more is that she might use that whip on you.)

As KageKanem mentioned before, punishments are more effective if carried out in public. So imagine the whipping post, while very near the ergastulum's main building, would be outside, in full view of the fields and villa. Something else to be found inside an ergastulum, other than the ordinary below-ground cells, are pits. In medieval Europe they would be called oubliette, but it's the same thing. A hole in the ground with a grate above, where prisoners are banished and forgotten.

So these pits, the cells, the sweatboxes... that's three diffrent places to put troublesome slaves now. Which is used in what circumstance, and how are they different? And where do the slaves actually live - both elites like you, and the more common ones?

 

[Serva]

I'll reply here to some points KageKamen brought up in another thread:

I see - I was imagining a box just big enough to stand up straight in. And yes, those cells definitely sound better. Are they just for recovery, or are slave put in them for other reasons? Do they have any facilites besides the concrete block? How do they compare to the slaves' regular livng quarters?

The sweatboxes are so tiny one can only kneel inside them, or sit for that matter, but not lie down or rise. The cells in the ergastulum are much more humane, even if they're dank with moisture and fear. They are cool too. Slaves may also be put there for minor offenses, often after a whipping.

The ergastulum does have many facilities. The entire latifundium is a self-sufficient domain, and the size of the ergastulum reflects that. There's the main block of cells, partially underground. There are the sweatboxes outside of it, the whipping post. There are barracks for guards adjacent to it too. There is an open-air workspace for fashioning the beams for crosses.

I'd have thought such things would be done in public, the better to serve as warnings. What decides if a slave will be cruxed or just leg-broken? Are slaves who broke their legs naturally just left to die too?

You are right in that whippings, leg breaking and crucifixion are best carried out in public. Whether a slave is crucified with broken legs, or whether the leg-breaking is the only punishment is very dependent on the whims of the Dominus. There is no protocol to follow but his will. As you've mentioned, it seems more likely a runaway would be most often merely hobbled. With their legs broken there are still some things they can do in the latifundium, at the very least separating chafe from grain or butchering and cleaning animals. The punishment for rebellion or attempted rebellion, however, is summary crucifixion.

You would turn them in knowing that was the punishment? Even your friends or relatives? What's the punishment for knowing and holding your tongue - having it cut out?

If it were a relative of mine I wouldn't rat them out, but I would instead plead with them and beg them never to speak or think of escape again. But I can that for pretty much everyone else... I would be too afraid not to denounce them. Tongue-cutting sounds fitting for that offense.

 

[Gibbs505]

I was not immediately whipped. Many slaves are, especially those destined by the fields, who are treated as barely a step above beasts. But they deemed my demeanor so servile and submissive that it wasn't necessary. I was, however, given a lecture of sorts, by Dominus himself. A warning. He told me that if I tried to ran away he would have my legs broken. That if I touched a weapon he would have me crucified. That if I was lazy or disobedient or unpleasant I would be locked in the sweatbox. I was nude before him, with my head down, my leg stinging from the fresh tattoo, the collar so conspicuous against my skin... as he spoke of his demands and expectations... I sank lower and lower. My will was defused. I was a collared and marked slave girl, over a hundred miles from home in the country of my conquerors, and I belonged to one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the Republic, someone who had an integral role in the destruction of Athens... from Rome he was one of those who instigated, and profited most from it. His latifundium is hundreds of square miles, patrolled with guards.

All I wanted was to keep breathing. To remain whole. I crumbled before him. I surrendered.



Old enough to be about to be married, not old enough to have already been married. I was already pledged to a man, yes, by my father.

Sad that you were unable to experience married life although being a wife in Athens was only a few steps above a slave!
Now you are to be an actual slave in your masters bed!

 

[KageKamen]

The sweatboxes are so tiny one can only kneel inside them, or sit for that matter, but not lie down or rise.

I see - and of course, what you were kneeling or sitting in wouldn't be pleasant.

The ergastulum does have many facilities. The entire latifundium is a self-sufficient domain, and the size of the ergastulum reflects that. There's the main block of cells, partially underground. There are the sweatboxes outside of it, the whipping post. There are barracks for guards adjacent to it too. There is an open-air workspace for fashioning the beams for crosses.

Thanks, but I was actually speaking of inside the cells - is there a window? A chamber pot?

You are right in that whippings, leg breaking and crucifixion are best carried out in public. Whether a slave is crucified with broken legs, or whether the leg-breaking is the only punishment is very dependent on the whims of the Dominus. There is no protocol to follow but his will. As you've mentioned, it seems more likely a runaway would be most often merely hobbled. With their legs broken there are still some things they can do in the latifundium, at the very least separating chafe from grain or butchering and cleaning animals. The punishment for rebellion or attempted rebellion, however, is summary crucifixion.

If it were a relative of mine I wouldn't rat them out, but I would instead plead with them and beg them never to speak or think of escape again. But I can that for pretty much everyone else... I would be too afraid not to denounce them. Tongue-cutting sounds fitting for that offense.

So you would trade their legs for your tongue? Or perhpas their life...

 

[Serva]

I get back and it's already this long? Well, I guess I'd better get started...


About how many slaves (and how many free?) are there on this estate? How much time does the Dominus spend here, and where does he go the rest of the year?


If this is the case, you must surely have grown up surrounded by slaves yourself - from the nursemaid who changed your diapers to your very own personal maid(s). How did you think of them, and treat them? Were you close to any?


Certainly a powerful shock. Who of your friends and family died in the sack? Who were enslaved? And whose fates do you just not know?

While you portray one of your earliest moments as a slave well here, I'd love to go a bit earlier, and get both your growing realization that you were going to be a slave and the actual process of it occuring - everything summed up in "we all become slaves" above. Where there any of your peers who chose death rather than slavery? Did you consider it?


An interesting experience. Even though you were spared the public auctions, you surely caught a glimpse of them - perhaps your first, depending on how sheltered you were in Greece.

How were you displayed for sale - naked? Chained? Did any other buyers examine you? Were you prepared in any special way beforehand?


I presume you were taken by coffle to and from the boat, though - what was that like? How long was the voyage? Did you speak and interact with your "neighbours" aboard ship? I expect you had no privacy at all, and did you even have a bucket between you?


Had you seen death before, in the invasion or otherwise? Had you even seen a corpse, before the invasion?


Lucky you, to get to ride the cart - no-one else does? Does anyone speak or interact with you on the trip? Are you let out at all?

How was your resistance broken so thoroughly, that all hope has vanished?


A dozen crosses in use? Did this place see a revolt lately or something? Is that why the master went buying new stock?



Better than a branding, at least - I bet you can see and hear the other slaves getting their's. And they can see and hear you not, too...



Although you weren't in a position to appreciate it at the time, I bet in retrospect you realised that very few slaves get "the Talk" directly for the master. Was it the first time he spoke to you directly? And what happened to you next?


Good for you that you do not rebel - if you messed up the tatoo it would be a brand for sure.

Can you read and write, in Latin or Greek? Speak Latin?

I intend to respond to this, but it might take me a little while!

 

[Serva]

Sad that you were unable to experience married life although being a wife in Athens was only a few steps above a slave!
Now you are to be an actual slave in your masters bed!

That is quite true, housewives in Athens had few rights and were completly subjected to the will of their husband. Yet there is an enormous status difference between the two. While slaves were often sexualized, an Athenian woman of class would never leave her home without covering her head with a veil. They would retreat into the gynaikeion, the part of the house reserved for women, whenever male guests were over. They were very modest and chaste. A slave's chastity is non-existent.

 

[KageKamen]

That is quite true, housewives in Athens had few rights and were completly subjected to the will of their husband. Yet there is an enormous status difference between the two. While slaves were often sexualized, an Athenian woman of class would never leave her home without covering her head with a veil. They would retreat into the gynaikeion, the part of the house reserved for women, whenever male guests were over. They were very modest and chaste. A slave's chastity is non-existent.

Because of this, you must have been quite sheltered, right? And you expected to live a life much like your mother's. How did you feel about that?

 

[Serva]

Because of this, you must have been quite sheltered, right? And you expected to live a life much like your mother's. How did you feel about that?

Yes, so very sheltered. I was never alone with a man that wasn't my father or my brother. I kept to the gynaikion with my mother, who taught me how to weave and embroider. I was also taught domestic management... as I was destined to marry an Athenian man of standing, I was going to have to assist him in running his household. For that reason I was taught to read and write in Greek, as well as some math. I didn't go out much, and if I did, it was always with my mother and several of our slaves.

That life was all I knew and all I wanted. I was very happy even in my ignorance, and longed for the day I was married.

I did have a pair of slaves. They weren't really mine, they belonged to my father, but they served me. One was around my age, the other older than me; they were the two girls who acted as my handmaids. I think they liked me. I was always kind to them, even if I always saw them as rightful slaves. I never beat them or ordered them beat. They were loyal and trusted slaves.

 

[KageKamen]

Yes, so very sheltered. I was never alone with a man that wasn't my father or my brother. I kept to the gynaikion with my mother, who taught me how to weave and embroider. I was also taught domestic management... as I was destined to marry an Athenian man of standing, I was going to have to assist him in running his household. For that reason I was taught to read and write in Greek, as well as some math. I didn't go out much, and if I did, it was always with my mother and several of our slaves.

That life was all I knew and all I wanted. I was very happy even in my ignorance, and longed for the day I was married.

I'd imagine you lived quite comfortably, right? Were you even fully aware how privileged you were? The diffrence in status between youself and not just slaves, but also the common folk (who I doubt you'd have met any of)?

I did have a pair of slaves. They weren't really mine, they belonged to my father, but they served me. One was around my age, the other older than me; they were the two girls who acted as my handmaids. I think they liked me. I was always kind to them, even if I always saw them as rightful slaves. I never beat them or ordered them beat. They were loyal and trusted slaves.

How long had you had them? How did they come to slavery? Did they wear collars? What happened to them in the sack?

Did you ever see a slave beaten? What were you taught about slaves? Were there any other in your household you liked or disliked?

Am I asking too many questions?

 

[Serva]

I'd imagine you lived quite comfortably, right? Were you even fully aware how privileged you were? The diffrence in status between youself and not just slaves, but also the common folk (who I doubt you'd have met any of)?


How long had you had them? How did they come to slavery? Did they wear collars? What happened to them in the sack?

Did you ever see a slave beaten? What were you taught about slaves? Were there any other in your household you liked or disliked?

Am I asking too many questions?

Consider the fact that I've been wanting to bare my slavery fantasies for years and have never found anyone for it... you're almost making it up for all the questions I've never been asked. So I don't think they're too many. I only ask that you allow me some time to answer them all.

And if I'm being honest, the one thing that really gets me talking, is praise. Well, not sure what you would call it. But the comments I've gotten here describing this as "great" and "erotic" and "promising" have fueled a lot of what I've written here.

I lived in comfort and borderline luxury in Athens. We drank wine from Chios, and ate fresh venison from the forests of Mount Parnassus. My father owned olive orchards and most of his income came from the oil. I was aware of how different I was... both from slaves and the common people. My mother never let me forget it. Slaves existed to serve us, and it was good for them. They needed to be slaves, because that was their place in the world. And the people? Well, they rarely dress better than slaves. Still, I was also taught that they were citizens, still above slaves and foreigners by right. When I accompanied my mother out of the house I always made sure not to brush with them.

I had those slaves since I could remember. I was born into a house already with wealth. The older was born there in the time my grandfather had owned the house. The one my age was a Syrian taken captive in war, though not by Athenians. She merely made her way to the market here. They did not wear collars and were not branded, as those practices are Roman and rarer in Greece. Mine slaves are branded, but rarely house slaves.

We left them behind when the sack began, as we fled to the Acropolis. I never saw them again.

I did see slaves beaten, though not on purpose, and I was never made to watch by my father. There was also an old slave, a man, whom took care of the house and ordered the others around. He too had served my grandfather. I liked him and he would bring me dried figs and almonds for treats. He was married to another of our slaves.

 

[KageKamen]

Consider the fact that I've been wanting to bare my slavery fantasies for years and have never found anyone for it... you're almost making it up for all the questions I've never been asked. So I don't think they're too many. I only ask that you allow me some time to answer them all.

And if I'm being honest, the one thing that really gets me talking, is praise. Well, not sure what you would call it. But the comments I've gotten here describing this as "great" and "erotic" and "promising" have fueled a lot of what I've written here.

Well, you're pretty good. And I like asking questions (and being asked) so...

I lived in comfort and borderline luxury in Athens. We drank wine from Chios, and ate fresh venison from the forests of Mount Parnassus. My father owned olive orchards and most of his income came from the oil. I was aware of how different I was... both from slaves and the common people. My mother never let me forget it. Slaves existed to serve us, and it was good for them. They needed to be slaves, because that was their place in the world. And the people? Well, they rarely dress better than slaves. Still, I was also taught that they were citizens, still above slaves and foreigners by right. When I accompanied my mother out of the house I always made sure not to brush with them.

So like many rich women, you had a lot more experience with slaves than free people of less exalted class.

I had those slaves since I could remember. I was born into a house already with wealth. The older was born there in the time my grandfather had owned the house. The one my age was a Syrian taken captive in war, though not by Athenians. She merely made her way to the market here. They did not wear collars and were not branded, as those practices are Roman and rarer in Greece. Mine slaves are branded, but rarely house slaves.

We left them behind when the sack began, as we fled to the Acropolis. I never saw them again.

When did you get the second girl? Was she like a sister or best friend to you, or more distant? Did you ever talk to them about slavery? How did you feel about leaving them behind? Did you think of them much when adjusting to your own slavery?

I did see slaves beaten, though not on purpose, and I was never made to watch by my father.

So just in passing? How did you feel about it?

 

[TheLimey]

He tells me that he paid a small fortune for me and he expects me to make every single denarius worth it.

Which is only his just due for his investment.

Remember as well, that if you perform well, for him, or for anyone who you are asked to perform for, then a Dominus can feel pleased in his slave, and bask in the praise he gets for his astute purchase.

A slave returned to her Dominus after being lent out, carrying a note of effusive praise, would perhaps allow a respite from some of the other duties, or a simple gift. Such tokens would become so impirtant

 

[Jollyrei]

This is a wonderful fantasy, and very much in the tradition of CF, as Eulalia as already noted. There is a richness and starkness to your experience of being a slave. You will find that many of us will be interested in where you take us in your account.

Welcome to CF.

 

[Serva]

This is a wonderful fantasy, and very much in the tradition of CF, as Eulalia as already noted. There is a richness and starkness to your experience of being a slave. You will find that many of us will be interested in where you take us in your account.

Welcome to CF.

Thank you very much for your kind words Jollyrei! I'm very glad this has been enjoyable, and I'm very glad I joined CF!

Thank you for the great welcoming, everyone.