Of Roman Bondage

The year after the Battle of Lake Regillus put an end to Tarquin the Proud’s bid to reclaim his crown, many Romans discovered that they had traded the shackles of monarchy for the chains of debt. Veterans who fought for Rome’s freedom from kings returned from the war to find themselves enslaved by creditors. At fault was nexum, a legal agreement whereby a debtor pledged himself as collateral for a loan. 

The small farms of plebeian soldiers had lain fallow while they were off fighting to preserve the Republic. Without crops to sell, they were forced to borrow from the wealthy elite to pay taxes and feed their families. Interest on these debts rapidly increased, until they defaulted and could be bound over to creditors as debt slaves.

Livy relates a story of one old veteran who showed up in the Forum emaciated and disheveled, wearing filthy rags for clothes. He was soon recognized as a soldier who once led men in battle, bearing still-visible war wounds on his chest—and the welts of a creditor’s whip on his back. When asked how he came to such a wretched state, he said that while he was away at war, the Sabines had burned his crops and home and taken his cattle. Taxes came due and he fell into debt. Interest accumulated, his land and possessions were taken, and he was pressed into labor by his creditor, a proud soldier reduced to the humiliation of bondage. When his body failed, he was dragged off to prison. 

Others like him took to the streets and provoked an uprising among the commons. Senators cowered in their homes for fear of violence. The angry mob pressed even the consuls with demands for change. A temporary edict made it illegal to confiscate property of any soldier in active duty, bringing some relief.

This kind of injustice led to civil strife that would come to be known as the Conflict of the Orders, class struggle that threatened the social fabric of the Roman Republic. Patricians viewed debt as a sacred property right; plebeians saw it as a tool of oppression. By 494 BC, a total collapse of society loomed. 

The haunting painting above by Rubens provides a powerful image of the human cost of the Conflict of the Orders. A daughter secretly breastfeeds her imprisoned father to keep him from starving to death. The iron chains bring a cold, metallic weight to the scene that symbolizes the harshness of nexum, under which her father was no longer a citizen—merely damaged property to be disposed of. The barred window and stark walls emphasize the isolation of the plebeian class during these years. The law of nexum was so disconnected from human dignity that a daughter’s tender mercy becomes an act of quiet rebellion. 

It should not be surprising that with the virtue of the Roman soldier being trampled this way by creditors, plebeians would finally say, “Why should we fight to protect the liberty of a city that holds us in chains?” The hypocrisy of it would eventually lead to their refusal to enlist in the army. 

A story for another painting to tell.