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his lampreys.
The only penalty Pollio suffered was the loss of his fish
ponds.
A slave who committed murder was punished with great severity, and we
read that 400 slaves were executed to avenge the murder of Pedanius Secundus.
Torture by whip or fetters was also inflicted for the slightest offences, and
most of the large Roman houses contained an ergastulum, or private prison,
where the slaves worked in chains.
A slave could become free by the process of `manumission'. The actual
form of this enactment has come down to us from Delphi and reads as follows:
`Date. Apollo, the Pythian bought from Sositus of Amphia, for freedom,
a female slave, whose name is Nicaea, by race a Roman, with a price of
three and a half minae of silver. Former seller according to law:
Eumnastus of Amphissa. The price he hath received. The purchase,
however, Nicala hath committed unto Apollo, for freedom'.
The reader will not fail to see the parallel here with the apostle's
words, `bought with a price', and the literal rendering of Galatians 5:1 `for
freedom did Christ set us free'.
In numerous records of manumission the enfranchised person is said to
be allowed henceforth to `do the things that he will', an obvious parallel
with Galatians 5:17. Moreover, many manumission orders contain the clause
that the freed person shall never `be made a slave again', a phrase which
finds an echo in such passages as Galatians 5:1 and 1 Corinthians 7:23.
The `freeman' (liber) might be born free (ingenuus), or he might be
made free (libertinus). In the first case (ingenuus) he could either be a
citizen (civis) or a latinus -- i.e. one occupying a position intermediate
between
that of the true -born Roman (civis) and the foreigner (peregrinus).
The privileges of the full citizen were as follows:
Political Rights
(1)
The right of voting in the comitia (Jus Suffragii).
(2)
Eligibility for all public offices and magistracies
(Jus Honorum).
(3)
The Jus Provocationis, or right of appeal.
Civil Rights
(1)
Conubium, the power to contract a legal marriage, with power of
life and death over the family.
(2)
Commercium, the right to acquire, hold or transfer property, and
to make contracts.
The apostle himself was a full Roman citizen (ingenuus, or `free
born'), for his father had been a citizen before him. We do not know how
Paul's father had acquired this coveted privilege, but it was so ordered, in
the wisdom of God, in order that His messenger to the Roman world should be
fully equipped. He was a Tarsian, `a citizen of no mean city'; he was also a
Roman, a Jew, a Pharisee and one trusted by the Sanhedrin.