Animal Slaves and Slave Animals: Republican Authors on the Nature of Slavery
from The Measure of All Things: Natural Hierarchy in Roman Republican Thought
A dissertation presented by Erika Lawren Nickerson
Part 1 of 4
CHAPTER 3
Animal Slaves and Slave Animals: Republican Authors on the Nature of Slavery
In this chapter, I will examine comparisons between domestic animals and humans in Roman republican texts. Such comparisons are frequent, and are especially pertinent to the two questions which form the focus of this study. My primary question is: What role was nature believed to play in human social inequality? Herd animal comparisons, as I will show, are common features in discussions about status and inequality, because herd animals evoke associations of slavery, and Roman writers often talk about status in terms of slavery and its opposite, freedom. My other question is: Did the Romans take a teleological view of human society? If they did, then that would answer my first question. Herd animal comparisons provide the most obvious place to look for evidence of human teleology, since slaves were the people most often compared to animals. Because they were the lowest members of society, we would expect teleological principles to be applied to them, if they were applied to anyone. In that case, their assimilation to animals would reflect the idea that, like domestic animals, they have been formed for their servile role, and therefore have subhuman characteristics.
I have already argued that the Romans probably did not subscribe to human teleology, and that man-animal comparisons in Roman texts therefore do not arise from this concept. For that matter, such comparisons do not arise from, or correspond to, either of the philosophical positions which seem most likely to have influenced Roman views on slavery, Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery and Stoicism. I must now support my previous conclusions by scrutinizing the Roman comparisons and determining what does, in fact, account for the likening of slave and herd animal in Roman thought. Although Aristotle and the Stoics are not responsible for the Roman habit of assimilating slave to herd animal, they do suggest an approach to the problem. Perhaps the pertinent question is not, “In what way are slaves like animals?” Instead we should ask, “What feature do humans and herd animals share that makes them both slaves?” Aristotle treats slaves and domestic animals as interchangeable entities because they play the same economic role: they are subordinate laborers, whose proper function is to perform manual labor at the command of the master of the household. It is this proper function that defines slavery, and any human or animal that fulfills that function is a slave. “Subordinate laborer” is a job description that could apply to many free workers as well, which is precisely why Aristotle categorizes those men, too, as virtual slaves.
The Stoics, unlike Aristotle, went out of their way to combat the likening of slaves to animals. They emphasized the humanity of slaves and the kinship of all mankind, which arises from the shared possession of rationality. However, like Aristotle, they accepted the institution of slavery as an inevitable part of the natural order, and they also tended to identify productive role as the defining aspect of slavery. Even they might have admitted that human slaves and animal slaves play the same productive role.
Ancient philosophical positions on slavery have enjoyed their fair share of scholarship, but only one scholar has, to my knowledge, explored the common habit of equating slaves with herd animals: Keith Bradley, in his article “Animalizing the Slave”. Although he does not conclude, as I do, that productive role is the crucial point of similarity, his findings do agree with my own in one essential aspect: he recognizes that the primary point of comparison has nothing to do with innate character or capacities. Rather, he contends: “the association itself was due above all to the tendency to categorize the slave as human, but animal-like, property”47. As proof, he adduces the Lex Aquilia and the Edict of the Aediles. The Lex Aquilia mandates: “If anyone shall have unlawfully killed a male or female slave belonging to another or a four-footed animal, whatever may be the highest value of that in that year, so much money is the condemned to give to the owner”; si quis servum servam alienum alienam quadrupedem pecudem iniuria, quanti ea res fuit in diebus triginta proximis, tantum aes ero dare damnas esto.48 Commenting on this provision, Bradley writes, “It assumes that slaves and animals are commodities that by definition fall under the ownership of an erus and that they are comparable commodities”.49
The notion of property is also prominent in the Edict of the Aediles, which deals with the sale of slaves, among other things. It provides that anyone selling a slave must disclose any disease or defect to the prospective buyer (Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian)). The same is required of those who sell beasts of burden, iumenta (Dig. 21.1.38 (Ulpian)). Ulpian states, “The reason for this edict is the same as that for the return of slaves. And in effect, the same applies as in respect of defects in or diseases of slaves, so that what we have said of them should be transferred to the present context” (Dig. 21.1.38.2-3).50 Ulpian explicitly says that “the reason for this edict” is the same whether the object being sold is a slave or an animal. Clearly that reason is to protect buyers from dishonest sellers, so that they do not unknowingly acquire faulty property. Here again, slaves and herd animals are indeed treated as comparable commodities.
Bradley is clearly correct in stating that slaves and herd animals were regarded as analogous kinds of property. However, he is more interested in exploring the practical consequences of slave-herd animal assimilation than in identifying its causes. He devotes only one paragraph to the matter and discusses only the two laws mentioned above. He also does not take into consideration the fact that some free persons were commonly described as slaves and herd animals – most notably wage-earners and the plebs. In those cases, property cannot possibly be the pertinent idea. Wage-earners and plebs may have been socially disadvantaged, but nobody owned them. I will argue in this chapter that the idea of commodification does not, in fact, explain the comparisons found in literary sources – not the comparisons between slaves and herd animals, and certainly not the comparisons between free men and herd animals.
Although Bradley comes close to discovering the primary point of comparison, his mistake lies in focusing on what slaves and herd animals are, as opposed to what they do. In the course of this chapter, I will show that my own conclusions are actually compatible with his. I will argue that slaves are compared to herd animals on the grounds of a shared activity, and that this activity underlies the classification of both kinds of creature as property. The activity in question is their economic or productive role. Just as Aristotle does in the Politics, Roman sources generally assume that slaves and herd animals perform the same productive function; the Romans simply define that function differently from the way Aristotle does. I will further propose that function, or usefulness to the human community, is the concept that links social class to natural class, not just slave to herd animal. By examining the association of plebs and wage-earners with animals, I will begin to consider how this method of reckoning natural and social worth affected the standing of free persons, as well as slaves.
Although my focus is on republican literature, and Varro’s Res Rustica falls outside of that period by a small margin, I will begin my examination of Roman sources with that work. I believe it is safe to treat this work as representative of republican views for two reasons. First: Varro was a very old man when he wrote the Res Rustica, and had spent most of his many years under the Republic. Thus, the work should in some way reflect the ideology he experienced for the better part of a lifetime. Second: as I will make clear, the concepts expressed in this book also appear in various republican texts.
Recently, some scholars have seen in the Res Rustica more than just a technical treatise, arguing that Varro’s handbook on farm management should be understood as covert political commentary, which targets the imperial regime. According to their reading, Varro’s assimilation of human and animal is part of this agenda, since animals in the Res Rustica represent the Roman people. 51 If this interpretation is correct, then the circumstances of the post-republican, Augustan political reality did help shape the text, and the portrayal of man and animal, in particular. However, I hope to show that, where slaves and domestic animals are concerned, Varro’s conflation of man with animal is completely in keeping with both the rhetoric and the laws of his time. As we have seen, it had long been a common practice in the ancient world to identify slaves with herd animals. Regardless of whether Varro meant to be critical or not, ironic or not, he made use of a well-established tradition of comparing slaves with herd animals, and developed that comparison more extensively than any of his contemporaries. For this reason, an examination of his work will prove to be especially fruitful in the present context: I will argue throughout this chapter that the rationale and assumptions behind Varro’s slave-herd animal comparisons actually underlie most such comparisons in the late republican corpus.
Any study of Roman man-animal comparisons would, in fact, be incomplete without reference to the Res Rustica, which provides some of the most (in)famous comparisons of slave and herd animal in all of Latin literature. The first book, which deals with agri cultura proper, categorizes both field hands and herd animals as tools, the former an instrumentum vocale, the latter an instrumentum semivocale (1.17.1). The second book, on the res pastoricia, actually classifies herdsmen as a type of pecus (2.1.12). I will now contend that these aspects of Varro’s text do not indicate a belief in natural slavery, and therefore do not indicate a belief in human teleology. He clearly recognizes that slaves are human beings, and never suggests that their personal qualities make them bestial. Their resemblance to herd animals lay not in their innate characteristics, but in external factors, the circumstances of their servitude. In particular, Varro’s conflation of man and beast depends on a perceived similarity in productive function. He treats herd animals as necessary participants in the human community, whose labor and produce are indispensible for agricultural civilization. In keeping with this view, he defines and hierarchizes the various domestic animals according to their usefulness for man. The assimilation of herd animal and slave arises from the fact that he assesses both groups by this one standard, their utility to human society. He therefore equates the two because they are useful in the exact same way: they produce profit for their masters.
I am not the first to claim that Varro’s categories correspond to roles played in the agricultural process. His division of agricultural implements into three types of tool – man, animal, and inanimate object, instrumentum vocale, semivocale, and mutum (1.17.1) – has generated the most discussion about its source and significance. Did Varro adopt or invent this classification? And what does it tell us about the ideology of ancient slavery? I follow those who have concluded that, regardless of its origin, this is not a moralizing statement on the nature of slavery. It is merely a convenient way to distinguish the components necessary for cultivating a field.52 Varro actually offers another possible division of the same subject: men and the aids of men, homines and adminicula hominum (1.17.1). This method groups animals together with inanimate objects under the heading adminicula, which may explain why Varro goes on to provide the more precise three-fold division. It is important to note that both classification systems preserve the distinction between human and animal -- unlike, say, Aristotle’s ὄργανα ἔμψυχα and ἄψυχα, which categorizes both men and animals as ὄργανα ἔμψυχα (Pol. 1253b23- 1254a8).53 After introducing the potential divisions, in the very next sentence Varro explicitly states that farm laborers are indeed human beings. He remarks, “all fields are cultivated by people, slaves or free men or both”: omnes agri coluntur hominibus servis aut liberis aut utrisque (1.17.2). Next he specifies that the free men are either hired hands or poor people who till the land themselves with the help of their families. Here we learn that Varro does not just have slaves in mind when he speaks of the instrumentum vocale. Moreover, he does not necessarily think that these human instruments are owned or purchased, like a tool or herd animal. He includes free men who till their own land, whose labor is neither owned nor purchased by another. Since he does recognize the difference between man and animal, and the notion of ownership is not an issue, only one basis of comparison remains to explain the parallelism between human, herd animal, and tool, instrumentum vocale, semivocale, and mutum: all of them take part in the cultivation of fields. Thus, this particular coupling of man and beast relies wholly on their shared function in agricultural production.
Even slaves, according to Varro, have qualities which herd animals lack, and must be treated accordingly. After establishing his threefold division, he launches into what can only be described as a use-and-care guide for agricultural slaves (1.17.3-7). His instructions focus on maximizing the amount of labor and profit which can be extracted from them, and in this respect resemble his instructions for any animal or piece of equipment. However, they aim to maximize productivity precisely by taking the slaves’ human qualities into account. Mancipia should be neither too timid nor too bold, Varro declares. The men in charge of them should have some education, be dependable, experienced, older than their subordinates, and superior to them in knowledge; this will ensure that the farm hands respect them, follow their example, and understand why they are in charge. To keep order, words should be used rather than whips whenever possible. There should not be too many slaves from the same nation, since that is a source of domestic disputes. Foremen should be made more zealous by rewards, and be allowed to have a family so that they feel more invested in the farm. The master should show them consideration and respect, in order to earn their good will. The best of the farmhands should be consulted as well; that way, they do not feel despised by their master, and they will believe that he holds them in some esteem. They too can be made more eager for their work by generous treatment, and such treatment secures their friendly feeling towards the master, preventing ill will if they are punished or asked to perform a difficult task.
None of this advice could possibly apply to the keeping of animals. Every item acknowledges that slaves possess human attributes: emotions, language, education, relationships, loyalty, personal agency, self interest, intelligence, individual temperament. Varro’s suggestions play on these attributes. Like any ox or mule, the slave’s part was to work for his master. Unlike an ox or mule, the slave had certain qualities which had to be considered. The measures listed in the Res Rustica seek to increase the output of field hands by exploiting their human tendencies. Their special traits were to be tended, appealed to, even manipulated, in order to promote an acceptance of and enthusiasm for their job. Varro’s precepts for slave management therefore assign an economic role and status to the slave which is identical with that of a domestic animal, while simultaneously recognizing – and using – his humanity.
This proves to be a trend throughout the Res Rustica: where the assimilation of man and beast seems to be the most complete, that is precisely where the difference between them becomes most explicit. The second book equates slaves and herd animals in such a way that it is impossible to dismiss as a mere comparison, based on a certain occupational similarity. According to Varro’s formulation, slave shepherds are herd animals. Near the beginning of the book, the scientia pastoralis is divided into nine parts, three categories each containing three members. The smaller herd animals: sheep, goats, pigs. The larger: cows, asses, horses. And those which do not themselves yield profit, but are born from or exist for the sake of those animals which do: mules, dogs, herdsmen (2.1.12). The text proceeds to address the science of animal husbandry according to these divisions. In keeping with their inclusion in the list of animals, herdsmen get their own use-and-care section (2.10.1-11), just like the rest of the animals, as well as the field hands in book one. Varro also includes a discussion on the breeding of herdsmen (2.1.25-26). Yet the opening paragraphs of book 2, where he sets out the origo and dignitas of the res pastoricia (2.1.1-10), give no sign that Varro is about to treat herdsmen as lowly animals. He maintains that in ancient times herdsmen were the most illustrious of men (2.1.6), and that the Roman people were sprung from shepherds (2.1.9-10). These do not sound like the claims of a man who regards herdsmen as innately bestial. Later, even as he talks about them as a form of livestock, he clearly thinks them human and does not denigrate their character.
In the passages where Varro addresses the topic of herdsmen, he employs some vocabulary that is appropriate to animals, some that is appropriate to humans. Thus the text creates parallelism between man and animal, as well as differentiation. At 2.1.25-26, one of the interlocutors asks how the speaker will maintain his original number of topic divisions, when neither breeding (admissura) nor the bearing of young (fetura) apply to humans or mules. He then concedes that perhaps they do apply to shepherds: “But I grant you that even in the case of humans (in hominibus) the ninefold division can be retained, because they have women (mulieres) in their houses in their winter quarters, some have them even in their summer quarters, and they think that this is useful in order that they may more easily keep the herdsmen with their herds; and by producing offspring (puerperio) they make the slave body larger and the cattle-raising more profitable.” Admissura and fetura are words more properly applied to livestock, and the breeding of shepherds is said to make the herd more profitable – as if their offspring increased the mater’s herd, like calves or lambs. On the other hand, hominibus is used to designate shepherds, mulieres their females, and puerperio their reproduction -- all words specific to human beings. Moreover, the speaker gives another reason for keeping women with the herds, besides increasing the master’s holdings: it makes the shepherds more likely to stay with the herds. This directive is reminiscent of the instructions given in book 1 for field hands. It recognizes that the herdsmen have special human needs, and advises the master to fulfill those needs in order to ensure faithful service.
A similar phenomenon appears in the section devoted to the use and care of shepherds (2.10.1-11): Varro simultaneously treats them as both herd animals and human beings. Since they are a kind of animal, he covers topics which overlap with those discussed for other types of livestock. He talks about the number and kind of herdsmen to be kept, issues of purchase and legal ownership, breeding, and the treatment of sickness. At the same time, however, he prescribes measures which arise from and appeal to the shepherds’ human characteristics, just as he did for agricultural slaves in book 1. Also, he consistently refers to herdsmen with vocabulary which is appropriate only to people: homo (five times), humanus, puer (five times), iuventus, puella, senis, mulier (twice), vir, mater, nutrex, mater familias, virgo, filius. Twice he actually juxtaposes men with animals, indicating that, though somehow linked, they are definitely separate entities. Varro claims that the head-herdsman should see to the equipment “which is necessary for herd animal and herdsmen, especially for the sustenance of the men and the treatment of the animals”: quae pecori et pastoribus opus sunt, maxime ad victum hominum et ad medicinam pecudum (2.10.5). Later, he says that the head-herdsman ought to have in writing “those things which pertain to the health of men and herd animal”: quae ad valitudinem pertinent hominum ac pecoris (2.10.10). These two statements encapsulate Varro’s tendency throughout book 2: homo and pecus are considered jointly, but clearly distinguished from one another.
It appears that the likening of slave and herd animal in the Res Rustica amounts to something more than mere comparison, but less than full assimilation. “Human” and “herd animal” are not mutually exclusive categories; slaves, or at least shepherds, are somehow both. If Varro’s attitude were summarized, it might be said that he sees slaves as a human form of livestock. The question arises: How could Varro regard slaves as livestock, when he does not regard them as animals? The answer must lie partially in the fact that they belong to a master; they are as much his personal property as his herd animals are. But that is not necessarily the whole answer. Varro’s threefold division in book 1 – instrumentum vocale, semivocale, and mutum – represents a coupling of man and beast similar to that in book 2: it places them together while also preserving the distinction between them. In that instance, as I have argued, Varro does not make the comparison on the basis of ownership, since he includes free men under instrumentum vocale. It is possible that the conflation of shepherd and herd animal also has another explanation. In order to discover what it is, we must first consider herd animals on their own terms. Varro’s text assigns certain characteristics to herd animals. A careful examination should reveal what those are, and which ones are supposedly shared with human shepherds.
I will start where Varro starts: with the history of herding. At the beginning of book 2, he sets the stage with a discussion of the origo and dignitas of the res pastoricia (2.1.1-10). Here he does not claim that herd animals are natural slaves. In fact, he maintains that they were once wild animals whom man captured and tamed; although, he does say that men tamed those animals “which they were able to” and “on account of their usefulness.” Sheep, moreover, were the first to be domesticated, because of their usefulness and placidity, and because they are especially docile and most fit for the life of humans (2.1.4). All these comments could indicate that certain animals were destined by nature for man’s use, and thus had temperaments amenable to subjugation. What is more clear – and more important for the present discussion – is Varro’s emphasis on utility. He specifies that animals in general, and then sheep in particular, were tamed propter utilitatem. Like others in the ancient world, he too defines the herd animal according to its use for man. Despite their wild origins, domestic animals exist as domestic animals because humans have need of them. They live alongside man, are fed, trained, conditioned, cared for, and bred by man, in exchange for some form of good or labor. Whatever benefit a herd animal confers on humans, that benefit is the reason for its being.
There is a second major point to be taken from Varro’s history of herding. The entire passage begins with the observation, “since it is necessary that both men and herd animals have always existed by nature…”: et homines et pecudes cum semper fuisse sit necesse natura (2.1.3). Here is another manifestation of the familiar pattern: Varro closely associates homo and pecus but recognizes the difference. In this case, however, he does not compare a particular group of people to animals; instead, all of humanity is linked to the race of herd beasts by no less a force than natura. The point of similarity may be their origin in nature, but Varro’s account continues to weave together the fates of both creatures. He goes on to describe how human life progressed by certain stages down to the present day (2.1.3-5). First men lived off whatever the earth provided of its own accord. Then they came to the pastoral age, when they caught and trained wild animals for their use. This is an entire age defined by the burgeoning relationship between man and animal, proving to be a watershed moment for both species. Domestic animals, a human creation, came into being for the first time, and humans themselves began their march to civilization. The agricultural age is the third and last, the age to which Varro’s own time belonged. His reconstruction follows logical necessity: agriculture had to come after the domestication of animals. Before the invention of tractors, farming was impossible without herd animals to plough the fields and haul heavy loads. I have already said that, according to Varro’s thinking, herd animals exist for the use of man. It should now be added that they were not just useful, but absolutely essential for agricultural civilization – a fact which Varro tacitly acknowledges. They were thus indispensable participants in the human community, their lives inextricably bound up with those of humans. Herd animals depended on man for their care and protection, and man on herd animals for food production and a variety of other tasks. They both engaged in a partnership – albeit a lopsided one – to ensure mutual wellbeing.
The ideas which shape Varro’s history of man and beast are consistent with the trends which I discussed in chapter 1. There, I noted that the Roman sources tend to treat domestic animals as a class of beings formed by nature to support mankind; since utility is the defining feature of the class, utility generally dominates any discourse about herd animals. I observed, as well, that the arrangement between man and herd animals was considered natural, necessary, and mutually beneficial, though exploitative, too, since humans derive more benefit from it than the animal slaves who exist to serve them. These same concepts also determine how Varro talks about individual animals. This is especially apparent in his introduction to oxen (2.5.3-5). Here, Varro claims that “the cow ought to be in the highest standing among herd animals”: nam bos in pecuaria maxima debet esse auctoritate. The application of auctoritas to an animal is startling; shortly after, he also speaks of a nobilem taurum and the maiestatem boum. Whatever he means by auctoritas and nobilis and maiestas in this context, he obviously means to mark the cow as the most important and valuable of herd animals. He explains why. The ox is “man’s partner in rustic work and a servant of Ceres”: hic socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. The word socius expresses the notion of partnership and codependence between man and domestic animal. Varro immediately emphasizes the closeness of the relationship by pointing out that the ancients made it a capital offense to kill an ox. The label Cereris minister also alludes to the belief that herd animals exist ad usum and propter utilitatem. The cow has its high status because it is a Cereris minister, an essential participant in the agricultural process. Only oxen could plough heavy soil, which meant that, aside from humans, cattle played the most vital role in agricultural production – and thus in all of civilization.
Varro’s elevation of the ox reveals an important consequence of assessing herd animals by utility: they were hierarchized according to their function. The cow enjoyed the maxima auctoritas due to its all-important task, ploughing. The pig was evidently at the opposite end of the spectrum. Varro introduces swine with the claim that the Greeks call the pig ὕς, originally θῦς from the verb θῦειν, “to sacrifice”. He believes this label was inspired by the pig’s role as a sacrificial victim (2.4.9). Straightaway, therefore, he identifies the pig with its use, even deriving its very name from that use. The pig’s particular function was not deemed a very valuable one. Sacrifice usually served as a prelude to eating the victim, and Varro comments on the pig’s status as a walking meal. “They say that the race of pigs was given as a gift by nature for feasting on; and so life was given to them instead of salt, in order to preserve the meat”: suillum pecus donatum ab natura dicunt ad epulandum; itaque iis animam datam esse proinde ac salem, quae servaret carnem” (2.4.10). The joke was an old and oft-quoted one,54 attributed by Cicero to the Stoic Chrysippus (Nat. Deor. 2.160), and by Clement of Alexandria to the Stoic Cleanthes (Strom. 7.34). It turns on the Stoic argument that the world and all its creatures exist for the sake of humans. If nature created the pig for man’s use, and that use happens to be providing meat, then the purpose of the pig’s life is to keep the meat fresh until the animal can be slaughtered and eaten. This is the only explicit reference in Varro to a teleological perspective and the natural slavery of animals. Whether or not he subscribed to those beliefs, the witticism must reflect a commonly held view of pigs; the line is repeated often enough in extant sources to suggest that it had popular currency. The attitude towards swine stands in direct contrast to the attitude towards oxen, killing which had once been a capital offense. Unlike the cow and every other kind of herd animal, the pig could not yield service or products repeatedly throughout its life. In a time and place where domestic animals were evaluated solely according to their utility, pigs were doomed to be held in poor esteem. They were completely useless until the moment they were killed.
Varro’s use of the Stoic witticism about pigs calls to mind not only teleology, but also the related idea of a teleological scala naturae, wherein every creature is ranked according to both function and type. His comments about pigs and oxen suggest that, just as there are inherent inequalities in type and function between animals, humans, and gods, so there are inherent inequalities between species within the larger category “animals”. Pigs and oxen have different functions and so different types, adapted to fulfilling those functions. Therefore, they each occupy a different position on the scale of being, which corresponds to the importance and perfection of their respective functions and types. Only for pigs and oxen does Varro explicitly refer to an inter-species ranking system by establishing some sort of status vis-à-vis other kinds of herd animals. Although he does not compare whole species to each other, it is evident that he extends the function and type criteria of worth to every member of every herd animal species. He assumes that any animal is to be categorized and assessed by its function and the traits which enable it to fulfill that function. Horses, for example, carried out a variety of tasks in antiquity. Consequently, Varro notes that different horses are suited for different occupations; thus, they cannot all be judged and evaluated in the same way (2.7.15). In this model for appraising horses, they are divided into types according to their capacity for a certain function, and individuals of each type are assigned value according to their function and their ability to perform it. Varro’s remarks on this topic no doubt reflect actual practice, and do not necessarily presuppose a teleological scale of nature. However, actual practice in this case is compatible with teleological ideas. The evaluation of livestock was, perhaps, one of the traditional features of ancient culture that gave rise to philosophical doctrines of teleology, and made such doctrines seem plausible.
The evaluation of livestock, of course, entailed assigning a monetary value to animals. An emphasis on money, or, more precisely, on profit, constitutes one last element of Varro’s treatment of herd animals. Like every element of his treatment of herd animals, it is closely associated with domestic animals’ defining characteristic, their usefulness to humans. The relationship between usefulness and profit is made clear when he discusses mules and hinnies. Straightaway he specifies which services they can and cannot perform. “Each is useful for work, neither brings a return from young”: uterque eorum ad usum utilis, partu fructus neuter (2.8.2). By substituting fructus for ad usum utilis in the second half of the sentence, this particular quote illustrates a crucial point: utility and profit, usus and fructus, were almost one and the same thing. The worth of an animal’s product or service was quantifiable in terms of monetary value. That fact explains why Varro occasionally quotes prices for certain kinds of animal. Several breeding asses of Reatine stock, he claims, had sold for three hundred or even four hundred thousand sesterces (2.8.3). The high sum reflects the perceived value of the animal’s function, breeding, along with its aptitude for that function. Apparently Reatine asses were considered the best of the best for breeding; therefore, they were the most expensive. By quoting this figure, Varro shows that he sees herding as a financial endeavor.
The close relationship between utility and profit had an important consequence for the perception and practice of herding, and even for the very definition of “domestic animal”. If herd animals exist in order to produce goods and services for man, or to help man produce goods, then the best possible management of the herd should maximize their productive potential. Since maximizing produce also maximized monetary return, the ultimate end of herding was to maximize the owner’s profit. This is precisely the aim which Varro outlines in his introduction to the scientia pastoralis. The interlocutor, Scrofa, says, “There is a science of preparing and pasturing the herd so that the greatest possible profit can be taken from them, from whom money itself takes its name; for the herd animal is the basis of all money”: est scientia pecoris parandi ac pascendi, ut fructus quam possint maximi capiantur ex eo, a quibus ipsa pecunia nominata est; nam omnis pecuniae pecus fundamentum (2.1.11). Scrofa’s definition of the pastoral science shows how closely herd animals were associated with money-making in the Roman mind. The connection between herd and profit arose from the belief that domestic animals live solely for the use, and so the enrichment, of man. Apparently, then, a herd animal’s proper function entailed not just being useful to man, but also profiting man. I have said throughout this work that the ancients tended to define domestic animals by their utility to mankind: they are a class of beings that exist to serve humans. Since it now appears that the Romans characterized herd animal utility in terms of profit, we should adjust the definition accordingly: domestic animals are a class of beings that exist to profit humans. This idea underlies the whole conception of the Res Rustica book 2, which describes how to secure the most monetary return from the herd.
Now that I have explored Varro’s views on domestic animals, and produced a definition of “domestic animal” that more accurately reflects those views, we are in a better position to assess his comparisons between domestic animal and human. Before I move on to the assimilation of herdsmen to herd animals in book 2, I will briefly revisit the tripartite division in book 1: instrumentum vocale, semivocale, and mutum. I have argued that the basis of comparison between instrumentum vocale and semivocale, man and animal, is that fact that they serve the same use in agricultural production: they both cultivate fields. I will now show that profit also figures prominently in this comparison, since both man and animal are understood to serve the same use in an activity that ultimately aims at profit. Thus, the notion that herd animals are creatures who produce profit for their human masters is very much in evidence, and actually gives rise to the likening of human to animal. I will then contend that the herdsmen of book 2 are assimilated to animals on similar grounds: because they fulfill the same function as herd animals, which is to produce profit for their masters.
I have said that book 2 identifies the maximization of profit as its object. This is true for book 1, as well, which reveals that agriculture, like herding, was regarded as a profit-making enterprise. The character Stolo announces, “The farmer ought to aim at two goals, utility and pleasure. Utility strives for profit, pleasure for enjoyment”: agricolae ad duas metas derigere debent, ad utilitatem et voluptatem. Utilitas quaerit fructum, voluptas delectationem (2.4.1). Here, just as in book 2, Varro specifically links utility to profit. He then goes on to label utility, and thus profit, as the more important of the two goals. Accordingly, the instructions in book 1 all deal with increasing agricultural yield, as the instructions in book 2 deal with increasing the return from the herd.
Into this profit-driven context comes the description of agricultural laborers and herd animals as comparable types of tool. I argued previously that the designation instrumentum arises from their use in the cultivation of fields. This is in keeping with Varro’s later practice; throughout book 2, he always assesses domestic animals by their usefulness. Thus his attitude toward herd animals shows continuity from one book to the next. Unlike in book 2, he presents them as a mere aid to production, rather than a valuable product in their own right. Their reduced standing reflects the topic of book 1, which discusses the derivation of profit from agri cultura. Book 1 therefore focuses on agricultural yield, strictly the produce of the field, and the profit derived from it. As Varro himself points out, herd animals only belong to this context to the extent that they assist in the field’s cultivation. Therefore they are cast as a means to an end, an instrumentum. That descriptor is a facile one, applied as a convenient organizing principle in a place where Varro does not intend to discuss herd animals on their own terms. The word elides the great worth of their service to the farmer, but it does accurately encapsulate the nature of herd animals’ involvement in generating agricultural profit. When the sale of crops, not of the animals themselves, yields the profit, the animals simply play a part in producing the item which is the source of profit, rather than constituting a source of profit in their own right. Varro, then, depicts the exact role of domestic animals differently, depending on the source of profit and how they contribute to producing it. However, his portrayal of their proper function is consistent throughout his work, in that he always assumes that their every activity and their very existence have one ultimate end: the master’s profit.
When Varro calls agricultural laborers, too, a kind of tool, he is claiming that they perform the same function as herd animals. These humans can also be considered instrumenta because, like the animals, they play a part in a profit-making enterprise. They are mere implements in the pursuit of profit, since they themselves are not the source of profit; rather, they serve as a means of generating the goods which are a source of profit. Therefore, the value of their labor, like that of herd animals, is subordinate to the value of the crops which they help raise. According to this interpretation, the shared feature which links man with beast is their manner of usefulness. Of course any comparison of man and animal in the Res Rustica must inevitably have use as its basis. What else is there? I have shown that Varro does not make such comparisons on the basis of intrinsic qualities; he conjoins human and domestic animal while still maintaining the fundamental distinction between the two species, and recognizing the uniquely human qualities of the people in question. That leaves utility alone to provide a possible explanation for the comparisons, since Varro never judges or even considers herd animals with reference to anything else; it is their very usefulness to mankind that defines them as domestic animals. Because utility is their only attribute, it is the only one they could possibly have in common with humans.
This point of commonality between man and beast at last provides an answer to my question, “On what grounds does Varro assimilate slave to herd animal?”. Ultimately, Varro does so for the same reason that Aristotle does. I have argued that Varro allots a specific form of utility to domestic animals: they work for their master’s gain. The value of their labor or produce exceeds what is spend on them. It is fulfilling this role, toiling for a human’s profit, that makes an animal a domestic animal. Varro is therefore similar to Aristotle in identifying the characteristic function of domestic animals as an economic or productive one, although the two authors describe that function differently. Aristotle focuses on the type of task they carry out: herd animals engage in physical labor at the master’s command. Varro’s formulation, however, emphasizes the exploitative aspect of the relationship between man and animal. I have observed that domestic animals were considered mankind’s partners in survival, but unequal partners. Since they are formed by nature to provide for human needs, humans rightly and naturally take the larger share of whatever the two species produce together for their mutual support. Regardless of what the exact function consists of, the fact that Varro and Aristotle identify economic function as the defining herd animal trait leads both to include certain humans in the category “herd animal”, because those humans display that defining trait. I pointed out in the last chapter that Aristotle assigns human slaves the same economic function as herd animals. Because the two types of creature both execute this essential function, he regards slaves as a type of herd animal and herd animals as a type of slave. I contend that a similar rationale underlies Varro’s conflation of herdsmen and herd animals in book 2 of the Res Rustica.