{"id":466,"date":"2024-07-16T13:10:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T17:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/?page_id=466"},"modified":"2024-12-20T14:13:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T19:13:11","slug":"enslaved-childrens-emotional-labor-in-roman-culture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/news-and-events\/scs-panel-2025\/enslaved-childrens-emotional-labor-in-roman-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Enslaved Children\u2019s Emotional Labor in Roman Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Levin-Richardson, University of Washington<\/strong>
\nIt is well known that enslaved children provided a range of services, including manual, intellectual, and sexual labor (see, e.g., Asso 2010, Laes 2010, Richlin 2015, Roth 2020, Roth 2021, Beckmann 2023). What has not been acknowledged so far is enslaved children’s performance of emotional <\/em>labor. Using Statius’s Silvae <\/em>as the main case study, I argue that at least some enslaved children carefully managed their own or their owner’s affective states, and that Statius and other elite Romans could\u2014when it suited them\u2014acknowledge the training that went into such work.<\/p>\n

I first introduce the concept of emotional labor, coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild to\u00a0 describe the affective expectations imposed on flight attendants. This labor “requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others” (Hochschild 2012 [1983]; see also Hardt 1999). While used mostly for investigating work and affect in modern hospitality, care, and sex sectors, emotional labor has also been a useful lens for analyzing Pompeian sexual graffiti praising clients for their sexual prowess (Levin-Richardson 2019, 115-118).<\/p>\n

I then show that emotional labor was a potential desideratum for enslaved children,\u00a0 focusing on the affective qualities praised in Statius’s Silvae<\/em>. Glaucias had already by age twelve been able to mitigate his owner’s moods, even redirecting his owner’s anger away from other enslaved individuals to himself (Silv. <\/em>2.1.56\u201359; see also Bernstein 2005, Newlands 2011). Statius also praised Philetos (deceased at age fifteen), addressing Philetos’s owner: “With you he was grave and happy, his mood never his own, from your face he took his countenance” (Silv. <\/em>2.6.52\u2013 53; see also Van Dam 1984 and Newlands 2011). Moreover, Statius simultaneously reveals the potential extent of this training while disavowing it as unnecessary in elite familiae <\/em>like his own. Praising Glaucias, Statius says, “You were not turned round on some foreigner’s revolving platform, you were no infant for sale among Pharian merchandise, retailing manufactured jests and words prepared<\/em>, frolicking in quest of a master and slow to find one. Here your house, hence your origin” (Silv. <\/em>2.1.72\u201376, trans. Shackleton Bailey rev. Parrott 2015; cf. Mart. 6.29.1\u20132). Statius repeats this imagery in praise of his own deceased enslaved boy: “I did not love a chatterbox favorite bought from some Pharian boat, taught in infancy the chaff of his native Nile, too glib of tongue, a pert jester<\/em>: no, he was mine, mine” (Silv. <\/em>5.5.66\u201369). Close readings of these passages show connections to wider Roman tropes about homeborn slaves versus purchased slaves (see,\u00a0 e.g., Tac. Ann. <\/em>14.43\u201345) as well as the negative associations of the latter with foreignness.<\/p>\n

I ultimately suggest that as wealth and slaveholding increased in the Late Republic and Empire, elite slaveholders emphasized the insincerity of trained foreign children’s emotional labor to differentiate less-elite slaveholding practices from their own\u2014invisible, naturalized\u2014practices (cf. Nepos Att. <\/em>13.4).<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Asso, Paolo. 2010. “Queer Consolation: Melior’s Dead Boy in Statius’ Silvae <\/em>2.1.” AJP <\/em>131: 663\u2013 697.<\/p>\n

Beckmann, Sarah. 2023. “The Naked Reader: Child Enslavement in the Villa of the Mysteries Fresco.” AJA <\/em>127: 55\u201383.<\/p>\n

Bernstein, Neil. 2005. “Mourning the Puer Delicatus<\/em>: Status Inconsistency and the Ethical Value\u00a0 of Fostering in Statius, Silvae <\/em>2.1.” AJP <\/em>126: 257\u2013280.<\/p>\n

Hardt, Michael. 1999. “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2, <\/em>26:2: 89\u2013100.<\/p>\n

Hochschild, Arlie. 2012 [1983]. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling<\/em>.\u00a0 Second edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.<\/p>\n

Laes, Christian. 2010. “Delicia-Children Revisited: The Evidence of Statius’ Silvae<\/em>.” In Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture<\/em>, ed. V\u00e9ronique Dasen and Thomas Sp\u00e4th. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 245\u2013<\/strong>72.<\/p>\n

Levin-Richardson, Sarah. 2019. The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society<\/em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

Newlands, Carole. 2011. Statius <\/em>Silvae Book II<\/em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

Richlin, Amy. 2015. “Reading Boy-love and Child-love in the Greco-Roman World.” In Sex in\u00a0 Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World<\/em>, eds. Mark Masterson, Nancy S. Rabinowitz, and James Robson. New York: Routledge. Pp. 352\u201373.<\/p>\n

Roth, Ulrike. 2020. “Anything but Enlightened: Child Slavery in the Roman World.” The Historian <\/em>144: 30\u201333.<\/p>\n

—-. 2021. “Speaking Out? Child Sexual Abuse and the Enslaved Voice in the Cena Trimalchionis<\/em>.” In Slavery and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity<\/em>, eds. Deborah Kamen and C. W. Marshall. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 211\u201338.<\/p>\n

Shackleton Bailey, D. R. rev. Christopher Parrott. 2015. Statius <\/em>Silvae. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n

Van dam, Harm-Jan. 1984. P. Papinius Statius, <\/em>Silvae Book II: A Commentary. <\/em>Leiden: Brill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Levin-Richardson, University of Washington It is well known that enslaved children provided a range of services, including manual, intellectual, and sexual labor (see, e.g., Asso 2010, Laes 2010, Richlin 2015, Roth 2020, Roth 2021, Beckmann 2023). What has not been acknowledged so far is enslaved children’s performance of emotional labor. Using Statius’s Silvae as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23724,"featured_media":0,"parent":142,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/466\/revisions\/628"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/overlooked-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}