Letters, Volume 6 (1*–29*)

Letter 10

LETTER 10* Introduction The new letters make us more aware ofthe activities ofAugustine's friend, bishop Alypius of Thagaste, and of his travels in Italy on behalf of the African bishops. In the later stages of the Pelagian conHict and for some time afterward, one by-product of his travels was the facilitating of his transmitting ofJulian of Eclanum's attacks and Augustine's replies from Italy to Africa and back. But the main subject ofthis letter concerns the plight ofthe people of North Africa who in this twilight of the Roman empire (as we see it) were plagued by increasing insecurity and threats of violence. Abhorrent as it may seem to us, parents were permitted by Roman law to "lease" their children as indentured servants for a set number ofyears to the maximum oftwenty-five. Indeed it has been suggested that this was a special measure promoted by the Christian emperors in the hope ofcurbing the greater evil of infanticide. Unfortunately, "leased" children had a habit of slipping into slave status over the long run. Traders treated them like slaves. How could they prove and regain their free status years later? If the traders sold them to barbarian masters they might as well abandon any hope of having their free status eventually recognized.1 Worse still, Augustine relates that groups of thugs now roamed through the African countryside simply abducting and carrying off children and adults and selling them. Easterners, Galatians from Asia Minor, apparently predominated in this evil business. There were laws; specifically, Augustine came up with one from a few years earlier in the fifth century, promulgated during the time of the western emperor Honorius but it probably did not concern this matter precisely and, in any event, it was not being enforced. In his horror of bloodshed, Augustine thought the penalty attached to this law too draconian-Hogging with whips tipped with leaden thongs could kill the victim. That is the trouble with laws which have excessive punishments attached- authorities are afraid to apply them. Augustine strongly suggested to Alypius that what was needed was a revised law with, say, a heavy financial penalty against the malefactors. The situation of these slave traders is made worse by Augustine's l. Claude Lepelley, "Notes complementaires," pp. 472-474. BA 46B. 74 LETTERS 75 mention of what even ordinary people were doing in Hippo. One woman lured other women from the area of Mount Giddaba under the pretext of buying wood from them, took them captive and sold them. A farmer sold his wife. Even one of his own monks was nearly carried off. This dark picture is relieved by one very unusual bright spot. When one of these slave ships docked at Hippo, some ofAugustine 's parishioners raided both the ship and the prison where some of the unfortunate victims were being held before being made to board the ship. One hundred and twenty were freed. Perhaps in view of the uncertain legality of such an action, Augustine made a point of stressing that this happened when he was away. But the incident points up the fact that the reason for his writing this memorandum to Alypius was not just the problem in general but the immediate potential danger to Christians in Hippo that those who had taken part in the raid and who were now sheltering those liberated might themselves be threatened by legal action by the government. Augustine stressed that the slavers had friends in high places who protected them and might now try to help them get their "merchandise" back. This incident in Hippo was very unusual. It is almost always held that Christian antiquity simply took slavery for granted as a social institution. While it might be possible to lighten the burden of the slaves, there was to be no abolitionist. movement among the fathers of the Church. Indeed some have suggested that Christianity made the fate of slaves worse by stressing the need for slaves who were Christians to be good and exemplary slaves, obedient to their masters. Even here Augustine is not so much attacking slavery in itself but the reduction of men, women and children, who were supposed to be free, to the de facto state of being slaves. Whatever the bright spots, the general picture is a sombre one ofincreasing violence and insecurity , of late antiquity as a new age of iron.2 Date Commentators place the date of the letter in the early years of the episcopate of...