Abstract
It is well known that, at some point in the late Republic, the aediles began including in their edict remedies for persons who purchased slaves or livestock that turned out have a latent disease or defect (morbus vitiumve). The purchaser of a defective slave could return the slave for the price paid (a procedure termed redhibitio). The aedile’s remedies represent one of the standard institutional responses to the problem of adverse selection, namely the creation of legally enforceable guarantees. Whereas the doctrine of redhibitio is usually discussed to illustrate Roman law’s capacity to mitigate the problem of asymmetric information, I want to cast doubt on its efficacy in the context for which it was developed—the market for slaves. I will argue that the commodification of human beings always gives rise to an irreducible degree of quality uncertainty that cannot be mitigated by institutional solutions such as a system of guarantees. The value of a slave for a master is a function not just of soundness of body, but also of perceived behavioural characteristics such as obedience, diligence and entrepreneurship. Yet the aediles’ edict was interpreted as applying exclusively to physical defects, with just three explicit exceptions (the runaway, the malingerer and the suicide). Additional protections that could be provided through express warranties and that emerged through the later development of the actio empti would not have been sufficient to mitigate the effects of buyers’ uncertainty about how slaves would behave. Confirmation about the prevalence of quality uncertainty can be seen in the importance that buyers attributed to two very crude proxies for quality: ethnicity and the distinction between new and old slaves. The situation can also be illustrated by comparison with the Antebellum American South, particularly the state of Lousiana which incorporated the Roman doctrine of redhibitio into its Civil Code to regulate the sale of slaves. Despite the relatively generous protections that Louisiana and other states offered for the buyers of slaves, law-makers and judges never thought it feasible to extend those protections to ‘mental’ or ‘moral’ qualities. The project of commodifying human beings has always foundered when it moves from commodifying bodies to trying to commodify emotion and volition.
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Notes
- 1.
All translations of the Digest are from Watson 1998.
- 2.
See Revilla’s contribution to this volume.
- 3.
- 4.
Akerlof 1970. See also Revilla’s contribution to this volume.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
For example, it is noteworthy that contracts for the slave-sales in the province of Egypt seem to have often explicitly disclaimed warranty for flight, at least until the late second century (Artzt-Grabner 2010: 28–9).
- 9.
As with so much of the development of the rules on liability for defects, the date of the original introduction of the rules in Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian) is uncertain. An apparent reference to redhibitio in Plautus (Merc. 419) and a discussion of the category morbosus by Cato (cited at Dig. 21.1.10.1, Ulpian) suggest that the action for redhibitio of a defective slave was already possible in the early second century BC (de Senarclens 1923; Impallomeni 1955; Honoré 1959; Daguet-Gagey 2015: 623–4). But some date it as late as the early first century BC (e.g. Rogerson 1959: 116, Du Plessis 2010: 276). Jakab 1997: 128–9 is properly cautious.
- 10.
- 11.
Sciamus uenditorem, etiamsi ignorauit ea quae aediles praestari iubent, tamen teneri debere (Dig. 21.1.1.2, Ulpian). Honoré 1959: 136 doubts that this principle of objective liability was present in the original edict and suggests that it was a later development. It was certainly established by Cicero’s time (cf scire debuit de sanitate etc. at Off. 3.71).
- 12.
The Edict on cattle (Dig. 21.1.38.pr) was probably later than that on slaves, but still Republican (Kaser 1955–9: i 467; Rogerson 1959: 117). A quotation of Ulpian in the Digest states that the Augustan jurist Labeo already held that the Aediles Edict applied to the sale of all res (Dig. 21.1.1.pr with Honoré 1959: 139–40 and Parlamento 2003). In another passage, Ulpian himself asserts the same principle (Dig. 21.1.63). But others have rejected these texts as interpolations and held that the extension of the aedilician actions to all sales was an innovation of Justinianic law (Rogerson 1959: 117, Stein 1959: 102–11, Zimmermann 1990: 322, Jakab 1997:126 n. 16, Daguet-Gagey 2015:562). The development of the actio empti is discussed further below.
- 13.
‘Slave dealers were commonly dishonest and deceitful’ (Rogerson 1959: 116). ‘Slave-traders (mangones) were notoriously ill-reputed people, and thus one had to be particularly careful in one’s dealings with them’ (Zimmermann 1990: 311). ‘The sharp practice of slave and cattle dealers prompted the issuing of edicts by the aediles’ (Du Plessis 2010: 276). ‘Le caractère volontiers dissimulateur et malhonnête des vendeurs devait ainsi conduire les magistrats et les experts en science juridique à tenter de prévenir leurs frauds et à les punir’ (Daguet-Gagey 2015: 564). The idea goes back to Ulpian: causa huius edicti proponendi est, ut occurratur fallaciis uendentium et emptoribus succurratur (Dig. 21.1.1.2).
- 14.
See Johnson 1999: 24–30 on the American South. In the eyes of slave-owners, slave traders ‘were family separators in a land of organic social relations, sharp dealers in a society of “honorable men”, merchants of disease and disorder in an otherwise healthy social body. In the figure of the slave trader were condensed the anxieties of slaveholding society in the age of capitalist transformation: paternalism overthrown by commodification, honor corrupted by interest, and dominance infected with disorder’ (25).
- 15.
Wahl 1998 ch. 2.
- 16.
Daguet-Gagey 2015: 561.
- 17.
Fede 1987; these protections are discussed further in the final section of this paper.
- 18.
South Carolina’s ‘sound price’ is discussed further below.
- 19.
See Fede 1987: 327 on the ‘sound price’ rule in South Carolina.
- 20.
Frier and Kehoe 2007: 120
- 21.
See also Cic. Off. 3.71, Gell. NA 4.2 and the so-called Romano-Syrian lawbook.
- 22.
Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian).
- 23.
- 24.
habitus cuiusque corporis contra naturam, qui usum eius (ad id) facit deteriorem (Caelius Sabinus at Gell NA 4.2.3 and Dig. 21.1.1.7, Ulpian); quod usum ministeriumque hominis impediat (Dig. 21.1.1.8, Ulpian); cf. quo ipse minus aptus sit (Masurius Sabinus at Gell. NA 4.2.15). Most of the discussion in Dig. 21.1 is a ‘wilderness of single instances’ (Rogerson 1959: 121).
- 25.
Dig. 21.1.4.3 (Ulpian). See also 21.1.4.2 (Ulpian): In summa si quidem animi tantum uitium est, redhiberi non potest, nisi si dictum est hoc abesse et non abest. Ulpian attributes the same doctrine to his predecessor Vivianus (magis enim de corporis sanitate, quam de animi uitiis promitti, Dig. 21.1.1.9, Ulpian). Parlamento 2001: 6–7 discusses traces of arguments that sought to extend the concept of uitium to mental qualities that affected a slave’s usefulness. She argues that medical theories of the four temperament were crucial to the eventual exclusion of uitia animi (as being a matter of character not pathology). I would speculate that their exclusion was also influenced by pragmatic concerns about the implications for security of sale like those that influenced the American jurists discussed in the final section of this paper.
- 26.
Dunaway 2001.
- 27.
Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian).
- 28.
Dig. 21.1.17.14 (Ulpian).
- 29.
Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian).
- 30.
An overlapping remedy was provided by the SC Pisonianum (Dig. 29.5.8.pr, Paul.).
- 31.
Bellocci 1997.
- 32.
Dig. 22.3.4 (Paul.) (with Parlamento 2001: 18), Cod. Iust. 4.58.3pr.
- 33.
Dig. 21.1.1.1 (Ulpian).
- 34.
- 35.
See, for example, TPSulp. 43 (… fugit[i]uom [err]onem [non] esse [et] cetera ex edicto aed(ilis) cur(ulis), Puteoli AD 38), AE 2005 893 (sanam traditam esse erronem fugitiuam non esse, Londinium AD 75–125), FIRA iii 87 (sanam esse a furtis noxisque solutam fugitiuam erronem non esse, Alburnum Maior, Dacia AD 139), FIRA iii 132 (sanum esse ex edicto, Seleucia Pieria, AD 166). The description as furtis solutum in FIRA iii 87 (and FIRA iii 88 below, as well as the reference to furtis at Cic. Off. 3.71) probably concerns liability for theft, rather than being an additional commitment with regard to behaviour: see Dig. 50.16.174 (Ulpian) (aliud est promittere ‘furem non esse’, aliud ‘furto noxaque solutum’) with Daguet-Gagey 2015: 578–9.
- 36.
See, for example, FIRA iii 133 (ὑγιῆ ἐκ διατάγματος [− ca. 14—ἀνέπα]φ̣ον πρὸς πάντων καὶ μήτε ῥέ̣[μβ]ο̣ν̣ μήτε δραπετικὸν ἱερᾶς τε νόσου ἐκτός, Side, AD 151), P. Hamb, 63 (ὑγιῆ ἐκ διατάγματος], [χ]ω̣ρὶς ἱερᾶς νόσου καὶ ἐ[παφῆς …], Thebais?, AD 124–5), FIRA iii 88 (eum puerum sanum traditum esse furtis noxaque solutum erronem fugiti(u)um caducum non esse, Alburnum Maior, Dacia, AD 142).
- 37.
Gross 1995: 269.
- 38.
Dig. 21.1.18.pr (Gaius).
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Dig. 21.1.18.1 (Gaius).
- 41.
Dig. 21.1.19.pr. (Ulpian).
- 42.
Dig. 21.1.19.1 (Ulpian).
- 43.
Dig. 21.1. 1.10–4.pr (Ulpian).
- 44.
It used to be held that this was an innovation of Justinianic law (Arangio-Ruiz 1978–80: 397–8, Stein 1959: 102–3)), but some now see its beginnings in the early empire (Honoré 1959: 137–40, Zimmermann 1990: 319–22, Hallebeek 2010: 178). The eventual outcome was considerable redundancy between the actio empti and the aedilician actions, though there were some important differences (e.g. there was a time limit on the aedilican actions but not on the actio empti and the latter would cover consequential losses in case of fraud). See Honoré 1959, Donadio 2008: 71–2, Du Plessis 2010: 278.
- 45.
Dig. 21.1.4.4 (Ulpian).
- 46.
Dig. 19.1.4.pr (fur uel noxius), 19.1.11.7 (fugitiuus), 19.1.13.1 (fur aut fugitiuus).
- 47.
Frier and Kehoe 2007: 121 discuss these as examples of ‘signalling’, another characteristic response to quality uncertainty.
- 48.
Dig. 21.1.31.21 (Ulpian).
- 49.
Jakab 1997: 141.
- 50.
- 51.
Pliny the Elder’s observation that slaves from overseas used to have their feet marked with chalk to distinguish them in the slave market (Plin. HN 35.199–201) can be understood in the same light. Sometimes interpreted as a mark of inferiority (e.g. Harrill 1995: 39), it may in fact have been a visual marker of a new slave (assuming that most foreign slaves were captives) and hence a signal of quality.
- 52.
The rule was articulated in the judgement on Timrod v. Schoolbred (South Carolina, 1793), discussed at Fede 1987: 331–2.
- 53.
Smith v. McCall (South Carolina, 1821), quoted at Fede 1987: 333–4.
- 54.
Fede 1987: 340–50.
- 55.
Gross 1995: 268 n. 2.
- 56.
Morris 1996: 109–10.
- 57.
Cozzins v. Whittaker (Alabama, 1833) with Wahl 1998: 39.
- 58.
- 59.
Schafer 1987.
- 60.
- 61.
Civil Code of the State of Louisiana (1825) art. 2505 (cf art. 79 of the preceding Digest of 1808: ‘The redhibitory vices and defects inherent in the disposition of slaves shall hereafter be limited to cases where it is proved that the slave has been guilty of some capital crime, or that he is addicted to robbery, or in the habit of running away’).
- 62.
Chretien v Theard (Louisiana, 1822), quoted by Schafer 1987: 319.
- 63.
Greenwald and Glasspiegel 1983 posited that adverse selection would mean that buyers in high-productivity states such as Louisiana would pay more for slaves imported from low-productivity states in the Old South than for local slaves because they anticipated more adverse selection in the local slave market. Testing the hypothesis against slave sale data from New Orleans 1830–60, they found that local slaves were indeed valued 20–40% less than imported slaves, indicating an adverse selection effect. Yet Pritchett and Chamberlain 1993 devised a different test that failed to find any adverse selection in the same data. They posited that adverse selection would cause buyers to pay a premium for slaves sold at estate sales (where these was no scope for adverse selection) compared to those voluntarily sold by their owners (when there might be adverse selection). They found no significant price difference. (Cf Pritchett and Smith 2013 for a third test, this time with the hypothesis that adverse selection would mean that slaves who were resold within a short period (8 months) would sell at a discount in the second sale, again with negative results). But, using a similar test, Dionne, St-Amour and Vencatachellum 2009 found that a significant premium of c. 45% was paid at estate sales in Mauritius 1825–7, concluding that the market expected slaves sold in voluntary sales to be of predominantly lower quality.
- 64.
Greenwald and Glasspiegel 1983: 496.
- 65.
See also Aubert 2011.
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Lavan, M. (2021). Asymmetric Information and Adverse Selection in the Roman Slave Market: The Limits of Legal Remedy. In: Rosillo-López, C., García Morcillo, M. (eds) Managing Information in the Roman Economy. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54100-2_9
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