Volume 120, Number 3July 2016

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ARCHAEOLOGYThe Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF

American Journal of ArchaeologyVolume 120, Number 3July 2016Pages 447–72DOI: 10.3764/aja.120.3.0447

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slaveryjennifer trimble

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www.ajaonline.org

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This article analyzes slave collars of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. as a way of con-tributing to current debates about the archaeology of Roman slavery. Taking as my case study the well-preserved Zoninus collar, I first trace its history in antiquarian collecting and publishing in the mid 18th century. This scholarship was characterized by a profound split between text and object that has had lasting effects on the material we have now and how we approach it. In the second half of the article, I propose a two-part remedy: reintegrating the collars’ visual, material, and textual aspects, and exploring the very dif-ferent perspectives of slave owners, audiences, and collared slaves. Approached in this way, these objects illuminate the lived experience of urban slavery; they also show how deeply slavery was woven into Roman visual, epigraphic, and material culture. These artifacts thus have implications for drawing material culture more fully into the study of slavery, and slavery more fully into the study of material culture.1

introductionIn the Museo Nazionale Romano–Terme di Diocleziano in Rome is an

iron neck ring with a bronze tag attached (fig. 1).2 Five lines of text are in-scribed onto the tag:

FVGITENEME CVMREVOCV VERISMEˇDMˇ ZONINOACCIPIS SOLIDVM ⸙

Expanded and punctuated, this inscription reads “Fugi, tene me. Cum revoc(a)veris me d(omino) m(eo) Zonino, accipis solidum” (I have run away; hold me. When you have brought me back to my master Zoninus, you will receive a gold coin). A palm frond is incised after the final word. This is a Roman slave collar, one of about 45 surviving examples that all date to

1 For helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper, I am grateful to audiences at the University of Texas at Austin and the Stanford Archaeology Center, and to James Dee, Walter Scheidel, Christopher Krebs, Lisa Fentress, an anonymous reviewer for the AJA, and the students in my Majors Seminar in Classics: Brian Deutsch, Sander Gonzalez, Thomas Logan, Corinne Miller, Cai Redmond, Jackie Sandling, Christina Cowart Smith, Kevin Sun, Katie Toothman, and Eleanor Walker. Translations are my own unless other-wise noted.

2 Museo Nazionale Romano–Terme di Diocleziano, Museo Epigrafico, inv. no. 65043 (currently on display on the third floor in Room VIII). Diam. of neck ring 12 cm; tag 5.0 x 5.0 x 0.1 cm; letter ht. 0.7 cm. The fundamental publications are CIL 15(2) 7194 (with ear-lier references); Allard 1914, 2149–50, no. 23; Thurmond 1994, 462–63, no. 1; Friggeri et al. 2012, 523, sec. 8, cat. no. 36 (with earlier references).

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the fourth and fifth centuries C.E.3 Most have been found in Rome and central Italy, with three more from the North African cities of Thelepte, Lambaesis, and Bulla Regia. The collars were inscribed either on the neck band itself or on a pendant tag, as this one was. The Zoninus collar is important because it is the only known example of a tag still hanging from its neck

3 Exact numbers are difficult to pinpoint because of disputes about what material to include and which objects are fake. Fun-damental starting points for the study of these collars are CIL 15(2) 7171–99; de Rossi 1874; Thurmond 1994. An overview of the material is provided in Binsfeld 2010; see also the impor-tant discussions in Sotgiu 1973–1974; Rivière 2002, esp. 146–64, 193. Dates and the Early Christian context are discussed below.

ring. The inscriptions on these collars and tags typi-cally ask the viewer to stop the wearer from running away. Many also name the slave owner and provide an address to which the slave should be returned. Some include Christian terms and symbols, such as a Chi-Rho or this palm frond. The Zoninus collar is unique in promising a reward.4 Not all enslaved people were required to wear such collars; most scholars have in-terpreted them as a punishment for an escape attempt and an alternative to the long-standing Roman practice of tattooing runaway slaves on the face.5

The Zoninus collar is important because it offers direct, physical evidence of Roman slavery. It tells us something about how enslaved people were treated and seen and what they experienced; it can help illu-minate ideas and enforcement practices concerning the ownership of human bodies and their labor. In studying this object, then, I am taking up Webster’s challenge to incorporate artifacts more fully into the study of Roman slavery:6

The error we make in the study of Roman slavery is that we underestimate the power of artefacts, assuming that they can have no part to play in articulating stories of slavery and servitude.

But how are we to do that? Slavery was a core institu-tion of Roman society, and Roman material culture was shaped, directly and indirectly, both by the labor of slaves and by slavery’s ideas and practices. In prin-ciple, this should mean that buildings, objects, images, and skeletal remains can tell us a great deal about the lives of enslaved people and about the workings of this institution.

In practice, there are substantial difficulties in bring-ing archaeological evidence to bear on the study of Roman slavery. Legal status does not map onto the ma-terial record in a straightforward way. The most power-ful members of society disproportionately shaped the physical world they lived in, and direct material and visual evidence for slavery and the lives of slaves is rare. And, without specific indications, it is difficult to know

4 The fullest commentaries on the inscriptions are Pani 1984; Thurmond 1994. On the amount of this reward, 1/20 of what an ordinary slave cost, see Allard 1914, 2149–50; Bellen 1971, 8; Thurmond 1994, 463. For a more general discussion on the workings of rewards offered for the return of runaway slaves, see Rivière 2002, 173–78.

5 All these points are discussed more fully below.6 Webster 2005, 178.

fig. 1. The Zoninus collar. Iron neck ring and inscribed bronze tag with built-in bail, diam. of ring 12.0 cm, dimensions of tag 7.0 x 5.0 x 0.1 cm, findspot unknown. Rome, Museo Nazio-nale Romano–Terme di Diocleziano, Museo Epigrafico, inv. no. 65043 (© Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo–Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 449whether we are dealing with spaces and objects of slav-ery per se.7 These issues are not unique to the Roman world; the archaeology of slavery in other times and places faces similar challenges.8 A new wave of research on the material culture of Roman slavery is drawing on comparative insights and employing revealing meth-ods and perspectives.9 Another problem, however, is the enduring legacy of a long modern history of schol-arship. Most fundamentally, an anachronistic divide between text and object continues to shape the schol-arship, including current debates about what material culture can contribute to the study of slavery.

In this article, I treat the Zoninus collar as a case study with which to explore some of these problems and possibilities. The article is structured in two halves. In the first, I examine the modern history of scholarship on the Zoninus and other Roman slave collars. I trace the separation of text and object in the antiquarian publications and show that this separation has continued to the present. I then consider what we know about archaeological findspots and contexts and where things stand now. In the second half of the article, I propose a two-part way forward: reintegrat-ing text and object and considering the very different human perspectives involved. I focus on the interests and actions of the slave owners and address viewers’ and readers’ responses. Finally, I consider the experi-ences and agency of the collared slaves themselves.

Treated as material as well as textual artifacts, the Zoninus and other Roman slave collars make visible the lives of some of the most invisible people in the historical record. They illuminate the experience of slavery for both free and unfree people. These collars are a phenomenon of urban slavery in the Late Antique west and especially the city of Rome. At the same time,

7 Recent discussions of these problems include Scheidel 2003; Fentress 2005a; Webster 2005, 2008; George 2010, 2011, 2013; cf. Morris 1998, 2011. By examining inscribed slave col-lars in this article, I avoid the thorny issue of relating material culture specifically to slavery.

8 To mention only a few examples: Orser 1990; Singleton 1995; Hall 2000; Orser and Funari 2001; Marshall 2015. On the potential of comparative work for the archaeology of Ro-man slavery, see Fentress 2005b; Webster 2005, 2008.

9 Some important contributions include Coarelli 1982, 2005; Carandini 1985; Braconi 2005; Fentress 2005b; Web-ster 2005; Petersen 2009; Heinen 2010; Severy-Hoven 2012; George 2013; Joshel and Petersen 2014. Thompson’s (2003) monograph is a valuable collection of material, although it is outdated in its positivistic approach.

they participated in longer-term Roman practices of marking and controlling the bodies of enslaved people. Studying the collars in this way shows how deeply the material culture of slavery was integrated into visual, epigraphic, and material culture more broadly. Roman slave collars thus have larger implications for how we might draw material culture more fully into the study of slavery, and slavery more fully into the study of ma-terial culture.

antiquarian scholarship and roman slave collars

The Zoninus collar first appears in the context of 18th-century antiquarian collecting and scholarship, in the marchese Francesco Scipione Maffei’s Museum Veronense, published in 1749.10 The Museum Vero-nense exemplifies the crucial role of the antiquarians in developing the modern study of antiquity. It was a pet project of Maffei’s, a museum of antiquities in Verona meant to showcase the region’s cultural patrimony, and was based on a collection of ancient inscriptions.11 To-ward the end of the 1749 catalogue, Maffei also lists inscriptions in other Veronese collections, and the Zoninus collar is attested here as part of the collection of the marchese Alessandro Capponi (1683–1746), another aristocrat deeply interested in the Graeco-Roman past.12 On the printed page, only the Latin inscription appears, with no visual depiction and no physical description beyond a note that the text was “in collare aeneo,” on a bronze collar (fig. 2). Follow-ing the practices of the time, the transcription repro-duces the original line breaks but inserts anachronistic spaces between the words. The original “REVOCV-VERIS” is corrected to “REVOCAVERIS”; the palm frond at the end of the inscription is omitted. We are not told where the collar was found or with what else, and there is no comment about its function. The same page transcribes several other inscriptions, including several gravestones and a dedication to Mithras on an architrave. These objects exemplify a range of sizes, materials, and ancient functions. In this modern group-ing, however, all have turned into dematerialized texts.

10 Maffei 1749, 262.11 The collection survives today as the Museo Lapidario Maf-

feiano, Europe’s oldest museum of inscriptions (Magagnato et al. 1982, 29–72).

12 Petrucci 1976.

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This presentation is typical of the period. Roman slave collars began to be collected and published in the late 1500s. For the next three centuries, they were treated not as evidence for Roman slavery but as ex-amples of Latin inscriptions to be gathered into thick compendia.13 Like other kinds of antiquities, the Zoni-

13 The great exception is the monograph on ancient slavery published in 1613 by the priest and humanist scholar Lorenzo Pignorio. Unlike the antiquarians, he did not classify his ma-terial typologically but instead interwove textual and physical

nus and other collars were collected and published by learned men according to antiquarian criteria of value. Jacob Spon (1647–1685), a French medical doctor and scholar of antiquity, famously spelled out these priorities

evidence to understand how slavery worked. He discussed three slave collars during an extended treatment of Roman punish-ments of runaway slaves (Pignorio 1613, 21–3); he was the first person to connect these collars to an edict of Constantine barring facial tattooing, a connection that most scholars have accepted ever since (discussed below).

fig. 2. The first publication of the Zoninus collar in 1749. Its inscription is at no. 4 (Maffei 1749, 262; courtesy Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 451in the preface of his Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis of 1679. Here he provided an early definition of “ar-chaeologia” or “archaeographia”: this meant the study of the monuments and other remains of the ancients, including coins, inscriptions, buildings, statues, gems, relief sculpture, manuscripts, and instruments (equip-ment and furnishings) of all kinds. The rest of Spon’s book demonstrates what he had in mind. An enormous quantity of material is presented in a strictly typological scheme. Seven slave collars are presented as inscriptions only, grouped together in a chapter otherwise devoted to funerary objects, amulets, weights, measures, and some other inscribed antiquities.14 Spon was careful to specify which collar inscriptions he copied directly from the object (“exscripsi”) and which he reproduced from other publications, but he was not interested in the collars’ appearance or physical characteristics. Each of his inscriptions is enclosed in a rectangle that has nothing to do with the text’s actual arrangement on the object. Line breaks are not accurately reproduced; letters are missing or added; visual symbols are left out.

The antiquities collected by these learned men could be shown off to visitors and travelers and given away to colleagues and friends. They were tangible ex-pressions of antiquarian erudition and a commitment to the study of the past. A telling example appears in the Iter italicum of Jean Mabillon, a learned French Benedictine who published a diary of his late 17th-century travels and learned encounters. In the entry for 13 November 1685, Mabillon comments on his invited visit to the collection of Andreas Andreinus in Naples. He made special note of a coin of Procopius and the tag of a Roman slave collar (fig. 3) that he saw there, transcribing the inscriptions from both objects.15 The coin and the collar were material expressions of this learned encounter. In turn, this kind of personal meeting drove the circulation of scholarly knowledge through subsequent publication.16

14 Spon 1679, 300–1.15 “Andreas Andreinus, nobilis Florentinus, nobis cimelia sua

ostendit. Singulare est numisma ex aere magno Procopii tyran-ni, Valentis aemuli, cum inscriptione in adversa parte, REPARA-TIO FELICIUM TEMPORUM. In quodam plumbo, quod e servi collo pendebat, haec leguntur: Tene me quia fugio, & revoca me in viam latam ad Flavium D. M. id est dominum meum: quales inscriptiones alibi habentur” (Mabillon 1687, 118–19). This tag has moved from the Bargello to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, inv. no. 863 (Paolucci 1994, 107).

16 Similarly, another slave-collar tag is known only from an

Within this antiquarian world, Roman slave col-lars developed a split existence. In personal encoun-ters, the collars were physical objects to be handled, looked at, and discussed. In the same men’s writings, however, the collars’ physical and visual properties do not appear; the Latin texts were what mattered. Raf-faello Fabretti’s 1699 publication of his own antiqui-ties collection exemplifies this split between text and object. His seventh chapter is devoted to brickstamps, slave collars, and inscribed weights. In one-and-a-half pages, Fabretti lists 12 slave collars. Only one is visu-ally depicted, a tag in Fabretti’s own possession (“apud me est”).17 The tag is drawn as a circle with an attach-ment hole at the top and five lines of text on the face. Otherwise, there are no drawings or physical descrip-tions and no mention of findspots, function, or signifi-cance. Fabretti’s 11 additional examples are listed only

early 18th-century travel account by Hermann Post, who saw it in Filippo Antonio Gualtieri’s collection in Rome (Solin 1993, 293–94, no. 53). An example of Roman slave collars moving be-tween learned men is one published by the Florentine antiquar-ian Francesco Antonio Gori, who writes that Leo Strozza gave it to him as a gift; Gori then gave it to J.B. Casotti, who then gave it back to him (Gori 1743, 283). After Gori’s death in 1757, much of his collection was dispersed piecemeal, and what happened to this collar (CIL 15[2] 7173) is not known (Gambaro 2008).

17 Fabretti’s drawing remains the only known image of this tag, which has not been seen since (CIL 15[2] 7195; Fabretti 1699, 522).

fig. 3. Bronze tag with opening for attachment at the top and holes at the lower corners, wdth. 3.5 cm x ht. 4.2 cm, findspot unknown. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 863. The inscription reads “Tene me quia fugio et revoca me in Via Lata ad Flavium d(ominum) m(eum)” (Hold me because I am running away and return me to the Via Lata to Flavius my master) (by permission of the Soprintendenza Archeologia della Toscana–Firenze).

jennifer trimble452 [aja 120as inscriptions, with a few notes on where he saw that particular collar or from what publication he copied the inscription.

I have discussed the antiquarians’ approach to show that the Zoninus and other Roman slave collars are strongly mediated by this early modern history.18 On the one hand, it is thanks to the antiquarians’ collecting and publishing efforts that we have many of these slave collars at all. Of the more than 40 examples known today, five were first recorded in the late 16th century, eight more in the 17th, seven in the 18th (including the Zoninus collar), and three more by the mid 19th.19 On the other hand, the collecting priorities of the time had physical consequences. Inscribed objects were dis-proportionately preserved. Associated finds that were fragmentary and had no inscription were less valued and not preserved—including the human bones and burial artifacts with which many of these collars were almost certainly found (discussed below). One result is that inscribed slave-collar tags often survive but their uninscribed neck rings do not (the Zoninus col-lar, which is preserved with its neck ring, is the only known exception).

Even more striking is that we have no contextual information or associated finds for any of the 24 in-scribed collars and tags found before the late 19th century. Their collection history sometimes provides clues—for example, that most of them were probably found in Rome—but nothing more is known. No one has ever questioned the Zoninus collar’s authen-ticity. As far as anyone can tell, it is ancient, but, in the absence of findspot information, questions about authenticity necessarily arise, and one or more of the surviving collars may be an early modern fake.20 This decontextualization went hand in hand with a typo-logical approach to the material, since it could be un-derstood only in relation to similar objects. All these practices transformed Roman slave collars into artifi-

18 A classic assessment of antiquarian scholarship in relation to modern history is Momigliano 1950. The roots of classical archaeology lie in the same antiquarian tradition; see, e.g., the critical comment in Morris 1994. These disciplinary histories have enormous bibliographies, and it should be noted that I am leaving out art history entirely.

19 This information is drawn from my larger research project on Roman slave collars.

20 For a relevant discussion of how this uncertainty can affect disciplinary foundations in the case of unprovenanced works of Roman art, see Marlowe 2013.

cially isolated artifacts untethered from their ancient contexts, artifact assemblages, and practices of use. In our own time, shaped by Romantic and modernist ideas about the authenticity and immediacy of the an-cient fragment, the Zoninus collar seems to give us di-rect contact with the ancient past. However, both this collar and the notion of a corpus of slave collars are in a very real sense the products of the antiquarian age.

an enduring split between text and object

This antiquarian legacy matters because of its en-during—and unrecognized—effects on the study of the material culture of Roman slavery even now.21 The Zoninus collar is a case in point. After Capponi’s death in 1746, his antiquities collection went to the Museo Kircheriano in Rome, which was originally assembled by Athanasius Kircher, the 17th-century German Je-suit and polymath. In a late 19th-century museum catalogue, the Zoninus collar’s inscription remains the priority, and there is no visual image.22 However, that same catalogue entry shows a new interest in material-ity and function. Dimensions are provided for the first time, and the author comments that the collar seems too small for a human neck and was more likely used on an animal.23 As we will see, this entry exemplifies both a late 19th-century transition out of antiquarian scholarship and that period’s particular interests in slave collars.

The Zoninus collar remained in the Museo Kircheri-ano until the collection became the property of the new Italian nation in the late 19th century. The Kircheriano was subsequently broken up and redistributed into new national museums according to culture-historical principles. The Etruscan artifacts went to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco in the Villa Giulia; the ethnographic material was transferred to the Museo Nazionale Pre-istorico Etnografico, and the Roman antiquities, in-cluding the Zoninus collar, were moved to the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Baths of Diocletian. Today,

21 More broadly, on the subordination of image to text since the Reformation, with lasting effects on scholarship on the Graeco-Roman world, see Squire 2009.

22 de Ruggiero 1878, 137, no. 508.23 “Si crede comunemente che questa e altre simili piastrine

si siano adoperate pei servi fuggitivi; quanto alla nostra, special-mente per la piccolezza del cerchio, opiniamo piuttosto che sia servita per un animale” (de Ruggiero 1878, 137, no. 508). I re-turn to this question of size below.

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 453the Zoninus collar is on display in the Museo Epigrafico there. In recent museum catalogues, the collar is treated as valuable material and textual evidence for Roman slavery, social history, and communication practic-es.24 Currently, its presentation is part of a much larger scholarly project of rematerializing inscriptions recon-necting images, texts, and space in revealing ways.25 Key moments along the way illuminate this long trajectory.

In fact, the later 19th century marks a watershed for the study of Roman slave collars, as for Roman history and archaeology more broadly. A new philo-logical accuracy and professionalism characterized the scholarship. Scholars moved away from antiquarian classification and toward historical analysis: slave col-lars became important for discussions of early Chris-tianity, although only later, in the 20th century, for the study of Roman slavery. More collars were discov-ered—10 in the later 19th century alone, followed by eight during the 20th and one in the early 21st—and findspots and sometimes additional archaeological information were now recorded.

An important milestone was Dressel’s 1899 publica-tion of 30 slave collars in the Corpus inscriptionum lati-narum (CIL).26 On the one hand, Dressel’s work marks a culmination of the antiquarian approach to these ob-jects. He, too, presented the collars as dematerialized texts, with a commentary in Latin. He, too, organized his material using antiquarian typological classifica-tions: the collars are part of a volume dedicated to “instrumentum domesticum” (domestic or everyday material), including amphoras, lamps, water pipes, weights, and seals. On the other hand, Dressel’s accu-racy and thoroughness are astonishing. He compiled more collars than anyone else had to date and included the results of his extensive bibliographical research into Renaissance and later manuscripts. And, his archaeo-logical interests represented something new. Much of his material in this volume of CIL (although none of the slave collars) came from his pioneering excavations

24 On the museum’s broad goals for the epigraphy collection, see Friggeri 2001, 7. The Zoninus collar is discussed in Friggeri 2001, 158 (with color photograph); Friggeri et al. 2012, 523, sec. 8, cat. no. 36 (with more detail and bibliography).

25 Exemplary is Laird’s (2006) work on foundation monu-ments at Ostia. She considers the carved text in relation to its physical placement, its visibility there, the rituals occurring in that space, and the social relationships and interactions attested to in the text.

26 CIL 15(2) 7171–99. The Zoninus collar is CIL 15(2) 7194.

of the Monte Testaccio in Rome, and his classification of amphora types, tabulated at the end of the volume, is still in use today. Dressel’s CIL volume thus exempli-fies the late 19th-century rise of professional scholars within new institutions devoted to the study of antiq-uity.27 His work also exemplifies a broader shift from antiquarian approaches to an interest in the historical and archaeological significance of material evidence.

Equally important for subsequent research was the late 19th-century focus on these slave collars as part of the history of early Christianity. The key figure is Giovanni Battista de Rossi, a founding figure in the archaeological study of early Christianity in Rome and the editor of the Bullettino di archeologia cristiana. De Rossi combined the study of inscriptions, urban topography, and material remains in new ways.28 His 1874 article on 20-odd Roman slave collars represents their first synthetic study: by contrast to the older an-tiquarian approach, he discusses dates, materials, and function and is attentive to visual aspects (fig. 4).29 The earliest securely dated collars are Constantinian, judg-ing by the characteristic form of the Chi-Rho on some examples.30 The overt display of Christian visual sym-bols on many collars (Chi-Rho, alpha and omega, palm, ribboned crown) points to a date after Constantine’s edict of tolerance for Christianity in 313 C.E. Chris-tian terms on some collars (acolyte, archdeacon) fur-ther suggest an institutional structure for Christianity.

27 Dressel’s table of amphora forms is CIL 15(2), pl. 2. On the rise of new professionals and institutions in classical archaeol-ogy in the later 19th century, see Marchand 1996. An accessible overview of the history of CIL is Schmidt 2007.

28 Baumgarten 1908. 29 De Rossi’s (1874) paper was also the first publication of a

collar found on the Caelian Hill in Rome during construction work in 1872–1873 (CIL 15[2] 7190; Thurmond 1994, 479, no. 28a, b [illustrated here as fig. 4]). The collar has since disap-peared. It was at one time owned by Alessandro Castellani and was put up for sale after his death (Hôtel Drouot 1884, 34, no. 316; I am grateful to Dirk Booms for this reference). I have not been able to determine who bought the tag at that sale or where it is now.

30 A collar now in Florence and referring to the cohors XII ur-bana (12th urban cohort) may predate Constantine, but there is no solid evidence that inscribed slave collars were in use before his reign (Rivière 2002, 147–52). The solidus promised as a re-ward on the Zoninus collar was a gold coin that became espe-cially important from Constantine onward. Another collar tag, now lost, was made from a worn-down nummus of Constantine (CIL 15[2] 7191).

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Additional clues point to dates in the fourth and fifth centuries: status markers of that period (vir clarissimus, vir spectabilis); letterforms and spellings, and one ar-chaeological context: the collar found in abandonment strata at Bulla Regia that probably date to the fifth cen-tury (figs. 5, 6).31 At least one collar, found in Sicily and identifying Felix the archdeacon as the slave owner, may be as late as the early sixth century.32

De Rossi and others took up an idea first proposed by Lorenzo Pignorio in the early 17th century.33 In 315 C.E., Constantine prohibited the long-standing practice of tattooing convicted criminals on the face (Cod. Theod. 9, 40, 2). Pignorio suggested that this edict was applied to fugitive slaves as well. If so, the inscribed collars may have been an alternative to the traditional Roman punishment of tattooing the faces of runaway slaves. Supporting this idea are the inscrip-tions’ emphasis on stopping fugitives, the Constan-tinian and later dates of the collars, and their relative

31 On the status markers, see Hillner 2001. On the Bulla Regia collar’s context, see Merlin 1908; Leone 1996.

32 Sotgiu 1973–1974. On slavery in this period, see Harper 2011.

33 Pignorio 1613, 23; Thurmond 1994; Harper 2011, 258.

rarity; clearly, not all slaves were made to wear them.34 This idea may also explain why so many of the collars were found in or near Rome; slave owners there, espe-cially those in the imperial administration, were more disposed to adhere to Constantine’s edict.35 This ex-planation also has weaknesses. It leaps from the state’s treatment of condemned prisoners to private individu-als’ treatment of runaway slaves. Moreover, punitive facial tattooing continued through the Late Antique period.36 Finally, at least three slave collar tags enjoin the reader not to interfere with the wearer; these ex-amples do not fit the punitive model. In these cases, the collars seem to have been intended to mark owner-ship and prevent anyone else from stealing that slave.37 An immediate implication is that we should not expect a single explanation to fit all instances.

De Rossi and other late 19th-century scholars also worried about the contradiction between what they perceived as Christianity’s aversion to slavery and the collars’ evidence for Christians as slave owners.38 This discomfort led to two erroneous ideas. The first was that the Zoninus and other collars were used on dogs, not people.39 In fact, there is no evidence for the for-mer but ample evidence for the latter. Several of the inscriptions include the words servus sum followed by the owner’s name in the genitive (“I am the slave of so-and-so”), and they are occasionally found still fastened around the necks of human skeletons (dis-cussed below). The second idea was that these collars

34 There is no mention of inscribed fugitive slave collars in the ancient textual or visual sources.

35 Hillner 2001, 196–205; Rivière 2002, 160–61.36 Gustafson 1997; Harper 2011, 257–59.37 Bellen 1971; Rivière 2002. For references for these three

collars, see infra n. 75.38 “Sembra inoltre strana contradizione, che mentre l’antica

cristiana epigrafia studiosamente evita la menzione dei servi e della schiavitù, perchè ripugnante all’evangelica fratellanza di tutti i fedeli, sia stato quasi direi profanato il monogramma del nome e della croce di Cristo, improntandolo sui collari desti-nati a contrasegnare i servi fuggitivi e reclamare l’ajuto di chi-unque in essi s’imbatteva, perchè li catturasse e riconducesse al padrone” (de Rossi 1874, 42–3).

39 Even Dressel thought the Zoninus collar was too small for a human neck and may have been for a dog; he added that the re-ward price seemed too low for a slave (CIL 15[2] 7194). Allard (1914, 2149–50) refuted both these comments; the diameter of the Zoninus collar is large enough for a human neck (discussed below), and the reward of one solidus is 1/20 the price of an ordinary slave, according to a Constantinian edict (Cod. Iust. 6.1.4). Thurmond’s (1994) discussion is useful.

fig. 4. Drawing by G.B. de Rossi of a bronze tag from Rome, wdth. 5.8 cm x ht. 6.7 cm, found during construction work in 1872–1873 on the Caelian Hill. Current location unknown. The tag was inscribed on both sides, presumably for reuse. This side reads “Tene me et revoca me in foro Martis ad Maximianum antiquarium” (Hold me and return me to the Forum of Mars, to Maximianus the antiquary). The other side is inscribed “Tene me quia fugi et revoca me in C(a)elimontio ad domu(m) Elpidii v(iri) c(larissimi) Bonoso” (Hold me because I have run away and return me to the Caelimontium to the house of Elpidius, vir clarissimus, to Bonosus) (de Rossi 1874, pl. 2, fig. 1).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 455

were employed as a more humane alternative to facial tattooing.40 This, too, has now been rejected: judg-ing by the evidence, early Christianity was no more averse to slavery or humanitarian in its treatment of slaves than the rest of Late Roman society.41 Notably, these discussions were concerned entirely with mor-ally exonerating the slave owners. There is no men-tion of what the people treated in this way might have thought about the relative humanity of a facial tattoo vs. a metal neck collar.

Scholarship since the late 19th century has dem-onstrated a more complex relationship between these slave collars and early Christianity. Overall, the Chris-tian references and symbols on these collars seem pri-marily to reflect the broader institutional and historical situation in the fourth and fifth centuries. Not all the collars include Christian words or visual symbols. The inscriptions often provide the owner’s name, status,

40 E.g., Lefort 1875; Thurmond 1994, 492–93; contra Rivière 2002, 146–47 n. 99.

41 Glancy 2002, 2011; Harper 2011, 209–14.

fig. 5. Plan of the excavated Temple of Apollo at Bulla Regia. An inscribed lead collar was found in 1905 at location X together with human bones (after Merlin 1908, pl. 1).

fig. 6. Lead collar, ht. 1.8 cm, diam. 12.5 cm, wt. 300 g, found in the Temple of Apollo at Bulla Regia. Tunis, Musée du Bardo (Merlin 1908, 10, fig. 3).

jennifer trimble456 [aja 120occupation, and the address to which the slave should be returned, and these owners represent a variety of middling and upper ranks.42 There are military men (a tesserarius, a beneficiarius, a centurio) and men working in commerce (a linarius, or linen man; a manceps, per-haps an auctioneer; an antiquario, or antiquary; a me-dicus, or doctor). Several owners were administrative officials in Rome, working for the grain prefect or the urban prefect, in the senate as an exceptor or scriniarius, or as a palatinus. The inclusion of high-status titles such as vir spectabilis or vir clarissimus presumably helped the owners; powerful men were more likely to get their slaves back.43 The most exalted owner attested on these collars is Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, urban prefect in 368, 369, and 370 C.E. and consul in 379.44 Most owners are given only one name. This may be for reasons of limited space, because the masters were of low rank and perhaps slaves themselves, or because full legal names were not necessary in this context.45

The Zoninus collar’s current importance as a docu-ment of slavery is the result of very different intellec-tual currents in the 20th century, including the rise of social history and the Cold War period’s intense focus on economic and social structures.46 In the later 20th century, postcolonial and civil rights movements drove a new interest in ancient slavery, now with a focus on the slaves as well as the slave owners.47 Interestingly, the scholarship now treated these collars not as a phe-nomenon of the fourth and fifth centuries in particular but as evidence for Roman slavery more broadly. This

42 Information about the owner is far more common in these inscriptions than information about the slave; a few slaves are named, but only the prostitute from Bulla Regia (see fig. 6) is identified by her work. The fullest discussion of the owners’ names and positions is Hillner 2001.

43 Harper 2011, 259. No female owners are attested in these inscriptions, but this may be partly due to the small sample size.

44 Jones et al. 1971, 640–42, 1144; he is mentioned on two collars (infra n. 75).

45 On vicarii, slaves who “owned” slaves, see Bradley and Car-tledge 2011, 343–44, 418–19.

46 McKeown (2007) explores the ways in which different his-torical situations shaped very different national approaches to the study of ancient slavery in the 20th century. The legacy of ab-olitionist representations of slavery in the Anglophone scholar-ship is explored in Wood 2000. Harper (2011, 3–32) discusses scholarly developments and in particular the way different un-derlying economic models produce different views of slavery.

47 Exemplary of this approach is the work of Bradley (e.g., Bradley 1987, 1994).

contrast raises a historical question: how different was Roman slavery in the Early Christian period vis-à-vis earlier periods? Harper has forcefully refuted the older idea that slavery changed or declined dramatically in the Late Antique; the real changes came after the long fourth century.48 For the inscribed collars, the Late Antique aspects listed above are thus in balance with longer-term continuities.

Still, through all these gains, the collars have been considered only as texts. For example, Wiedemann’s important sourcebook Greek and Roman Slavery in-cludes the Zoninus and one other Roman slave collar, but only as inscriptions.49 Thurmond’s fundamental 1994 study of Roman slave collars offers a rich com-mentary on the inscriptions but includes no visual im-ages at all. By contrast, when material or visual aspects of Roman slave collars are foregrounded, it tends to be for the purposes of illustration only. For example, a vivid color photograph of the Zoninus collar domi-nates the cover of the magisterial first volume of the Cambridge World History of Slavery, but this power-ful image remains epiphenomenal; there is no corre-sponding treatment of the collar inside.50 My intention is not to criticize these works but simply to point out how naturalized the modern separation of text and object has become.

This same divide constrains ongoing debates about the archaeology of Roman slavery. The late 19th- and 20th-century emergence of specialized disciplines for the study of the past formalized the separation of text and object. History rejected the antiquarian emphasis on collection and classification, prioritizing analysis and explanation instead. Disciplinary training and practice focused on ancient texts rather than material

48 Harper 2011.49 Wiedemann 1981, 194, no. 219. Wiedemann drew here on

Dessau’s Inscriptiones latinae selectae (ILS), which was compiled primarily on the basis of the CIL and in the same tradition (Des-sau includes eight slave collars: ILS 8726–33). Wiedemann identifies the Zoninus collar only as ILS 8731; his second ex-ample (CIL 15[2] 7174; ILS 8726) has been lost since the late 16th century, but this is not mentioned.

50 Bradley and Cartledge 2011. The same volume also ad-dresses this problem in a groundbreaking way: two of its 22 chapters are devoted to slavery and archaeology, including dis-cussions of the challenges and possibilities in doing this work (George 2011; Morris 2011). Roman slave collars are also men-tioned in Glancy’s (2011) chapter on slavery and the rise of Christianity.

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 457evidence, with important exceptions. The situation is now rapidly evolving.51 Classical archaeology, in con-trast, retained the antiquarian interest in objects and also, for a long time, its typological framework, but most of the scholarship focused on ancient art and monumental architecture. In the later 20th century, archaeologists rejected the focus on single artifacts and typologies in favor of analyzing complete assemblages, and sophisticated approaches were developed to study contextual remains, landscapes, and networks. How-ever, with notable exceptions, Roman archaeologists have paid little attention to slavery.52 This disciplinary separation of text and object has effectively located the study of slavery within the historical and textual domain alone. For the future, there is a great deal of potential to bring text and object into a more produc-tive dialogue for the study of ancient slavery, as Web-ster and others have shown. However, exploiting this potential will depend on recognizing this deep and anachronistic divide and the ways in which it shapes both the material we have and how we approach it.

problems and possibilities nowFor Roman slave collars, the current situation thus

presents both problems and possibilities. Not least, the long-standing focus on the inscriptions means that the evidence of findspots has never been consid-ered. Since the mid 19th century, at least 19 more col-lars and tags have been found. Many were discovered by accident or during modern construction, meaning that contextual information is often minimal; however, significant patterns do emerge. In this section, I first

51 Michael Rostovtzeff was exceptional for including ma-terial evidence in his work in the earlier 20th century. Morris (1994), inspired by the work of Anthony Snodgrass and others, represented a new combination of historical and archaeologi-cal questions and evidence. Current work on the Roman econ-omy employs a wide range of archaeological evidence, as, e.g., in the Oxford Roman Economy Project (Bowman and Wilson 2005–2016). In the study of ancient slavery, the Mainz school (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei) has long been committed to considering all relevant forms of evidence, including material and visual (Heinen 2010).

52 Here, too, there are exceptions, most famously Carandini’s (1985) work at Settefinestre. For more recent work on the ar-chaeology of Roman slavery, see supra nn. 7–9. Interestingly, current work is often taking the form of collaborations between ancient historians and material culture specialists. See, e.g., the papers collected in George 2013; Joshel and Petersen 2014.

review that archaeological evidence and then evaluate the overall state of the evidence and its methodologi-cal implications.

Several collars have been found in funerary contexts, suggesting that, for some slaves at least, a metal neck collar was permanent. At Bulla Regia, a person wear-ing a lead collar died—or the corpse was dumped—in abandonment layers over the pavement of the court-yard of the Temple of Apollo (see figs. 5, 6).53 This collar is one of only two that identify a female slave: “Adultera meretrix (sum). Tene quia fugivi de Bulla R(e)g(ia)” (I am Adultera, a prostitute. Hold me be-cause I have fled from Bulla Regia). Adultera was ei-ther her assigned slave name or an adjective, which would change the sense to something like “I am a slutty prostitute.”54 Another collar was found around the neck of a skeleton in a tomb near Frascati in 1886 (fig. 7), and in Brindisi in 1879, an iron collar was found still attached around the neck of a skeleton.55 A collar found during construction work in 1892 in the Piazza Cairoli in Rome may have belonged to a funerary context, and one or more of the three examples now in the Vatican probably came from the catacombs in and around

53 On the archaeological context of this find, see Merlin 1908, 11, figs. 3, 4, pl. 1. There is no indication that a proper grave was dug or that the body was otherwise carefully deposited here; Merlin notes only the remains of a skeleton lost in the soil: “quelques débris d’un squelette, entre autres un crâne, ayant ap-partenu à une femme d’une quarantaine d’années, étaient per-dus au milieu de la terre. Avec ces ossements, on a rencontré un collier d’esclave en plomb” (Merlin 1908, 11). To my knowl-edge, no formal osteological analysis was done on the bones to substantiate this assessment of her sex and roughly 40 years of age.

54 “I am a slutty prostitute” is Harper’s (2011, 310) transla-tion. On this collar, see also Merlin et al. 1910, 138, no. 59, pl. 71, nos. 1, 1bis; Ladjimi-Sebaï 1988; Thurmond 1994, 465–66, no. 5; Leone 1996. The only other attested female slave name in this corpus is that of Petronia on a band collar in Berlin: Staat-liche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung, inv. no. Fr. 539 (CIL 15[2] 7176; Thurmond 1994, 464, no. 3).

55 Frascati: Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, inv. no. ADUT121 (CIL 15[2] 7182; Petit 1980, 185–86, no. 102). I am grateful to Paulette Pelletier-Hornby for providing access to this collar and for a stimulating discussion about it. Brindisi: Fiorelli 1879, 49 (current whereabouts un-known). This collar was found heavily corroded, making it im-possible to know whether it was inscribed. It may have been an ordinary neck shackle of the kind used to chain slaves (Thomp-son 1993, 142–43).

jennifer trimble458 [aja 120

Rome.56 The Zoninus collar, too, may have been made as a permanent fixture around a slave’s neck. Certainly its relatively good state of preservation suggests that it was found in a tomb or other protected context.

Other collars have been found in situations suggest-ing loss or deliberate discard. During construction work in Rome in 1869, a band collar was found in an underground channel at the intersection of the Via Na-zionale and the Via Torino, and another was found in Rome in 1902 at the bottom of the Tiber.57 At Ostia, a band collar was found in 1916 in the Caseggiato del Termopolio (I.II.5), in a street-front room perhaps used as a stable; the collar lay between two basalt pav-

56 Piazza Cairoli: Marchetti 1892, 21 (context), 23 (collar) pl. 1; Sommella and Salvetti 1994, 39, fig. 48. The collar was found near several sarcophagi and other remains. Thurmond (1994, 464–65, no. 4) mistakenly writes that it was found in a cook-ing vessel. Vatican Museums: On the probable findspots in the catacombs, see Morey 1936; C. Lega, pers. comm. 2014. I am grateful to Claudia Lega for generously facilitating my visit to see these three objects, including examination under the mi-croscope and lively discussion of the collars. Inv. no. 60802 is a bronze band collar, broken (CIL 15[2] 7177; Buonocore 1990, 27, no. 10; Thurmond 1994, 467, no. 8; Di Stefano Manzella 1997, 250–52). Inv. no. 60503 is a bronze tag (CIL 15[2] 7196; Buonocore 1990, 27–8, no. 11; Thurmond 1994, 483, no. 33; Di Stefano Manzella 1997, 250–52). Inv. no. 62448 is a bone tag, not ivory (CIL 15[2] 7197; Morey 1936, 55, no. A44; Thur-mond 1994, 482–83, no. 34).

57 Via Nazionale: Perugia, Museo Archeologico Nazionale dell’Umbria, inv. no. 621 (CIL 15[2] 7185 [with earlier refer-ences]; Thurmond 1994, 469, no. 12). I thank Mafalda Cipol-lone for providing information and photographs. Bottom of the Tiber: Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. no. Froehner.749 (ILS 8732; Marucchi 1902; Thurmond 1994, no. 14.) A third (see fig. 4 herein) was found on the Caelian Hill in Rome during con-struction work in 1872–1873, somewhere between the Flavian amphitheater and the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati. See supra n. 29 for references.

ers, its ends unattached. That collar’s inscription reads “Tene me ne fugia(m), fugio” (Hold me so I don’t run away; I am running away).58 In 1884, a tag was found near Tolentino, next to the ancient Via Flaminia.59 An inscribed band collar including the phrase tene me ne fugiam was found in recent years on the southern slopes of Monte Sambucaro in Lazio, just a few cen-timeters below the surface, folded up on itself.60 At Thelepte in modern Tunisia, a band collar was found during roadwork in 1937, at the southern end of the ancient city near the quarries, together with some sherds (fig. 8).61 It is not clear why these collars were discarded or lost. They may have been too damaged for further use, lost accidentally, taken off a slave’s neck by a master who was feeling merciful, or successfully removed by a slave on the run.62 In any case, these ex-amples suggest that not all collars were permanent; other outcomes were possible.

58 Rome, Museo Ostiense, inv. no. 4158 (CIL 14 5315; Thur-mond 1994, 470, no. 15). On the findspot, see Paribeni 1916, 418–19, fig. 7 (on the plan between pp. 428 and 429, this room is 31a).

59 The Tolentino tag is said to be in the Museo Comunale di Tolentino (CIL 15[2] 7181; Fiorelli 1884, 220; de Rossi and Gatti 1887, 293–96, no. 21; Thurmond 1994, 475–76, no. 22). I have not been able to confirm this.

60 Zambardi 2012.61 Poinssot 1943; Thurmond 1994, 470–71, no. 16. At Lam-

baesis in modern Algeria, the only findspot information is that a copper band collar was found 2 km northwest of the Roman army camp (Leschi 1941–1942; Thurmond 1994, 465, no. 6).

62 Several tags show evidence of having been ripped away from their original attachment, with secondary holes then punched perhaps for a subsequent display. (Pani [1984] cate-gorizes these as a third type of material in addition to the band collars and tags, as “contrassegni,” but does not recognize the evidence for successive phases of use.) I hope to explore this evi-dence more fully elsewhere.

fig. 7. Bronze collar, max. surviving diam. 13.5 cm, internal circumference 34.1 cm, ht. of band 0.8 cm, found in a tomb near Frascati in 1886. Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Collection Dutuit, inv. no. ADUT121 (© Patrick Pierrain/Petit Palais/Roger-Viollet).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 459

A third contextual pattern gives texture to the urban character of these collars. Many of the inscriptions were found in the city of Rome or are inscribed with addresses there, and the North African examples were also found in cities: Bulla Regia, Thelepte, and Lam-baesis. That is, these collars were a phenomenon of Late Antique urban slavery, not labor on farms or in mines or quarries. However, as previous scholars have noted, several have return addresses in the city of Rome but were found outside the city. The band collar found on a skeleton buried in Frascati asks the reader to return its wearer to a location on the Aventine (see fig. 7): “Tene me et reboca me Aproniano palatino ad mappa(m) aurea(m) in Abentino, quia fugi” (Hold me and return me to Apronianus the palatinus, at the Golden Napkin on the Aventine, because I have run away). The bronze tag found near Tolentino also asks for a return to the Aventine “Fugitibus so [= sum], re-voca me in Abentino in domu Potiti v(iri) c(larissimi) ad Decianas [sc. thermas]” (I am a runaway; return me to the Aventine to the house of Potitus [or Potitius], vir clarissimus, at the Decian baths).63 A third inscription refers to a place near the Circus Maximus, but this tag was found near Velletri, southeast of Rome.64 Similarly,

63 For references, see supra nn. 55 (Frascati), 59 (Tolentino).64 Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Par-

is, inv. no. ADUT122. The inscription reads “Asellus, servus Praiecti officialis praefecti annonis, foras muru(m) exivi; tene me quia fugi, reduc me ad (aedem) Flora(e) ad to(n)sores” (I, Asellus, slave of Praiectus, official of the prefect of grain, have gone outside the wall. Hold me because I have fled; lead me back to (the temple of) Flora, to the barbers) (CIL 15[2] 7172; Le Blant 1891; Petit 1980, 184–85, no. 101; Thurmond 1994, 473–74, no. 19).

a tag found near Grottaferrata bears a return address in Regio XII of Rome: the Balneum Scriboniolum.65 One or more of these collars may have been discarded by slaves who were running away. More probably, these slaves were punished by being moved from the city to harder work in the countryside.66

Where does this long modern history—including these contextual patterns—leave us in relation to Web-ster’s call to draw more fully on the power of artifacts for the study of Roman slavery? On the one hand, it may be tempting to abandon these collars altogether, given the difficulties of the evidence discussed above. In addition, the long-standing priority given to the in-scriptions has resulted in a loss of many actual objects. Modern publications often do not distinguish between extant collars and those that have long since disap-peared. In fact, about one-third of the Roman slave col-lars once recorded are currently lost. They survive only

65 The tag is said to be in the museum of the monastery in Grottaferrata. Its inscription reads “Hilarionis so (=sum), tene me et revoca me, quia fugi de r(egione) XII, a(d) baln(eum) Scriboniolum Rom(a)e” (I am Hilarionis. Hold me and return me because I have fled from region 12, at the Scriboniolum Baths in Rome). Below the inscription are an alpha and omega on either side of a ribboned crown. These baths are known only from this tag (LTUR 1:163, s.v. “Balineum Scriboniolum” [Chi-offi]). On the tag, see also CIL 15(2) 7188; de Rossi and Gatti 1887, 286–88, no. 19; Thurmond 1994, 477–78, no. 26. A de-tailed drawing is in de Rossi 1879, pl. 11.1.

66 Pani 1984, 123–25. There is evidence of a villa of the Scri-bonii Liboni near Grottaferrata, and it has been suggested that the slave named on the tag from Grottaferrata (see supra n. 65) may have been moved from the baths in Rome out to this villa to work (de Rossi and Gatti 1887, 288 [with references at n. 3]; Pani 1984, 123 n. 24).

fig. 8. Drawing of a brass collar, lgth. 27.7 cm x max. ht. 2.15 cm, thickness 0.2 cm, wt. 75 g, found in 1943 at Thelepte. Current loca-tion unknown. The inscription reads “Emeriti centurionis (servus) sum, ex offic(io) pr(a)esidi[s prov(inciae) Val(eriae) Byzacenae: te]ne me sed bene” (I am the slave of Emeritus the centurion, of the office of the praeses [of the province of Valeria Byzacena]; hold me but well) (Poinssot 1943, 153).

jennifer trimble460 [aja 120as a ghostly corpus, their inscriptions transcribed from one publication to the next. On the other hand, aban-doning the archaeological study of these collars means ignoring valuable evidence of ancient slavery and of slaves’ lives. Fortunately, the better-documented col-lars can provide a basis for reconsidering collars with little or no documentation, especially those first pub-lished during the antiquarian era. This approach also has drawbacks: exceptional collars with no findspot or other context are considered the least trustworthy and informative, and their contributions are poten-tially undervalued.

In the remainder of this article, I argue that there are additional ways forward. Specifically, I combine two approaches. The first is to reintegrate the material, vi-sual, and textual aspects of the collars. This remedies the separation between text and object charted above and also makes visible the ways in which textual, mate-rial, and visual aspects interacted to create the collars’ effects. The second approach is to consider multiple perspectives on the same object: the slave owner’s, the viewer’s or reader’s, and the slave’s. Human interactions and experiences thus become visible in the operations of these collars. Below, I attempt this kind of dual rein-tegration for the Zoninus collar.

the interests of the slave ownerThe slave owner’s interests are the easiest to identify,

since the owner (or his agent) imposed a collar and au-thorized the inscription. This perspective has been the most discussed in the existing scholarship, although only in relation to the inscriptions. In this section, I consider material and visual aspects as well to under-stand what owners sought to accomplish in collaring a slave and how those goals and interests were expressed. Above, I noted that these collars have been interpreted primarily as an alternative punishment for running away, replacing facial tattooing. A closer look suggests that not all collars served exactly the same purpose; other possibilities should be considered as well.

The Zoninus collar is made of iron and bronze; as with other collars, the utilitarian materials match the everyday language of the inscription.67 The pendant

67 Most Roman slave collars were made of bronze, with single exceptions of iron, lead, copper, and brass; the tags are bronze except for two made of bone. The inscriptions are written in ev-eryday Latin and include phonetic spellings characteristic of the time—e.g., “b” substituted for “v” (reboca for revoca, Abentino for Aventino [see fig. 7]), and fugiam written without the final

tag was cut from a flat sheet of bronze into a rectangu-lar shape with rounded corners, with a long, ribbon-like extension left at the top. This extension was bent forward and down, back onto the surface of the tag, to create a built-in attachment hoop, or bail, that was then riveted shut (see fig. 1).68 The neck ring is heavily corroded but appears to have been made from an iron wire doubled back on itself and twisted along its entire length, creating loops at either end. This iron wire was probably threaded through the tag’s attachment hoop during the making of the neck ring. Alternatively, the tag’s attachment hoop was folded over the finished neck ring and then riveted shut.

The neck ring has a circumference of about 37.7 cm. In modern U.S. shirt-collar sizes, this falls between a man’s small and medium, or a woman’s medium and large.69 Modern American necks are no doubt fleshier than those of most Roman slaves, suggesting that the Zoninus collar was large enough to fit around a man’s neck and certainly around a woman’s or a child’s. Other inscribed collars are roughly the same size, as are the uninscribed neck shackles used throughout the Roman period.70 Judging by these dimensions, the collars were fairly tight fitting and could not be lifted off over the head, but they did not interfere with breathing or in-flict immediate pain. Their intended purpose was ap-parently something else.

The inscriptions help clarify that purpose. The very first words on the Zoninus collar are fugi, tene me (“I have run away; hold me”). Almost all Roman slave col-lars ask viewers to stop the wearer from running away. The two most common phrases employed are tene me ne fugiam (“hold me so I do not run away”) and tene me

“m,” as fugia (Pani 1984; Thurmond 1994).68 Given the materials, tools, and skills required, this was

probably done in a metalworking shop. Incising the inscription required a different set of skills and may have been done once the collar and tag were assembled.

69 In current U.S. men’s shirt sizes, extra-small collars have a circumference of 13.0–13.5 in. (33.02–34.29 cm); small is 14.0–14.5 in. (35.56–36.83 cm); medium is 15.0–15.5 in. (38.10–39.37 cm); large is 16.0–16.5 in. (40.64–41.91 cm); extra-large is 17.0–17.5 in. (43.18–44.45 cm). My source for these measurements is www.overstock.com/sizing.html. U.S. women’s shirt-collar sizes are expressed a bit differently. Medi-um (sizes 8 and 10) is 14.0–14.5 in. (35.56–36.83 cm); large (sizes 12 and 14) is 15.0–15.5 in. (38.10–39.37 cm); extra-large (size 16 and up) is 16 in. (40.64 cm) (http://ulc.net/womens_shirt_size_chart.htm).

70 Thompson 1993, 59.

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 461quia fugi (“hold me because I have run away”). About half the collars also ask the reader to return the slave to the owner: revoca me (“return me”) or, phonetically spelled, reboca me. Throughout the Roman era, slave escape was a preoccupation of owners and punished by flogging, keeping the slave in chains, and tattooing letters or words on the forehead.71 In their emphasis on stopping fugitive slaves, these collars are material expressions of a concern that runs through the ancient textual sources. However, they did not physically re-strain the wearer, in contrast to the neck shackles used to chain slaves together or to a fixed object. How were they supposed to work?

One possibility is that these collars were what they claimed to be: aids in the return of a fugitive slave. In case the slave tried to run, the collar helped the owner retrieve the lost property. Many include a return ad-dress or identify the owner in such a way that he could be easily located. For example, one Minervinus be-longed to the cohors XII urbana (12th urban cohort) in Rome; one Euplogius worked in the office of the urban prefect. The Zoninus and other collars, how-ever, do not include an address, and it may not have been necessary. Owners seeking a runaway slave had several means available: magical spells, advertisements, professional slave catchers (fugitivarii), rewards, the help of friends, assistance from local magistrates and imperial officials.72 A captured fugitive could also be tortured to provide information about the owner and his address. In short, these collars were one element among many in a large and complex system of enforce-ment and retrieval.

A second possibility and the one most commonly accepted in the scholarship is that these collars were a punishment after an escape attempt. If so, the goals of punishment were to cause physical difficulties (dis-cussed below), impede any future escape attempts, and mock the slave by the use of a neck collar and in-scription written as though in the slave’s own voice:

71 Bellen 1971; Rivière 2002. On tattooing in antiquity, in-cluding the punitive tattooing of runaway slaves, see Jones 1987. On continuity of punitive facial tattooing in late antiquity, see Gustafson 1997.

72 On the Late Antique evidence, see Bellen 1971, 5–16; Rivière 2002, 164–92; Harper 2011, 256. Fuhrmann (2011) discusses the involvement of different levels of authority in the capture of runaway slaves. On fugitivarii in particular, see Cas-cione 2007. On evidence for the increasing involvement of the state in the later period, see Rivière 2002, 115–17.

“hold me.”73 A third possibility is that the collars were employed as a deterrent, aimed at the wearer and other slaves without any escape attempt having occurred. A collar made any future escape attempt more difficult. Like striped prison uniforms, a collar immediately identified the person as a fugitive, creating an addi-tional obstacle during escape. The name of the owner, the return address, and so on deterred escape by spell-ing out what would happen—that is, how any future attempt would fail.

Fourth, economic considerations are a possible fac-tor. Roman law required that sellers declare whether a slave was a flight risk, but doing so lowered his or her resale value.74 A riveted metal collar was difficult to remove, but, unlike a tattoo, it could be taken off if the owner wanted to sell the slave at a later date and conceal this history. A fifth possibility: these collars were about the fear of theft, not escape. That is, most collars ask the reader to stop the runaway, but three tags warn observers not to interfere with that slave. A tag now in Liverpool, for example, reads “Iussione (trium) d(ominorum) n(ostrorum) ne quis servum alienum suscipeat” (By order of our three lords, let no one shelter this slave belonging to someone else).75 These collars, and perhaps some others as well, appar-ently helped prevent the appropriation of the slave by someone else.76

73 For a broader discussion of the goals of Roman punish-ments, including retribution and humiliation, correction, pre-vention, and deterrence, see Coleman 1990, 44–9. On the punishments of slaves, see Bellen 1971, 17–31; Bradley 1987, 113–37. On creating a climate of fear within slavery as part of this structure of domination, see Harper 2011, 19–248.

74 Bradley and Cartledge 2011, 416.75 Liverpool, National Museums Liverpool (World Muse-

um), acc. no. M10301. I am grateful to Georgina Muskett and Steve Newman of the museum for their great help in my exami-nation of this tag. Its findspot is unknown; it was first mentioned in the early 18th century (CIL 15[2] 7171 [with earlier bibliog-raphy]; Bellen 1971, 28; Thurmond 1994, 472–73, no. 18). The other two negative injunctions are both two-sided bronze tags that say almost the same thing. CIL 15(2) 7199a is said to be in Munich in the Antiquarium of the Münchner Residenz (Thur-mond 1994, 483, no. 35a, b). The other, CIL 15(2) 7199b, is now in Paris, Cabinet des Medailles, inv. no. bronze.2316 (Ba-belon and Blanchet 1895, 716–17, no. 2316; Thurmond 1994, 483–85, no. 36a, b). Both tags identify the wearer as belonging to the garden of Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius (supra n. 44). I hope to consider these cases more fully elsewhere.

76 Bellen 1971, 28; Pani 1984, 127. Cf. Bellen’s (1971, 26) discussion of the “prophylactic” tattooing of slaves in the late fourth century C.E. to assert and retain ownership.

jennifer trimble462 [aja 120Whatever their specific purposes, the collars un-

derscored themes of ownership and control. On the Zoninus collar and several others, the owner is called dominus meus, “my master.” As already noted, some col-lars are inscribed servus sum plus a name in the genitive (“I am the slave of so-and-so”). A metal collar riveted around the neck demonstrated the owner’s mastery over the slave’s body, echoed by the phrase tene me (hold me, hold on, grab, detain, restrain me), which emphasized bodily intervention and the invitation to grasp. Slave collars made the owner’s will visible and tangible at all times, even in his or her absence. They asserted authority over the slave’s location. There was a permitted place for the slave to be (e.g., under the di-rect control of Zoninus, or at the address specified on other examples). If the slave went beyond or was taken beyond that permitted place, any onlooker was invited to intervene to uphold the owner’s property rights. An inscribed slave collar participated in a “geography of containment,” one element of a much larger landscape of control and enforcement.77

The decision to collar a slave was also a visual act. The slave owner employed visual signs (the shape of the collar, the presence of writing, visual symbols) to permanently mark the slave in a certain way for all others to see. In this context, Christian symbols, such as the palm on the Zoninus inscription, a Chi-Rho, or an alpha and omega, can be seen as lending authority, legitimacy, and good fortune to the owner’s project.78 Permanently marking the bodies of slaves—whether by whips and other beatings, punitive tattoos, or metal neck collars—is a characteristic theme in Roman slav-ery.79 In the later Imperial period, permanent marking seems to have been employed more widely: not just for slaves and condemned criminals but also for cer-tain soldiers and workers.80 The latter two groups were tattooed to identify the group and the place to which

77 This term is explored by Camp (2004) for the antebellum United States. Joshel (2013) considers it in relation to slaves in Roman houses and villas.

78 De Rossi 1892, 12; Bellen 1971, 28. Rivière (2002, 153 n. 119; cf. 115–16) notes that the Christian symbols on some slave collars continued a long-standing role for religion in help-ing Roman owners retrieve runaway slaves. In many other slave systems, the slave master is assigned control over symbolic as well as physical forms of power (Patterson 1982, 8–9).

79 Kamen 2010. Gustafson (1997) discusses Late Antique practices and modern theories of what it means to mark the body permanently.

80 Bellen 1971, 25–6.

they belonged. In other words, the inscribed slave col-lars belong to a broader phenomenon of Late Roman visual and epigraphic culture, in which people were increasingly marked in relation to spatial control.81

Visual, material, and textual aspects thus intersect, notably in the appropriation of the slave’s own voice. On the Zoninus collar, the inscription is written in the first-person singular: fugi, “I have run away”; tene me, “hold me”; cum revocaveris me domino meo, “when you have returned me to my master.” This is typical of Roman slave-collar inscriptions, which communicate the interests of the owner in the first-person voice of the slave.82 At the same time, the collars address a viewer in the second-person singular, “you.” The Zoninus inscription reads tene me, “hold me”; cum revocaveris me, “when you have returned me”; accipis, “you will receive.” In this use of a first and second per-son, the Zoninus collar adopts a form of interactive writing also seen in Roman graffiti, funerary inscrip-tions, and elsewhere to hail a reader and demand a re-sponse. The slave collars are thus “speaking objects” within a long Graeco-Roman tradition that includes gravestones, cups and other personal property, and walls inscribed in the first-person singular.83 Speaking objects address a reader outside themselves, advocate for someone who is not present, and demand that the reader accomplish something for that absent person. For example, a gravestone speaking on behalf of the de-ceased demanded that the reader remember the dead. A personal object inscribed with the words “I am the property of so-and-so” warded off appropriation. Slave collars demanded the reader’s attention on behalf of the absent owner to assert the owner’s control of the slave. They inscribed the collared person as an object and declared the owner’s voice to be the legitimate one.

81 In this, Late Roman collars recall the slave badges employed in 19th-century Charleston, South Carolina. These metal badg-es, each one marked with the year, the badge number, and the kind of work the slave was permitted to do, had to be worn on the clothing of enslaved people who were working for hire in the city. The badges were not directly connected to slave escape, and the historical situation is very different. However, they share with the Roman collars an emphasis on the visible marking and spatial control of enslaved people in an urban context. On the Charleston slave badges, see Singleton 1984; Greene et al. 2004.

82 The only exception is the collar in Liverpool (supra n. 75).83 E.g., Svenbro 1993; Koortbojian 1996. On the interactive

dynamics of graffiti, see Levin-Richardson 2013; Milnor 2014, 53–4.

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 463Considered from the owner’s perspective, then, the

material, visual, and textual dimensions of the Zoninus collar worked together in powerful ways. The domi-nant theme was the master’s control over the slave. This included mastery over the boundaries of the slave’s body, redefined by the metal collar; the power to inscribe and identify the slave and to appropriate his or her voice; the power to say where the slave should be; the corralling of spectators in support of the master’s property rights. Within this overarching theme, the collars could serve several purposes: deterring future escape attempts, punishing past escape attempts, warn-ing other people to keep their hands off the owner’s property. At the same time, there were dangers in so visibly inscribing a slave. Any such collar indicated that the slave was a flight risk who perhaps had already got-ten away from the owner once. The collar asserted the owner’s control, but only by inscribing the slave as an ongoing threat to that control. Finally, all these obser-vations depend on an outside audience: these collars were made to be seen. Understanding them more fully means considering the perspective of the collars’ view-ers and readers as well.

the perspective of viewers and readersWho saw the Zoninus and similar collars, and how

did people see them? Roman slave collars made de-mands and thus implied an audience, but the interests and perspectives of that audience were not necessarily the same as the owner’s. The slave owner might try to elicit a certain response, but there was no guarantee that viewers and readers would provide it. In the ab-sence of any direct evidence for viewers and readers, modern theories of audience response are helpful and underlie the following discussion.84 In particular, his-torical reception theory points to the importance of reconstructing the expectations and assumptions of a viewer or reader in the fourth or fifth century. Recep-tion aesthetics offers a valuable complementary ap-proach: analysis of the objects themselves to see what kind of viewing and reading they anticipated and how they construct audience response. An immediate prob-lem is that we have no direct evidence about who the viewers were and in what contexts they saw a collared

84 Key theoretical works informing this section are Iser 1974; Jauss 1982. See also the discussion in Holub 1984. On apply-ing reception theory to visual images and things seen, see Kemp 1992, 1998; Holly 2002; Trimble 2015.

slave.85 In this section, I begin by considering the most likely viewing situations for these collars.

The primary viewing contexts for the Zoninus and other slave collars were the working environments con-trolled by the slave owners, unless a collared slave ran away or was sold to someone else—for example, the home or workplace of Zoninus (see fig. 1), the shop of Maximianus the antiquary near the Forum of Mars (see fig. 4), a brothel at Bulla Regia (see fig. 6), and so on. Most of these environments probably held a num-ber of slaves with marked hierarchies of treatment.86 For slave owners or supervisors in those places, a col-lar marked that slave as different from other slaves and also reminded viewers that this slave was considered a flight risk. The collar may accordingly have provoked closer supervision and harsher treatment of the slave who wore it (e.g., more restraints and physical abuse, harder work, less food). For such viewers, the details of the inscription could be ignored, made a pretext for mockery and abuse, or something else. In any case, this was a repeated, habitual viewing.

For other slaves working in the same environment, especially those vulnerable to being collared them-selves, the responses were surely varied. Fellow slaves could see and understand the physical experience of wearing a metal collar, including any associated pain, restriction of the movement of the collared slave’s head, and responses by supervisors. Some might ac-cordingly shun a collared slave out of disdain or fear, if they were better placed within the household hierarchy or if they thought their own best tactics were to appear fully compliant with the owner’s wishes. Alternatively, other slaves might admire the runaway for trying to escape and even seek his or her advice for an attempt of their own.87 A third likely scenario is that the impo-sition of a collar strengthened the slave’s bonds with sympathetic family members and friends.88 This list is

85 I am grateful to Walter Scheidel for a helpful discussion of this problem. Contextual information exists for only a few of the collars (see the section “Problems and Possibilities Now” here-in); those findspots tell us about a collar’s final place and context but not about how and where it was seen while around the neck of a living person.

86 Bradley and Cartledge 2011, 321–30. 87 There is some evidence that slaves sometimes got help from

outside for an escape attempt (Daube 1952). 88 On familial and other bonds among slaves, see Joshel 1992;

Bradley and Cartledge 2011, 337–61. For the fourth century C.E. in particular, see Harper 2011, 261–80.

jennifer trimble464 [aja 120necessarily speculative, but the unifying point is that a neck collar arguably intensified other slaves’ responses, for better and for worse. A second key point is that in the owner’s working environment, the collar was seen over and over again by the same people. Even if these slaves could read, the inscription’s details were prob-ably less important than the collar’s physical character-istics in determining their responses.

A second situation to consider is that the collared slave may have had some mobility outside the owner’s property. On the one hand, the inscriptions typically declare the slave to be a flight risk, which might sug-gest that collared slaves were kept strictly within the confines of the owner-designated working environ-ment. On the other hand, these are not the kind of neck shackles that chained the slave to a particular place. And, if the audience were only internal, there would be no need to inscribe the collars, or to make the owner’s control visible in this particular way, or to provide return addresses or, in the case of the Zoni-nus collar, a reward. It is probable, then, that at least some of these collared slaves had limited permission to move around outside the owner’s property, either under direct supervision of the owner or an agent of the owner, or independently, in order to carry out their required work in the immediate neighborhood or along known routes.

Here it is relevant that many of these collars origi-nated in an urban setting. The return addresses in the city of Rome testify to the face-to-face and localized nature of urban neighborhoods there. There were no systematic street addresses. Instead, these locations are typically identified in relation to a larger region or landmark within the city (e.g., the Forum of Mars [see fig. 4] or the Aventine Hill [see fig. 7]). To then find the specific house or workplace within a particu-lar zone—for example, the house of Flavius on the Via Lata (see fig. 3) or the shop of Maximianus the anti-quary in the Forum of Mars (see fig. 6)—one had to ask (or be) a local. In this face-to-face society, locals and regulars in the neighborhood presumably recog-nized one another, and a collared slave going about his or her authorized duties might not be interfered with. He or she was at risk of seizure only if he or she moved beyond those limits into an unfamiliar or unauthorized area.89 For this neighborhood audience, then, the collar

89 This may explain the tag that states, “I, Asellus, . . . have gone outside the wall” (for the inscription and bibliography,

became part of the recognized identity of that particu-lar slave. The collar provided authoritative information in case of any question, as well as an ongoing reminder of the control of the owner and the spatial limitations imposed on that slave.

Finally, we should consider the situation that the collars speak most directly about, an actual escape at-tempt. The Zoninus collar and others may only rarely have functioned as what they claimed to be, useful aids in recapturing a runaway slave. Still, at the very least they participated in broader attitudes and practices concerning fugitive slaves and can be analyzed ac-cordingly. This flight situation implies a very different audience and sequence of viewing and reading. Here, it is useful to reconstruct a progressive approach, ask-ing what could be seen at what point, and with what effects. Especially in urban environments, people were surrounded by statues, painted images, inscriptions, graffiti, processions, visual markers of social status, and, increasingly in the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian buildings, imagery, and symbols. These col-lars were seen and interpreted in relation to that sur-rounding visual culture.

From a distance, the presence of a collar around the neck was probably visible first. A viewer might also be able to see that the collar was inscribed, although not yet the words themselves (on the Zoninus collar, the letters are only 0.7 cm high). The collars borrowed from the appearance of public inscriptions, employing capital letters and sometimes interpuncts. The letters of the collar found at Thelepte were still filled with the red paint (minium) typically employed on inscriptions on stone (see fig. 8). Like public inscriptions, the col-lars asked viewers to approach and learn what event was being announced or commemorated.90

Above, I mentioned Late Antique practices of per-manent marking of the body. In the Roman world, and even more so in the Late Antique period, clothing, or-nament, and other visual signs on the body communi-cated a great deal about social identity and status. Even from a distance, slave collars were visibly different from, for example, necklaces, which were often made of precious metals or colorful gems. Nor was this a bulla, the amulet that hung on a strap around the neck

see supra n. 64). Dey (2011, 213–14) suggests that Asellus had permission to move around only within the Aurelianic walls of the city and could be stopped if found beyond them.

90 Susini 1988.

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 465of a freeborn boy and marked his social status, a prac-tice that may have continued into the Late Antique pe-riod.91 As visual signs, neck collars were associated with slaves.92 Some viewers (including slave owners, slave catchers, and some slaves) may have been especially familiar with fugitive slave collars and so recognized exactly what this was, even at a distance.

Recognizing a slave collar, however, required an im-mediate decision. Should the viewer seize the slave, do nothing, or help him or her escape? This decision had potentially serious consequences, linking one mo-ment of interaction to a much larger apparatus: Roman law penalized anyone who helped a fugitive slave get away.93 And yet, the same sources also show that people sometimes helped fugitive slaves escape or ap-propriated runaway slaves for their own uses. In other words, as the author of the collar, the owner could try to shape the outcome of such an encounter, but he could not guarantee that the viewer would do as asked.

Moving closer to the Zoninus collar changed the viewing and reading experience. For viewers with even partial literacy, coming closer brought the top of the in-scription into view. Its position and formulaic language made the first line much easier to read than the rest of the text: “fugi, tene me” (I have run away; hold me) (see fig. 1). For any viewers already familiar with slave collars—for example, professional slave catchers—seeing even a word or two of this phrase immediately told them what kind of inscription this was. Sixteen other slave-collar tags take advantage of the height-ened visibility of the first line by placing the “hold me!” command at the very start: TENE, TENEME (see fig. 4), TENEME (fig. 9), TENE•ME•, TENIME, TEN-EMEQ, TEN E ME Q, TENE•ME•QVIA• (see fig. 3), TENEME•QVIA•, TENEMEQVIA, TENEMEQVI,

91 Goette 1986.92 Neck shackles were part of the chains used to restrain or

punish slaves and were commonly associated with them in Ro-man culture (e.g., Plaut., Capt. 357). On the archaeological evi-dence, see Thompson 1993. Pre-Constantinian evidence for slaves and collars is discussed in Bieber 1950; Thurmond 1994, 460–61; Rivière 2002, 147–52. Rivière makes a strong case for all of these earlier examples being different in nature and func-tion from the Late Antique inscribed collars that are of interest here.

93 Legal penalties for helping or appropriating an escaped slave are listed in Bellen 1971, 58–63; Harper 2011, 259 n. 81. Harper notes on page 260 that “state and society threw up a for-midable net for the detection and return of fugitives,” which came apart in the fifth and sixth centuries.

TENEMEQVI, TENEMENE, TENEMENEFV, TENEMEQVIAFVG, TENEMEQVIAFVGIO.94 On one tag, a Chi-Rho is placed on either side of “TE-NEME” on the top line, adding visual emphasis and setting off that phrase from the remainder of the in-scription (see fig. 4).

In this way, the Zoninus collar and similar tags con-structed a two-stage reading. The immediate demand

94 Not all tag collars are structured in this way, and the situa-tion is obviously different for band collars, whose inscriptions run in a single line around the neck (cf. figs. 6–8). The 16 tags listed here are (1) CIL 15(2) 7195; Thurmond 1994, 481–82, no. 32; (2) CIL 15(2) 7190; Thurmond 1994, 479, no. 28a; (3) Pietrangeli 1957; (4) CIL 15(2) 7183; Thurmond 1994, 476, no. 23; (5) CIL 15(2) 7197; Thurmond 1994, 482–83, no. 34; (6) CIL 15(2) 7189; Thurmond 1994, 478–79, no. 27; (7) CIL 15(2) 7192; Thurmond 1994, 480–81, no. 30a; (8) CIL 15(2) 7186; Thurmond 1994, 476–77, no. 24; (9) Babelon and Blan-chet 1895, 717, no. 2317; (10) Spano 1863; (11) CIL 15(2) 7190; Thurmond 1994, 479, no. 28b; (12) CIL 15(2) 7187; Thurmond 1994, 477, no. 25; (13) CIL 15(2) 7193; Thurmond 1994, 481, no. 31; (14) CIL 15(2) 7196; Thurmond 1994, 482, no. 33; Di Stefano Manzella 1997; (15) CIL 6 41335; Thur-mond 1994, 485, no. 37; (16) Solin 1993, 293–94, no. 53.

fig. 9. Bronze tag bought from an antiquities dealer in Rome in 1957, max. wdth. 5.2 cm x max. ht. 6.1 cm, findspot unknown. Rome, Antiquarium Comunale, inv. no. 14301. The inscription reads “Tene me ne fugia(m) et revoca me at [=ad] ni(m)feu(m) Alexandri” (Hold me so I do not run away and return me to the Nymphaeum of Alexander) (courtesy Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini, neg. Ant.Com 14301).

jennifer trimble466 [aja 120was the most visible and easily read; this phrase be-longed to a first stage of reading. If a viewer ignored the command and decided to help the slave instead, appropriate the slave for his own uses, or simply move on without interfering, reading stopped there. The rest of the inscription belonged to a second stage of read-ing, one that required a more active involvement on the part of the reader and had different requirements. The remaining words were harder to see below that first line, and their unique details were more difficult to read than the formulaic “hold me” command. The rest of the Zoninus collar, for example, reads “cum revocaveris me domino meo Zonino, accipis solidum” (when you have returned me to my master Zoninus, you will get a gold coin). Readers had to come very close to the collared slave to see the full inscription, and they had to have enough time to sound out the entire text.95 For this to happen, the slave had to agree or be forced to stand still, his or her body acting as the inscribed surface read by the reader. A full reading of a slave collar thus required the slave’s immobility or at least submission; a precon-dition of reading was violence.

This situation is even more marked for band col-lars (e.g., figs. 6–8). Reading the entire inscription re-quired either that the reader move all the way around the slave’s neck and body or that the slave turn around at the reader’s convenience. And in fact, this two-stage reading matches what we know about slave catching in the Roman world. The capture and return of the runaway were different phases, and the latter could in-volve multiple steps by different parties. Once seized, a runaway could be returned directly to the owner or turned over to the local authorities to be held while awaiting the next stage of return.96 For both tags and band collars, reading the full inscription could happen at a reader’s leisure once the fugitive had been seized, and repeated during the process of return as often as needed. In all these ways, the Zoninus and other

95 These texts were probably read aloud by most of their read-ers, since there were no spaces between the words and the line breaks sometimes fell in the middle of a word; the reader had to sound out what the inscription said. This does not exclude a silent reading. Johnson (2000) usefully reviews the scholarly arguments for reading aloud or silently in antiquity, before pro-posing a broader and more sociological approach.

96 A passage from Ulpian preserved in Justinian’s Digest (11.4.1.3; discussed in Fuhrmann 2011, 33–4) states that cap-tured runaways were to be turned over to the municipal authori-ties, who then handed them over to the vigiles or the provincial governor; see also Harper 2011, 259.

slave collars strongly shaped their own viewing and reception. How they did so illuminates the ideas and practices that shaped these collars and highlights the human and institutional interactions of which these collars were a part.

the perspective of the slaveLastly, I turn to the collared slaves. Their interests

and experiences were very different from those of the slave owners or the viewers and readers. Considered from the vantage point of the person who had to wear one, an inscribed metal collar was something else again. For this reason, the experiences of the collared slaves are also an important part of what these objects were and how they worked. However, exploring this per-spective is difficult, for it means trying to understand the interests and agency of enslaved people through the oppressive tools of the masters. One way forward is to reconstruct the lived experience of a slave collar. Another is to invert the master narrative as a means of accessing slave agency. I want to stress that this remains a preliminary attempt.

Notwithstanding the various reasons why a collar might be imposed, all collared slaves experienced the forcible fixing of a band around the neck. For the Zoni-nus or any other collar to be put on, the slave had to be held immobile, either through force or submission. The metal ring was opened wide enough for the two ends to pass on either side of the neck, and then it was bent closed around the neck, either by hand or with the help of tools. The two ends of the neck ring were then made to overlap, and a rivet was run through the terminal loops or holes, from inside to outside. The protruding rivet was then hammered down onto the collar (i.e., onto the human neck inside); this pounding increased the rivet’s diameter beyond that of the rivet holes, permanently securing the closure (see figs. 1, 6–8). A metal or wooden guard was likely placed be-tween neck and collar to allow the collar to be properly hammered shut. These steps suggest that a blacksmith, or a person with at least some metalworking skills, per-formed the actual collaring.97

Once a collar was in place, its dimensions (discussed above) meant that the wearer was made continuously

97 The household’s other slaves may well have been required to watch the spectacle, in keeping with Roman punishment practices and the characteristic maintenance of a climate of fear as a control mechanism for slavery (Bradley 1987, 113–37; Harper 2011, 219–48).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 467aware of its presence. If the neck band was taller than 1 or 2 cm, it will have interfered with the neck’s full range of motion, especially when the wearer was looking down. Metal conducts temperature well, meaning that such a collar became more uncomfortable in very hot or cold weather. Metal is also rigid, unlike the cloth of a shirt collar. This meant that the normal movements of a human head and neck caused the collar continually to bump up against the neck. Unless the enslaved person was able to buffer the collar with cloth or something similarly soft, a neck ring of this size was likely to cause chafing, potentially followed by sores, open wounds, and serious infection. The funerary evidence discussed above shows that at least some slaves had to cope with the physical and mental challenges of wearing a metal neck collar for the rest of their lives.

Ironically for a punishment that was so strongly about visual signification—or perhaps this was part of the point—the collared slave was the one person who could not actually see the collar or read what it said. For the slave, the collar was experienced physically; for everyone else, it was primarily a visual experience, something seen. The collared person felt the collar around her neck but saw it primarily through the eyes and responses of others. From the slave’s perspective, the collar thus operated as a mirror, albeit a distorting and splintering one, reflecting the collared slave’s iden-tity through the varied responses of onlookers. The owner or the owner’s agents had required the collar to be affixed, but in doing so they shifted definitions of the slave’s identity and lived experience onto any and all beholders. Those beholders, as we have seen, mir-rored back an unpredictable array of responses, and the slave had to cope with all of them. The neck collar blurred the body’s physical boundaries, and this blur-ring was experienced in part through the fracturing visual gazes of others.

What agency did the collared slave have in these cir-cumstances, and how might we see it? Scholars of slav-ery have explored resistance as one way to see slaves’ desires and needs at work. Attempted flight, for exam-ple, is a form of direct resistance to the slave owner and the slave’s situation. Studies of resistance, in slavery as in political history, have been extended productively to a broader spectrum of everyday actions and deci-sions, including foot dragging, truancy, petty theft, or sabotage.98 A drawback of the concept of resistance

98 On resisting Roman slavery, see Bradley 1994, 107–131. Owners’ complaints about laziness, petty theft, etc., can be seen

is that it frames everything in the binary terms of the master’s wishes and the slave’s opposition and misses a more complex and holistic view. More recent scholar-ship has instead focused on the interactions between the structural realities that shaped people’s lives and the ways in which people lived and acted in relation to those constraints. Considerations of agency emerge from this background.99

In the Zoninus and similar collars, at first sight we see only the terms established and enforced by the slave owners. One way to recuperate the agency of slaves is to consider inversions and subversions of a collar’s ver-sion of events. Most notably, almost all the collars ask the reader to stop the wearer from running away; such a collar framed the slave, textually and physically, as prop-erty and as a flight risk. It is therefore worth considering escape from the perspective of the enslaved person. The ancient sources make clear that running away was dan-gerous. Roman law, enforcement practices, and social conventions were all heavily weighted against the fugi-tive.100 Recaptured runaways were severely punished.101 Still, slaves ran away, whether because their masters were unbearably cruel or for other reasons. Whether these collars respond to potential or actual escape at-tempts, they indicate some direct resistance. In other words, these collars attest simultaneously to degrading and painful punishments and to the determination and courage of the people who wore them.

as evidence of slaves resisting and manipulating situations in their own interests ( Joshel 2013). Cf. Orser and Funari (2001) on slave resistance in the New World. Camp (2004, 1–11) dis-cusses resistance and the complexities and contradictions of en-slaved people’s lives in the American South.

99 Fundamental is Giddens’ (1984) theory of structuration (a lucid explanation is found in Sewell 1992). On how these ideas might be productive for the study of Roman slavery, see Harper 2011, 214–16.

100 Fuhrmann (2011, 21–43) argues that Roman enforce-ment mechanisms were united against fugitive slaves as in no other situation, including coordination among civilian, imperi-al, gubernatorial, and military levels of policing. Rivière (2002) discusses reasons slaves ran away and where they might go.

101 Harper (2011, 259) notes that in the long fourth cen-tury C.E., the state could become involved, with certain run-away slaves condemned to the mines or amputation of a foot. Fuhrmann (2011, 30) points out that, more generally, “the Ro-mans were not exceptional for their attitude toward runaways, which was neither new for its time nor unique in world history; it is their particular coordinated methods that prove exception-al.” Comparative work shows that extreme forms of domination (including slavery) always depend on extreme violence (Patter-son 1982).

jennifer trimble468 [aja 120By contrast, the three slave tags that warn readers

not to interfere with the slave suggest a different situ-ation.102 On the one hand, if these tags were attached by metal neck rings, like the Zoninus collar, then the tag’s specific purpose may not have mattered much: whatever the owner’s motivation, the slave still had to wear a metal neck collar. On the other hand, these three tags seem not to carry the same punitive charge against the slave. It is therefore possible that these particular tags were affixed more comfortably—for example, by a looser neck band or one made of softer stuff than metal. Unfortunately, no evidence survives with the tags. Two points mitigate against this gentler vision, however. First, for a tag to be effective in warn-ing off other people and helping prevent the theft of the slave, it presumably had to be attached to the slave in a way not easy to remove. Second, these tags suggest some mistrust of the slave’s potential involvement in his or her own theft.103 All these collars and tags, with fugitive or other inscriptions, thus point to a limited agency on the part of the collared slaves. To put this another way, enslaved people actively thought about how to improve their own situations, albeit within a severely restricted range of options. These collars point to an ongoing calculus about whether, when, and how to run away, about whether a different owner might be an improvement, about how to ease their lives, if only in small ways.104

To consider another aspect, the first-person inscrip-tions make a point of appropriating the slave’s voice in the interests of the owner: “I have run away; hold me.” However, the slave was physically present for any read-ing of an affixed collar. This juxtaposition of words and body calls attention to what is appropriated, the slave’s own voice and ability to speak on his or her own behalf. But the slave could potentially contradict the owner’s inscription with his own voice. There is evidence of runaway slaves speaking in their own interests: justi-fying their escape attempts by describing the terrible

102 Supra n. 75.103 Daube (1952) discusses earlier evidence of a well-known

racket between urban slaves and slave catchers; with the lat-ter’s help, a slave could run away and remain hidden in a safe place while the slave catcher offered to buy the lost slave from the owner at a reduced price, ostensibly taking on the risk that the slave might never be found. The slave catcher might then re-sell the slave to a presumably preferable owner or free the slave in exchange for the slave’s peculium (cf. Rivière 2002, 118–19).

104 On the small ways enslaved persons found to ease and im-prove their lives, see Joshel 2013; Joshel and Petersen 2014.

cruelty of the master or by offering to do something for the benefit of the interlocutor in return for help.105 Even if fictionalized, these accounts nonetheless sug-gest a cultural expectation that slaves might speak for themselves, potentially with effect.

The agency described here was a negative agency, one available only within the terms established by the owners and by the larger institution.106 So, for example, the ancient sources make clear that a slave who had once attempted to escape was worth less on the market in any future sale. In other words, slaves had a nega-tive power to reshape their own commodification; by running away, they could lessen their own commod-ity value.107 Similarly, most of the collars document a refusal to act as a “good” slave and an embrace of the persona of “bad” slave instead—that is, a flight risk. In this negative sense, a fugitive collar enshrined the collared person’s agency in driving a whole chain of events, whether potential or actual: an escape attempt, other people’s pursuit, the sabotaging of his or her own commodity value, the making and attachment of the collar, the inscribed visibility of the slave as an ongo-ing threat, the permanent inscription of the owner’s lack of total control.

conclusions Webster, quoted at the start of this article, has urged

scholars to exploit the power of artifacts for the study of Roman slavery. Doing so, however, is not straight-forward. In this article, I explored some reasons why that is difficult and suggested ways to move forward. Taking the Zoninus and other Roman slave collars as a revealing case study, I first traced the enduring and underappreciated effects of a long modern history of scholarship. In particular, the antiquarian separation of text and object continues to shape both the surviving

105 For examples of slave eloquence and persuasiveness, see Bradley 1994, 107–9. Certain magistrates were required to hear the complaints of slaves, but Bradley (1987, 123–24) points out that whether slaves could get to a magistrate, be heard, and find recourse is a very different matter.

106 For a fascinating discussion of female slaves negotiating a voice within the framework of their oppression, see Levin- Richardson 2013.

107 Roman law and slave-sale practices drew a distinction be-tween servi vincti (slaves who had at some point been kept in chains and who were thus characterized as more dangerous or a flight risk) and servi soluti (those who had never been punished in this way and were hence worth more on the market) (Roth 2011).

The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery2016] 469material and scholarly approaches to it. Well beyond slave collars, this anachronistic split has implications for current debates about what material culture can contribute to the study of Roman slavery. In the sec-ond part of the paper, I proposed a dual remedy: re-integrating text and object, and considering multiple ancient perspectives on the same material. The ma-terial, visual, and textual aspects of Roman slave col-lars interacted in powerful ways, and they did so very differently for slave owners, viewers and readers, and collared slaves. Analyzed in this way, these objects are evidence of the lived experience of slavery, particularly in the urban context of Late Antique Rome. They tell us something about how people—both free and un-free—experienced this institution and acted within it.

This has also been a limited study. I have focused on a single artifact and a single artifact type. My results are qualitative rather than quantitative or systemic. By focusing on inscribed objects, I have sidestepped the difficult methodological problem of how to locate slaves in material culture. This article has not engaged with many of the approaches currently employed in the archaeology of slavery, whether in the Roman world or in other times and places. Still, I hope that even a lim-ited case study can show the importance of challenging the separation of text and object and the possibilities of taking a different approach. The Zoninus and other slave collars are a phenomenon of urban slavery in the Early Christian period in the western Roman empire, especially the city of Rome. At the same time, they par-ticipated in longer-term Roman practices of marking and controlling the bodies of slaves. Roman slave col-lars show how Roman visual, epigraphic, and material culture were marshaled to explain and enforce ideas about human property. Their study suggests that there is ample potential for more fully integrating material culture and Roman slavery.

Jennifer TrimbleDepartment of ClassicsStanford UniversityStanford, California 94305–2145trimble@stanford.edu

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