Tea at Trianon: Slave Collars in Ancient Rome

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 16, 2021

Slave Collars in Ancient Rome

From JSTOR Daily:

Among the most fascinating relics of ancient Roman culture are “speaking objects,” a broad category of artifacts bearing inscriptions written in the first person, as if the object itself is addressing the viewer. Tombstones asking passersby to stop and contemplate life are one classic example; also common are personal items such as wine cups inviting drinkers to have a good time. In stark contrast are “speaking” slave collars dating to the fourth and fifth centuries CE that are inscribed with variations on the phrase “Hold me! I have run away.”

Classicist Jennifer Trimble explains why these speaking objects are so fascinating. Although they “make visible the lives of some of the most invisible people in the historical record,” she writes, the collars’ first-person inscriptions often say where and to whom the wearer should be returned—presumably not what someone hoping to escape slavery would choose to say with their own voice. (Read more.)