748 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
were considerable. . . . . . . . Renting of land to the slave has already been noticed. . . . and in industry much the same system was used in various forms; the master might lease a bank, or a business of the use of a ship, the terms being a fixed return or the slave being paid on a commission basis” [1] .
“The earnings of the slave became in law his peculium. Once the peculium was saved it might be used to a variety of purposes. No doubt in many cases this fund was expended in providing food or pleasure...... But peculium must not be regarded merely as petty savings, casually earned and idly spent. The slave who made his master’s business yield profits, to his own profit too, very often, had a keen sense of the best use to make up his own money. Often he reinvested it in his master’s business or in enterprises entirely unrelated to it. He could enter into business relations with his master, from whom he came to be regarded as entirely distinct, or he could make contracts with a third person. He could even have procurators to manage his own property and interests. And so with the peculium may be found not only land, houses, shops but rights and claims.
“The activities of slaves in commerce are innumerable; numbers of them are shopkeepers selling every variety of food, bread, meat, salt, fish, wine vegetables, beans, Aupineseed, honey, curd, ham, ducks and fresh fish, others deal in clothing—sandals, shoes, gowns and mantles. In Rome, they plied their trade in the neighbourhood of the Circus Maximus, or the Porticus Trigeminus; or the Esquiline Market, or the Great Mart (on the Caolian Hill) or the Suburra [2] . . . . .
The extent to which slave secretaries and agents acted for their masters is shown very clearly in the receipts found in the house of Caecilius Jucundus at Pompei [3] .
That the State should possess slaves is not surprising; war, after all, was the affair of the State and the captive might well be State-property. What is surprising is the remarkable use made of public slaves under the Empire and the extraordinary social position occupied by them. . . . . ”
1 Slavery in the Roman Empire, pp. 101-102.
2 Ibid, p. 105.
3 Slavery in the Roman Empire, p. 106.