Note 45 — LIFE OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.

The words in Plutarch literally signify “barbarian prisons,” but I have used the word ergastula, which was the Roman name, though it is a word of Greek origin, and signifies “working-places.” The ergastula were places generally under ground and lighted from above: they were used both as places to work in and as lodging-places for slaves who cultivated the fields in chains. (Plinius, N.H. 18, c. 3; Floras, iii. 19.) They were also places of punishment for refractory slaves. The object of these places of confinement was also to prevent slaves from running away, and rising in insurrection. The slaves were placed at night in separate cells to prevent all communication between them. When the slaves broke out in rebellion in Sicily under Eunus, who is mentioned by Plutarch (Sulla, c. 36), the ergastula were broken open, and a servile army of above sixty thousand men was raised. The Roman master had full power over his slave, who was merely viewed as an animal; and these ergastula, being in the country and out of sight, would give a cruel master full opportunity of exercising his tyranny. They were abolished by the Emperor Hadrian (Spartianus, Hadrianus, 18).