Curious case of 1/3 free slave

[Epictetus]

I have come across a strange citation of a papyrus dated to 186 AD in Egypt that announces a “public auction of two-thirds ownership parts in a slave, the other one-third part already being free.” (B.P. Grenfell (ed), Oxyrhynchus papyri, 4:716 cited in William Westermann's The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity).

Initially this was quite confusing, as I thought freedom and slavery were mutually exclusive. But then I recalled that slaves were sometimes owned via joint-stock endeavours just like any other asset.

So I’m trying to figure out how a slave could become 1/3 free. One way, I think, is if the owner of 1/3 of a slave died and manumitted him. Another possibility is if the slave bought his freedom in stages, instead of saving up all the money he would need over decades. What do you think? Could there be other ways to achieve partial freedom?

Then my next question deals with what life would have been like for someone 1/3 free. I suppose in the case of a skilled craftsman or professional, life would go on as normal but the person would be entitled to 1/3 of his earnings, while 2/3 would go to his owners. Correct?

But what about a slave that did not have any independent earning power, like a domestic servant or someone owned by the mines? How would that work? Would they be “free” for one day and then have to work for their owner for two days? I really have no idea how partial freedom would work under this scenario.

[M. Demetrius]

That doesn't seem to fit in the modern version of freedom, does it? Interesting idea!

[john m roberts]

If I owned 2/3 of a slave, I'd allow him to be free for the 8 hours he slept.

[Valerian Pertinax]

Sounds vaguely similar to the 3/5 rule used in America to determine the voting power of African Americans.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

If I owned 2/3 of a slave, I'd allow him to be free for the 8 hours he slept.

Lol'd at this :lol:

@Matthew Lehman

It does, although I doubt he could actually vote.

I think it means he was paying for his freedom in installments like mentioned in the first post.

[Valerian Pertinax]

I misspoke a little bit. The 3/5 rule was for counting the enslaved population of a state for the purposes of determining it's number of seats in the House of Representatives. And even though it isn't the same as declaring a person to be fractionally free, it's still an interesting way of counting an electorate.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I misspoke a little bit. The 3/5 rule was for counting the enslaved population of a state for the purposes of determining it's number of seats in the House of Representatives. And even though it isn't the same as declaring a person to be fractionally free, it's still an interesting way of counting an electorate.

Yeah well, we're more civilized now.

[Nathan Ross]

I really have no idea how partial freedom would work under this scenario.

I would suggest that the original three owners were not very wealthy - otherwise they wouldn't have had to club together to buy a single slave. Perhaps they were neighbouring farmers with small plots, who bought the slave between them and shared his labour? Or co-owners of a workshop? One of them died or sold up and freed his 'portion' of the slave, leaving the other two (who perhaps still couldn't afford to buy the third 'portion'!) to share the two-thirds of remaining servitude?

It's a fascinating case anyway, but I expect rather a grass-roots thing, at the level of society where perhaps the boundaries between freedom and slavery were not as exact as we might consider them today...

[Epictetus]

I would suggest that the original three owners were not very wealthy - otherwise they wouldn't have had to club together to buy a single slave. Perhaps they were neighbouring farmers with small plots, who bought the slave between them and shared his labour? Or co-owners of a workshop? One of them died or sold up and freed his 'portion' of the slave, leaving the other two (who perhaps still couldn't afford to buy the third 'portion'!) to share the two-thirds of remaining servitude?

In Westermann there is a long list of slave transactions (I was actually interested in the prices of things when I came across this). If we just look at the second century, it lists 30 different sales or notices of sales from across the Empire. Of the 30, 26 were transactions for entire slaves. Four were for partial shares: three for 2/3rds, and one for 1/5. So at only a 15% rate, it does seem that owning slaves in tandem with other shareholders was relatively rare.

It's a fascinating case anyway, but I expect rather a grass-roots thing, at the level of society where perhaps the boundaries between freedom and slavery were not as exact as we might consider them today...

Yes, this is exactly what I’m thinking, too. The modern mind might tend to believe slavery was a yes – no proposition: you were either a slave or you were free. But ancient Roman society seemed to be more complex. Freedmen were limited by legislation on their rights, and they had the social responsibility of being tied to the family who freed them. Even regular citizens had different levels of freedom and rights, depending upon if you were a honestiores or a humiliores. If it was possible for a slave to own 1/3 of himself, it seems that freedom was an extremely nuanced concept.

Edit:
PS

If I owned 2/3 of a slave, I'd allow him to be free for the 8 hours he slept.

Bravo!