Photo Gallery

Photo 15.1

The kitchen in Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries reveals something quite common in Vesuvian residences — that is, a shrine is often placed prominently within kitchens or other rooms usually heavily populated by slaves. As a consequence, the deities of the household overlook the slaves in their work, as if to ensure that the householder will get the most out of the household’s human workforce.

Photos 15.2 through 15.4

Oddly (at least to our modern mind), kitchens and household toilets were often placed side-by-side in Vesuvian residences. In photo 15.2, the toilet is to the left and the cooking platforms are to the right (in Herculaneum’s House of the Double Atrium). Photos 15.3 and 15.4 show the kitchen/toilet combination in Pompeii’s House of the Tragic Poet. The view into the kitchen is shown in photo 15.3, revealing where the food was cooked; photo 15.4 reverses the view out of the room, revealing the toilet area to the left, adjacent to the doorway.

Photos 15.5 and 15.6

The House of the Bicentenary in Pompeii was a fairly well-off residence. These photos show a two-seater toilet (photo 15.5), which was used by household slaves (and perhaps others). One of the household’s slaves was a woman named Martha — a Judean (since the name was almost exclusively given to Judean women). We know her name from a graffito etched into the plaster across from the two-seater toilet (as shown in photo 15.6). It read: “This is Martha’s triclinium. She defecates in her triclinium” (CIL 4.5244 — a graffito discussed briefly in chapter 12 of In Stone and Story). Since a triclinium was a dining room for the householder and his/her guests, placing the notions of a triclinium and a toilet together was a way that someone in the household poked fun at Martha. Was she able to read the insult?

Class Activities

1. Divide the students into two groups to debate slavery in the first-century world. Have one group defend its legitimacy and the other group argue against it. What are some the arguments Paul might give for not immediately abolishing the system? What are some of the arguments the author of Revelation might give for its complete destruction?
2. Have students devise speech bubbles to put into the mouth of the slave attending to the pagan diners in figure 15.1. What might the slave be thinking (a) if he were not a Jesus-follower, and (b) if he were a Jesus-follower? The same exercise can be done for the three slaves attending to the pagan diners in figure 15.7.

Discussion Questions

1. Compare slavery in the Roman world with forms of slavery in the Western world in past two hundred years. How are they different? How are they similar?
2. While the numbers and definitions vary, many authorities believe over four million people today are enslaved in some form of slavery. How might Paul and other New Testament authors relate to today’s slavery epidemic?
3. How might a group of Jesus-followers interact with a sex slave of the first century who wanted to become a Jesus-follower? Would they encourage the slave to refuse to offer her/his body for the work? Would they turn a blind eye to the situation if the slave had no option but to continue in her/his position regardless? Could they have created other strategies to alleviate the situation? What options might they have pursued?