Educated Slaves in Ancient Rome

Sometime in the very late second century BC a young, enslaved man was sold at auction for the highest price that would be recorded for such a purchase in Rome, both at the time and for over 200 years to come. His name was Daphnis and he had been born into a Roman household in Pisaurum (on the other side of the Italian peninsula) to a mother who was enslaved there. In Roman terms, this made him a verna: a home-born slave. But what made Daphnis so highly valued? It was his deep learning and literary expertise, the result both of natural talent but also of the advanced education he had received in the household in which he grew up, in the Roman family of the Accii. This family had previously produced the prominent playwright and poet Lucius Accius, who was the son of one of their freedmen. Daphnis may have received his advanced education partly in the circle of Lucius Accius in Rome. The Accii had already been connected with literary culture in the capital before Daphnis fetched such a high price, perhaps as a result of a bidding war at the auction.