Abstract
Pauline L. Ripat
Department of Classics
University of Winnipeg
FYI: Social relationships and the transfer of information
As Ray Laurence (1994) has argued, in ancient Roman society the system of patronage was a channel through which ambitious and influential men might spread news and their opinions to the voting masses. I shall consider the evidence that suggests that information could be passed in the other direction, that is, from the bottom up, as a regular feature of asymmetrical social arrangements such as patronage or slave-master relationships. The provision of information may have been one of a client's, slave's, or freedman's expected obligations to his patron, master, or ex-master. In an age that lacked the technology which today facilitates and democratizes the attainment of information, "information" itself had greater value. A client, slave, or freedman with news had both the ability to render a valuable service to his social superior, and a measure of power should he choose to withhold it or relay it to someone else. The consideration of the transfer of information as a characteristic of social relationships will tell us much about the expectations of the private relationships which knit familiae, and indeed, Roman society, together.
Return to CACW 2006 "Household and Society in the Ancient World" Program