An excellent inspection setup - although their value will go down if left like that too long.
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The Slave Market
- Thread starter mymartinet
- Start date
willowfall
Senator
I really don't think it is fair of SeD to use a dog to run me down.
kisses
willowfall
kisses
willowfall
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
Asked this before, and wondering if anyone here knows. What's the usual turn around time for a girl being captured and then ending up on the auction block? Any era you know of. Do they send them straight to the block as raw talent? Do the captured girls get sold to professional slavers who give them a little conditioning? Curious to know.
Not sure if accurate, but I've seen fiction for both Roman and Old South eras where the slaves are sold off the day after the ship makes port. Of course, that's likely the end of a long journey for many of them.
There probably were specialists in training slaves for various purposes, and even slavers who dabbled in it, but they would only have worked on a small minority of slaves, I'd think - the vast majority were put to unskilled labour, after all.
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
I see. So it was the individual responsibility of the owner to obedience train his slaves?
More or less, although no doubt the slavers drove home the importance of obedience along the way/before they were sold.
And of course, how obedient they were would affect the price - which means all sellers would like them that way, but some might exaggerate.
Why do you ask?
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
Well, just bear in mind I have no real historical knowledge here - just what I saw on TV and stuff.
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
I'll assume they did the research for us
willowfall
Senator
There is absolutely no answer to that question because it depends on the situation. For example several times after the defeat of "Germans" by the Roman Empire there are records of the markets being awash in slaves which dropped the price to almost nothing. Are you going to invest training in a slave with little value? And how long does it take to transport someone from say the Rhine to Roman in 60 CE?
Or take the African slave trade. The slaves are captured by Africans and then transported to the coast. How long that takes is anybody's guess. Then they are sold to merchants or traders along the coast for shipment elsewhere. If heading for America, depending on weather, that could take well over a month. And nobody is conducting training on ship because the trainee might not survive the voyage.
Girls destined for the harems of the wealthy in the Ottoman Empire were sold either based on their beauty or given as presents based on who they were (Hey Sultan look what I brought you, the youngest daughter of your sworn Christian enemy. Have fun)
Having lived and worked on a horse breeding farm the idea is to sell the foal as quickly as possible after it is weaned from its mother so your investment is minimal for the highest price possible. Everyday you have to keep the foal your investment goes up and the profit goes down. Training rarely happens until it is possible to tell what the animal is good for and you leave the training up to the buyer.
Seems to me the economics of the slave trade would be very similar.
Everyday you own the slave you have to feed and care for it, that costs money. The farther you transport it before sale costs more money. Training costs money and what if you have trained the slave and there is no demand for those talents?
Virgins might be in high demand but not for any skills but because you get to deflower her. That only happens once, now what do you do? And honestly any girl or boy over the age of 5 has all the skills they need to work a farm or household.
We get hung up on "sex" slaves because that's where our fantasies lie. It had to be a very small percentage of the market to specialized businesses (ex: brothels) or luxury buyers. My guess is the slaves in this trade were sold untrained for their physical attributes and the buyer took care of whatever training they thought would satisfy their clients. And maybe there were sellers who specialized in selling trained slaves to luxury buyers but that had to be a small percentage of the niche 'sex trade'. In today's market women trafficked for sex are sold solely for their bodies not for any training they have.
And answer honestly guys, did you ever worry about how good a girl was in bed BEFORE you found out personally?
kisses
willowfall
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
You always do ask the difficult questions.
Again, thank you for your answer. I wanted to get into the mind of a recently captured girl on one of these auction blocks. Are they still in a state of shock, or have they become accustomed to being displayed naked? How much do they struggle with their new situation? That sort of thing.
Well, a lot of that would go to how they were captured and what's happened since. Were they snatched by raiders, or was their whole village burned down? A long march in a coffle, a trip in the stinking bowels of a ship, or a bumpy ride in a cart? Or maybe they're from just the other side of town and fell into a bit too much debt, you know (or their husband/father did.)
I don't know. This "department store" approach to slavegirl sales is all very well for some, but I don't really want some "off the rack" slavegirl from Costco. I prefer to shop from a more selective merchant who cares a bit more about presenting quality, and not just keeping prices low by offering quantity. This sort of thing is going to undercut the market and bring quality down, I expect.
All the best,
Dafnees
Hard to say. I mean for specialty slaves like gladiators, you want them to come with some skills and training. Field hands can be straight "off the boat", so to speak - you probably want to train them yourself anyway for whatever tasks you have in your field or vineyard. For slavegirls, you might want to train them in some sort of grace, submissiveness and deportment, and sex slaves might need some sort of training in the erotic arts, depending on their previous experience and background.
Of course if you're a Roman gentleman with certain tastes, you might simply have need for a dozen or so disposable Christian girls. They're useless as sex slaves because of their brainwashing/indoctrination in their piety and morality, but you don't have to train them at all to be coated in tar and set on fire as exotic orgy lanterns.
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Yeah yeah - spoken like an elite who's mad we common folk can own slaves now instead of just becoming them!I don't know. This "department store" approach to slavegirl sales is all very well for some, but I don't really want some "off the rack" slavegirl from Costco. I prefer to shop from a more selective merchant who cares a bit more about presenting quality, and not just keeping prices low by offering quantity. This sort of thing is going to undercut the market and bring quality down, I expect.
jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
I'm extremely taken by the idea of an entire village being raided and all the women taken. I know that in reality the men would be most desirable for slave labor, but for our purposes let's focus on the women. They get captured, they arrive at the docks, and then does the captain evaluate each girl and go, "You look like a pleasure slave, you go to the fields, you look strong and attractive, so gladiators school for you, and you will be used for medical experiments." Is that how it goes down, or are their slave traders who specialize in certain fields, and browse the selection?I don't know. This "department store" approach to slavegirl sales is all very well for some, but I don't really want some "off the rack" slavegirl from Costco. I prefer to shop from a more selective merchant who cares a bit more about presenting quality, and not just keeping prices low by offering quantity. This sort of thing is going to undercut the market and bring quality down, I expect.
Hard to say. I mean for specialty slaves like gladiators, you want them to come with some skills and training. Field hands can be straight "off the boat", so to speak - you probably want to train them yourself anyway for whatever tasks you have in your field or vineyard. For slavegirls, you might want to train them in some sort of grace, submissiveness and deportment, and sex slaves might need some sort of training in the erotic arts, depending on their previous experience and background.
Of course if you're a Roman gentleman with certain tastes, you might simply have need for a dozen or so disposable Christian girls. They're useless as sex slaves because of their brainwashing/indoctrination in their piety and morality, but you don't have to train them at all to be coated in tar and set on fire as exotic orgy lanterns.
You guys are very helpful on the matter. Curious if there are any sources on the matter. Not sure first century pirates and raiders kept records, but it would be interesting to know.
I don't know about 1st century pirates, but Seutonius tells us that the emperor Tiberius retired to an island where he had several villas with pleasure rooms that were "furnished with the most Indecent pictures and statuary obtainable, also certain erotic manuals from Elephantls in Egypt; the inmates would know from these exactly what was expected of them". So it seems some "training" was involved. Not all of Tiberius' girls were slaves - apparently he liked young pretty aristocratic girls as well, including the wives and daughters of his retainers or advisors.
Well if you want to focus on just the women, the sexes might be split after capture - or it might just be policy to only take women alive.
And if thay're going to be shipped off somewhere, I'd surmise division will most likely take place at said destination.
Apparently, it was considered normal and healthy for slaves in Rome to be sexually active. Only if the master did not know about it or disapproved of the encounter was sex considered something that might damage the value of a slave. This might have had more to do with the trustworthiness or obedience of the slave, more than the fact that she had been sexually active. Some Romans did, it seems, prefer virgin girls - Augustus, for all his apparent simplicity and humility (he liked walking rather than riding through the streets, and was known for his devotion to his third wife, Livia), enjoyed deflowering virgin slave girls, many of whom would be procured for him by Livia.
Not sure quite how this relates, but always good to know! I guess having slaves be sexually active played into stereotypes of them as lustful, which in turn helped owners justify having their wayvwith them whenver they wanted.
fallenmystic
Tribune
In my case, I'm always excited by the idea of being such an undistinguished slave girl in a group. Things like my individual identity, personality, preferences do not matter as I'm just a property which can be graded and displayed until some one comes to inspect and purchase me off the shelf like I was some bottole of milk.I don't know. This "department store" approach to slavegirl sales is all very well for some, but I don't really want some "off the rack" slavegirl from Costco. I prefer to shop from a more selective merchant who cares a bit more about presenting quality, and not just keeping prices low by offering quantity. This sort of thing is going to undercut the market and bring quality down, I expect.
I suppose it's mainly people with such a fantasy as mine who may find that particular rendering attractive. Some people like to be treated as someone special while others may want the exact opposite. And I guess that's part of the fun with such fantasies.