§153. Among the _familia urbana_ must be numbered also those who furnished amusement and entertainment for the master and his guests, especially during and after meals. There were musicians and readers, and for persons of less refined tastes, dancers, jesters, dwarfs, and even misshapen freaks. Under the Empire little children were kept for the same purpose.
§154. Lastly may be mentioned the slaves of the highest class, the confidential assistants of the master, the amanuenses who wrote his letters, the secretaries who kept his accounts, and the agents through whom he collected his income, audited the reports of his stewards and managers, made his investments, and transacted all sorts of business matters. The greater the luxury and extravagance of the house, the more the master would need these trained and experienced men to relieve him of cares which he detested, and by their fidelity and skill to make possible the gratification of his tastes and passions.
§155. Such a staff as has been described belonged, of course, to a wealthy and fashionable man. Persons with more good sense had only such slaves as could be profitably employed. Atticus, the friend of Cicero, a man of sufficient wealth and social position to defy the demands of fashion, kept in his service only _vernae_ (§138), and had them so carefully trained that the meanest could read and write for him. Cicero, on the other hand, could not think it good form to have a slave do more than one kind of work, and Cicero was not to be considered a rich man.
§156. Legal Status of Slaves.--The power of the master over the slave, called _dominium_ (§37), was absolute. He could assign him the most laborious and degrading tasks, punish him even unto death at his sole discretion, sell him, and kill him (or turn him out in the street to die) when age or illness had made him incapable of labor. Slaves were mere chattels in the eyes of the law, like oxen or horses. They could not hold property, they could not make contracts, they could testify in the courts only on the rack, they could not marry. The free person _in potestate_ was little better off legally (§31), but there were two important differences between the son, for example, and the slave. The son was relieved of the _potestas_ on the death of the _pater familias_ (§34), but the death of the master did not make the slave free. Again, the condition of the son was ameliorated by _pietas_ (§73) and public opinion (§§32, 33), but there was no _pietas_ for the slave and public opinion hardly operated in his behalf. It did enable him to hold as his own his scanty savings (§162), and it gave a sort of sanction to the permanent unions of male and female slaves called _contubernium_, but in other respects it did little for his benefit.