Notes on the External Appearance of Roman Public Slaves

This paper sets out to provide an overview of the literary, epigraphic and iconographic evidence for the external appearance of the serui publici. In the Roman world public slaves were employed for a variety of lowly, but fundamental, administrative tasks and civic activities both in Rome and in the other cities of the Empire. However, they are one of the most underrepresented groups in Roman society, especially in the iconographic evidence. This paper aims to reconsider the textual sources on the clothing and outward appearance of public slaves, and finally to propose an identification of members of this social group in some visual depictions.