This chapter discusses the evolution of a resolution passed by the Roman Senate, the SC Silanianum (10 CE) on the interrogation and execution of household slaves “under the same roof” as a prematurely dead master and therefore implicated in his death. It shows how its development through further senatorial court decisions, imperial judgements and juristic interpretation was influenced by elite social attitudes towards slavery, and that legal protections, not only of slaves (minimal) but also of freedmen were overridden by decisions based on fear rather than due legal process. A further source of confusion was the imprecision of definitions of familia (household) and other terms used in the lost decree. Particular attention is paid to the intervention of the jurist Cassius Longinus in the decision to execute the slaves of a murdered senator in 61 CE as recorded by Tacitus; and to Pliny’s recording of a senatorial debate on the fates of the slaves and freedmen of a mysteriously dead senator in 105 CE.
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