ancient or modern, are the ideas of total dependence, the forfeiture of autonomy and the sense of belonging wholly to another. A slave lacked the power of refusal,55 in the sense that he knew that if he refused to obey his master, he would suffer dire consequences. His was the frustration not only of powerlessness, but also of relative hopelessness, for even in the first-century setting, manumission was never guaranteed and even a promise of emancipation could be revoked by the arbitrary decision