>Now if this is related, we can see that slaves here were originally
>public rustic slaves, doing sacred work in the (public? sacred?)
>fields.
If tattooing was used for stigma & the like, then what about those
slaves of various provenances to whom ornamental tattoo belonged
to their culture? Inter alia, Scythians, Thracians, Dacians also
had tattoos.
Those tattoos were works of art - they must have had some effect
in the Roman Empire and Greece.
Have a look at the Scythian tattoo art samples (they look so
refined and "modern"!), on the skin of "*hursha-riding warriors:
http://www.tattooheaven.com/CentAsia.html
http://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2012/01/kadiz-and-hill-people-tattoos.html
Image in chap. 5 is that of a Scythian warrior's mummy unearthed
in Siberia by a German-Russian team (coord. by prof. Parzinger):
http://listverse.com/2010/01/05/top-10-interesting-facts-about-the-scythians/
Seemingly those Scythian warriors always got horse and deer tattoo
motifs on their shoulders.
BTW, the much older mummy of "Ãtzi" also has some abstract tattoos,
that look like some "cypher". :-)
George