The Roman Guide to Slave Management (30 page)

   COMMENTARY   

No one now argues, like Falx, that slavery is acceptable or justifiable. But before we congratulate ourselves on how far we have come, we should remember that it is a tragic fact that even though slavery is illegal in every country in the world, it still exists widely. The NGO Free the Slaves estimates that there are 27 million individuals who are forced to work under threat of violence, without pay or hope of escape. There are more slaves in the world today than there were at any point in the life of the Roman empire.

GOOD TRANSLATIONS OF THE PRIMARY
texts can mostly be found in the Loeb Classical Library or Penguin Classics. The three sourcebooks listed below also contain a range of textual selections relating to ancient slavery. The original Latin and Greek texts are most easily accessed in the Loeb Classical Library, which has a facing translation. More thorough editions of the original sources can be found in the Teubner series.

General works on ancient slavery

Finley, M. I.,
Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology
, revised ed. by B. D. Shaw, Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998.

Finley, M. I. (ed.),
Classical Slavery
, with a new introduction by W. Scheidel, London: Cass, 1999.

Garnsey, P.,
Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Heuman, G., and Burnard, T., (eds),
The Routledge History of Slavery
, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011.

Sourcebooks

Lewis, N., and Reinhold, M. (eds),
Roman Civilization: A Sourcebook
, New York: Harper Row, 1966.

Shelton, J.,
As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Wiedemann, T. E. J.,
Greek and Roman Slavery
, London: Croom Helm, 1981.

Works on Roman slavery

Beard, M., ‘Ciceronian Correspondences: Making a Book out of Letters’, In T. P. Wiseman (ed.),
Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 103–44.

Bradley, K.,
Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World 140 B.C.–70 B.C
., Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Bradley, K.,
Slavery and Society at Rome
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Bradley, K.,
Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Fitzgerald, W.,
Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Glancy, J. A.,
Slavery in Early Christianity
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Harper, K.,
Slavery in the Late Roman World,
AD
275–425
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Harris, W. V., ‘Demography, geography and the sources of Roman slaves’,
Journal of Roman Studies
, 89 (1999), 62–75.

Hopkins, K.,
Conquerors and Slaves
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Hopkins, K., ‘Novel evidence for Roman slavery’,
Past & Present
, 138 (1993), 3–27.

Joshel, S. R.,
Slavery in the Roman World
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Mouritsen, H.,
The Freedman in the Roman World
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Rathbone, D., ‘The slave mode of production in Italy’,
Journal of Roman Studies
, 73 (1983), 160–68.

Scheidel, W., ‘Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population’,
Journal of Roman Studies
, 95 (2005), 64–79.

Scheidel, W., ‘Quantifying the sources of slaves in the early Roman Empire’,
Journal of Roman Studies
, 87 (1997), 156–69.

Schiavone, A.,
Spartacus
, trans. J. Carden, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Shaw, B. (ed. and trans.),
Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents
, Boston, Mass.: Bedford, 2001.

Toner, J.,
Popular Culture in Ancient Rome
, Cambridge: Polity, 2009.

Wiedemann, T. E. J.,
Slavery
(Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 19), Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.

Works on Greek slavery

Cartledge, P. A., ‘Like a worm i’ the bud? A heterology of classical Greek slavery’,
Greece & Rome
, 40 (1993), 163–80.

Cartledge, P. A., ‘Rebels and Sambos in Classical Greece: A Comparative View’, in P. A. Cartledge & F. D. Harvey (eds),
Crux: Essays Presented to G.E.M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th Birthday
, London: Duckworth, 1985, pp. 16–46.

Finley, M. I., ‘Was Greek civilisation based on slave labour?’, in his
Economy and Society in Ancient Greece
, B. D. Shaw and R. P. Saller (eds), London: Chatto & Windus, 1981.

Fisher, N. R. E.,
Slavery in Classical Greece
, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993.

Garlan, Y.,
Slavery in Ancient Greece
, trans. J. Lloyd, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Jameson, M., ‘Agriculture and Slavery in Classical Athens’,
Classical Journal
, 73 (1977–78), 122–45.

Osborne, R., ‘The economics and politics of slavery in Athens’, in A. Powell (ed.),
The Greek World
, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1995, pp. 27–43.

Smith, N. D., ‘Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery’,
Phoenix
, 37 (1983), 109–23.

Wood, E. M.,
Peasant-citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy
, London: Verso, 1988.

A

abolition
11
,
204

Aesop
158
,
164

Alans
1
–
2
,
11
,
13
,
200

Alexander the Great
136

ambition
181
,
183
–
4
,
193

American slave trade
97

Androcles
113
–
15
,
118

anger
107
–
8
,
117

Aristotle
79

Army’s use of slaves
170
–
71

arson
155
–
6

Artemidorus
68
–
9
,
75

Asclepius
171

assimilation
176
–
7
,
179
–
80
,
184
–
5
,
194

Augustus
91
–
2
,
102
–
3
,
116
,
122
–
3
,
129
,
149
,
166
,
167
–
8
,
180
,
184

B

bad masters
83
–
6
,
96
–
7

bad slaves
26
,
71
–
2
,
159

bandits
142
,
149
–
52
,
162
–
3

Batavians
69

bonuses
39
–
40
,
43
,
52
–
3

branding
112
,
142
,
181
,
200
,
203

breaking slaves
18
–
19
,
64
–
5

breeding slaves
18
,
32
–
3
,
72
–
3
,
74
–
5
,
169

British slave trade
97

Britons
17
,
108

Bulla Felix
150
–
52
,
162
–
3
,
164

burial clubs
136
–
7

burial,
176
,
180

burning
122