The orthodox view of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean holds that Greece and Rome were its only 'genuine slave societies', that is, societies in which slave labour contributed significantly to the economy and underpinned the wealth of elites. Other societies, traditionally labelled 'societies with slaves', are thought to have made little use of slave labour and therefore have been largely ignored in recent scholarship. This volume presents a radically different
view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, showing that elite exploitation of slave labour in Greece and the Near East shared some fundamental similarities, although the degree of elite dependence
on slaves varied from region to region. Whilst slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also economically entrenched in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. The differing degrees to which Eastern Mediterranean elites exploited slave labour represents the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographical, and demographic factors.
Proceeding on a regional basis, this book tracks the ways in which local conditions shaped a wide variety of Greek and Near Eastern slave systems, and how the legal architecture of slavery in
individual regions was altered and adapted to accommodate these needs. The result is a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader historical context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.
The orthodox view of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean holds that Greece and Rome were its only 'genuine slave societies', that is, societies in which slave labour contributed significantly to the economy and underpinned the wealth of elites. Other societies, traditionally labelled 'societies with slaves', are thought to have made little use of slave labour and therefore have been largely ignored in recent scholarship. This volume presents a radically different
view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, showing that elite exploitation of slave labour in Greece and the Near East shared some fundamental similarities, although the degree of elite dependence
on slaves varied from region to region. Whilst slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also economically entrenched in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. The differing degrees to which Eastern Mediterranean elites exploited slave labour represents the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographical, and demographic factors.
Proceeding on a regional basis, this book tracks the ways in which local conditions shaped a wide variety of Greek and Near Eastern slave systems, and how the legal architecture of slavery in
individual regions was altered and adapted to accommodate these needs. The result is a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader historical context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.
Frontmatter
List of Abbreviations
i: Introduction and Brief History of the Issue
Part I: Prolegomena
1: Ownership and the Articulation of Slave Status in Greek and Near
Eastern Legal Practice
2: The Riddle of Freedom
3: Status Distinctions in Greece and the Ancient Near East
4: Slave Societies, Societies with Slaves: Capturing the Relative
Importance of Slavery to Ancient Economies
Part II: Epichoric Slave Systems of the Greek World
5: The Archaic Greek World
6: Helotic Slavery in Classical Sparta
7: Classical Crete
8: Classical Attica
Part III: Slave Systems of the Wider Eastern Mediterranean
World
9: Iron Age II Israel
10: Assyria: The 8th-7th Centuries BC
11: Babylonia: The 7th-5th Centuries BC
12: The Persian Empire
13: Punic Carthage
Part IV: Why Slavery?
14: Differentials in the Magnitude of Slaveholding: Towards an
Understanding of Regional Variation
Appendix: The Meaning of oiketes in Classical Greek
Endmatter
Bibliography
General Index
Index locorum
David M. Lewis is Lecturer in Greek History and Culture at the
University of Edinburgh. He hails from the Ards Peninsula in Co.
Down, Northern Ireland, and studied at Durham University, gaining
his PhD in 2012. Between 2013 and 2016 he worked at the University
of Edinburgh, first as a postdoctoral fellow, and then as a
Leverhulme Early Career fellow, then in 2016 took up the post of
Assistant Professor of Ancient History at the University of
Nottingham. He returned
to Edinburgh to take up his current post in 2018. His work focuses
on Greek socio-economic history in a wider Eastern Mediterranean
context.
From its very title, David Lewis's book primes its reader for the
new ground he is breaking [...] In short, L.'s book is truly a tour
de force. He demonstrates the huge intellectual payoff of situating
Greece in its eastern Mediterranean context, showing convincingly
that slavery played a more entrenched role in a much broader range
of societies than is generally thought.
*Deborah Kamen, University of Washington, Seattle*
This is an important book for people interested in Classics and for
those interested in the Ancient Near East...a memorable book which
will be valuably read by interested readers.
*Daniel C. Snell, The University of Oklahoma, Classics Ireland*
This ambitious work is the most important book to appear on slavery
in the field of ancient Greek history for many years.
*William Mack, University of Birmingham, Journal of Global
Slavery*
Lewis's monograph raises many complex questions . . . that will
continue to provoke and inspire historians of slavery for many
years to come. The book is all meat and no filler and is clearly
written throughout. It is an important book and a valuable
contribution to the field.
*Peter Hunt, University of Colorado Boulder, Phoenix*
This is the most important contribution to our understanding of
Greek slavery since the volume of essays, Slavery in Classical
Antiquity: Views and Controversies, put together by Moses Finley in
1960. All subsequent discussions of Greek slavery will have to
start from L.'s book.
*Robin Osborne, Classics for All*
[I]t opens a new path to analyse Greek slavery. . . . [It] will
certainly become a necessary landmark in the scholarship on ancient
slavery, and it is difficult to summarise its merits in a short
space. It not only enlarges our knowledge of Greek and Near Eastern
slaveries, but it also traces guidelines for future research about
the Roman slave system, in the long term, in its Mediterranean
context and in all its regional diversity.
*Fábio Duarte Joly, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Brazil, The
Classical Review*
This ambitious work is the most important book to appear on slavery
in the field of ancient Greek history for many years.
*William Mack, University of Birmingham, Journal of Global
Slavery*
While previous scholarship assumed that slavery in the Near East
was marginal, Lewis shows that slaves constituted a major part of
elite portfolios in many of these societies. This has revolutionary
implications for the comparative study of Mediterranean and Near
Eastern history in antiquity.
*Kostas Vlassopoulos, University of Crete, Greece & Rome*
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