RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HISTORICAL RESEARCH OF ANCIENT SLAVERY

Ever since the 1960s the history of slavery has become one of the major aspects of the study of antiquity.Over the decades a voluminous literature has examined the various ways and forms in which the exploitation and domination of slaves constituted a fundamental structural element of Greek and Roman economies and societies.Valuable work continues to be produced in this vein, as works mentioned below will demonstrate; but over the last few years a series of studies have started to explore new topics and questions, while still building on the deep foundations of previous work.While earlier work tended to focus on the economics of slavery, recent studies have started to examine the political, cultural and religious uses of slaves and slavery.Furthermore, the top-down perspective of studying what happened to ancient slaves, i.e. their domination and exploitation, is now starting to be balanced by exploring what slaves did, i.e. the historical significance of their agency.These new approaches have led to an explicit focus on comparison between slavery in the different ancient and modern societies, and the creation of new conceptual frameworks for its study.Finally, while written texts will always be a fundamental source for the study of slavery, recent work has started to grapple with the significance of the material evidence.We can commence with recent general surveys, which give a good impression both of earlier work and of more recent approaches.P. Hunt's Ancient Greek and Roman Slavery (2018) is a general overview that aims to engage a broader audience by addressing the central issues in scholarly research within the field.The book discusses the economics of slavery, while also giving important space to the role of slavery in politics and culture, and the significance of slave communities and identities.Each thematic section is further divided into Greek and Roman subsections, and in several instances the author offers valuable comparisons and contrasts between Greek and Roman practices, such as the notable differences in approaches to manumission.S. Forsdyke's Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greece (2021) aims to give an overview of slavery in archaic and classical Greece.While largely focused on Athens, the book also productively discusses evidence from other Greek communities that is often ignored.But more than anything else the book illustrates the utility of new approaches by focusing on the diverse experiences of 1 Research for this article