Historicising Ancient Slavery

Description

Informed by the global history of slavery, Kostas Vlassopoulos avoids traditional approaches to slavery as a static institution and instead explores the diverse strategies and various contexts in which it was employed. In doing so he offers a new historicist approach to the study of slave identity and the various networks and communities that slaves created or participated in. Instead of seeing slaves merely as passive objects of exploitation and domination, his focus is on slave agency and the various ways in which they played an active role in the history of ancient societies. Vlassopoulos examines slavery not only as an economic and social phenomenon, but also in its political, religious and cultural ramifications. A comparative framework emerges as he examines Greek and Roman slaveries alongside other slaving systems in the Near East, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Series Editor’s Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Historiographies The Formation of the Dominant Paradigm in the Study of Ancient Slavery The Global Study of Slavery Recent Developments in the Study of Ancient Slavery 3. What Is Slavery? An Instructive Case: Early Medieval Slavery and ‘Serfdom’ The Conceptual Systems of Slavery 4. Slaving Strategies and Contexts Slaving Strategies Slaving Contexts Slave-making 5. Enslaved Persons Identification Modes and Forms of Relationships Categorisation, Self-understanding and Groupness 6. Dialectical Relationships The Master–Slave Relationship The Free–Slave Relationship The Relationships Within Slave Communities 7. The Slave View of Slavery: Slave Hopes and the Reality of Slavery Modalities of Slavery Exploring Slave Hopes under Slavery The Slave Hope for Freedom 8. Slaving in Space and Time Epichoric Systems of Slaving Societies with Slaves and Slave Societies Accounting for Change The Agency of Enslaved Persons and Historical Change 9. Conclusions Bibliography Index Locorum General Index