The Economics of Greco-Roman Slavery

Mare Nostrum, 2019

Following a recent wave of literature arguing for significant growth in the ancient Greek economy, several groundbreaking books have sought to explain this phenomenon through the lens of New Institutional Economics (NIE). The undeniable prevalence of slavery throughout ancient Greek history, however, has not been substantially integrated into these new analyses. This essay intends to address this problem, by elucidating some of the ways in which slavery contributed to the economic efflorescence of Greece's late archaic and classical period (600-300 BC) within an institutionally focused approach. Examining specifically the state of Athens, this study contends that not only did the system of slavery import a vast amount of labour from other areas of the Mediterranean into the Athenian polity, but it also directed labour towards economically productive aims that were otherwise limited by Athens' societal framework. The use of slaves in milling operations provides a key and often overlooked example, which will here be used as a case study.

This dissertation argues that the slave trade can be seen as providing a critical framework for understanding the economic and cultural developments of a time of rapid and dramatic changes within the cultures and economies of what had been the Roman Empire. To make this case, it will be demonstrated that neither the ascendance of Christianity nor the barbarian invasions nor even the collapse of the Western Roman Empire had changed the fundamental role of slavery in the centuries after Constantine. While slavery was vital to all the economies and societies of the period, it will be argued, a large-scale slave trade was necessary for the continued prosperity of the most developed economic regions as internal sources for slaves were insufficient to meet demand. By demonstrating the economic necessity, a crucial driving mechanism for long-distance systems of exchange within the Mediterranean world after the collapse of the western Roman fiscal system and its economy of bulk-exchange will be provided. Changes in the slave trade during the seventh century will be shown as being one of the key forces in the disintegration of Mediterranean cultural unity. New patterns would ultimately emerge that would lead to the beginning of the medieval trading cycle. These ideas are demonstrated by re-reading Arabic, Greek, and Latin sources and searching for the connections between them, by re-examining archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic data and placing them in context, and by using analogous evidence and arguments from other periods and using them to investigate possibilities. Together, these allow for an innovative and bold reappraisal of the slave-systems and trade in a critical period that has not been previously argued. Prior scholarship has not attempted to address either the ubiquity of slavery or the extent of the slave trade in the period nor has anyone examined the slave-trading systems of the long seventh century itself by bringing together materials from the whole of the post-Roman world into a single coherent account. By doing so, this dissertation breaks new ground while creating an original synthesis and reconciliation between the interpretations of the economics of the end of the Roman Empire and the formation of the medieval world.

Wiley Blackwell, 2022

Slavery was foundational to Greek and Roman societies, affecting nearly all of their economic, social, political, and cultural practices. Greek and Roman Slaveries offers a rich collection of literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological sources, including many unfamiliar ones. This sourcebook ranges chronologically from the archaic period to late antiquity, covering the whole of the Mediterranean, the Near East, and temperate Europe. Readers will find an interactive and user-friendly engagement with past scholarship and new research agendas that focuses particularly on the agency of ancient slaves, the processes in which slavery was inscribed, the changing history of slavery in antiquity, and the comparative study of ancient slaveries. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on ancient slavery, as well as courses on slavery more generally, this sourcebook’s questions, cross-references, and bibliographies encourage an analytical and interactive approach to the various economic, social, and political processes and contexts in which slavery was employed while acknowledging the agency of enslaved persons.

The first section of "The Transformative Impact of the Slave Trade on the Roman World, 580 - 720"; This dissertation argues that the slave trade can be seen as providing a critical framework for understanding the economic and cultural developments of a time of rapid and dramatic changes within the cultures and economies of what had been the Roman Empire. To make this case, it will be demonstrated that neither the ascendance of Christianity nor the barbarian invasions nor even the collapse of the Western Roman Empire had changed the fundamental role of slavery in the centuries after Constantine. While slavery was vital to all the economies and societies of the period, it will be argued, a large-scale slave trade was necessary for the continued prosperity of the most developed economic regions as internal sources for slaves were insufficient to meet demand. By demonstrating the economic necessity, a crucial driving mechanism for long-distance systems of exchange within the Mediterranean world after the collapse of the western Roman fiscal system and its economy of bulk-exchange will be provided. Changes in the slave trade during the seventh century will be shown as being one of the key forces in the disintegration of Mediterranean cultural unity. New patterns would ultimately emerge that would lead to the beginning of the medieval trading cycle. These ideas are demonstrated by re-reading Arabic, Greek, and Latin sources and searching for the connections between them, by re-examining archaeological, epigraphic, and numismatic data and placing them in context, and by using analogous evidence and arguments from other periods and using them to investigate possibilities. Together, these allow for an innovative and bold reappraisal of the slave-systems and trade in a critical period that has not been previously argued. Prior scholarship has not attempted to address either the ubiquity of slavery or the extent of the slave trade in the period nor has anyone examined the slave-trading systems of the long seventh century itself by bringing together materials from the whole of the post-Roman world into a single coherent account. By doing so, this dissertation breaks new ground while creating an original synthesis and reconciliation between the interpretations of the economics of the end of the Roman Empire and the formation of the medieval world.

Cambridge World History of Slavery, v. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, (eds Paul Cartledge and K. R. Bradley), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, pp. 91-111.

Journal of Classical Studies Matica Srpska 23, 2021

Slavery is one of the most prominent aspects of the ancient Greek civilization, yet exact role of slavery in Greek society and economy is still a matter of debate. The example that is most analyzed is Classical Athens, mainly on the account of the comparative abundance of primary sources. However, this wealth of sources is partially deceiving, because it allows scholars to see that slavery was of considerable importance, but only rarely to go beyond this general conclusion. One of the biggest obstacles is the lack of reliable numerical data: how numerous were slaves in ancient Athens, what percentage of the total population they were? This paper analyzes the primary source material that was used to solve the issue, as well as efforts of various scholars in that regard. Our knowledge of Athenian state and society makes fairly obvious that Athenians themselves did not know the number of their slaves. The conclusion is that we cannot ever hope to obtain anything resembling a precise number, but a reasonable range at best. The real number probably fluctuated from decade to decade, depending on rates of slave supply, mortality and manumission.

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

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery, eds. Pargas and Schiel, 2023

A brief but comprehensive survey of evidence and problems for the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire.

Journal of Economic History, 71, 2007, 260-67

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries, ed. S. Hodkinson, K. Vlassopoulos & M. Kleiwegt, 2018

This short chapter provides the outline of ideas that are further developed in my book Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterranean Context, c. 800-146 BC (Oxford 2018). It challenges prevailing assumptions (based on the work of M.I. Finley) that a vast qualitative and quantitative gulf separated the slaveholding practices of the Greeks from those of their eastern neighbours.