The Material Life of Roman Slaves

Sandra R. Joshel is Professor of History at the University of Washington. A scholar of Roman slavery, women, and gender, she is the author of Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions, and editor of Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations (with Sheila Murnaghan) and Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (with Margaret Malamud and Donald T. McGuire). Lauren Hackworth Petersen is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware. A scholar of Roman art and archaeology, she is the author of The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History and editor of Mothering and Motherhood in Ancient Greece and Rome (with Patricia Salzman-Mitchell). She has received an ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship, a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Getty Foundation, and a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome.

'The object of this fascinating book is to render visible Roman slaves in the remains of the Campanian cities and villas destroyed in 79 AD by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius … The possibilities raised are of great importance, and in its legitimate concern to evoke the day-to-day realities of life in slavery [this] book is to be warmly applauded … The challenge of recovering a history of slavery from archaeological evidence has been laid down, and it is in this that the book's special value lies.' Classical World

• 1. Introduction; 2. Slaves in the house; 3. Slaves in the city/streets; 4. Slaves in the workshop; 5. Slaves in the villa; 6. Conclusion: the material remains of Roman slaves.