Marc Kleijwegt – författare

What was funny about ancient jokes, and why? Why did the Roman state legislate to curb the behaviour of its obscenely rich and powerful elite, if it never really expected such laws to be obeyed? Why did it oppress the poor, and lavish public child support on them?These are important questions, but ancient Greeks and Romans could never have thought of them. They never questioned the right of the rich to be rich. They could not improve their understanding of Homeric gift-giving with the experience of ritualized friendship among the Trobriand islanders. Such questions and such answers can only come from those who live after the ancient past.This volume honours the well-known Dutch epigraphist and ancient historian H.W. Pleket. Ten substantial essays reflect his wide range, from early Greece to the Roman Empire, and his taste for comparative economic and social history.

This volume is concerned with examining the histories of freed slaves in a variety of slave societies in the ancient and modern world, ranging from ancient Rome to the southern states of the US, the Caribbean, and Brazil to Africa in the aftermath of emancipation in the twentieth century. The aim of this work is to present a comparative forum for the study of freedpeople. By identifying what is separate and what is universal about freedpeople it hopes to add to a better understanding of the role and impact of manumission and emancipation in different slave societies.Contributors include: Valentina Arena, Steeve Buckridge, Mariana Dantas, Marc Kleijwegt, Martin Klein, Rita Reynolds, Chandima Wickramasinghe, Swithin Wilmot, and Nigel Worden.

What was funny about ancient jokes, and why? Why did the Roman state legislate to curb the behaviour of its obscenely rich and powerful elite, if it never really expected such laws to be obeyed? Why did it oppress the poor, and lavish public child support on them?These are important questions, but ancient Greeks and Romans could never have thought of them. They never questioned the right of the rich to be rich. They could not improve their understanding of Homeric gift-giving with the experience of ritualized friendship among the Trobriand islanders. Such questions and such answers can only come from those who live after the ancient past.This volume honours the well-known Dutch epigraphist and ancient historian H.W. Pleket. Ten substantial essays reflect his wide range, from early Greece to the Roman Empire, and his taste for comparative economic and social history.