In Our Time: S20/27 Roman Slavery (April 5 2018)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of slavery in the Roman world, from its early conquests to the fall of the Western Empire.

The system became so entrenched that no-one appeared to question it, following Aristotle's view that slavery was a natural state. Whole populations could be marched into slavery after military conquests, and the freedom that Roman citizens prized for themselves, even in poverty, was partly defined by how it contrasted with enslavement. Slaves could be killed or tortured with impunity, yet they could be given great responsibility and, once freed, use their contacts to earn fortunes. The relationship between slave and master informed early Christian ideas of how the faithful related to God, informing debate for centuries.

With Neville Morley, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter; Ulrike Roth, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh; and Myles Lavan, Senior lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. Producer: Simon Tillotson.

READING LIST:

Sinclair Bell and Teresa Ramsby (eds.), Free at Last!: The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire (Bloomsbury, 2013)

Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Keith Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1994)

K. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Moses I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998)

Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge University Press, 1996)

Michelle George (ed.), Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2012)

Sandra R. Joshel and Lauren Hackworth Petersen, The Material Life of Roman Slaves (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Sandra R. Joshel, Slavery in the Roman world (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Henrik Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (Routledge, 1981)

Видео In Our Time: S20/27 Roman Slavery (April 5 2018) канала In Our Time