Greek Slavery

Slavery is attested throughout ancient Greek history and all over the Greek world. Unsurprisingly, then, scholarship on Greek slavery has proliferated in the past twenty-five or so years, making a holistic synthesis of such work especially desirable. This book offers a state-of-the-art guide to research on this subject, surveying recent scholarly trends and controversies and suggesting future directions for research. Topics include regional variation in slave systems; the economics of slavery; the treatment of enslaved people; sex and gender; agency, resistance, and revolt; manumission; and representations, metaphors, and legacies of Greek slavery. Readers, including those interested in slavery of other time periods, will find this book an essential resource in learning about key issues in Greek slavery studies or in pursuing their own research.

• Provides a guide to key themes and ideas in the study of Greek slavery
• Offers a critical reappraisal of trends and controversies in recent scholarship
• Suggests avenues for future research on the topic

"This is an impressive introduction to the subject. Its goal of synthesizing the research strands on one of the central topics of ancient Greek history is nothing short of herculean. The book goes further towards achieving this goal than any other English publication has yet and in doing so fills a niche in the intellectual landscape of the field. It will undoubtedly be required reading for anyone seeking to study slavery in the ancient world." Joel Pollatschek in: H-Soz-Kult, https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-142007 [06.01.2025]

"Kamen has to be congratulated for offering a judicious and balanced presentation of scholarly debates and the different views of scholars; in fact, I admired highly her ability to present critically her own research." Kostas Vlassopoulos in: BMCR 2024.08.47

"Deborah Kamen's Greek Slavery fills an important gap in scholarly literature. As part of the Trends in Classics' series Key Perspectives on Classical Research, her book is dedicated not to providing another introduction to Greek slavery (new introductory works have appeared in recent years in English, French, and German) but an overview of developments in the scholarly literature on Greek slavery over the last 25 years. Such a survey is long overdue [...] For any graduate students aiming to work on Greek slavery [...], Kamen's book is an indispensable vade mecum." David Lewis in: sehepunkte, https://www.sehepunkte.de/2024/05/39054.html [21.10.2024]