'The Bitter Chain of Slavery': Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome

'The Bitter Chain of Slavery': Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome
Frank M. Snowden, Jr. Lectures

By

5
(1 Review)
'The Bitter Chain of Slavery': Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome by Keith Bradley

Published:

2005

Pages:

26

Downloads:

16,396

Share This

'The Bitter Chain of Slavery': Reflections on Slavery in Ancient Rome
Frank M. Snowden, Jr. Lectures

By

5
(1 Review)

Book Excerpt

was not a soulless legal condition--a point of view common in legal studies of Roman slavery--but a human relationship in which slave and master were always inextricably bound together. The relationship was obviously asymmetrical, comparable according to the third-century Greek author Philostratus (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 7.42) to that between a tyrant and his subjects. But it was not completely one-sided. In theory the slave was powerless: No slave is really happy,' the Hellenized Jew Philo wrote, 'For what greater misery is there than to live with no power over anything, including oneself?' (Every Good Man is Free 41), and the slave was always subject to constraint, so that the medical authority Celsus could write (On Medicine 3.21.2) that a slave habituated to a life of compulsion endured the harsh treatment needed to cure an illness more eaily than the free. Yet because slaves were a human form of property, human agency could and did manifest itself in the relationship from

FREE EBOOKS AND DEALS

(view all)
Maria Grace - Tatzlewurms, Wyverns, and Darcy
FEATURED AUTHOR - Six-time BRAG Medallion Honoree, #1 Best-selling Historical Fantasy author Maria Grace has her PhD in Educational Psychology and is a 16-year veteran of the university classroom where she taught courses in human growth and development, learning, test development and counseling. None of which have anything to do with her undergraduate studies in economics/sociology/managerial studies/behavior sciences. She pretends to be a mild-mannered writer/cat-lady, but most of her vacations require helmets… Read more