The Freedman in the Roman World

The Freedman in the Roman World
Author: Henrik Mouritsen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2011-01-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139495038

Freedmen occupied a complex and often problematic place in Roman society between slaves on the one hand and freeborn citizens on the other. Playing an extremely important role in the economic life of the Roman world, they were also a key instrument for replenishing and even increasing the size of the citizen body. This book presents an original synthesis, for the first time covering both Republic and Empire in a single volume. While providing up-to-date discussions of most significant aspects of the phenomenon, the book also offers a new understanding of the practice of manumission, its role in the organisation of slave labour and the Roman economy, as well as the deep-seated ideological concerns to which it gave rise. It locates the freedman in a broader social and economic context, explaining the remarkable popularity of manumission in the Roman world.

Freed Slaves and Roman Imperial Culture

Freed Slaves and Roman Imperial Culture
Author: Rose MacLean
Publisher:
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2018-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 110714292X

Argues that freed slaves exerted a profound influence on the transformation of Roman values under the Principate.

Free At Last!

Free At Last!
Author: Teresa Ramsby
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014-01-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472504496

Building on recent dynamic visual, literary and archaeological work on Roman freedmen, this book examines the impact of freed slaves on Roman society and culture.

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic
Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107032245

This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.

Christians in Caesar’s Household

Christians in Caesar’s Household
Author: Michael Flexsenhar III
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 027108409X

In this volume, Michael Flexsenhar III advances the argument that imperial slaves and freedpersons in the Roman Empire were essential to early Christians’ self-conception as a distinct people in the Mediterranean and played a multifaceted role in the making of early Christianity. Scholarship in early Christianity has for centuries viewed Roman emperors’ slaves and freedmen as responsible for ushering Christianity onto the world stage, traditionally using Paul’s allusion to “the saints from Caesar’s household” in Philippians 4:22 as a core literary lens. Merging textual and material evidence with diaspora and memory studies, Flexsenhar expands on this narrative to explore new and more nuanced representations of this group, showing how the long-accepted stories of Christian slaves and freepersons in Caesar’s household should not be taken at face value but should instead be understood within the context of Christian myth- and meaning-making. Flexsenhar analyzes textual and material evidence from the first to the sixth century, spanning Roman Asia, the Aegean rim, Gaul, and the coast of North Africa as well as the imperial capital itself. As a result, this book shows how stories of the emperor’s slaves were integral to key developments in the spread of Christianity, generating origin myths in Rome and establishing a shared history and geography there, differentiating and negotiating assimilation with other groups, and expressing commemorative language, ritual acts, and a material culture. With its thoughtful critical readings of literary and material sources and its fresh analysis of the lived experiences of imperial slaves and freedpersons, Christians in Caesar’s Household is indispensable reading for scholars of early Christianity, the origins of religion, and the Roman Empire.

Invisible Romans

Invisible Romans
Author: Robert Knapp
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2011-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674063287

What survives from the Roman Empire is largely the words and lives of the rich and powerful: emperors, philosophers, senators. Yet the privilege and decadence often associated with the Roman elite was underpinned by the toils and tribulations of the common citizens. Here, the eminent historian Robert Knapp brings those invisible inhabitants of Rome and its vast empire to light. He seeks out the ordinary folk—laboring men, housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators—who formed the backbone of the ancient Roman world, and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. He finds their traces in the nooks and crannies of the histories, treatises, plays, and poetry created by the elite. Everyday people come alive through original sources as varied as graffiti, incantations, magical texts, proverbs, fables, astrological writings, and even the New Testament. Knapp offers a glimpse into a world far removed from our own, but one that resonates through history. Invisible Romans allows us to see how Romans sought on a daily basis to survive and thrive under the afflictions of disease, war, and violence, and to control their fates before powers that variously oppressed and ignored them.

Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman

Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman
Author: Matthew J. Perry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107040310

This book explores the institution of manumission-the freeing of slaves-in ancient Rome from a gendered perspective. Rome was unique among ancient polities in that it bestowed freed slaves with full citizenship, granting them rights nearly equal to those of freeborn individuals. The sexual identities of a female slave and a female citizen were fundamentally incompatible, as the former was principally defined by her sexual availability and the latter by her sexual integrity. Accordingly, those evaluating the manumission process needed to reconcile a woman's experiences as a slave with the expectations and moral rigor required of the female citizen.

Children in the Roman Empire

Children in the Roman Empire
Author: Christian Laes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521897467

This book illuminates the lives of the 'forgotten' children of ancient Rome and draws parallels and contrasts with contemporary society.