This book is a study of slavery in the central period of Roman history that pays particular attention to what it was like – or to what I think it was like – to be a Roman slave. By ‘central period’ I mean the four centuries from roughly 200 BC to roughly AD 200, though I wander freely beyond these chronological limits as I think appropriate. Edward Gibbon described the slave population of Rome as that ‘unhappy condition of men who have endured the weight, without sharing the benefits, of society’. My interest lies in emphasising the structural importance of slavery in Roman society and culture and in trying to recreate the realities of the slave experience. The results are not always edifying, but they are in my view essential to a proper understanding of Roman antiquity. I hope that readers will find them arresting and absorbing as well, even if a trace of the ‘unhappy’ must always remain.

In keeping with the aims of the series to which it belongs, the book is primarily intended for students who are examining Roman slavery for the first time. Accordingly I attempt to combine a reasonable amount of basic material and explanation with analysis and interpretation. If more advanced readers find the book useful so much the better. I must stress, however, that I have written for those whose interests are genuinely historical and wide-ranging, free that is to say from the conservatism that conventionally dominates the practice of ancient history.