Slaves were property of their dominus, objects rather than
persons, without rights: These are some components of our basic
knowledge about Roman slavery. But Roman slavery was more diverse than
we might assume from the standard wording about servile legal status.
Numerous inscriptions as well as literary and legal sources reveal clear
differences in the social structure of Roman slavery. There were
numerous groups and professions who shared the status of being unfree
while inhabiting very different worlds.
The papers in this
volume pose the question of whether and how legal texts reflected such
social differences within the Roman servile community. Did the legal
system reinscribe social differences, and if so, in what shape? Were
exceptions created only in individual cases, or did the legal system
generate privileges for particular groups of slaves? Did it reinforce
and even promote social differentiation? All papers probe neuralgic
points that are apt to challenge the homogeneous image of Roman slave
law. They show that this law was a good deal more colourful than
historical research has so far assumed. The authors’ primary concern is
to make this legal diversity accessible to historical scholarship.
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