Reconstructing the Slave: The Image of the Slave in Ancient Greece

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Description

Although the importance of slavery to Greek society has long been recognised, most studies have primarily drawn upon representations of slaves as sources of evidence for the historical institution, while there has been little consideration of what the representations can tell us about how the Greeks perceived slaves and why. Although historical reality clearly played a part in the way slaves were represented, Reconstructing the Slave stresses that this was not the primary purpose of these images, which reveal more about how slave-owners perceived or wanted to perceive slaves than the reality of slavery. Through an examination of lexical, visual and literary representations of slaves, the book considers how the image of the slave was used to justify, reinforce and naturalize slavery in ancient Greece.

Reviews

Wrenhaven makes a valuable contribution to the field: given the breadth of material she covers and the clarity of her prose, her book will be of interest to anyone working on ancient slavery and will make an especially good addition to undergraduate courses on Greek slavery. -- Deborah Kamen, University of Washington * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

Author Bio

Kelly L. Wrenhaven is Associate Professor of Classics, Cleveland State University, USA.