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Ancient roman slave market6/24/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() In effect, slave is associated with black. ![]() Although we acknowledge that slavery existed in places and cultures other than the southern United States, in particular Greco-Roman antiquity, popular historical imagination usually associates slavery with race-in particular with the millions of black Africans shipped to the Americas from the seventeenth century on. Which noun a translator chooses will connote particular meanings for readers of ancient Roman texts in the twenty-first century, especially in the context of slavery. The term, “origin,” in Latin is natio: the Oxford Latin Dictionary tells its readers that natio can mean origin, people, nation, or race. Alan Watson)Īs the Roman law on the sale of slaves makes clear, the ancient Romans paid attention to the origin of the slaves whom they bought, sold, and used in their houses, farms, and businesses. (Edict of the Aediles, Digest 21.1.31.21, trans. Those who sell slaves must state the natio of each at the sale for the natio of a slave frequently encourages or deters a prospective buyer hence it is advantageous to know his natio, since it is reasonable to suppose that some slaves are good because they originate from a tribe that has a good reputation, and others bad because they come from a tribe that is rather disreputable. Historian Sandra Joshel, however, makes note of important distinctions the Romans made among their bondspeople. Instead they argued that those enslaved by the Romans had a rough equality regardless of their region of origin. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, 2009.Most historians of the Roman world have decoupled the concepts of bondage and race that are central to the arguments justifying the enslavement of millions of people in the United States and other modern western nations. Graeco-Roman Slave Markets: Fact or Fiction?. Subjects History / Archaeology / Classics / Slave Trade / Slavery / Ancient Greece / Ancient Rome / Italy / The conclusion includes a short comparison of modern and alleged ancient slave markets and finally answers the question of whether, to date, ancient slave markets are an archaeological fact or fiction. A major part of this book is dedicated to a critical reexamination of all eight ancient buildings that have been identified as slave markets so far: Delos, so-called Agora of the Italians Pompeii, Building of Eumachia Rome, Crypta Balbi Ostia, Tempio Rotondo Herculaneum, so-called Basilica Leptis Magna, so-called Chalcidicum/Building of Iddibal Cadapha Aemilius Ephesus, so-called Sarapeum Magnesia-on-Maeander, so-called Prytaneion. This is followed by a brief discussion of ancient written sources on slave markets, focusing on what the texts reveal about the existence, design, and requirements of ancient slave markets. First, selected parallels, namely slave markets in Istanbul, Marrakesh, Cairo, Havana, Charleston, and New Orleans, are analyzed in order to: assess the possible range of locations for the sale of slaves in slave-holding cultures better known than their ancient equivalents answer the question of whether any of these cultures constructed clearly identifiable purpose-built slave markets on a regular basis, that is, whether the slave market was ever a firmly established building type evaluate what can be gained from such a cross-cultural approach to the study of ancient slave markets. ![]() It investigates whether certain ancient monuments were designed specifically for use as slave markets and whether they required special equipment and safety precautions, allowing them to be clearly distinguished from other nonspecific commercial buildings and marketplaces of the Graeco-Roman world. This book critically examines the existence and identification of purpose-built slave markets in the Graeco-Roman world from a cross-cultural perspective. ![]()
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