How are the two individuals having sex depicted? What differences between them can we observe in terms of age or status?
What is the third figure doing? How is he depicted?
How should we interpret his voyeuristic presence in the scene?
Can we establish the status of the three individuals depicted?
Can this artistic depiction tell us anything about slavery?
2.13 CIL VI, 1958a: Latin Funerary Inscription, Rome (First Half of First Century BCE) (Fig. 6)
Figure 6 The funerary monument of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, 100–50 BCE, Rome; image provided under CC BY licence from Wikimedia Commons.
Roman freedpersons involved in crafts and trade often achieved wealth, which they tried to convert into social prestige. Roman slaves commonly bore Greek names, which they kept as their cognomina after they were manumitted, but freeborn Roman citizens could also have Greek names as cognomina. Eurysaces is a Greek name.
Literature: Petersen 2006: 84–122.
[This is the monu]ment of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, baker, contractor. It is evident!
What is depicted on the reliefs of this monument? What can we learn about the identity of the deceased from them?
How does the deceased identify himself?
Can we establish whether Eurysaces was a former slave? Apart from his Greek cognomen, are there other reasons to assume he had been a slave?
2.14 The Agora of the Italians: Delos, Cyclades (Second Century BCE) (Fig. 7)
Figure 7 The agora of the Italians, ca. 100 BCE, Delos; reproduced by permission from Trümper 2009, Figure 11.
The small island of Delos was an important sanctuary, long before becoming the busiest cosmopolitan port of the late Hellenistic Mediterranean and a large slave market (cf. 8.19). Scholars have been debating whether some buildings can be identified as slave markets, and the so-called agora of the Italians has been the prime candidate. The vast unpaved courtyard enclosed 3440 m2 and could easily hold thousands of people. The porticoes round the courtyard had a second storey, which could house around a thousand persons. Rooms 28–30 housed sweat baths. The propylon (3) has been interpreted as either the entrance to the building or a platform for slave auctions.
Literature: Coarelli 2005; Fentress 2005; Trümper 2009: 34–49.
What entrances were there for this building? How easy was access to it? Why might this allow us to connect the agora to the slave trade?
Does the size of the courtyard suggest that the agora was a slave market? How? If not, what other functions can you imagine for this courtyard?
If the courtyard was used for housing thousands of slaves, what problems can you envisage as emerging?
How could one access the upper storey of the porticoes? In what way could they facilitate its use as a slave market? What other functions can you imagine?
Were the baths important for a large slave market? Was the size of the baths sufficient for dealing with thousands of slaves per day?
To which rooms does corridor 70a lead? Could these rooms be used for the sale of slaves?
Would slave traders require a specific large-scale building for conducting their business? What other alternatives can you imagine?
2.15 SEG III 672: Greek Graffito on Wall, Delos, Cyclades (Late Hellenistic Period) (Fig. 8)
The following graffito was inscribed in room c of the so-called House of the Lake; on the same wall, there were graffiti showing four transport ships. Antiocheia on the Maeander was a city in Karia in Asia Minor, near the river Maeander. Like most Aegean islands, Delos is relatively treeless and waterless. For Delos’ importance for the Hellenistic slave trade, see 2.14, 8.1, 8.19.
Literature: Severyns 1927; Rauh, Dillon and McClain 2008; Zarmakoupi 2016.
This is the Antiochean land: figs and plenty of water.
O Maeander Saviour, save us and give water.
What do you think did the author of this graffito want to express?
Where was it inscribed? Who was likely to use or occupy this room? Is it possible to establish this on the basis of a room plan?
Can this graffito be attributed to a slave? If yes, why? If not, what other explanations can you think of?
HEARING THE SLAVES’ VOICE?
Literature: Fitzgerald 2000; McCarthy 2000; Hunt 2011; Joshel 2011; Akrigg and Tordoff 2013; Bathrellou 2014; Richlin 2017.
2.16 Alciphron, Letters, 1.2:31 Greek Literary Epistolography (Second/Third Century CE)
This passage and the next are not real letters but fictional. Mounychia is a harbor in the Piraeus. Lemnos is an island in north-eastern Aegean, while Rhodes is an island in southeastern Aegean.
Literature: Biraud and Zucker 2018.
Galenaios to Kyrton: All our labors are in vain, Kyrton. During the day, we get scorched by the sun’s heat; in the night, we scrape off the bottom of the sea in the light of torches; and, as the saying goes, we pour our pitchers into the jar of the Danaids. So ineffectual and fruitless is the toil in which we spend our lives. We can’t fill our bellies even with sea-nettles or mussels, while our master gathers in both the fish and the coins. Nor is it enough for him to get all this out of us, but he keeps searching the boat, too. And a little while ago, when we sent this boy here, Hermon, from Mounychia to take our catch to the master, he sent orders so that we should also take to him sponges and the sea-wool that grows luxuriantly in Lemnos. The result was that, before he finished making these extra demands, Hermon left behind the fish-basket, fish and all, left us, too, boat and all, and went off on a rowing boat, having mixed with some Rhodian seamen. Thus, the master had to mourn for a slave, while we for a good fellow-worker.
The name of this letter’s writer derives from the Greek word for the stillness of the sea, while that of his addressee from the Greek word for a fish net. What do these names imply about the genre of this text?
What is the status of addressor and addressee?
What
