Postgraduate Course: Slavery in the Roman Empire (online) (PGHC11633)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course offers the study of slavery in the Roman Empire from a Mediterranean-wide perspective. Teaching will focus on the first few centuries of the first millennium AD, throughout however drawing on historical comparanda from both earlier and later slaveries. The teaching will offer an advanced introduction to the study of Roman slavery, which was widespread across the study region, as well as other, contemporary slaveries - for example Greek and Jewish slaveries. Through covering slavery geographically across the whole of the Mediterranean and its hinterland, the course deliberately looks beyond slavery in ancient Europe, aiming to situate slavery under Roman law in the wider setting of slaving in the ancient Mediterranean. Apart from its historical dimension, the course aims to be an introduction to the topic of slavery more broadly, notably in conceptual terms, seeking especially to compare and contrast slavery with other forms of domination. |
| Course description |
This course offers the in-depth exploration of slavery in the Roman Empire, roughly over the first half of the first millennium AD. The course introduces students to diverse forms of slaving in this period across the ancient Mediterranean, including notably Roman slavery, but also slaveries that operated under non-Roman conventions, such as contemporary Greek and Jewish slaveries, as well as slavery's development under Christianity. The course aims to provide a holistic view of slavery in the Roman Empire, highlighting both similarities and differences between diverse slaving systems, besides their interrelatedness. Covering slavery geographically across the Mediterranean and its hinterland, the course deliberately looks beyond slavery in ancient Europe, aiming moreover to situate slavery under Roman law in the wider setting of slaving in the ancient world.
Taught through thematically arranged classes, the course will challenge students to conceptualise the diverse structural underpinnings of slavery in human society, rather than stay focused on individual historical occurrences ('Roman', 'Jewish' etc.). Students will thus also be challenged to think about the interrelatedness of different slaving systems, and their cross-fertilisation. It is a declared aim of this course that students be further challenged to see slavery in the ancient Mediterranean in a much wider historical context, stretching up to modernity, and consciously including confrontation with the legacies of slavery that are evident in modern societies. Covering the full range of evidence, from philosophical writings to dirt archaeology, the course will enhance students' familiarity with diverse bodies of evidence. This will in turn allow a greater and more diverse skill range to be honed among class participants. Likewise, the comparative perspective central to the course teaching will enhance the students' historical know-how, both in terms of increased knowledge of the topic across the ages, but also in terms of methodological acumen, i.e. how and when and what to compare and contrast and to what benefit.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Online Activities 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
1,000 word Museum exhibition leaflet (25%)
3,500 word essay (75%) |
| Feedback |
Students are expected to present an outline of their museum exhibition leaflet in class, receiving immediate oral, and subsequent written feedback thereon. For the coursework essay, students are expected to discuss their essay topic and ideas with the course organiser at least once prior to submission (see above), and are encouraged to do so more often. In addition to pre-advertised drop-in sessions, individual, scheduled meetings will be offered by the course organiser to suit the students' time schedules. Students will also receive feedback on their submitted coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss this feedback further with the course organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate, especially by way of coursework, an ability to critically engage with key aspects of the ancient history of slavery, with particular regard to its Mediterranean setting and its modern legacy.
- Demonstrate, especially by way of coursework, an ability to critically engage with diverse types of sources, including notably both textual and material evidence, that document aspects of slaving in the first half of the first millennium AD.
- Demonstrate, especially in class discussion, independence of mind and initiative, intellectual integrity and maturity, as well as an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework, bibliographical research skills and an ability to independently find additional information on topics relevant to the course as well as analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship.
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework, an ability to summarise succinctly, critically engage with and to comment with authority on, the key points in relevant scholarship.
|
Reading List
Examples of key research contributions:
- S. Bell, D. Borbonus, R. MacLean eds. Freed Persons in the Roman World. Status, Diversity, and Representation (2024)
- K.R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire (1987)
- C. de Wet, M. Kahlos, V. Vuolanto eds. Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150-700 CE (2022)
- M.I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (1985)
- K. Heszer, Jewish Slavery in Antiquity (2005)
- P. López Barja, C. Masi Doria, U. Roth eds. Junian Latinity in the Roman Empire (2023)
- R. MacLean, Freed Slaves and Roman Imperial Culture: Social Integration and the Transformation of Values (2018).
- O. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (1982)
- M. Perry, Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman (2013)
- F. H. Thompson, The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery (2003)
- K. Vlassopoulos, Historicising Ancient Slavery (2021)
- W.L.Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (1955)
Examples of readily available source collections/student readers (antiquity):
- E. Bathrellou, K. Vlassopoulos, Greek and Roman Slaveries (2022)
- M.I. Finley, Slavery in Classical Antiquity (1968)
- P.D.A. Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (1996)
- T.E.J. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (1988) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Research, collect, evaluate, and use the available evidence to contextualise the multiple and diverse dimensions of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean of the first half of the first millennium AD.
- Summarise, interpret and critique previous and current literature on ancient slaveries, in particular regard to the respective evidence and broader historiographic debates.
- Analyse and explain the contexts and settings that produced what are now the material relics of ancient slavery in the Roman Empire, and how these interacted with their social, cultural, and physical environments.
- Identify original research questions concerning key topics in ancient slavery studies, with especial regard to the available evidence, historiographic debates and contemporary issues.
- Communicate clearly, both in verbal and written form, ideas, work in progress, and results developed after researching specific aspects of the history of slavery in the Roman Empire, including in respect of its diverse source base. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ulrike Roth
Tel: (0131 6)50 3586
Email: U.Roth@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
|
|
University Homepage