Archaic Slavery

About the lecture

In this module, we think about the earliest forms of slavery in the Greek world, focusing in particular on the descriptions of slavery in the Linear B tables of Mycenaean Greece, as well as the presentation of slaves and slavery in the poetry of Homer and Hesiod.

About the lecturer

David Lewis is a Lecturer in Greek History and Culture at the Department of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. He works on ancient Greek social, economic, and legal history in a broader Eastern Mediterranean context; to date most of his work has focused on slavery. He co-edited The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States (Cambridge: CUP 2015), and his monograph Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterannean Context, c. 800-146 BC was published by OUP in 2018. His next monograph project will focus on urban labour in Athens and Piraeus, c. 450-250 BC.