ABSTRACT
I sent in the title of this talk, ‘Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour’, in the hope that it might be adopted as the general title of this particular workshop, as it has been. While preparing the talk, I knew virtually nothing about the contents of the other contributions to the programme, and I cannot pretend to be giving a general introduction to the proceedings, which cover many aspects of slavery proper and a wide variety of forms of unfree labour from Greek and Roman times to the present day. I must explain that my own thought on these subjects has been formed largely on the basis of what I know about the Greek and Roman world as an ancient historian, roughly from the eighth century BC to the mid-seventh century of the Christian era; and I hope that those who are experts in the history of other societies will bear with me if I betray the limits of my own detailed knowledge rather too often. Fortunately, as it happens, the ancient world does provide a remarkable amount of solid evidence (not only literary); and in it we find not only the most severe form of slavery (chattel slavery, as it is usually called) but also all sorts of other kinds of unfree labour—to a far greater extent, I think, than most classical scholars and even ancient historians have realised. I therefore feel justified in confining myself mainly to the societies I know best: those of the Greeks and Romans.
