Innholdsfortegnelse for AH 56 i Ancient History Magazine

When people think of the ancient world, they will likely think of the vast monuments that still stand today, like the Colosseum in Rome and the pyramids of Egypt, that are attributed to the great men that fill most of our surviving literary sources. However, these monuments were only possible thanks to the work of ordinary people. Ordinary people, both free and enslaved, worked to build the Colosseum, the pyramids, the Roman aqueducts that still crisscross the lands that composed the Roman Empire. They quarried and shaped the stones, hauled them to the building sites, and raised them. Yet, unfortunately, despite their important contributions, ordinary people are often overlooked in ancient history, barely discernible — besides a few notable examples — in the surviving sources, both literary and archaeological. In…

Slavery existed in antiquity long before the Roman Empire arose. The enslaved population of Rome increased in pace with the expansion of Roman territory from the Second Punic War onwards. As a result of large-scale conquest in the third and second centuries BC, the main source of slaves were prisoners of war. By the time of the Late Republic, however, slavery had stabilized into a system in which at least as many people were born into slavery as were introduced on the slave market through conflict and the independent slave trade. A steady influx of newcomers on the slave market remained in existence throughout the Imperial period. There are indications of continuous trade routes for human trafficking with the Black Sea regions, for example, but slaves were procured from all…

It was once believed that, because of the extensive use of slave labour, there was no free labour market in ancient Rome. Instead, it was thought that wage labour was rare. The dismissal of the lower classes by ancient authors, who depicted them as “addicted to the circus and theatre” (Tacitus, Histories 1.4) and longing only for bread and games (Juvenal, 10.78–81), promoted the idea that average people were content to live off the grain dole and spend their time at the many games and shows on offer. However, the monthly grain dole was only five modii, enough for a single adult male. Depending on the work they were doing, Cato gave each of his slaves between three and five modii of grain a month (On Agriculture 56). The grain…

For much of Egypt’s history, most people were farmers and farmhands. Some farmers owned their own land, but many were tenant farmers who paid a significant amount of their harvest to their landlord. High taxes further reduced the earnings and economic mobility of tenant farmers. These conditions have been compared to serfdom by some historians. Egypt’s farmland was particularly productive in comparison to many contemporary societies. It is estimated that 200,000 farmers could produce enough grain to feed 3,000,000 people. The fertility of the Nile Valley meant that excess grain could be produced to support labourers specializing in non-agricultural trades, like stone-cutting and building. Ancient labourers built a system of water basins and canals to capture the floodwaters and feed their crops. Workmen repaired these water channels every autumn in…

The investigation began in 2004 based on a burial ground near York. By 2010, it had been established that Driffield Terrance was one of the best-documented burial sites for gladiators, based on 82 well-preserved skeletons of young men dating from the first to the fourth century. Based on tooth enamel, the team concluded that some of these men came from far beyond Britannia. Additionally, most of the skeletons showed signs of injuries (both fatal and healed). Even more remarkable is that three quarters of these skeletons show signs of ritual decapitation. The exact reasons for this are unclear. On the one hand, it could indicate the execution of criminals, which we know was not uncommon in the arena. On the other hand, this seems to be a specifically British custom…

WORK, LABOUR, AND PROFESSIONS IN THE ROMAN WORLD By Koenraad Verboven and Christian Laes (eds.) Brill, 2017 ISBN: 978-9004331655 Containing several chapters written by experts in Roman economic history, this book offers readers a comprehensive overview of labour and work in the Roman world, from methods of finding work to the self-identity of working Romans. In doing so, readers will learn about the mechanisms of ancient labour, ancient attitudes to work, and professional identities. MAKING MONEY IN ANCIENT ATHENS By Michael Leese University of Michigan Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-0472132768 As the title suggests, this book focuses on the many ways people could make money in ancient Athens, examining how ancient Athenians thought about making money and detailing the various ways that ancient Athenians could make money from the position of…

An undisturbed Etruscan tomb has been entered for the first time since the late seventh century BC. The discovery has been hailed as one of the most significant finds in recent decades for understanding the ancient pre-Roman civilization. Sealed behind a massive stone slab, the burial chamber in the San Giuliano Necropolis near Barbarano Romano in central Italy revealed meticulously arranged funerary furniture. The remains of four individuals lay on carved stone beds surrounded by more than 100 remarkably well-preserved grave goods, including ceramic vases, iron weapons, bronze ornaments, and delicate silver hair spools. A single vase placed at the tomb’s threshold may have played a role in pre-sealing rites. Preliminary analysis of the objects found in the tomb suggests that the buried individuals might be two male-female pairs, but…

From around 550 to 500 BC, the Persian kings Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius led their armies out of southwestern Iran and forged the largest empire the world had yet seen. Yet managing an empire is different from conquering one, and the central government had to enact strategies by which they could maintain internal peace, collect taxes, and ensure prosperity. For this, the kings relied upon their satraps, the kings’ regional representatives. ‘Satrap’ derives from the Old Persian word xšaçapāvan, meaning ‘one who protects the kingdom’. Satraps were responsible for supervising regional military, economic, administrative, and judicial affairs in the areas they were stationed. Almost all the satraps were part of the royal family, either by blood or marriage, or else had personal ties of friendship to the kings. Modern audiences…

In the second century AD, the Parthian Empire faced challenges like it never had in its more than 300-year history. Three devastating Roman invasions left the empire reeling and the Arsacid dynasty that ruled it faced some serious internal problems. This was, in part, caused by the Roman invasions but also contributed to the limitations of the Parthians in dealing with them. In AD 205/6, Papak, who descended from a semi-mythical figure named Sasan, overthrew the King of Persis in southern Iran. He then rebelled against the Arsacid Parthian king Vologases V. Papak’s son, Ardashir, expanded this revolt into neighbouring kingdoms and succeeded his father as King of Persis in AD 208. Ardashir’s succession marked the beginning of the Sasanian Persian dynasty, which would eventually overthrow the last Parthian King…

There were ways in which enslaved persons could take their lives into their own hands. This might mean working hard and cooperating with the slaveholder’s wishes, in the hope of attaining better living circumstances or even their freedom. Alternatively, there were those who would actively or furtively counteract the interests of slaveholders by slacking, messing up their chores, or by hiding. Runaways, too, are well attested, through collars inscribed with a version of the text “Catch me because I flee” — in Late Antiquity, branding and tattoos seem to have served the purpose of indicating a former runaway. Enslaved persons do not appear to have been running from slavery itself. They would run from an abusive slaveholder — in which case the law would support their cause, and runaways might…

Most craftsmen created items that made life easier, but some made goods to improve the afterlife as well. Small figurines called shabti dolls, or ushabtis, were common funerary offerings. They were supposed to serve the deceased in the afterlife and were placed in tombs to fulfill this purpose. They were imagined as contracted labourers who would toil for eternity so that their deceased master could have an easier afterlife. Magical incantations were typically inscribed into the dolls, compelling them to obey. The most common version of the spell commanded them to “detail yourself for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks, or of conveying sand from east to west”. The earliest shabti dolls, made in the third millennium BC, were crude wax mummies. Over…

Known as the ‘land between rivers’ for its placement between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamia is home to many ‘world firsts’ alongside the epic. These include advances in agriculture, science, and maths, the invention of the potter’s wheel, and what is known as the world’s first ‘museum’, curated by princess and priestess, Ennigaldi-Nanna, around 530 BC. The sources The first stories about Gilgamesh were written in the Sumerian language and are thought to be written down around 2100 BC, in the Ur III period. These stories only survive in later copies from the Old Babylonian period, some 300 years later. Indeed, when talking about Gilgamesh’s story, there are many different texts to consider, and it is worth noting that all the versions that have survived exist in a fragmented,…

In densely populated urban areas, many Romans habitually ate their meals in snack-bar taverns called popinae, where ready-cooked meals were offered at low prices. Those planning to eat at home might call on thermopilia, establishments with stone counters facing the street with large jars filled with hot stew, cooked lentils, olives, and other essentials which could be quickly assembled into a meal at home. However, in areas where there was less of a fire hazard from close-packed tenement buildings, Roman households did their own cooking. In a world without refrigeration, this meant regular trips to buy groceries. Everyday essentials Those looking for basic items would first head for that staple of civilization, the baker, and obtain a loaf of bread and perhaps some rolls. Roman loaves were not designed to…

While there is no direct evidence, a settlement likely existed at Hatra in the Achaemenid or Seleucid periods. The city proper was probably founded in the second century BC and was part of the Parthian Empire or Commonwealth, and it flourished from the late first to the early third centuries AD. During this period, Roman imperial expansion east of the Euphrates River challenged long-established Parthian hegemony in northern Mesopotamia. Thus, at its height, Hatra was at the centre of a geopolitical struggle between two of the ancient world’s most powerful empires. The Parthians, whose origins lay on the south-eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, came to prominence in eastern Iran in the third century BC. Under the kingship of the Arsacid dynasty, they took control of large sections of the…

Enslaved persons throughout history have been identified as property, deemed commodities in themselves — Varro famously refers to slaves as “talking tools” (On Rural Matters 1.17.1) — and considered socially dead, having no family or legal persona of their own. The Roman Empire was no exception. Rome, however, was also characterized by the remarkable extent to which freed persons were accepted into society. Freedmen’s proverbial wealth became a source of anxiety to the elite, their ostentatious self-aggrandizement the target of ridicule. This wealth must have originated from the skills gained and the work performed in enslavement, which has led some scholars to argue that slavery in Rome was not that bad, and that it could have served merely as a stepping stone to a better life. If this were the…

In the summer of 323 BC, thousands of soldiers had gathered at Cape Taenarum, the rocky headland at the most southern point of the Peloponnese. Alexander the Great was dead; his empire was already beginning to unravel. These veterans, discharged or displaced, stood there ready, waiting for the next general to hire them. They had followed Alexander across Asia, but their loyalty was no longer to their polis, king, or cause — it was to the best paymaster. This moment captures a turning point in the history of warfare. In Classical Greece, military service had been the duty of citizen-soldiers, called up in defence of their home poleis. Mercenaries were known in the Classical period, especially during the Peloponnesian War and throughout the fourth century BC, but they are typically…

The very first wage-earner in Western literature is a single working mother described by Homer. The poet of the Iliad sang of how the battle lines of the Greeks and Trojans were evenly strained, The simile conveys the tension not just in the balance of the scales but in the woman’s economic precarity. Like the armies, she is engaged in a battle for her life and the lives of her children, whom she provides for with her wages. Women in ancient Greece made clothes for themselves and their families, but they could also make an income by producing surplus textiles for sale. as a careful woman who earns by the work of her hands holds a pair of scales and draws up the weight and the wool equally on both…

It should come as no surprise that lions are a common feature of ancient art. After all, they are the ’kings of the wild’. Yet lions were not just known for their strength and power. The symbolism associated with lions reflects humans’ admiration and fear of these great beasts. Lions in the Near East From its earliest appearance in art, both literary and visual, in the Bronze Age, lions were, unsurprisingly, associated with kings. However, rather than representing the attributes most desired in a king, as they would later come to do, lions were placed in opposition to kings, who were expected to protect their people from them. In the third millennium BC, kings would also refer to themselves as shepherds — a motif present in Christian traditions today. Dumuzid…

Despite its widespread fame in the ancient world, the ancient and modern reception of the Epic of Gilgamesh is as fragmentary as the tablets upon which it was inscribed. There are only a handful of non-cuneiform references to Gilgamesh from antiquity. Interestingly, in light of the presence of a great Flood narrative in the Epic, Gilgamesh appears in a text from the Dead Sea Scrolls known as the Book of Giants. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by young Bedouin herders in the 1940s, at Qumran, located in the West Bank near the Dead Sea (see Lendering, AH 43). In the Book of Giants, a text linked to the Enochic tradition, Gilgamesh is explicitly named as one of the Giants killed by the biblical Flood. In the modern day too,…

Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire By Sarah E. Bond ISBN: 978-0300273144 Yale University Press (2025) - $35.00 yalebooks.yale.edu The origins of the term ‘strike’, referring to workers halting work as a bargaining strategy, dates to 1768, when sailors ‘struck’ the sails of the vessels they worked on to demand higher pay. Yet such actions by workers have a far longer history than the term. The first recorded instance of such group action occurred in the twelfth century BC, in Egypt, during the reign of Ramesses II, when workers in Deir el-Medina staged a ‘sit in’ to protest late pay. While Strike’s title may imply that this book is about this long history, it is more about the history of collective groups, often associations of professionals, in…