The Role of Slave Markets in Migration from the Near East to Rome.Morris Silver -2016 -Klio 98 (1):184-202.detailsThis paper begins with a brief review of evidence for migration to the relatively affluent city of Rome during the earlier Empire. Then it is suggested that most slaves coming to Rome at this time originated in the Greek East and that these slaves were volunteers not forcible captives. Slavery by contract made it possible for individuals to overcome credit constraints limiting their ability to borrow to finance training and migration. This view is tested by examining literary, epigraphic and archaeological (...) evidence to decide whether slave markets in the Greek East (at Acmonia, Ephesus, Magnesia on Meander, Thyatira and Delos) and in Rome itself were suitable for processing „dangerous merchandise“ (= forcible captives). The totality of the evidence suggests they were not. Near Easterners conveyed through local and Roman slave markets were probably willing self-sellers seeking economic advancement. A new, positive, light is cast on the role of slave dealers who profited from reallocating labor power from less to more productive uses. (shrink)
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Social justice in the ancient world.K. D. Irani &Morris Silver (eds.) -1995 - Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.detailsThis edited collection focuses on the problem of social justice, or, more particularly, how the demand for social justice was articulated and implemented in ...