Ancient slavery in Mediterranean perspective: a proposal of global approach
The aim of this article is to propose a new methodological alternative for the study of ancient slavery, considering the limits of the concept of “slave society” formulated by Moses Finley. This concept came increasingly under scrutiny in the last ten years by a scholarship that is devoting itself to a global history of slavery. In the first part of the article, we examine Finley's concept and the most recent objections from authors such as Noel Lenski, David Lewis and Kostas Vlassopoulos. In the second part, we propose to think of a “Mediterranean slave system” with distinct phases between the rise of the city-states in the Mediterranean and the development of the Roman Empire. To this end, we also propose a dialog with the most recent strands of study on Atlantic slavery, especially with the perspective forwarded by the concept of second slavery.
