Research on Ancient Slavery

The goal of examining ancient slavery in all its forms from different perspectives and using a broad spectrum of methods has led to several sub-projects over time. It began with monographic contributions on selected topics, which have been published in a separate series “Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei“ (Research on Ancient Slavery; 44 volumes to date) since 1967. Since research on slavery was long influenced by Soviet scholarship, translations of relevant monographs from Russian have been published in a separate series since 1966 in order to overcome the language barrier and make the discussion more objective “Übersetzungen ausländischer Arbeiten zur antiken Sklaverei” (Translations of Foreign Works on Ancient Slavery; five volumes). A series of supplements has been established for name books, reference works and more specialised collections of texts with translations and commentary, which also includes the extensive “Corpus der römischen Rechtsquellen zur antiken Sklaverei” (CRRS) (Corpus of Roman Legal Sources on Ancient Slavery) (Supplement 3). Supplement 4 is a two-volume bibliography on ancient slavery. Supplement 5 is a multi-volume “Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei” (HAS) (Handbook on Ancient Slavery), available in book form and digitally, which clearly presents the findings of international slavery research. Interdisciplinary in nature, it covers the entire field of classical studies (archaeology, history, philology, law, the afterlife of ancient slavery and the history of its research). 

The project was interdisciplinary and international, positioning itself as a contribution to the fundamental research particularly promoted by the Mainz Academy.