David Lewis
I'm from Donaghadee on the Ards Peninsula, and work on ancient Greek labour history from a socio-economic and legal perspective. I'm currently senior lecturer in Greek history and culture at the University of Edinburgh.
Department of Classics
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
The University of Edinburgh
Old Medical School
Teviot Place
Edinburgh
Scotland, EH8 9AG
ORCID: 0000-0002-0253-5530
Member, Heterodox Academy
Department of Classics
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
The University of Edinburgh
Old Medical School
Teviot Place
Edinburgh
Scotland, EH8 9AG
ORCID: 0000-0002-0253-5530
Member, Heterodox Academy
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Books by David Lewis
This volume presents a radically different view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, portraying it as a patchwork of regional slave systems. Although slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also of major economic importance in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. In Greece, diversity was the rule: from the early archaic period onwards, differing historical trajectories in various regions shaped the institution of slavery in manifold ways, producing very different slave systems in regions such as Sparta, Crete, and Attica. However, in the wider Eastern Mediterranean world, we find a similar level of diversity: slavery was exploited to differing degrees across all of these regions, and was the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographic, and demographic variables.
In seeking to contextualize slaving practices across the Greek world through detailed soundings of the slaving practices of the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Carthaginians, this volume not only provides new insights into these ancient cultures, but also allows for a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.
Now published:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greek-slave-systems-in-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c800-146-bc-9780198769941?cc=gb&lang=en&#
Reviews:
R. Osborne
https://classicsforall.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/greek-slave-systems-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c-800-146-bc
F. Duarte Joly
The Classical Review 69.2 (2019): 503-5
D. Vaucher
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019-09-43.html
K. Vlassopoulos
Greece & Rome 66.2 (2019): 295.
P. Hunt
Phoenix 77.3-4 (2019): 376-9.
D.C. Snell, Classics Ireland 26 (2019): 167-9.
W. Mack
Journal of Global Slavery 5 (2020): 123-5.
W.Schmitz
W. Schmitz, Sehepunkte 20 (2020) no. 5 (15th May 2020)
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2020/05/32528.html
K. Wrenhaven
Slavery & Abolition 41.3 (2020): 677-8.
T. Clements, Rosetta 25 (2020): 23-7.
L. Iancu, Studii şi cercetări de istorie veche şi arheologie 71 (2020): 173-8.
Papers by David Lewis
In this paper we argue that the building inside which the δόλα is located is a brothel – thus resolving all the difficulties of the law in a manner consistent with cultural practices found throughout the Greek world, including the euphemistic language for referring to prostitution found in legal (and other) texts. If our suggestion is correct, then it shows that the Gortynians too exploited slave girls in brothels, a phenomenon for which no other Gortynian evidence survives.
Full OA special issue, including Joly and Knust's original paper, available here:
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos/issue/view/3716
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119399940
Not very long ago, the standard view of the ancient Greek city and its territory was one of a cellular unit whose economic activities were nearly all internally oriented - an almost closed system where exchanges beyond the territory's borders were limited to the importation of a few luxuries for elites and any key commodities (e.g. metals) that could not be obtained locally. Most residents, furthermore, lived in the countryside. The relationship between the city residents and country residents was parasitic: the city-dwelling elite drew rents from country dwellers to fund its lifestyle and provide it with the leisure to pursue politics. This is the Greek city of the "New Orthodoxy" of M.I. Finley and his school. Finley of course recognized that large, dynamic commercial cities existed, but he treated these as rarities and furthermore played down the role of manufacturing even there (Finley 1999 [1973], 123-49; 191-6; cf. Hopkins 1983, xi-xii). Recent research into the full range of ancient Greek cities, their territories, and their resources-but also, crucially, their entanglement with the broader interstate trading economy-renders this model outdated. This chapter aims to survey the current state of the subject. Due to length constraints, comprehensive coverage is impossible, so we have focused on a series of case studies. We also limit our timeframe to the Classical and Early Hellenistic periods and therefore avoid the formative Archaic period when processes of urbanization and state formation were still inchoate; nor do we discuss some of the huge urban centers of the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean such as Antioch and Alexandria. We focus primarily on the Aegean world and secondarily on the "colonial" world (especially Magna Graecia and the Black Sea). The first section aims to canvass the size range of Greek city-states, looking both at the overall number of known cities and the "typical" city and territory size. The second section examines agriculture and settlement patterns. The third section looks at the uneven resource base of Greek cities, and the fourth shows how many cities surmounted the challenge of small and unpromising territories by specializing in some local advantage, an option that depended on high levels of mobility and interstate trade. The fifth section provides a series of case studies illustrating how cities large and small were integrated into this broader trading economy, but to differing degrees.
This chapter has two parts. The first examines Finley's claim that Pollux, Onomasticon 3.83 ('Between free men and slaves are the Helots... etc.', 2nd c AD) derives from an earlier, more reliable author, Aristophanes of Byzantium (3rd c BC). It shows that Finley's claim is without foundation in the evidence, and thereby provides yet another reason to reject the long-popular idea that Helots were 'serfs' or some mysterious kind of 'unfree peasantry' rather than slaves, at least in terms of their legal status. The second part argues for a regional understanding of Greek slavery that views local economic conditions, historical developments, and political regimes as the key determinants of why slavery varied from place to place. These claims are illustrated via case studies of slavery in Thessaly, West Lokris, Herakleia on the Black Sea, and Chios. This chapter, then, aims to de-centre Athenian slavery as the 'typical' example of Greek slavery, much as Gehrke aimed to show the little poleis of das dritte Griechenland as more typical than Athens and Sparta.
The tactics of Cretan citizen armies differed markedly from those utilized in most regions of the Classical and Hellenistic Greek world: instead of fighting in phalanxes, Cretans fought in open order, specializing in archery, skirmishing, ambushes and night actions. These tactics (and the cultural attitudes that went with them) were disparaged by mainland Greeks such as Polybios and explained in terms of moral deviancy: a sign of the duplicitous nature of the Cretans. This article demonstrates that these descriptions of Cretan tactics and behaviours are factual, but argues against the idea that they derive from moral deviancy. Rather, they represent the outcome of a different line of historical development than that followed in mainland Greece. Cretan tactics and attitudes stand far closer to those described by archaic poets (especially Homer, Archilochos and Kallinos); in this regard, Cretan city states displayed strong continuities with archaic social practices and values, detectable in other areas of Cretan society and culture. The stability of Cretan sociopolitical organization from the late seventh century down to the Roman conquest fostered the endurance of such practices and attitudes, leading to cultural divergence from mainland Greece and, accordingly, a generally hostile representation of Cretans in our main historiographical sources.
Ancient Greek coastal cities imposed stringent rules on maritime traders arriving from other states, requiring them to sail to the emporion alone, abide by their laws when in their territory, use local coinage, and pay the relevant taxes. Yet the territories of these cities contained other limenes (a word that encompasses both artificial harbours and natural moorages) that its legal residents used for fishing and local coastal trade. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of state oversight of maritime trade by investigating a case study ([Dem.] 35.28-29) where Phaselite merchants allegedly crossed the divide between interstate emporion-trade and intra-state coastal trade, avoiding the emporion at Piraeus and mooring at a local harbour named Phōrōn Limēn (Thieves' Harbour) yet making use of the market at Piraeus nonetheless. It argues that traditional interpretations of this harbour's function in terms of smuggling are improbable and that the Phaselites used it instead to conceal important knowledge from their creditors whilst accessing the emporion on foot. This case study also underscores the important economic function of minor relay ports, particularly in terms of the agricultural economy, since these moorages facilitated essential transport links between the countryside and city markets.
Résumé : Ces dernières années les historiens de l’esclavage ancien se voient régulièrement et avec insistance invités à s’engager plus étroitement dans les études globales de l’esclavage, de plus en plus d’historiens de la Grèce ancienne entreprenant un tel effort. La tendance s’applique à deux catégories de l’historiographie, à entendre histoire comparée et histoire globale (ou mondiale). On a donc l’intention de faire le point sur ces évolutions et de s’interroger comment exploiter au mieux ce tournant pour améliorer notre appréhension de l’esclave grec et de sa place dans l’histoire globale. Mais on pointera également plusieurs écueils de l’approche et s’intéressera à la manière d’y naviguer avec succès.
The full PDF is under embargo, but I can supply a copy on request, so do pop me an email if you want the whole paper.
This volume presents a radically different view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, portraying it as a patchwork of regional slave systems. Although slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also of major economic importance in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. In Greece, diversity was the rule: from the early archaic period onwards, differing historical trajectories in various regions shaped the institution of slavery in manifold ways, producing very different slave systems in regions such as Sparta, Crete, and Attica. However, in the wider Eastern Mediterranean world, we find a similar level of diversity: slavery was exploited to differing degrees across all of these regions, and was the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographic, and demographic variables.
In seeking to contextualize slaving practices across the Greek world through detailed soundings of the slaving practices of the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Carthaginians, this volume not only provides new insights into these ancient cultures, but also allows for a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.
Now published:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greek-slave-systems-in-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c800-146-bc-9780198769941?cc=gb&lang=en&#
Reviews:
R. Osborne
https://classicsforall.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/greek-slave-systems-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c-800-146-bc
F. Duarte Joly
The Classical Review 69.2 (2019): 503-5
D. Vaucher
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019-09-43.html
K. Vlassopoulos
Greece & Rome 66.2 (2019): 295.
P. Hunt
Phoenix 77.3-4 (2019): 376-9.
D.C. Snell, Classics Ireland 26 (2019): 167-9.
W. Mack
Journal of Global Slavery 5 (2020): 123-5.
W.Schmitz
W. Schmitz, Sehepunkte 20 (2020) no. 5 (15th May 2020)
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2020/05/32528.html
K. Wrenhaven
Slavery & Abolition 41.3 (2020): 677-8.
T. Clements, Rosetta 25 (2020): 23-7.
L. Iancu, Studii şi cercetări de istorie veche şi arheologie 71 (2020): 173-8.
In this paper we argue that the building inside which the δόλα is located is a brothel – thus resolving all the difficulties of the law in a manner consistent with cultural practices found throughout the Greek world, including the euphemistic language for referring to prostitution found in legal (and other) texts. If our suggestion is correct, then it shows that the Gortynians too exploited slave girls in brothels, a phenomenon for which no other Gortynian evidence survives.
Full OA special issue, including Joly and Knust's original paper, available here:
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos/issue/view/3716
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119399940
Not very long ago, the standard view of the ancient Greek city and its territory was one of a cellular unit whose economic activities were nearly all internally oriented - an almost closed system where exchanges beyond the territory's borders were limited to the importation of a few luxuries for elites and any key commodities (e.g. metals) that could not be obtained locally. Most residents, furthermore, lived in the countryside. The relationship between the city residents and country residents was parasitic: the city-dwelling elite drew rents from country dwellers to fund its lifestyle and provide it with the leisure to pursue politics. This is the Greek city of the "New Orthodoxy" of M.I. Finley and his school. Finley of course recognized that large, dynamic commercial cities existed, but he treated these as rarities and furthermore played down the role of manufacturing even there (Finley 1999 [1973], 123-49; 191-6; cf. Hopkins 1983, xi-xii). Recent research into the full range of ancient Greek cities, their territories, and their resources-but also, crucially, their entanglement with the broader interstate trading economy-renders this model outdated. This chapter aims to survey the current state of the subject. Due to length constraints, comprehensive coverage is impossible, so we have focused on a series of case studies. We also limit our timeframe to the Classical and Early Hellenistic periods and therefore avoid the formative Archaic period when processes of urbanization and state formation were still inchoate; nor do we discuss some of the huge urban centers of the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean such as Antioch and Alexandria. We focus primarily on the Aegean world and secondarily on the "colonial" world (especially Magna Graecia and the Black Sea). The first section aims to canvass the size range of Greek city-states, looking both at the overall number of known cities and the "typical" city and territory size. The second section examines agriculture and settlement patterns. The third section looks at the uneven resource base of Greek cities, and the fourth shows how many cities surmounted the challenge of small and unpromising territories by specializing in some local advantage, an option that depended on high levels of mobility and interstate trade. The fifth section provides a series of case studies illustrating how cities large and small were integrated into this broader trading economy, but to differing degrees.
This chapter has two parts. The first examines Finley's claim that Pollux, Onomasticon 3.83 ('Between free men and slaves are the Helots... etc.', 2nd c AD) derives from an earlier, more reliable author, Aristophanes of Byzantium (3rd c BC). It shows that Finley's claim is without foundation in the evidence, and thereby provides yet another reason to reject the long-popular idea that Helots were 'serfs' or some mysterious kind of 'unfree peasantry' rather than slaves, at least in terms of their legal status. The second part argues for a regional understanding of Greek slavery that views local economic conditions, historical developments, and political regimes as the key determinants of why slavery varied from place to place. These claims are illustrated via case studies of slavery in Thessaly, West Lokris, Herakleia on the Black Sea, and Chios. This chapter, then, aims to de-centre Athenian slavery as the 'typical' example of Greek slavery, much as Gehrke aimed to show the little poleis of das dritte Griechenland as more typical than Athens and Sparta.
The tactics of Cretan citizen armies differed markedly from those utilized in most regions of the Classical and Hellenistic Greek world: instead of fighting in phalanxes, Cretans fought in open order, specializing in archery, skirmishing, ambushes and night actions. These tactics (and the cultural attitudes that went with them) were disparaged by mainland Greeks such as Polybios and explained in terms of moral deviancy: a sign of the duplicitous nature of the Cretans. This article demonstrates that these descriptions of Cretan tactics and behaviours are factual, but argues against the idea that they derive from moral deviancy. Rather, they represent the outcome of a different line of historical development than that followed in mainland Greece. Cretan tactics and attitudes stand far closer to those described by archaic poets (especially Homer, Archilochos and Kallinos); in this regard, Cretan city states displayed strong continuities with archaic social practices and values, detectable in other areas of Cretan society and culture. The stability of Cretan sociopolitical organization from the late seventh century down to the Roman conquest fostered the endurance of such practices and attitudes, leading to cultural divergence from mainland Greece and, accordingly, a generally hostile representation of Cretans in our main historiographical sources.
Ancient Greek coastal cities imposed stringent rules on maritime traders arriving from other states, requiring them to sail to the emporion alone, abide by their laws when in their territory, use local coinage, and pay the relevant taxes. Yet the territories of these cities contained other limenes (a word that encompasses both artificial harbours and natural moorages) that its legal residents used for fishing and local coastal trade. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of state oversight of maritime trade by investigating a case study ([Dem.] 35.28-29) where Phaselite merchants allegedly crossed the divide between interstate emporion-trade and intra-state coastal trade, avoiding the emporion at Piraeus and mooring at a local harbour named Phōrōn Limēn (Thieves' Harbour) yet making use of the market at Piraeus nonetheless. It argues that traditional interpretations of this harbour's function in terms of smuggling are improbable and that the Phaselites used it instead to conceal important knowledge from their creditors whilst accessing the emporion on foot. This case study also underscores the important economic function of minor relay ports, particularly in terms of the agricultural economy, since these moorages facilitated essential transport links between the countryside and city markets.
Résumé : Ces dernières années les historiens de l’esclavage ancien se voient régulièrement et avec insistance invités à s’engager plus étroitement dans les études globales de l’esclavage, de plus en plus d’historiens de la Grèce ancienne entreprenant un tel effort. La tendance s’applique à deux catégories de l’historiographie, à entendre histoire comparée et histoire globale (ou mondiale). On a donc l’intention de faire le point sur ces évolutions et de s’interroger comment exploiter au mieux ce tournant pour améliorer notre appréhension de l’esclave grec et de sa place dans l’histoire globale. Mais on pointera également plusieurs écueils de l’approche et s’intéressera à la manière d’y naviguer avec succès.
The full PDF is under embargo, but I can supply a copy on request, so do pop me an email if you want the whole paper.
As the chapter is under embargo by Michigan University Press, pop me a message or email if you'd like a copy.
The file is under embargo from the press until 2024, so if you'd like a copy please email me.
In short, I argue for a larger role for slavery in explanations for Greek economic growth, a view which can be comfortably accommodated in a Neo-institutionalist framework. Most of the talk is about Solon, and the reason for this is that Finley's model depends heavily on [Arist.] Ath.Pol. on Solon's reforms at the expense of Homer and Hesiod; Finley's model has a firm grip on slavery scholars from outside of Greek history; and the problems of Quellenforschung seem not to be well understood outside of Greek history either. Whilst many specialists have changed their minds and rejected Finley's model, this isn't true yet for comparativists from outside our subject who are trying to engage with it; so a fair chunk of what I say is a walkthrough of the problems with this text, although I mention a new theory about where [Aristotle] got the idea that - before Solon came along - the land of Attica belonged entirely to a narrow oligarchy.
The main new bit is an adaption of Rihll 1996 and Descat 2006 on the link between trade and the rise of slave society, where I argue that slavery was key to the monetisation of archaic and classical Greece, because silver mining was a toxic business, and slaves - the property of their owners and often severed from ties of solidarity and kinship - the perfect solution from the mine-contractor's perspective to opening up this area of primary resource extraction on a large scale. Whereas Descat argues that monetisation drove trade, thereby increasing the level of slave imports which led to the emergence of a slave society, I argue that this whole process depended on having sufficient numbers of slaves there to mine the silver in the first place, and that slavery drove monetisation.