Papers by Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz
This article discusses the group of thirty-eight inscribed manumission documents, emanating from ... more This article discusses the group of thirty-eight inscribed manumission documents, emanating from the Kabeirion in north-east Lemnos. This corpus is of a great importance for the study of the island, its Athenian and other population, and the role of the sanctuary and the cult celebrated there, as well as to the study of manumission. While the work done by scholars who studied the inscriptions has shed light on this lesser-known site of manumission, thus adding valuable information to what is known on manumission practices and manumission documents in the Greek world, there are some important questions related to this corpus that still remain to be elucidated. In this article I will briefly review the main features of these manumission documents that emerge from previous studies and consider in greater detail the questions that remain unsolved, suggesting some answers where such can be given.
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2018
It is commonly accepted that funerary practices and legislation refl ect social and political str... more It is commonly accepted that funerary practices and legislation refl ect social and political structures as well as attitudes to death. But some basic questions have only recently started to attract scholarly attention: Who owned the grave plot? What was its legal status? Were cemeteries administered by any person or group? Was the legal status of a grave situated on private land different from that of a grave in a necropolis? How can we explain burials of non-citizens and slaves in the polis's territory, if they were debarred from owning land? Who was responsible for protecting the grave? These questions are of great importance in the study of ancient social and political norms. Moreover, they relate to the broader issue of the distinction between 'public' and 'private' in the Greek polis. This paper reexamines the evidence pertaining to the subject of grave plots' legal status, so as to offer some tentative answers. * An earlier version of this paper was read at the Institute of Classical Studies in London during my stay there as a visiting fellow in 2015. I have greatly benefi tted from comments made on that occasion. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers of Dike for their suggestions.
This paper examines inscriptions that record land sales, aiming to find out whether and how they ... more This paper examines inscriptions that record land sales, aiming to find out whether and how they can teach us the extent to which the polis intervened in private transactions or even instigated them, and under what circumstances. Studying inscribed records of transactions in real estate contributes to our knowledge of the development of practices of recording and publishing contracts. But examining the evidence of state intervention as it emerges from such records may also contribute to our understanding of the ancient Greeks’ definition of ‘public’ and ‘private’ and of the process leading to the crystallization of these concepts. Of course, definitions of public and private spaces and spheres of activity were not monolithic. They changed over time and may have differed from one polis to another. However, I hope to show that in respect of land sales, public intervention in the private sphere increased over time in several places, so that sharper lines were drawn between these spaces...
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2018
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. ”A re-interpretation of Martial, Epigram XI.94” Marie Roux
This collection presents 19 interconnected studies on the language, history, exegesis, and cultur... more This collection presents 19 interconnected studies on the language, history, exegesis, and cultural setting of Greek epic and dramatic poetic texts (“Text”) and their afterlives (“Intertext”) in Antiquity. Spanning texts from Hittite archives to Homer to Greek tragedy and comedy to Vergil to Celsus, the studies here were all written by friends and colleagues of Margalit Finkelberg who are experts in their particular fields, and who have all been influenced by her work. The papers offer close readings of individual lines and discussion of widespread cultural phenomena. Readers will encounter Hittite precedents to the Homeric poems, characters in ancient epic analyzed by modern cognitive theory, the use of Homer in Christian polemic, tragic themes of love and murder, a history of the Sphinx, and more. Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama offers a selection of fascinating essays exploring Greek epic, drama, and their reception and adaptation by other ancient authors, and will be of interest to anyone working on Greek literature.
Not Wholly Free, 2005
Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive stud... more Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive study presents Greek manumission as a form of social relations, rooted in concepts of freedom and dependence and reflected by the terminology and the conditions of manumission.
Not Wholly Free, 2005
Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive stud... more Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive study presents Greek manumission as a form of social relations, rooted in concepts of freedom and dependence and reflected by the terminology and the conditions of manumission.
The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries, 2018
The Greeks had no single generic term for ‘slave’, but a variety of terms for diverse relations o... more The Greeks had no single generic term for ‘slave’, but a variety of terms for diverse relations of dependence and unfree people, many of which were also used to describe free people. Although much less complex, the Roman slave terms show similar features. Despite the ambiguity of the ancient terminology, we may make inferences about various aspects of unfreedom, about ambiguities in social and juridical distinctions, and about attitudes to menial work. This chapter examines Greek and Roman terminologies, aiming at detecting their semantic fields and pointing to a possible identical semantic process behind the adoption of the main slave terms in Greece, Rome, and the modern western world.
Not Wholly Free, 2005
Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive stud... more Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive study presents Greek manumission as a form of social relations, rooted in concepts of freedom and dependence and reflected by the terminology and the conditions of manumission.
Textus, 2010
"In this article I examine expressions from the context of the circumcision and ... more "In this article I examine expressions from the context of the circumcision and Passover laws in Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus, which suggest two kinds of slaves: “home-born” and “bought with silver”. These expressions, alongside the more common terminology of slavery, bear witness to the development of chattel slavery and slave trade in the land of Israel by the time these books were composed, and to the existence of precise distinctions between free persons and slaves, and between different kinds of slaves. However, the distinction between home-born and bought slaves was not legal but social. This raises the question of why this pair of expressions was used together in the context in which they appear. This is all the more important because “home-born” and “bought with silver” have perfect equivalents in Greek and Latin, in the translations of the Hebrew Bible as well as in Greek and Roman literary and epigraphic sources, but there is no evidence for such a combination of the two expressions in a legal context. Reviewing and analyzing the evidence for the use of these expressions I suggest that the need to be precise as to who was entitled to eat holy food was behind the exacting phrasing of the circumcision law: not only home-born slaves must be circumcised at the age of eight days, but even slaves purchased when they are much older."
Not Wholly Free, 2005
Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive stud... more Based on a thorough investigation of the literary and epigraphic sources, this comprehensive study presents Greek manumission as a form of social relations, rooted in concepts of freedom and dependence and reflected by the terminology and the conditions of manumission.
Between Orality and Literacy: Communication and Adaptation in Antiquity, 2014
This chapter discusses questions on epigraphic history, aiming at shedding some light on the oral... more This chapter discusses questions on epigraphic history, aiming at shedding some light on the oral side of historiography and its meaning, especially as a medium for transmitting historical texts, and the relation between the oral performance of the historical text and its inscribed version. The relation of oral performance to inscribed text can be likened to that of digital to printed texts. Like the ancient oral presentations, the internet too is a "shortcut to fame" and is the fastest medium to transmit texts, images, music and other performative acts to a wide audience. Like dynamic local history, the digital text too is often changed, transformed and adapted to various needs. Akin to the ancient compilations and 'cycles' of mythical, poetical and historical texts, the digital text too is often compiled from different sources and presented as new; an apparent example are the Wiki spaces. Keywords: historiography; inscribed text; oral performance
Taxing Freedom in Thessalian Manumission Inscriptions, 2013
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012
Manumission was the termination of the state of slavery – of the total domination and confinement... more Manumission was the termination of the state of slavery – of the total domination and confinement of one person by another – and the annulment of his or her legal capacity as property. Being freed, the slave became a subject of rights, limited as they were. Keywords: slavery; social history
Taxing Freedom in Thessalian Manumission Inscriptions, 2013
Taxing Freedom in Thessalian Manumission Inscriptions, 2013
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Papers by Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz