This first instalment in the four-volume Cambridge World History of Slavery is an impressive synthesis of current Anglophone scholarship on slavery in the Greek and Roman worlds. It brings together twenty-one leading names in the field, many of them offering their latest thinking on topics which they have already made their own with earlier books or articles. It is a very welcome addition to the bibliography. There are several books that survey Greek or Roman slavery separately, but there has been only one recent attempt to treat the two together (Aubert and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome (2006), translated as The Slave in Greece and Rome (2011)) — and none of these can rival this volume for breadth and depth of analysis. With its wide chronological and thematic scope, its detailed coverage of key scholarship and primary sources and the authority of the contributors, it is sure to become the first port of call for students and for scholars approaching a period or topic for the first time.

The book opens with a survey of slavery in the ‘ancient Near East’ over most of the first two millennia b.c.e., primarily focused on Mesopotamia, but extending to the Levant, Egypt, Anatolia and the Aegean (ch. 1, Snell). The rest of the book falls into two halves, focused on the Greek and Roman worlds respectively, with a mix of thematic, chronological and geographic chapters. Although the authors have sensibly avoided strait-jacketing themselves with an overly schematic structure, they have arranged a series of paired chapters on key themes which usefully facilitate comparison between the Greek and Roman worlds. Both the Greek and Roman sections begin with a discussion of the representation of slaves in literary culture (ch. 2, Hunt, on Greece; ch. 11, Joshel, on Rome), which foregrounds the fact that much of our knowledge of ancient slavery is mediated through complex texts which have their own agendas. Other pairs of chapters cover the slave supply (ch. 6, Braund; ch. 14, Scheidel), slavery and the family (ch. 7, Golden; ch. 16, Edmondson), resistance to slavery (ch. 8, McKeown; ch. 17, Bradley), and slavery and material culture (ch. 9, Morris; ch. 18, George). The Greek half also includes geographically-focused chapters on Athens (ch. 3, Rihll) and Sparta (ch. 4, Cartledge) as well as a discussion of the economics of slavery (ch. 5, Kyrtatas) and a chapter on the Hellenistic World (ch. 10, Thompson). The Roman half includes chronologically-focused chapters on the Republic (ch. 12, Bradley), the Principate (ch. 13, Morley) and the late Roman world (ch. 22, Grey) as well as discussions of slave occupations (ch. 15, Bodel), the Roman law on slavery (ch. 19, Gardner) and slavery and Christianity (ch. 21, Glancy). Also in the Roman half is a chapter on slavery in Jewish communities, which is primarily focused on the first two centuries c.e. but extends from the fifth century b.c.e. to the fifth century c.e. (ch. 20, Heszer).

The editors have limited themselves to a two-and-a-half page introduction and their individual contributions. They say that they have encouraged the contributors to present their own opinions (3) and there is certainly no sign that they have tried to enforce a party line. This makes it a less provocative, but probably also more useful, book than it would have been had they been more prescriptive. It will be interesting to compare it with the forthcoming Oxford Handbook to Ancient Slaveries (Hodkinson, Kleijwegt and Vlassopoulos), which seems to be aiming at a sharper break with existing scholarship. Despite the free rein given the contributors, the volume inevitably reflects the orthodoxies of Anglophone scholarship. I note, for example, that the new minimalist view of the scale of Roman slavery is affirmed by several contributors — e.g. Bradley at 251, Morley at 284 and Scheidel at 288–92 — and stands unchallenged.

If there is a central theme to the volume as a whole, it is continuity. The series editors' introduction stresses the ‘durability and ubiquity’ of slavery across world history (ix) and the introduction proper expresses the hope that the book will demonstrate ‘the centrality of slavery in ancient Mediterranean life’ (2). The volume as a whole certainly makes a strong case for the economic, social and ideological importance of slavery in all the societies discussed. It is significant that both end pieces — Snell on the Near East before Alexander (ch. 1) and Grey on Late Antiquity (ch. 22) — stress continuity rather than rupture. (A notable exception to the general emphasis on continuity is Thompson's chapter on the Hellenistic world (ch. 10), which makes the case for a significant expansion of chattel slavery in Anatolia, Egypt and Mesopotamia after Alexander's conquest.) The corollary of this focus on continuity is that it is left to individual contributors to raise and address questions of change or difference, such as distinctions between chattel slavery and other forms of coerced labour or between ‘slave societies’ and societies with slaves' — a dichotomy employed by many of the contributors, though the editors themselves seem sceptical of its value (1–2, 244). For better or worse, readers are left to come to their own conclusions about the long-term trajectory of slavery in the Mediterranean and the historical problems it raises.

One minor regret is the uneven geographical coverage. The aspiration to cover the ‘Ancient Mediterranean world’ rather than just ‘the Greco-Roman world’ is admirable and the volume is much enriched by the chapters on the Near East (Snell, who has to pack a lot into a single chapter) and Jewish communities (Heszer). But it is a pity that there is only a page and a half on Egypt before Alexander (and only scattered discussion of later periods) and nothing on the Western Mediterranean before the Roman conquest, beyond a very brief discussion at pp. 266–7. It will come as no surprise that most of the chapters on ‘Greek’ or ‘Roman’ slavery are in fact focused on Athens or Italy respectively. The exceptions on the Greek side are Cartledge on Sparta (ch. 4) and Thompson (ch. 10), whose chapter on the Hellenistic world concentrates on the Near East. On the Roman side, all the chapters (with the notable exception of Heszer on Jewish slavery) nominally cover the whole Empire but in practice focus on Italy, with only sporadic discussion of the provinces. There is thus no systematic analysis of the scale and character of slavery in the various provinces (the most significant exceptions being Morley's remarks on the diffusion of slavery to Gaul, Spain and Britain (266–74) and Scheidel's attempt to quantify slave-holding in the provinces (289–92)). A disproportionate focus on Athens and Italy is of course inevitable given the sources at our disposal. But the scale of this volume offered an opportunity to shine more light on the rest of the Mediterranean world. One or two chapters specifically addressing the provinces might have rounded out the volume nicely. On the subject of geographical scope, there is also the broader question (not addressed in either introduction) of why the series editors chose to restrict this first volume of a world history of slavery to the Mediterranean world — without even a glance at China, South Asia or Iran.

In any case, this substantial volume is certainly the new authority on Greco-Roman slavery. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike.