Ancient Slavery and Abolition

Book excerpt: A pathbreaking study of the role played by ancient Greek and Roman sources and voices in the struggle to abolish transatlantic slavery and in representations of that struggle in the twentieth century. Thirteen essays by an interdisciplinary team of specialists from three continents, led by the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome at Royal Holloway University of London, ask how both critics and defenders of slavery in media ranging from parliamentary speeches to poetry, fiction, drama, and cinema have summoned the ghosts of the ancient Spartans, Homer, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Pliny, Spartacus, and Prometheus to support their arguments.