Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions

Sandra R. Joshel

Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions
Format
Paperback
Publisher
University of Oklahoma Press
Country
United States
Published
15 April 1992
Pages
256
ISBN
9780806124445

Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions

Sandra R. Joshel

What was daily life like for a working man or woman in the Roman Empire? What was the meaning of labour for the labourer? Roman authors (who seldom were workers) depicted workers in ancient Rome but generally used stereotypes intended to amuse the upper class. Common men and women did write of their own lives, often poignantly and eloquently, in their epitaphs and votive dedications. At death they claimed the identity they had worked a lifetime to create. For many, the identity centered on occupation. In Work, Identity and Legal Status at Rome , Sandra R. Joshel examines Roman commemorative inscriptions from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD to determine ways in which slaves, freed slaves and unprivileged freeborn citizens used work to frame their identities. In the minutiae of the epitaphs and dedications she identifies the language of the inscriptions, through which the voiceless classes of Ancient Rome spoke. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, enthnography and women’s history, this thoroughly documented volume illuminates the dynamics of work and slavery at Rome.

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