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Slavery was fundamental to every ancient economy. Wyman examines the economics of enslaved labor in Greece, Rome, and the Islamic world — how slavery shaped agriculture, manufacturing, and household organization across millennia.
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Canon
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Seneca and Epictetus argued that enslaved people possessed the same rational soul as free people. These Stoic arguments were philosophically sound but economically irrelevant — no slaveholder freed their workers because Seneca said they should.
Highlights
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Ancient slavery was economically rational and self-sustaining — which is precisely what made it so durable and so evil
Wyman argues that slavery persisted for millennia not because ancient people were uniquely cruel but because enslaved labor was economically profitable. The economic rationality of slavery is what made it so resistant to moral criticism.Was this useful?