University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. — 668 p.
In Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome, Sandra R. Joshel examines Roman commemorative inscriptions from the first and second centuries A.D. to determine ways in which slaves, freed slaves, and unprivileged freeborn citizens used work to frame their identities. The inscriptions indicate the significance of work-as a source of community, a way to reframe the conditions of legal status, an assertion of activity against upper-class passivity, and a standard of assessment based on economic achievement rather than birth. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, ethnography, and women’s history, this thoroughly documented volume illuminates the dynamics of work and slavery at Rome.
Contents
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter I
Listening to Silence: Problems in the Epistemology of Muted Groups
The Problem of Exclusion: Literature and Inscription
Strategies of Listening: Women's History and Ethnography
The Occupational Inscriptions: Sampling and Analysis
The Occupational Inscriptions and Roman Social History
Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome
Chapter II
Slavery, Freedom, and the Construction of Identity
Legal Status: The Components of What Was Given
Formal Nomenclature and Status Indication: What's in a Name?
Assessing Legal Status: What They Did and What We Can Know
The Legal Status of Men and Women with Occupational Title
Toward an Understanding of the Significance of Occupational Title
Chapter III
The Meanings of Work
Naming and Claiming: Attitudes Toward Work in Latin Literature
Occupational Structure: The Work Named in Roman Inscriptions
Occupational Titles and the Needs of Rome's Elite
Naming and Claiming: Commercial Success and Professional Prestige
Chapter IV
Work in Its Social Context: The Question of Community
Two Occupational Structures and the Movement Between Two Worlds
Work, Status, and Community: Household, Shop, and Collegium
Chapter V
The Re-formation of What Was Given
The Question of Predominance
The Freed Artisan: Framing a Free Present
The Domestic Servant: Refraining the Terms of Power and Dependence
Conclusions
Appendix I Some Useful Terms 171
Appendix II Occupational Categories and Glossary
Appendix III The Roman Population with
Occupational Titles
Notes
Bibliography
Index