Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery Between Evidence and Models (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 92) by Ulrike Roth

Abstract

BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 419 le renvoi pur et simple a certaines informations etudiees par Le Gall comme letude des cippt duTibre (198-200) merite un approfondissement et unemise a jour. Par ailleurs, nous avons un acces plus facile quau temps de Le Gall aux editions recentes du Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum et des Gromatici Veteres notamment. A part les controverses d'alluvionnement, les occurrences comme les limites Tiberi dans ce Corpus meriterait un examenattentif sansdoute dans un cadreplus largeque celuide YUrbs.Elles confirment lavaleurparadigmatiquedes inondationsduTibre en Italie et laprotectiondes rivesen termes de bassin versant. Ce livre, actuellement le plus complet sur les inondations du Tibre a Rome et leur impact sur la vie quotidienne de la metropole, pourrait sans doute servir d'excellent point de depart pour une telle recherche. University Laval Ella Hermon Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery Between Evidence and Models. By Ulrike Roth. London: UniversityofLondon (Bulletinof theInstitute ofClassical Studies Supplement92). 2007. Pp. x, 171. In recent years, scholars have paid increasing attention to the contribution that women made to the Roman economy, a complex topic that Richard Sailer addresses in his chapterintherecently publishedCambridge Economic History ofthe Greco-Roman World (2007). In her important new book,Ulrike Roth takesup thisbroad issueby addressing the role that women played in the slave economy of the Roman republic. In Roth's view, despite the paucity of positive evidence forwomen slaves in the Roman estate economy, theyplayed a crucial roleboth by contributingto an estate'sproductionaswell as by reproducing new generations of slaves. In making her argument, Roth rethinks familiar literary evidence, especially the recommendations of Cato and Varro about the proper size of slave workforces and their rations. She interprets them against a rich background of comparative evidence, including anthropological analyses ofwomen's role in theworkforce, and historical analyses of slave-holding in the US south. In addition, her work draws on Walter Scheidel's recent studies of slave-holding in Italy, most notably his article "Human Mobility inRoman Italy, II: The Slave Population" (JRS 105 [2005] 64-79). In this article, Scheidel argues for a lower number of slaves in republican Italy than the common estimate of one-third of the population, and that the slave population was sustained through reproduction and not simply a continuing influx ofwar captives. So if slave women were present on estates in greater numbers than has been generally assumed, how did they contribute to production? To answer this question, Roth develops a very plausible model for the importance ofwool production on estates, even on ones whose principal cash crops were wine and olive oil. Spinning wool yarn is a labor-intensive task, and if producing woolen garments was an industry carried out on estates, a larger labor force would be requiredthan the slaves working in thefields.Roth thenadduces comparative anthropologicalevidence to show that women couldbe involvedin thisproduction while also fulfilling theirothermajor role,child care, since spinningis an activitythat women can combinewith thistask.The suppositionthattheproductionof textiles was a highly decentralizedand even a rural industryis quite interesting.It finds a possible parallel in Roman Egypt, where a great deal of textile production was carried out at the village level,althoughthereisalso evidenceforlarge workshops in Alexandria.The evidencefor textile production on estates is mostly indirect. Roth reappraises Cato's recommendations 420 PHOENIX concerningthe appropriaterationsfor slaves (ChapterTwo). Using the World Health Organization's recommendations for diet, as well as the analysis of these for the ancient world byL. Foxhall andH. A. Forbes {" Sitometreia: The Role ofGrain as a StapleFood in Classical Antiquity,"Chiron 12 [1982] 41-90), she arguesthattherations were designed to support more than an individual slave, and so should be regarded as a supplement to the diet of a slavefamily. These rations would be comparableto the monthlydistributionsin Rome of five modii of wheat, much more than an individual would require, but not at all enough to meet the entire nutritional needs of a family. The putative slave family would have supplementeditsfood rationsthrough daily meals servedtotheslavestaff (mentioned in the agricultural writers), their own efforts to cultivate individual gardens and raise some livestock, and even stealing. Perhaps a more difficult problem is to find a place forwomen in the archaeological evidence. Loom weights are frequently to be found in rural sites, but...