Investigates the social experiences of enslaved persons in the Roman Empire. The work attends to both the historiographical processes by which contemporary readers can attempt to detect the lives of enslaved persons, and the social climate in which enslaved persons existed in relation to so-called masters. Beyond the dichotomy of that relationship, the work also explores the social lives enslaved persons had with one another, and the processes of gaining manumission. Engages discussions in the fields of social history, enslavement and captivity, and historiography.