Symposium Vesuvianum 2026

Slavery and Humanity Revisited: The Impact of Slave Systems on Personal Experience

Villa Vergiliana, Cumae

(October 7 – 11, 2026)

Organizers: John Bodel, Brown University; William Owens, Ohio University; Roberta Stewart, Dartmouth College

In his 1965 book Sklaverei und Humanität, Joseph Vogt offered a description of Roman slavery in which the enslaved accommodated themselves to the moral universe created by their enslavers. A dozen years later Moses Finley delivered a riposte to Vogt in a lecture at the Collège de France on “Slavery and Humanity,” in which he insisted on “a sharp distinction between more or less humane treatment of individual slaves by individual masters and the inhumanity of slavery as an institution”. Finley considered “the ambiguity inherent in slavery” to be “an excellent starting-point from which to examine the theme” but in the end concluded that the topic, “slavery and humanity, is plunged into the centre of modern moral and ideological controversy, as much a field for the philosopher and the theologian as for the historian” (Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, p. 122).

Now, nearly fifty years after Finley’s pronouncement, we propose to return to the issue of slavery and humanity and to convene a group of scholars with diverse interests and methodologies to consider the impact of ancient Mediterranean slave systems on persons, both the enslaved and the enslavers. What effect did systemic slavery have on the personal experiences and worldview of enslavers and the enslaved in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies? What new insights into this question can be gained through methodologies developed over the past fifty years? Of particular relevance to the focus on persons are the distortions in the archive created by systems of domination. Such distortion is especially true for ancient Mediterranean slavery. Consideration of an enslaved person’s point of view often entails reading the ancient archive against the grain and increases our reliance on the comparative method and other heuristic devices as well as our obligation to employ them self-consciously and critically.

We solicit papers that consider any aspect of human experience in ancient Mediterranean or Near Eastern slavery. Possible topics include: the contexts of economic activity and social relations; affectual relations among the enslaved and between enslavers and enslaved; modes of resistance or accommodation; solidarity among the enslaved and among enslavers; religion and other aspects of cultural memory among the enslaved; trauma, or the psychic assault of enslavement and its consequences.

The symposium will include three and a half days of papers and discussion. Papers will be 25-30 minutes long with time for discussion. The schedule will also include visits to selected sites nearby. Meals and housing will be provided by the Villa Vergiliana (a bed in a double room with breakfast and dinner is approximately €70 a day; single rooms are available at private hotel/B&B accommodations within walking distance of the Villa). Those staying at the Villa should also figure in the cost of Vergilian Society membership ($35 for the year). In addition, there may be a modest registration fee, dependent on outside funding, to help defray the cost of lunches and other conference activities.

Confirmed participants include: Seth Bernard (University of Toronto), Ronald Charles (University of Toronto), Chris DeWet (University of Pretoria), Deborah Kamen (University of Washington), Sarah Levin-Richardson (University of Washington), David Lewis (University of Edinburgh) and Lauren Petersen (University of Delaware).

Please submit abstracts (300-400 words) to William Owens (owensb@ohio.edu) by February 15, 2026.
The organizers will get back to you during the first week of March.