2022
Copyright PERSEE 2003-2023. Works reproduced on the PERSEE website are protected by the general rules of the Code of Intellectual Property. For strictly private, scientific or teaching purposes excluding all commercial use, reproduction and communication to the public of this document is permitted on condition that its origin and copyright are clearly mentionned.
Alberto Prieto, « Vidas de esclavos escritas por ellos mismos », Actes du Groupe de Recherches sur l’Esclavage depuis l’Antiquité, ID : 10670/1.tpslul
In 2014, a book entitled “ How to Manage your Slave” has been published under the name of Jerry Toner although it is suggested that it had been written by a slave called Marcus Sidonius Falco only in collaboration with the real author. Mary Beard ends her preface to this book with following questions : “ Are there really such differences between ‘ wage slaves’ and ‘ slaves’ ? Are we so different from the ancient Romans ?” As one may see, it is an invented example of what a Roman slave might think both with regard to his own situation and about the social panorama of the world in which he lived. In reality there is no biography of slaves written by themselves, but instead various “ lives of slaves written by themselves” are known, especially during the nineteenth century and the most famous is the one written by Frederic Douglass whose account has been analysed since then from different angles. For instance, what Angela Davies does in 2009 in one of the prologues to his autobiography is particularly interesting. In all the prologues, an attempt has been made to understand not only how the slavery worked in the past, but also to ensure that the heritage of slavery could help to better identify the complex challenges of the present.