Three questions to always keep in mind: What types of evidence do we have? How reliable is it? How representative is it?
Evidence from antiquity Literature (histories, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, letters, novels) Manuals/how to guides (also literature; all extant Roman but Greek ones also available) Papyri (letters, tax receipts, sales, census records…- list is endless) Inscriptions (funerary, honorific, figures, legal (including manumission)) Laws (more information on Roman than Greek; issue of different laws for different Greek states) Art: vases, paintings, mosaics, statues, figurines… Archaeology Other material remains
Tax receipt from Roman Egypt, 198 CE (found at Oxyrhynchus; image source) source
Roman North Africa
Columbaria di Vigna Codini
Columbaria di Vigna Codini – close up of niches
Urn for the ashes of Tiberius Claudius Chryseros, Iulia Theonoes and Claudia Dorcas, probably his wife and daughter CIL VI 5318
Funeral inscription for Octavia and Arbuscula. (CIL VI 7872)
Relief from a funerary monument showing woman with her slave attendants Roman, from Neumagen, before 220 CE
Tombstone for the slave dealer Aulus Caprelius Timotheos from Amphipolis
Mosaic showing Roman villa at Centocelle near Rome; 2 nd century CE)
Slaves prepare a meal (fresco from Pompeii; 1 st century CE)
Slaves miners in Laurion (5 th century BCE, Athens)
Silver mines of Laurion (now Lavrio)
Roman slave shackles ( CE) found in Hampshire, England Image sourcesource
Image sourcesource