Urbainczyk - Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Slave Revolts in Antiquity

Theresa Urbainczyk

Contents

I thought a book about slave revolts in antiquity was a great project. I came up with it in 2000 and over the past eight years more colleagues than I care to remember have tried to dissuade me from it. The process of writing and rewriting has been at times extremely dispiriting but I still think the subject deserves several books and am more than happy to have finished this. Consequently, my thanks to those individuals who have encouraged me are more than usually heartfelt. First I must acknowledge with gratitude that University College Dublin allowed me to take two semesters of sabbatical leave, the first spent in Berlin in 2004, the second in Warsaw in 2007. Giving papers in the Free University and the Humboldt University made me rethink my ideas several times and I owe much to the audiences in both places. I am grateful to the Royal Irish Academy and the Polish Academy of Sciences for the grant that enabled me to go to Warsaw for the first time.

Two conferences helped sustain me: one in Galway (Slave Systems, Ancient and Modern, organized by Enrico del Lago and Constantina Katsari in November 2004); the other in Hull (Slavery, Unfinished Business, organized by the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation in May 2007). I would like especially to thank Kevin Bales, Keith Bradley, Douglas Egerton, Vernita Irvin, Constantina Katsari and Orlando Patterson. Their comments on my talks were more helpful than they will ever know.

This book is much better because of the observations of the anonymous readers, and my copy-editor, Kate Williams, for Acumen, and I acknowledge gratefully their contribution to the finished product. Jan Willem Drijvers and Stephen Mennell both read full drafts of this book and were kind enough to tell me to carry on with it. I owe a special debt to Wilfried Nippel, who commented on a late draft very carefully and saved me from many errors. Niall McKeown also read this, and his challenging remarks improved it substantially. Stelios Mallikourtis taught me much about ancient and modern Greece and took an interest in my work when it seemed no one else did. Kieran Allen, Roland Erne and Ireneusz ada have all, at times, persuaded me to finish this, if only because they did not want to hear about it any more. I shall always be grateful to them whatever their motives. Steven Gerrard saw the possibilities of this book and I am happy that he did. I dedicate this to my mother, who would have thought a book about slave revolts in antiquity was a great project.