The Lives of Roman Freedwomen in the Latin West

an Epigraphic Study

Sandon, Tatjana

An epigraphic analysis of the lives of female ex-slaves in the west of the Roman Empire
Investigates the lives of freedwomen, i.e. women who experienced what in Roman society was a double drawback – that is being both female and formerly enslaved
Is based on the analysis of a vast sample of Latin inscriptions (almost 10,000) from the city of Rome, Italy and the western provinces
Privileges the point of view of the women themselves, analysed through the information available from the epigraphic texts commissioned by themselves or those close to them, rather than from the literary sources written by elite male authors
The book investigates the lives of libertae, i.e. female ex-slaves, in the western part of the Roman Empire, by analysing the inscriptional evidence left behind by these women and those close to them. The study considers the freedwomen both inside and outside the domestic environment, looking at libertae not only as former slaves, but also as wives and mothers, workers, labourers, service providers and professionals, besides their wider roles as members of their communities. The innovative aspect of this study is the choice of rigorously giving centre stage to epigraphic documents, rather than the well-known literary texts. This approach is essential to foreground the freedwomen’s point of view, in place of the perspective of the elite male authors that has however hitherto been given priority in the modern discussion of Roman freedpersons. The analysed sample, nearly 10,000 inscriptions, includes texts from every area of the western Roman Empire: this large data pool allows wide-reaching detailed qualitative analysis as well as quantitative comparisons, enabling moreover highly differentiated insights into the similarities and differences that existed for libertae across the Empire.