Emma Southon sees Servus as an ‘act of remembrance for all the enslaved people who populated the world of the Roman Empire’. History, she argues, ‘has worked hard to erase these millions … from our image of Rome’. Her book is intended to give them a voice again. Accordingly, it offers a wide panorama of the experience of Roman slaves. Southon starts with their birth into their various possible stations – anything from the high administrative service of emperors to the degrading toil of the brothel or the mine. She goes on to describe the ways in which slaves might obtain their freedom and their prospects after emancipation.

Servus poses questions about the day-to-day relationships between slaves and masters, how obedience was maintained and what happened when that obedience broke down, most famously with the revolt of Spartacus. It draws on a wide range of lesser-known sources – agricultural handbooks, inscriptions, legal texts – to piece together the experiences of its subjects. There is no holding back from describing the violence – metal collars, chains, metal-studded whips – that might be meted out to slaves for even the slightest indiscretion.

One cannot fault the author for the passion with which she tackles this subject, or the vividness of her descriptions. It is striking, however, that while the ostensible purpose of the book is to give voice to the slaves, one of the most prominent characters in the book is Dr