Papers by Jason D Porter
Después de una ola reciente de argumentos bibliográficos para un crecimiento significativo en la ... more Después de una ola reciente de argumentos bibliográficos para un crecimiento significativo en la economía griega antigua, varios libros pioneros han tratado de explicar este fenómeno a través de la lente de la Nueva Economía Institucional (NIS). Sin embargo, la prevalencia innegable de la esclavitud a lo largo de la historia griega antigua no se ha integrado sustancialmente en estos nuevos análisis. Este artículo tiene como objetivo abordar este problema aclarando algunas de las formas en que la esclavitud contribuyó a la eflorescencia económica de los últimos períodos arcaico y clásico de Grecia (600-300 a. C.) dentro de un enfoque centrado institucionalmente. Mirando especialmente el caso del Estado de Atenas, este estudio argumenta no solo que el sistema de esclavitud importó grandes cantidades de trabajo de otras regiones mediterráneas a la política ateniense, sino también que dirigió el trabajo hacia objetivos económicamente productivos que fueron, por otro lado, limitado por l...
Greece and Rome, 2021
This article discusses differences and continuity in responses to issues of slave management in t... more This article discusses differences and continuity in responses to issues of slave management in two texts from different periods of Greek history (Xenophon's Oeconomicus and the Odyssey) and compares these responses to those of slave owners in the Antebellum South, ancient Rome, and the ancient Near East. In particular, it examines different expressions of paternalistic attitudes towards slaves (a well-studied feature of slave-owning classes throughout history) that it finds are present in both of these examples. The article explores the possibility that intertextual links were responsible for these similarities but suggests instead that they are reflective of real Greek slaveholding ideology across hundreds of years, which primarily served to justify an exploitative system and disguise the cruelty and violence inherent in maintaining it.
Mare Nostrum, 2019
Following a recent wave of literature arguing for significant growth in the ancient Greek economy... more Following a recent wave of literature arguing for significant growth in the ancient Greek economy, several groundbreaking books have sought to explain this phenomenon through the lens of New Institutional Economics (NIE). The undeniable prevalence of slavery throughout ancient Greek history, however, has not been substantially integrated into these new analyses. This essay intends to address this problem, by elucidating some of the ways in which slavery contributed to the economic efflorescence of Greece's late archaic and classical period (600-300 BC) within an institutionally focused approach. Examining specifically the state of Athens, this study contends that not only did the system of slavery import a vast amount of labour from other areas of the Mediterranean into the Athenian polity, but it also directed labour towards economically productive aims that were otherwise limited by Athens' societal framework. The use of slaves in milling operations provides a key and often overlooked example, which will here be used as a case study.
Thesis Chapters by Jason D Porter
Drafts by Jason D Porter
Slavery and Sexuality in Antiquity, D. Kamen and C. W. Marshall eds., 2021
As enslaved persons were sexually available to their master and to those to whom he might award t... more As enslaved persons were sexually available to their master and to those to whom he might award these sexual rights in turn, vulnerability to such treatment was endemic to the condition of slavery in Athens and throughout history. Accordingly, most modern studies of Athenian slavery and sexuality have focused on the sexual exploitation of slaves. Undoubtedly important as these narratives are, this chapter intends to break with this trend by focusing on sexual relationships which were at least partially instigated by slaves themselves. More specifically, I will examine the role masters played in restricting or facilitating these relationships for their own ends as well as that which slaves played in creating them. Though a level of slave agency may often have been involved in the relationships between masters and slaves, the overwhelming power of the master was such that the strategies of slaves are very difficult to distinguish in our evidence for relationships of this kind. By focusing on the examples below, I hope to provide a more complete picture of the sexual lives of Athenian slaves and to use this topic to explore the negotiations which took place within the master-slave dynamic.
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Papers by Jason D Porter
Thesis Chapters by Jason D Porter
Drafts by Jason D Porter