A primeira igreja cristã (Fonte Editorial, 2024, 464 pages, R$109.90), by Juliana Batista Cavalcanti, is an anthropological and historical analysis of the first Christians in the Roman city of Dura-Europos, in Syria. Based on archaeological evidence from a house-church located near a synagogue and a mithraeum, as well as three portraits of Jesus dating from the 3rd century, the author seeks to understand the cultural influences and daily relationships between the first Christians, Jews, and polytheists present in the region. For the author, it is possible to glimpse a network of subjectivity between these subjects, so that there are mutual influences in the development of their religious identities, which generates religious tolerance between these groups. Thus, it is possible to understand in a broader way the domestic environment and daily coexistence, as well as the cultural intertwinings, of these different groups.

Freed Persons in the Roman World: Status, Diversity, and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 2024, 308 pages, $110), edited by Sinclair W. Bell, Dorian Borbonus, and Rose Maclean, is a study of the integration and representation of freedmen in the Roman world. Drawing from literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, the authors seek to understand the experiences of freedmen in different periods and regions of the Roman Empire. Although freedmen shared some experiences with enslaved people, diverse social relationships and interactions could result from servitude and the process of obtaining manumission. Thus, the authors seek to emphasize how freedmen themselves chose to represent themselves, as well as to nuance the impacts of power asymmetries, the strategies used by these freedmen to navigate different social situations, and the different legal conditions imposed on them.

Slavery and Dependence in Ancient Egypt: Sources in Translation (Cambridge University Press, 2024, 535 pages, £39.99), edited by Jane L. Rowlandson, Roger S. Bagnall, and Dorothy J. Thompson, is a collection of sources on slavery in Ancient Egypt. The book presents 290 translated and annotated documentary and literary sources that portray the lived experience of enslaved people and the practice of slavery throughout five major chronological periods (Pharaonic, the Late Period, Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine-Umayyad). Outside of this chronological order, the book also offers sources on the views of enslaved Jews in Egypt. Through these sources, the book aims to demonstrate how multiple relations of dependency were, and how they reflect social, cultural, political, and economic structures in which they were embedded, as well as the variations in the concept of slavery. itself over time.

Emily Hauser’s How Women Became Poets: A Gender History of Greek Literature (Princeton University Press, 2023, 376 pages, $39.95) is a study of how the words that existed to name a poet in the Hellenistic period were designed to exclude women. Spanning nearly 700 years of Greek literature, from the archaic to the Hellenistic period, the author uses Judith Butler’s concept of performativity to argue that gender was a fundamental category in the construction of the identity and craft of the Greek poet. For the author, there is a connection between gender and authorship that repeatedly defines the poet as male and, therefore, silences and marginalizes female voices. However, through fragments of female poets and alternative readings of “feminine silences” in male sources, the author seeks to emphasize, also, the ways in which these women responded to these acts of exclusion.

Using literary sources, graffiti, epitaphs, and other inscriptions, Jane Sancinito’s The Reputation of the Roman Merchant (University of Michigan Press, 2024, 272 pages, hardcover, $75) explores the origins of the poor reputations of Roman merchants, artisans, and service workers, as well as what these individuals had to say about themselves. Sancinito focuses on the strategies that retailers, artisans, and other workers used to achieve success, examining how they developed good reputations despite the stigma attached to their work. Sancinito sees reputation as an informal institution, establishing and reinforcing traditional Roman norms while reducing the cost of doing business for individual workers. Thus, the heavy investment that merchants made in their reputations was a way to distinguish themselves from common negative stereotypes without admitting that there was anything shameful about the work they did.

Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greek and Roman Times (Trans. Iraci Poleti. São Paulo, Unifesp, 2022, 476 pages, R$160) is the Portuguese translation of Sandra Boehringer’s thesis, originally written in French in 2007. The work is a historical investigation into the loving and sexual relationships between women in Greco-Roman antiquity, covering roughly from the 9th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. In addition to an extensive and rigorous analysis of literary documentation, through which she demonstrated the historicity of practices and concepts attributed to female sexual relationships, Boehringer also explored amorous representations in material supports, such as ceramic and metal artifacts. With her methods to addressing the documentary silences regarding sexual and loving relationships between women, Boehringer stimulates both discussion about the categorization of sexual practices and the expansion of analytical focus to include other periods and broader social groups.

Cives Romanae: Roman Women as Citizens during the Republic (Prensa de La Universidad de Zaragoza, 2024, 510 pages, 34.62 euros and free access), edited by Cristina Rosillo-López and Silvia Lacorte, is a collection of studies dedicated to the public role and place of women in Roman communities during the Republic, from members of the elites to subordinate women. Against studies that relegate Roman women to the category of secondary citizens or, alternatively, that completely deny them the title of citizens, the collection starts from a nuanced definition of Roman citizenship, identifying different aspects of these women's public participation and underlining the relevance of us emphasize some of them. Based on the contributions of different authors, working with different sources, the studies that make up the collection are divided into three parts: the first deals with the relations between women and citizenship, the second, with their political agency and the third, their relations with Roman communities, their spaces and memories.

Starting from Roman legal fiction (fictio), that is, the junction between legal theory and commercial factuality, Roman inequality: affluent slaves, business women, legal fictions (Oxford University Press, 2023, 280 pages, US$83), by Edward E. Cohen, explores the social and legal inequalities that limited the actions of enslaved and freed people, as well as the undeniable importance of the work of these people for the Roman economy. For the author, the contradictions and limitations in legal texts indicate recognition of this importance and an attempt to maintain the situation. Throughout the five chapters of the book, the author argues that, although the conditions of inequality were brutal for those who were “below” in social position, enslaved, freed people and, mainly, women, both free and enslaved, managed to create business strategies and use loopholes in legislation to improve their economic conditions.

Voiceless, Invisible, and Countless in Ancient Greece: The Experience of Subordinates, 700―300 BCE (Oxford University Press, 2024, 320 pages, $115), edited by Samuel Gartland and David Tandy, is a study of subordinates and subordinators in Ancient Greece. Although the chapters focus on named subordinates, the authors argue how the precariousness of a single individual can be expanded to their class or social group. Therefore, for the authors, carrying out an analysis that does not consider the interpretations and experiences of subordinates is simply reaffirming the silent and invisible condition that these people experienced in life. Covering a broad time frame, and different types of sources, the chapters seek to emphasize and understand the precariousness that affects groups subject to subordination, as well as the processes that created this subordination, the efforts to maintain and combat it, in a to find the intersections between high politics and the different experiences of different subordinate groups.

In Popular Culture and the End of Antiquity in Southern Gaul, c. 400–550 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, hardcover, $110, 260 pages), Lucy Grig investigates the transformations of popular culture and its entanglements with social, economic and religious changes in southern Gaul in Late Antiquity. Focusing on the diversity and agency of social groups that made up the cultural universe of Arles and its ecclesiastical territorium, she studies artisans, peasants, shepherds, and other groups present at churches, rituals, and festivals of various types. Grig does this using literary sources, especially sermons by Caesarius of Arles, and materials, such as recent archaeological reports. Thus, Grig explores the interactions of divergent forces, from the bottom-up as well as top-down, that act in a context of large transformations between the years 400 and 550 CE.

The Position of Roman Slaves: Social Realities and Legal Differences (310 pages, 2023, open access), organized by Martin Schermaier, seeks to analyze, through the theory of social history, the laws surrounding slavery in Rome. By detailing the legal terms that make up these laws, and bringing different translation proposals for these terms, the authors seek to understand the social and legal position of slaves, as well as the reason why the laws on slavery were composed in order to cover different types of slavery. For the authors, these laws demonstrate not only the multiple social positions of the enslaved, but also that there was not a single homogeneous view of slavery in Roman society. Finally, the book also includes a detailed index of all the sources used, which facilitates consultation for those interested in the topic.

Cultures of Resistance in the Hellenistic East (Oxford University Press, 2022, hardcover, $105, 305 pages), edited by Paul J. Kosmin and Ian S. Moyer, seeks to understand the upheavals in the Hellenistic East through a multiregional and comparative approach. Using epigraphic, literary, and archaeological sources, the authors explore the roles of local cultural traditions against a “global” Hellenized culture, constructed from overlapping cultural conjunctures and disjunctures in different locations. Thus, through a bottom-up approach, local identities, moral orders, and Hellenistic cosmopolitanism are mobilized by local actors according to their interests, so that the maintenance of these kingdoms depends on a constant negotiation between the common population, local elites, and Hellenistic kings.

Valuing Labour in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Brill, 2024, 423 pages, $153), edited by Kim Bowes and Miko Flohr, addresses the idea of ​​work in different contexts, as well as what types of work have value and under what circumstances. Using a wide variety of sources, from archaeological evidence to agronomic treatises, the authors seek to contextualize the real experiences of work in Antiquity. For the authors, work was embedded in social life, yet it was treated, in various contexts and often by workers themselves, as secondary to their social and family ties. The authors also argue that there was a general knowledge about labor technique and qualifications, and that non-professionals should be able to recognize technique and quality. Thus, far from being a negative aspect, work is rooted in social life as a source of pride.

Greek Slavery (Walter de Gruyter, 2023, 147 pages, $29.99), by Deborah Kamen, is a study of Greek slavery. However, the author adopts a different approach from previous studies, considering Greek slavery as epichoric, that is, understanding it as a phenomenon that was different in each location, that developed in particular ways and that integrated in multiple forms. Using different epigraphic sources, the author seeks to understand the importance of slavery for the economy of Greek society, but emphasizing aspects of the social treatment of slaves, their agency, forms of resistance, and, mainly, the experience of enslaved women, whose experience differs exponentially from that of enslaved men. Finally, the author analyzes the representations of Greek slavery and its legacy in culture, both ancient and contemporary, pointing out transformations in interpretations and new areas of interest.

Working Lives in Ancient Rome (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 427 pages, £139.99), edited by Del A. Maticic and Jordan Rogers, explores the Roman worker through different sources (archaeological, literary, epigraphic, etc.). Although it sometimes deals with professional associations, the book focuses on how individual workers navigated the social structures in which they were inserted, their routines inside and outside of work, and their daily lives. The authors seek to emphasize the discordance between the elites’ views on the economy and work and those of the workers themselves, based on the notion that physical work is violence against the worker himself. The book also seeks to establish a dialogue between the Roman world and work today, especially regarding the inequalities and precariousness faced by modern workers.

Neighborhood and City Quarters in Antiquity: Design and Experience (Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2023, 176 pages, open access), edited by Annette Haug, Adrian Hielscher, and Anna-Lena Krüger, is a socio-spatial analysis of ancient cities. Using archaeological evidence, epigraphic and literary sources, as well as the layout of archaeological sites in Athens, Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum, etc., the authors argue how locality and territory constitute social relations and interdependencies. Water fountains, collective altars, decorations on shopfronts, and other decorative elements in the streets are analyzed as evidence of local identity constructions and negotiations between different groups that coexisted in the same space. The book also addresses how increasing wealth inequality affects the development of neighborhoods, causing a differentiation in the socio-spatial patterns of cities, and thus affecting different facets of the daily lives of people who circulated in these cities.

Slavery and Rebellion in Second-Century BC Sicily: From Bellum Servile to Sicilia Capta, by Peter Morton (Edinburgh University Press, 2024, 248 pages, $125), is a study of the two Slave Wars of the second century BCE. Using literary sources and material evidence, the author seeks to reexamine the revolts from the perspective of the rebels themselves and argues that these events should be understood not as slave revolts but as rebellions triggered by the socioeconomic and political hardships caused by the Roman-supported status quo in Sicily. Through parallels with slave revolts in the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean, the author argues that analyzing these revolts from the perspective of the rebels themselves allows for a broader view of social and economic factors and thus serves as a means of expanding our understanding of slave revolts.

In God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible (Little, Brown and Company, 2024, $30, 336 pages), Candida Moss discusses the importance of enslaved people to the writing of the Bible as well as the spread of the gospels. Using the New Testament and the Acts, letters, and apocryphal texts, the author argues how the first followers of Jesus were not literate people and needed the services of scribes for their writings. Through the onomastic analysis of these scribes, the author manages to place them as enslaved or freed, and thus argues that certain ideas, such as the condemnation of enslavers to hell, present the voices of these people in biblical texts. Furthermore, these people were also fundamental for the reading and disseminating the gospels to groups of illiterate and recently converted Christians, as they were “the faces” of the gospels for these audiences.

In Senhores de Escravos, senhores da razão: racionalidade e ideologia na escravidão rural Romana, séculos II e I a.C. (2024, Essentia Editora, 129 pages, free access), José Ernesto Moura Knust analyzes the concrete concerns and motivations of slave masters in the Ancient Rome that underlies the ways in which they thought about the forms of control and supervision of enslaved rural workers. Knust develops his analysis, above all, based on the works De Agri Cultura and De Re Rustica, by the Roman authors Catus and Varro. Applying the concept of Ideological Rationality, the author traces the social relations, the forms of land appropriation and labor exploitation that characterize the large Roman rural properties, the uillae, to analyze the basic concerns of these authors. The work thus helps us to better understand the social place and the economic and ideological structures that underlie some of the ideas about Roman slavery in the literary sources we have access to.

Phoenicians among others: why migrants mattered in the ancient Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2023, 204 pages, US$45), by Denise Demetriou, is a study of Phoenician immigrants in Greek territories. Using mostly epigraphic sources, the author initially analyzes how individuals became part of the community, whether through name changes or the incorporation of cultural aspects. Professional associations are also analyzed and the author highlights how these associations fulfilled a dual function: facilitating integration in the new location and also maintaining a relationship with their place of origin. For the author, the control mechanisms and honors that immigrants could obtain establish a relationship of mutual gain between the city of origin and the new location, both in economic terms and the city's reputation so that these immigrant workers are fundamental for the establishment of long-lasting friendly relationships.

Public feminism in times of crisis: from Sappho's fragments to viral hashtags (Lexington Books, 2022, 296 pages, $110), by Leila Easa and Jennifer Stager, is a feminist study of the translation and reception of works by ancient women. Problematizing the concept of “public feminism”, the authors discuss how patriarchal structures create narratives around the body and representations of women. For the authors, the available resources and material conditions influenced the production of these works in Antiquity, and continue to impact their translation and reception in the present. Thus, the authors discuss how recent translations, made by women, call into question the supposed “neutrality, objectivity, and invisibility” of translators, especially in the translations of Sappho's fragments. Finally, the authors argue that a feminist and interdisciplinary approach is a powerful tool both for understanding women in Antiquity and supporting modern researchers.

Ancient women writers of Greece and Rome (London, New York: Routledge, 2022, paperback, $48.99, 408 pages), organized by Bartolo Natoli, Angela Pitts, and Judith Hallett, is a bilingual compilation of texts written by women during Antiquity, produced roughly between the 7th BCE and 2nd CE. The volume shows a variety of literary forms, ranging from poets who wrote both in Greek (such as Sappho and Nossis) and in Latin (such as Sulpicia and Sulpicia Caleni) to letters on wooden tablets, graffiti, and monumental inscriptions. The authors are introduced with brief biographical notes and the translations feature an excellent critical apparatus. It is a great documentary selection that allows students to analyze gender relations, literacy, and a diversity of writing practices by women in different social contexts.

In Romam Commigrare: i romani, i latini e l´immigrazione (Giuffré, 2023, 36 euros, 279 pages), Lorenzo Gagliardi reviews consensual interpretations about the relations between monarchical and republican Rome and immigrants. From a review of ancient sources, especially those referring to the exiles instituted by Roman magistrates against Latins in 187 and 177 BC, Gagliardi reconstructs a series of tensions between immigrants and Roman institutions. The author emphasizes that the opening of Rome to reception, as well as the offer of residence to immigrants, did not correspond to a similar opening in granting Roman citizenship, which remained quite closed. Gagliardi's work thus contributes to understanding a diversity of factors of discrimination against immigrants in monarchical and republican Rome, as well as the struggles for rights and recognition that they waged.

Oltre Pompei. Graffiti e altre iscrizioni oscene dall'Impero Romano d'Occidente (Deinotera Editrice, 2021, 150 pages, paperback, €16), organized by Stefano Rocchi and Roberta Marchionni, is a catalog composed of 23 epigraphic inscriptions, mostly graffiti, characterized by the use of vulgar and obscene words, typical of spoken Latin. Through a linguistic analysis and the context of production of the sources, the authors seek to understand how ordinary people, the likely authors of these sources, used this language for comical, satirical, and even protest effects. Although it is a short catalog, the authors offer tools for the study of Vulgar Latin, as well as a starting point for the study of this type of inscriptions in regions other than the cities of Vesuvian cities, where this type of source is abundant.