Professor David Tandy (Leeds) explores the dynamics of slavery and
honour in Homer, and how the realities of production in early Greece
interlocked with ideas about honour and social interaction.
The
presentation of slaves and slavery in the Homeric epics is filtered
through the lens of elite ideology, presenting positive and negative
exempla according to elite ideas of how slaves should behave, and how
slaves should be treated in turn by their owners and other members of
society. Beyond this, honour might be meted out to or withhold from
slaves according to where individual slaves were located in a hierarchy
of honour that is closely tied to the productive process.
This event is free and open to all.