This book investigates the lives of servile dependants, and their role in the large households of the elite Romans. In parallel to the public and political lives of the aristocracy under constant public gaze, there had been other lives led that were totally different but closely connected to them as if the other side of the coin - the usually unseen world of servile dependants. An uneasy proximity created by the cohabitation of the two opposite status groups (aristocratic masters and slaves) brought conflicts and contradiction. In attempting a new inquiry into such historically anonymous...