Staff in Classics
Dr David Lewis
Lecturer; Greek History and Culture
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 3851
- Email: David.Lewis@ed.ac.uk
- Room 01M.10, Wiliam Robertson Wing, Doorway 4, Old Medical School, Teviot Place
Roles
Deputy School Academic Conduct Officer
Biography
I'm from Donaghadee on the Ards Peninsula, and joined the University of Edinburgh Classics Department permanently in August 2018. I trained at the University of Durham, gaining my PhD in 2012, and then held a research fellowship here in Edinburgh (2013-15) followed by a Leverhulme Early Career fellowship (also at Edinburgh: 2015-16). I then spent two years back in England when I was Assistant Professor of Ancient History at the University of Nottingham (2016-18).
I work on ancient Greek social, economic, and legal history in a broader Eastern Mediterranean context; to date most of my work has focused on slavery and the history of labour. I co-edited (with Edward Harris and Mark Woolmer) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States (Cambridge: CUP 2016) and (with Edmund Stewart and Edward Harris) Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge: CUP 2020). My monograph Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterranean Context, c. 800-146 BC was published by OUP in 2018. My next monograph project will focus on urban labour in Athens and Piraeus, c. 450-250 BC.
Useful Links
Summary of research interests
Places:- Europe
- Ancient Civilisations
- Antiquity
Research interests
Ancient Greek history, esp. the archaic and classical periods, with an emphasis on the history of labour
Current research activities
I am working on a number of research projects on Greek slavery, as well as a larger project on urban labour in Athens and Piraeus, c. 450-250 BC.
Undergraduate teaching
Sub-honours
The Greek World 1A
The Greek World 1B
Ancient History 2B
Honours
Sparta and Crete: Classical Greek Society Beyond Athens
Labour, Wealth, and Inequality: The Economy of the Greek City-States
Ancient Greek Slavery
(From 2021/2022) Seafaring and Society in the Ancient Greek World
Language
Greek 1C
Greek 2A
Greek 2HA
Postgraduate teaching
Urban Labour in Classical Athens
Sparta, c. 600-200 BC
Intermediate Greek
Current Students:
Primary supervisor: Natasha Terlexi - women, class, and the development of the city-state in the archaic through classical periods
Primary supervisor: Marios Anastasiadis - Slavery, social mobility, and competency in Athenian society
Publications
A. Books (monograph)
1.) Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterranean Context, c. 800-146 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
Reviews: R. Osborne, Classics for All website, 1 Jan 2019; F. Duarte Joly, The Classical Review 69.2 (2019): 503-5; D. Vaucher, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 29.09.43; K. Vlassopoulos, Greece & Rome 66.2 (2019): 295 (short comments) and idem in Ariadne 25/26 (2018/19-2019/20): 201-33 (detailed review); P. Hunt, Phoenix 77.3-4 (2019): 376-9; D.C.Snell, Classics Ireland 26 (2019): 167-9; W. Mack, Journal of Global Slavery 5 (2020): 123-5; W. Schmitz, Sehepunkte 20 no. 5 (15th May 2020); T. Clements, Rosetta 25 (2020): 23-7; K. Wrenhaven, Slavery & Abolition 41.3 (2020): 677-8; L. Iancu, Studii şi cercetări de istorie veche şi arheologie 71 (2020): 173-8; H.L. Carvalho, Mare Nostrum 12.1 (2021): 277-86.
B. Books (edited)
1.) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States. (Co-edited with E.M. Harris & M. Woolmer; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
2.) Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome. (Co-edited with E. Stewart & E.M. Harris; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
3. (In preparation, co-edited with D. Cairns & M. Canevaro) Slavery and Honour in the Ancient Greek World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)
C. Articles and Book Chapters
1.) ‘Near Eastern slaves in classical Attica and the slave trade with Persian territories’ Classical Quarterly 61.1 (2011): 91-113.
2.) ‘Slave marriages in the laws of Gortyn: A matter of rights?’ Historia 62.4 (2013): 390-416.
3.) (With Mirko Canevaro) ‘Khoris oikountes and the obligations of freedmen in late Classical and early Hellenistic Athens’ Incidenza dell’antico 12 (2014): 91-121.
4.) (With E.M. Harris) ‘Introduction: markets in Classical and Hellenistic Greece’ in Harris, E.M., Lewis, D.M. & M. Woolmer (eds.) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States (Cambridge, 2016): 1-37.
5.) ‘The market for slaves in the fifth- and fourth-century Aegean: Achaemenid Anatolia as a case study’ in Harris, E.M., Lewis, D.M. & M. Woolmer (eds.) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States (Cambridge, 2016): 316-36.
6.) ‘Appendix: commodities in classical Athens: the evidence of Old Comedy’ in Harris, E.M., Lewis, D.M. & M. Woolmer (eds.) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States (Cambridge, 2016): 381-98.
7.) ‘Orlando Patterson, property, and ancient slavery: the definitional problem revisited’ in Bodel, J. & W. Scheidel (eds.) On Human Bondage: After Slavery and Social Death (Malden, MA & Oxford, 2016): 31-54.
8.) ‘Slavery and manumission’ in Harris, E.M. & M. Canevaro (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law (Oxford, forthcoming 2021; published online 2016)
9.) ‘Making law grip: inequality, injustice and legal remedy in Solonian Attica and Ancient Israel' in Xydopoulos, Y., Vlassopoulos, K. & E. Tounta (eds.), Violence and Community: Law, Space and Identity in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean World (London & New York: Routledge, 2017): 28-49.
10.) ‘Classical and Near Eastern slavery in the first millennium BCE’ in Hodkinson, S., Vlassopoulos, K. & M. Kleiwegt (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021; published online 2018)
11.) ‘Behavioural economics and economic behaviour in classical Athens’ in Canevaro, M., Erskine, A., Gray, B. & J. Ober (eds.) Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018): 15-46.
12.) ‘Notes on slave names, ethnicity, and identity in Classical and Hellenistic Greece’ Studia Źródłoznawcze. U Schyłku Starożytności 16 (2018): 169-99.
13.) 'Piracy and slave trading in action in Classical and Hellenistic Greece' Mare Nostrum 10.2 (2019): 79-108.
14.) ‘Pirataria e comércio de escravos em ação na Grécia classica e hellenística’ Mare Nostrum 10.2 (2019) [Portuguese version of 13, translated by Gabriel Cabral Bernardo]: 109-140.
15.) ‘Misthos, apophora, or something else? A fresh look at SEG XXXV 134’ in A. Jördens & U. Yiftach (eds.) Legal Documents in Ancient Societies VIII: Accounts and Bookkeeping in the Ancient World (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020): 98-111.
16.) ‘Legal knowledge in Gortyn: debt bondage and the liability of slaves in Gortynian law’ in C. Ando & W.P. Sullivan (eds.) The Discovery of the Fact (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020): 72-90.
17.) ‘Labour specialization in the Athenian economy: occupational hazards’ in Stewart, E., Harris, E.M. & D.M. Lewis (eds.) Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020): 129-74.
18.) 'Labour and employment' in Niels, J. & D. Rogers (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021): 217-30.
19.) (In press) ‘A global perspective on the definition of slavery’ in Doddington, D. & E. Dal Lago (eds.) Writing the History of Slavery (London: Bloomsbury, 2021): 19-39.
20.) (submitted, with E.M. Harris) ‘What are early Greek laws about? Substance and procedure in archaic statutes, c. 650-450 BC’ in Canevaro, M. & J. Bernhardt (eds.) From Homer to Solon: Continuity and Change in Archaic Greek Society (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2021).
21.) (Submitted) ‘The Homeric roots of helotage’ in Canevaro, M. & J. Bernhardt (eds.) From Homer to Solon: Continuity and Change in Archaic Greek Society (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2021).
22.) (submitted) ‘The local slave systems of ancient Greece’ in Tandy, D.W. & S.D. Gartland (eds.) Voiceless, Invisible, and Countless: The Experience of Subordinates in Greece, 800-300 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021).
23.) (accepted; forthcoming 2023) 'The Cretan way of war: status, violence, and values from the classical period to the Roman conquest' Journal of Hellenic Studies
24.) (co-written with M. Canevaro; submitted) 'The rites, rituals, and sites of business' in J.K. Davies & C. Adams (eds.) A Cultural History of Business in Antiquity (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2021).
25.) (submitted) 'Le molte facce della schiavitù' in M. Bettalli & M. Giangiulio (eds.) Atene: Guida alla città della democrazia (V-IV sec. a.C.). (Rome, forthcoming 2021).
26.) (submitted) 'Global slavery for Greek historians: Prospects and pitfalls' in A. Pałuchowski (ed.) Les lectures contemporaines de l’esclavage: problématiques, méthodologies et analyses depuis les années 1990, Actes du 42e colloque du GIREA, Wrocław, 4 et 5 septembre 2019 (Besançon, forthcoming 2021).
27.) (submitted) 'Slave families, reproduction, and the market: towards a study of the ancient Greek slave supply' in S. Maillot (ed.) Familles d'esclaves / esclaves dans la famille. Clermont Ferrand, forthcoming.
28.) (In preparation, with T. Parkin & P. Morton), ‘(Re)producing slaves’ in Hodkinson, S., Vlassopoulos, K. & M. Kleiwegt (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021)
29.) (In preparation) 'Thinking with slavery' in Hodkinson, S., Vlassopoulos, K. & M. Kleiwegt (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Slaveries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021)
30.) (In preparation) ‘The social consequences of institutions: the behaviour of slaves at Athens according to the Old Oligarch ([Xen.] Ath.Pol. 1.10-12)’ in M. Barbato & M. Canevaro (eds.) New Approaches to Greek Institutional History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2022).
D. Encyclopaedia Entries
1.) (co-authored with S. Zanovello) ‘Freedmen/Freedwomen: Greek’ in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (online edition, published May 2017).
2.) 'The Laws of Crete' in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (online edition, published March 2021)
3.) 'The Helots' in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (online edition, published March 2021)
4.) (co-authored with E.M. Harris) 'Gortyn, law collection of', The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (online edition, forthcoming 2021)
5.) (In preparation) 'Slavery, Greek', The Oxford Classical Dictionary (online edition).
E. Reviews
1.) Tout vendre, tout acheter: structures et équipements des marchés antiques: actes du colloque d'Athènes, 16-19 juin 2009 (Athens & Bordeaux 2012), ed. V. Chankowski & P. Karvonis, Journal of Hellenic Studies 134 (2014): 202-3.
2.) La démocratie contre les experts. Les esclaves publics en Grèce ancienne (Paris 2015) by P. Ismard. The Classical Review 66.2 (2016): 476-478.
3.) La main-d’oeuvre agricole en Méditerrannée archaïque: statuts et dynamiques économiques, ed. J. Zurbach (Bordeaux & Athens 2015). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.09.28.
4.) The Laws of Ancient Crete, c. 650-400 BCE (Oxford 2016) by M. Gagarin & P. Perlman. The Classical Review 67.1 (2017): 133-34.
5.) The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy: Institutions, Markets, and Growth in the City-States (Princeton 2016) by A. Bresson. Journal of Hellenic Studies 137 (2017): 240-1.
6.) The Open Sea. The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World From the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome (Princeton 2018) by J.G. Manning. Journal of Greek Archaeology (2019): 497-501.
7.) Colonization and Subalternity in Classical Greece. The Experience of the Nonelite Population (Cambridge 2017) by G. Zuchtriegel. Journal of Hellenic Studies 140 (2020): 278-9.