Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. This book examines the spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean world, covering the period from 300 BCE to 600 CE. Analyzing a wide range of sources--including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials--Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney argue that prisons were integral to the social, political, and economic fabric of ancient societies. Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration traces the long history of carceral practices, considering the ways in which the prison has been fundamentally intertwined with issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism for over two millennia. By foregrounding the voices and experiences of the incarcerated, Larsen and Letteney demonstrate the extraordinary durability of carceral structures across time and call for new historical consciousness to arise around contemporary practices of incarceration.