What was daily life like for a working man or woman in the Roman Empire? What was the meaning of labor for the laborer? Roman authors (who seldom were workers) depicted workers in ancient Rome but generally used stereotypes intended to amuse the upper class. "Common" men and women did write of their own lives, often poignantly and eloquently, in their epitaphs and votive dedications. At death they claimed the identity they had worked a lifetime to create. For many, the identity centered on occupation.

In Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome, Sandra R. Joshel examines Roman commemorative inscriptions from the first and second centuries A.D. to determine ways in which slaves, freed slaves, and unprivileged freeborn citizens used work to frame their identities. ln the minutiae of the epitaphs and dedications she identifies the "language" of the inscriptions, through which the voiceless classes of Ancient Rome spoke.

The inscriptions indicate the significance of work--as a source of community, a way to reframe the conditions of legal status, an assertion of activity against upper-class passivity, and a standard of assessment based on economic achievement rather than birth. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, ethnography, and women's history, this thoroughly documented volume illuminates the dynamics of work and slavery at Rome.