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Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman World
We associate the Romans with majesty and we marvel at their innovative aqueducts and underfloor heating, at the dominance of their army and navy, at the grandeur of their palaces and temples and the magic of the tiny coins and mosaic tiles we dig up in fields. But the Romans were also enslavers. They built an empire on the backs of millions of people snatched from their homes in the aftermath of war, kidnapped from the streets, sold into slavery as punishment or, simply, born enslaved.
Servus takes us into the invisible spaces of Rome, where millions of enslaved lives were unwillingly dedicated to the perpetuation of the empire that owned them. From the fields of wheat required to give every Roman his daily bread, to the actors and gladiators who provided their circuses, and the miners who kept Rome a city of gold and marble, enslaved people held up the empire in all its glory. These enslaved people were ubiquitous, but silenced. Through the fragments they left behind, historian Emma Southon traces the pain and tragedy of their lives alongside the love stories, lifelong friendships, small victories and hard-won freedoms.
Servus tells the truth about the Roman empire and the unseen lives that made its history.
Servus takes us into the invisible spaces of Rome, where millions of enslaved lives were unwillingly dedicated to the perpetuation of the empire that owned them. From the fields of wheat required to give every Roman his daily bread, to the actors and gladiators who provided their circuses, and the miners who kept Rome a city of gold and marble, enslaved people held up the empire in all its glory. These enslaved people were ubiquitous, but silenced. Through the fragments they left behind, historian Emma Southon traces the pain and tragedy of their lives alongside the love stories, lifelong friendships, small victories and hard-won freedoms.
Servus tells the truth about the Roman empire and the unseen lives that made its history.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 21, 2026
About the author
Emma Southon
9 books825 followersDr. Emma Southon holds a PhD in ancient history from the University of Birmingham.
After a few years teaching Ancient and Medieval history, followed by some years teaching academic writing, she quit academia because it is grim and started writing for her own enjoyment.
She co-hosts a history/comedy podcast with Janina Matthewson called History is Sexy.
After a few years teaching Ancient and Medieval history, followed by some years teaching academic writing, she quit academia because it is grim and started writing for her own enjoyment.
She co-hosts a history/comedy podcast with Janina Matthewson called History is Sexy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
July 10, 2026
My most anticipated history book release of the year. Read this with my History Sickos Book Club and we are all loving it. Emma Southon is brilliant, witty, and treats this heavy topic with the humanity and curiosity it demands. Another certified banger to add to her elite catalog.
April 16, 2026
This is a book which is replete with details and insights on the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire. This despite the relative dearth of evidence from the victims of slavery themselves (which is a well established challenge faced by historians). So any reader with little or no knowledge of the subject will find the book enlightening. My principal difficulty with the book was the authorial tone which throughout was foul mouthed, sarcastic, sneering, smug and overly idiomatic (sometimes resulting in my utter incomprehension of what the author was trying to say).
Initially the author tells us how she thinks slavery was really bad and everyone who practiced it was totally evil. There is a longstanding debate on whether it is appropriate to apply contemporary morals and judgements to ancient societies. This author clearly thinks that it is appropriate and it’s completely within her rights for her to hold that view. But I really couldn’t understand why, throughout the book, she constantly needed to say how each aspect or example or experience of slavery was so appalling and totally shocking to her.
She is also someone who loves to express her outrage through foul language which also peppers this book. I don’t know all the rules of the various sites where I am posting this review so I won’t quote any of the swearing here but suffice it to say that like many foul mouthed people this author doesn’t have a very broad swearing vocabulary so there is one swearword that turns up for the vast majority of time so the reader doesn’t even have the relief of variety.
Diverse sources are cited in the book and the author appears to give them equal weight. Again I know that there is debate as to whether, for example, Martial’s satires provide totally accurate descriptions of daily life. Clearly the contemporary Roman audience would need to recognise the world portrayed in these works but given that they were produced for entertainment, would there not have been some exaggeration for effect? So some assessment of the relative validity of these sources would have been helpful.
Of course the author does make clear her contempt for Martial (and Juvenal and others) because they make jokes about slavery that she thinks are not funny at all. I have some sympathy with that perspective having read some Classical comedies and - quite frankly - not realising that they were even supposed to be funny. But I think it’s a bit rich for this author to criticise the ancients when her sense of humour is essentially puerile: graffiti about someone excreting is, she thinks, funny; Clutorius Priscus is a funny name because Clutorius sounds a bit like clitoris; and the Lex Fufia Canina is a funny law because it sounds a bit like a swearword. How I laughed. Not.
I also found much of her idiomatic mode of expression rather jarring. Agrippa was Augustus’ “bestie”. Polybius thought that the Romans were a “great bunch of lads”. I was confused by how she was able to “go by vibes” to work out the modern values of Roman currency. And as for Onesimus whose being a slave didn’t seem to “have harshed his vibe”. Well I have no idea on what that means.
Now I suspect that that there may well be an audience that finds this authorial tone to be refreshingly different and to them I’d have no hesitation in recommending this book. But if you are someone who maybe thought that plentiful swearing was big and clever when you were seven but you’ve now got over that, you’ll probably want to skip it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this review copy.
Initially the author tells us how she thinks slavery was really bad and everyone who practiced it was totally evil. There is a longstanding debate on whether it is appropriate to apply contemporary morals and judgements to ancient societies. This author clearly thinks that it is appropriate and it’s completely within her rights for her to hold that view. But I really couldn’t understand why, throughout the book, she constantly needed to say how each aspect or example or experience of slavery was so appalling and totally shocking to her.
She is also someone who loves to express her outrage through foul language which also peppers this book. I don’t know all the rules of the various sites where I am posting this review so I won’t quote any of the swearing here but suffice it to say that like many foul mouthed people this author doesn’t have a very broad swearing vocabulary so there is one swearword that turns up for the vast majority of time so the reader doesn’t even have the relief of variety.
Diverse sources are cited in the book and the author appears to give them equal weight. Again I know that there is debate as to whether, for example, Martial’s satires provide totally accurate descriptions of daily life. Clearly the contemporary Roman audience would need to recognise the world portrayed in these works but given that they were produced for entertainment, would there not have been some exaggeration for effect? So some assessment of the relative validity of these sources would have been helpful.
Of course the author does make clear her contempt for Martial (and Juvenal and others) because they make jokes about slavery that she thinks are not funny at all. I have some sympathy with that perspective having read some Classical comedies and - quite frankly - not realising that they were even supposed to be funny. But I think it’s a bit rich for this author to criticise the ancients when her sense of humour is essentially puerile: graffiti about someone excreting is, she thinks, funny; Clutorius Priscus is a funny name because Clutorius sounds a bit like clitoris; and the Lex Fufia Canina is a funny law because it sounds a bit like a swearword. How I laughed. Not.
I also found much of her idiomatic mode of expression rather jarring. Agrippa was Augustus’ “bestie”. Polybius thought that the Romans were a “great bunch of lads”. I was confused by how she was able to “go by vibes” to work out the modern values of Roman currency. And as for Onesimus whose being a slave didn’t seem to “have harshed his vibe”. Well I have no idea on what that means.
Now I suspect that that there may well be an audience that finds this authorial tone to be refreshingly different and to them I’d have no hesitation in recommending this book. But if you are someone who maybe thought that plentiful swearing was big and clever when you were seven but you’ve now got over that, you’ll probably want to skip it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for this review copy.
June 20, 2026
A sharp, readable, thorough book. Emma Southon writes in a colloquial, jesting manner, which to me proved occasionally annoying, but I do imagine it could be very fun for others.
(Not included in the above criticism are tangents about how Cato the Elder is a whiny injurious bitch.
All my homies love dunking on Cato.)
Southon also makes liberal use of Ancient Roman fiction as a source to supplement a cultural history of Roman slavery — which is a gainful approach, and not one I've often seen applied to such an extent. (Historiographical guesswork explicit in the text.)
What permeates the tone and sets the thesis of Servus is firm, unflinchingly denunciatory attitude to slavery, here and there filling in the inevitable aporias of historical record through the testimony of descendants/survivors of the transatlantic slave trade. Which may be both just and refreshing and needful, so far, so good—
But in Southon's moralistic asides—which are many, like so much nails driven into a coffin lid to keep the undead from haunting the living— I feel, Servus is at its weakest and downright annoying: for performed outrage either takes away from concrete human suffering to make it about you (the writer, the reader) or cheapens it, smooth it over. If everything is unspeakable, unutterable, a violent truth past the relativisations of language (indeed, Elaine Scarry, teaches us, all pain is), nothing is. The job of laying out the probable facts of daily subsistence have either been laid out well or they haven't, and if they have been, they are already self-evident. Belabouring can only take away – or, worse, drive us to reaction, or to think that there is such a thing as a uniquely evil mysterious Roman soul where darkness lodges. A contextual toxicological note.
Note: This review was based of a digital advanced review provided by Hodder & Stoughton through NetGalley. Bias is not disownable.
(Not included in the above criticism are tangents about how Cato the Elder is a whiny injurious bitch.
Mosr famously, Cato the Elder [...] liked to keep his household in constant fight with one another so that they couldn't plot against him, because he was an unbearable prick.
All my homies love dunking on Cato.)
Southon also makes liberal use of Ancient Roman fiction as a source to supplement a cultural history of Roman slavery — which is a gainful approach, and not one I've often seen applied to such an extent. (Historiographical guesswork explicit in the text.)
What permeates the tone and sets the thesis of Servus is firm, unflinchingly denunciatory attitude to slavery, here and there filling in the inevitable aporias of historical record through the testimony of descendants/survivors of the transatlantic slave trade. Which may be both just and refreshing and needful, so far, so good—
But in Southon's moralistic asides—which are many, like so much nails driven into a coffin lid to keep the undead from haunting the living— I feel, Servus is at its weakest and downright annoying: for performed outrage either takes away from concrete human suffering to make it about you (the writer, the reader) or cheapens it, smooth it over. If everything is unspeakable, unutterable, a violent truth past the relativisations of language (indeed, Elaine Scarry, teaches us, all pain is), nothing is. The job of laying out the probable facts of daily subsistence have either been laid out well or they haven't, and if they have been, they are already self-evident. Belabouring can only take away – or, worse, drive us to reaction, or to think that there is such a thing as a uniquely evil mysterious Roman soul where darkness lodges. A contextual toxicological note.
Note: This review was based of a digital advanced review provided by Hodder & Stoughton through NetGalley. Bias is not disownable.
September 3, 2026
A thought that crossed my mind often while reading “Not Built in a Day” — it also crosses my mind while reading Mary Beard’s books and books about medieval European history — is how much time scholars of these periods must spend trying to control their blood pressure. Imagine actually being learned in these fields and watching numbnuts try to appropriate them for white Christian nationalist ends.
That having been said, numbnuts might imagine that the world revealed in “Not Built in a Day” would be much to their liking. Near the book’s end, Emma Southon mentions visiting the Romano-Germanic museum in Cologne. Her husband “said with real awe in his voice, ‘They just left behind so much stuff!” To which Southon responds:
"All that stuff was created by hands who had known slavery. The tiles, the coins, the glass, the bricks, the marble, the amphorae, and the silver plates. All of it. Everywhere."
The numbnuts, it goes without saying, imagine themselves as the domini — the masters — never as the spoils of imperial conquest, permanently parted from their languages, their homelands, and their (likely raped and/or murdered and/or also enslaved) families. Never as the “long-haired boys,” the prepubescent or pubescent sex slaves so called because their hair was supposed to be curly and shoulder length. Never as one of the four hundred enslaved people, children included, who were crucified because another of those enslaved in that household killed the dominus, and it’s important to keep subjugated people terrified and turned against one another, especially if they outnumber you. (This will sound familiar to anyone who knows anything about the immense labor camp that was the antebellum US South.)
The numbnuts might, perhaps, like to imagine themselves as gladiators. But perhaps not as any of the gladiators whose skeletons were recently unearthed in York:
"Over half the skeletons had been decapitated, before death and from behind. In one case, eleven cuts were required to remove the head. Across the skeletons — all male, all aged between eighteen and forty-five — archaeologists discovered unhealed sword wounds to bones, carnivore bites, facial fractures, broken teeth, cranial traumas, fractured spines, legs, arms, wrists, ankles, shoulders."
Slavery is horrible, fork found in kitchen, news at 11.
Emma Southon is in many ways the ideal guide to the totalizing system of terror and pain that was Roman slavery (that is any system of slavery, duh). She has the right scholarly qualifications, of course, and she’s careful in differentiating what can be known for certain from what has to be extrapolated from extremely limited evidence or from the testimony of formerly enslaved people such as Harriet Jacobs and Olaudah Equiano. But she doesn’t bother assuming a neutral, calm, moderate tone: she’s just as horrified and disgusted as you are, and she lets you know it, both straightforwardly and in moments of the bleakest humor. Perhaps oddly, that makes it easier to take in the knowledge she imparts; a neutral academic tone might leave a reader wondering whether they’re the only one around here feeling sick to their stomach. No: Emma Southon is right there with you.
She also takes time to consider what on earth was going on in the heads of Roman enslavers. Here I was reminded of Melvin Patrick Ely’s “A Terrible Intimacy,” about relationships between white and enslaved people in the pre‑Civil War South. In both contexts, enslavers seem to have been able to believe several things simultaneously: that those enslaved were inferior humans, or possibly not quite human at all, and also that they might have skills and talents and personal qualities worth admiring. Ancient Romans and antebellum whites achieved this miracle by different routes: Roman slavery wasn’t race-based, and certain mind-boggling aspects of Roman law and culture meant that entire immense estates might be managed by enslaved men on very long leashes. But the doublethink was the same. We can see a related process at work today, in the minds of those voters who believe that “their” immigrants are different from those other immigrants and should be immune to the fate the present US regime is visiting on them.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”: Thank you, Mr. Faulkner, and thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC.
That having been said, numbnuts might imagine that the world revealed in “Not Built in a Day” would be much to their liking. Near the book’s end, Emma Southon mentions visiting the Romano-Germanic museum in Cologne. Her husband “said with real awe in his voice, ‘They just left behind so much stuff!” To which Southon responds:
"All that stuff was created by hands who had known slavery. The tiles, the coins, the glass, the bricks, the marble, the amphorae, and the silver plates. All of it. Everywhere."
The numbnuts, it goes without saying, imagine themselves as the domini — the masters — never as the spoils of imperial conquest, permanently parted from their languages, their homelands, and their (likely raped and/or murdered and/or also enslaved) families. Never as the “long-haired boys,” the prepubescent or pubescent sex slaves so called because their hair was supposed to be curly and shoulder length. Never as one of the four hundred enslaved people, children included, who were crucified because another of those enslaved in that household killed the dominus, and it’s important to keep subjugated people terrified and turned against one another, especially if they outnumber you. (This will sound familiar to anyone who knows anything about the immense labor camp that was the antebellum US South.)
The numbnuts might, perhaps, like to imagine themselves as gladiators. But perhaps not as any of the gladiators whose skeletons were recently unearthed in York:
"Over half the skeletons had been decapitated, before death and from behind. In one case, eleven cuts were required to remove the head. Across the skeletons — all male, all aged between eighteen and forty-five — archaeologists discovered unhealed sword wounds to bones, carnivore bites, facial fractures, broken teeth, cranial traumas, fractured spines, legs, arms, wrists, ankles, shoulders."
Slavery is horrible, fork found in kitchen, news at 11.
Emma Southon is in many ways the ideal guide to the totalizing system of terror and pain that was Roman slavery (that is any system of slavery, duh). She has the right scholarly qualifications, of course, and she’s careful in differentiating what can be known for certain from what has to be extrapolated from extremely limited evidence or from the testimony of formerly enslaved people such as Harriet Jacobs and Olaudah Equiano. But she doesn’t bother assuming a neutral, calm, moderate tone: she’s just as horrified and disgusted as you are, and she lets you know it, both straightforwardly and in moments of the bleakest humor. Perhaps oddly, that makes it easier to take in the knowledge she imparts; a neutral academic tone might leave a reader wondering whether they’re the only one around here feeling sick to their stomach. No: Emma Southon is right there with you.
She also takes time to consider what on earth was going on in the heads of Roman enslavers. Here I was reminded of Melvin Patrick Ely’s “A Terrible Intimacy,” about relationships between white and enslaved people in the pre‑Civil War South. In both contexts, enslavers seem to have been able to believe several things simultaneously: that those enslaved were inferior humans, or possibly not quite human at all, and also that they might have skills and talents and personal qualities worth admiring. Ancient Romans and antebellum whites achieved this miracle by different routes: Roman slavery wasn’t race-based, and certain mind-boggling aspects of Roman law and culture meant that entire immense estates might be managed by enslaved men on very long leashes. But the doublethink was the same. We can see a related process at work today, in the minds of those voters who believe that “their” immigrants are different from those other immigrants and should be immune to the fate the present US regime is visiting on them.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”: Thank you, Mr. Faulkner, and thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC.
June 22, 2026
Four years of Latin plus reading the entire Aeneid in that language and then watching too many 50s’movies like The Robe, Quo Vadis, Demetrius and the Gladiators, Ben Hur (and later a college roommate who majored in Latin and waxed eloquent over Catullus’ poetry) helped turn me into a Roman history nerd. I just gravitate toward that period and whenever a book comes out that harkens back to my nerdiness, I must give it a read.
This was Servus for me! First, the title which translates into servant which I would pronounce as “serve us” is a dead giveaway as to where the direction this book is going - Indeed that’s what the enslaved population of Rome did. Second, I was intrigued by the topic of slavery in Rome. Since most of my past readings have been about the famous people who ruled and conquered, how the minutiae of Roman society worked especially down to the everyday level wasn’t a big part of those books. I knew the Romans subsisted on a slave culture but not to the extent that is revealed in this book or to the cruelty and horror that those enslaved peoples endured.
Romans like American slave holders viewed an enslaved person as an nonperson. In a society where pecking order was everything, enslaved people were really down on the totem pole especially depending on what kind of job or responsibilities an enslaved person had. The average enslaved person - more often than not a captive taken in conquest - had some abilities to manage estates, represent the empire or dominus (owner), save money (enslaved people had the ability to buy their freedom after 30 years) - rather different from their American counterparts. But they were still enslaved, subject to the dominus’ whims (a minor infraction could lead to cruel whipping or death). To the Romans enslaved people represented wealth - more to mourn at the owner’s and show off - and status. But overall, Romans were cruel and hypocritical when it came to enslavement - no surprise; we humans are a strange lot.
These are some of the topics about enslavement that are revealed in this fascinating and fun read. The author examines the various roles enslaved people had which would give the impression slavery was more benign in Rome than it really was. Some of the stories of the cruelty are not pretty. Jokes about slaves were the running fare in plays and written things - not very kindly either. And as the author points out we know of the Roman celebrities (my term) but not about the people who cared for them and made their lives easier - because the enslaved didn’t matter.
I enjoyed the book. It’s well researched and examines a topic in a way that should put to rest the justification for enslavement I’ve sometimes heard: it’s in the Bible! Yes but what about the enslaved person - the Bible or history should never be rationalized to remove consideration of the enslaved person in statements such as these.
I loved how easy this book was to read. In the chapter on slavery in the city, for example, the author takes us on an imaginary walk through a section of Rome to illustrate life and point out how most of it was run by slaves. I found whenever the author did this or posited hypotheticals, I was allowed to give greater consideration to the topic. She is also snarky and profane - which may turn some readers off - but I found this refreshing and often gave me a good laugh.
This is definitely a book of lovers of Roman history or readers who want to understand better the ramifications of enslavement.
I gave this book five stars for the subject it tackled and its importance - enslavement is wrong and should not be forgotten; for its incredible storytelling and for remembering the unsung voices of history. Highly recommend. .
This was Servus for me! First, the title which translates into servant which I would pronounce as “serve us” is a dead giveaway as to where the direction this book is going - Indeed that’s what the enslaved population of Rome did. Second, I was intrigued by the topic of slavery in Rome. Since most of my past readings have been about the famous people who ruled and conquered, how the minutiae of Roman society worked especially down to the everyday level wasn’t a big part of those books. I knew the Romans subsisted on a slave culture but not to the extent that is revealed in this book or to the cruelty and horror that those enslaved peoples endured.
Romans like American slave holders viewed an enslaved person as an nonperson. In a society where pecking order was everything, enslaved people were really down on the totem pole especially depending on what kind of job or responsibilities an enslaved person had. The average enslaved person - more often than not a captive taken in conquest - had some abilities to manage estates, represent the empire or dominus (owner), save money (enslaved people had the ability to buy their freedom after 30 years) - rather different from their American counterparts. But they were still enslaved, subject to the dominus’ whims (a minor infraction could lead to cruel whipping or death). To the Romans enslaved people represented wealth - more to mourn at the owner’s and show off - and status. But overall, Romans were cruel and hypocritical when it came to enslavement - no surprise; we humans are a strange lot.
These are some of the topics about enslavement that are revealed in this fascinating and fun read. The author examines the various roles enslaved people had which would give the impression slavery was more benign in Rome than it really was. Some of the stories of the cruelty are not pretty. Jokes about slaves were the running fare in plays and written things - not very kindly either. And as the author points out we know of the Roman celebrities (my term) but not about the people who cared for them and made their lives easier - because the enslaved didn’t matter.
I enjoyed the book. It’s well researched and examines a topic in a way that should put to rest the justification for enslavement I’ve sometimes heard: it’s in the Bible! Yes but what about the enslaved person - the Bible or history should never be rationalized to remove consideration of the enslaved person in statements such as these.
I loved how easy this book was to read. In the chapter on slavery in the city, for example, the author takes us on an imaginary walk through a section of Rome to illustrate life and point out how most of it was run by slaves. I found whenever the author did this or posited hypotheticals, I was allowed to give greater consideration to the topic. She is also snarky and profane - which may turn some readers off - but I found this refreshing and often gave me a good laugh.
This is definitely a book of lovers of Roman history or readers who want to understand better the ramifications of enslavement.
I gave this book five stars for the subject it tackled and its importance - enslavement is wrong and should not be forgotten; for its incredible storytelling and for remembering the unsung voices of history. Highly recommend. .
August 21, 2026
This isn't much by way of a review, but the next slavery apologist who turns up during an isekai anime discussion is getting this book thrown at them.
By which I mean I will quote from it and insist that they read it. Seriously, anyone who thinks slavery "wasn't that bad" ought to be made to read this.
By which I mean I will quote from it and insist that they read it. Seriously, anyone who thinks slavery "wasn't that bad" ought to be made to read this.
July 24, 2026
A bit less Emma Southon please!
There is nothing wrong with a colloquial tone, and in Southon's earlier book Agrippina, I found it really refreshing. But here it goes too far and feels like a gimmick. On almost every page, Southon is outraged at the horror of slavery or has to give her opinion on everything and everyone... I understand slavery was horrible, but getting all upset about it 2000 years after the facts, and for 300 pages long is a bit...well... unbelievable.
She did make me recognize that in my Latin classes the humanity of Roman slavery was indeed emphasized (focusing on manumission), almost romanticized. I also subscribe to Southon's key point that taking away one's freedom was as horrible then as it is now - it's too simple to say that these were different times and we should not look at it with our 21st century perspective.
Still, having the author's moral judgment in virtually every sentence and on everything (not just slavery) became very distracting, undermining the purpose of accessibility and readability. There is also no need to include 'cool' words in the hope of appealing to a younger audience... young people actually prefer scholars to say interesting things rather than trying to be funny and popular.
I found this worse on audio (read by Southon) and more bearable in the e-book.
The good thing is: the content is actually there and the book contains a lot of fascinating material and great anecdotes from an impressive array of sources. Slavery was not just a feature of Roman life, it was a vital industry underpinning its economy, sophisticatedly designed and upheld, because it needed to continue functioning at all cost.
There is nothing wrong with a colloquial tone, and in Southon's earlier book Agrippina, I found it really refreshing. But here it goes too far and feels like a gimmick. On almost every page, Southon is outraged at the horror of slavery or has to give her opinion on everything and everyone... I understand slavery was horrible, but getting all upset about it 2000 years after the facts, and for 300 pages long is a bit...well... unbelievable.
She did make me recognize that in my Latin classes the humanity of Roman slavery was indeed emphasized (focusing on manumission), almost romanticized. I also subscribe to Southon's key point that taking away one's freedom was as horrible then as it is now - it's too simple to say that these were different times and we should not look at it with our 21st century perspective.
Still, having the author's moral judgment in virtually every sentence and on everything (not just slavery) became very distracting, undermining the purpose of accessibility and readability. There is also no need to include 'cool' words in the hope of appealing to a younger audience... young people actually prefer scholars to say interesting things rather than trying to be funny and popular.
I found this worse on audio (read by Southon) and more bearable in the e-book.
The good thing is: the content is actually there and the book contains a lot of fascinating material and great anecdotes from an impressive array of sources. Slavery was not just a feature of Roman life, it was a vital industry underpinning its economy, sophisticatedly designed and upheld, because it needed to continue functioning at all cost.
May 30, 2026
You know a book has got you when you keep lifting your head to say “guess what” to whoever’s nearest. Emma Southon’s Servus did that to me on almost every page.
Southon’s voice is emblematic of a new wave of non-fiction - a ditching of dry academic tone in favour of a book that feels like a chat with your favourite cool lecturer - opinions, side eye and swear words included - but still totally bursting with primary sources and serious research.
Southon’s dedication to finding the lost voices in history has resulted in the exploration of a fascinating array of sources that not only touch on what slavery was in Ancient Rome but also the thoughts, feelings and experiences of enslaved people wherever possible.
Take Amica and Detfri - two enslaved women in a household tasked with making clay roof tiles, who had imprinted their feet into the wet clay and signed the tile with their names and where they came from just for their own amusement and sense of self.
This book is a must for more fully understanding Roman society & culture, and bringing to life the people who made it possible for Roman civilisation to be so “great”.
Thanks to @hodderpress and @emmasouthon for a #gifted advanced copy of Servus for review, which is out now!
Are you a fan of this new wave of accessible, opinionated popular history? Who are your favourite writers doing it well?
Southon’s voice is emblematic of a new wave of non-fiction - a ditching of dry academic tone in favour of a book that feels like a chat with your favourite cool lecturer - opinions, side eye and swear words included - but still totally bursting with primary sources and serious research.
Southon’s dedication to finding the lost voices in history has resulted in the exploration of a fascinating array of sources that not only touch on what slavery was in Ancient Rome but also the thoughts, feelings and experiences of enslaved people wherever possible.
Take Amica and Detfri - two enslaved women in a household tasked with making clay roof tiles, who had imprinted their feet into the wet clay and signed the tile with their names and where they came from just for their own amusement and sense of self.
This book is a must for more fully understanding Roman society & culture, and bringing to life the people who made it possible for Roman civilisation to be so “great”.
Thanks to @hodderpress and @emmasouthon for a #gifted advanced copy of Servus for review, which is out now!
Are you a fan of this new wave of accessible, opinionated popular history? Who are your favourite writers doing it well?
March 1, 2026
Thank you so much for the proof copy!
This book is absolutely great! It’s a perfect handbook to the world of Roman slavery, from sex slaves to slaves working in mines to gladiators. Emma Southon fills the book with examples from written sources that truly paints the picture of the world of slavery.
If you enjoy reading about Roman history then this book is a must!
This book is absolutely great! It’s a perfect handbook to the world of Roman slavery, from sex slaves to slaves working in mines to gladiators. Emma Southon fills the book with examples from written sources that truly paints the picture of the world of slavery.
If you enjoy reading about Roman history then this book is a must!
May 23, 2026
4.5 stars. Interesting.
June 10, 2026
LOVE Emma Southon and LOVED this book.
Read
July 24, 2026A sharp overview of slavery in Ancient Rome and how it manifested in every facet of life. Does a good job at outlining the horrors the people experienced every day.
One section in particular which stood out to me:
"Every person in every household, enslaved and formerly enslaved, contained a universe. Cordwainer Smith once wrote, “Life is a miracle and a terror… It doesn’t matter who people are, where they are, when they lived, or what they are doing—the important thing is the explosion of wonder that goes on and on—stopped only by death." Life is a miracle and terror. Life is enslavement and having a child. Life is falling in love and being widowed. Life is full of so many things, of joy and pain, family and games, laughter and loss, poetry and pictures of a man with a cock for a nose, almost all of which are erased by that word: slave. These were people. So many, many people ground to dust by slavery, but what they left behind—and I think this important—is only the evidence of their love. We see them as individuals only in their epitaphs and their graffiti, and so we can only see them at their most beautiful. When we read epitaphs made in times of darkest mourning we see the love that enslaved people had for one another and how they overcame the brutality and wickedness of slavery as an institution to find love and tenderness and family within it. We see biological family but also found family, friendships, and alliances. Love in all its forms. Even the kind of love where one person draws the other with a dick for a nose for reasons that I’m sure made sense at the time. The gritty reality of life is washed away with the millennia and all that is left is the knowledge that these millions of humans lived, as miracles and fragile terrors, in the background of every scene of capital-H History, absorbing all the friction from the lives of those who married emperors and became consuls, but no less magnificent for it."
And another:
"One time, archaeologists found a tile where two women had deliberately pressed their feet into a tile they were making, and then wrote their names on it. Amica and Detfri pressed their tiny feet (and they are tiny) on purpose into a tile they were making then wrote in two different languages: “Detfri of Hn. Sattis signed with a footprint,” written in Oscan, and “Amica of Herens signed when we were laying out the tile,” written underneath in Latin.
Oscan is an Italic language from southern Italy and Detfri was one of the last generations to speak it before it went extinct in the next century. Both Detfri and Amica identify themselves as slaves of Herens Sattis and their tile was found in the largely obscure sanctuary at Pietrabbondante in Molise, Italy. So what we have is two enslaved women somewhere in southern Italy doing the tedious task of making identical tiles over and over. They’re educated enough to be able to read and write, which means that making tiles was not their destiny at birth and was, I imagine, pretty fucking boring. So one day, two friends signed their work. They stopped being well behaved for a second and held hands and giggled and pressed their tiny toes into the wet clay. They left a deliberate sign of themselves and their bodies and their brains in a tile that would end up on a roof where no one would ever see it. But they would know. These two educated women would know that they had left a bit of themselves in the world. They are just two women who seem smart and fun but they feel emblematic of a million other women who lived the same lives in the empire."
One section in particular which stood out to me:
"Every person in every household, enslaved and formerly enslaved, contained a universe. Cordwainer Smith once wrote, “Life is a miracle and a terror… It doesn’t matter who people are, where they are, when they lived, or what they are doing—the important thing is the explosion of wonder that goes on and on—stopped only by death." Life is a miracle and terror. Life is enslavement and having a child. Life is falling in love and being widowed. Life is full of so many things, of joy and pain, family and games, laughter and loss, poetry and pictures of a man with a cock for a nose, almost all of which are erased by that word: slave. These were people. So many, many people ground to dust by slavery, but what they left behind—and I think this important—is only the evidence of their love. We see them as individuals only in their epitaphs and their graffiti, and so we can only see them at their most beautiful. When we read epitaphs made in times of darkest mourning we see the love that enslaved people had for one another and how they overcame the brutality and wickedness of slavery as an institution to find love and tenderness and family within it. We see biological family but also found family, friendships, and alliances. Love in all its forms. Even the kind of love where one person draws the other with a dick for a nose for reasons that I’m sure made sense at the time. The gritty reality of life is washed away with the millennia and all that is left is the knowledge that these millions of humans lived, as miracles and fragile terrors, in the background of every scene of capital-H History, absorbing all the friction from the lives of those who married emperors and became consuls, but no less magnificent for it."
And another:
"One time, archaeologists found a tile where two women had deliberately pressed their feet into a tile they were making, and then wrote their names on it. Amica and Detfri pressed their tiny feet (and they are tiny) on purpose into a tile they were making then wrote in two different languages: “Detfri of Hn. Sattis signed with a footprint,” written in Oscan, and “Amica of Herens signed when we were laying out the tile,” written underneath in Latin.
Oscan is an Italic language from southern Italy and Detfri was one of the last generations to speak it before it went extinct in the next century. Both Detfri and Amica identify themselves as slaves of Herens Sattis and their tile was found in the largely obscure sanctuary at Pietrabbondante in Molise, Italy. So what we have is two enslaved women somewhere in southern Italy doing the tedious task of making identical tiles over and over. They’re educated enough to be able to read and write, which means that making tiles was not their destiny at birth and was, I imagine, pretty fucking boring. So one day, two friends signed their work. They stopped being well behaved for a second and held hands and giggled and pressed their tiny toes into the wet clay. They left a deliberate sign of themselves and their bodies and their brains in a tile that would end up on a roof where no one would ever see it. But they would know. These two educated women would know that they had left a bit of themselves in the world. They are just two women who seem smart and fun but they feel emblematic of a million other women who lived the same lives in the empire."
August 26, 2026
Southon admits she isn't going to cover everything, but what she does is brilliant. Well written, with a huge dose of empathy and a dash of humour.
August 26, 2026
A very interesting book, I didn’t know much about any of it and I like how the book is organized. A lot of the comments complain about the author’s editorializing and colloquial tone, but I don’t really have an issue when the editorializing is about how bad slavery was tbh.
August 29, 2026
i have been vocally pro-emma southon basically forever and i own all of her books except this one, which unfortunately didn't really work for me. i think the subject matter is SO important and the particular collection & arrangement of facts & perspectives is not something i've seen replicated elsewhere (and definitely not in such an accessible manner), but i think this book is majorly dragged down by the explicit and repeated thread of Look, Wasn't Roman Slavery So Horrible? i want to know who is picking up this book with a vastly different first impression. like, that fact should be obvious to most readers; the content speaks for itself. but it is repeated and emphasized, often in those exact words, over and over, multiple times per chapter, which i found grating. like, yes, it was horrible! i am an intelligent reader and i don't need you to tell me that anymore! similarly, personal judgement is being passed or personal commentary is being provided on nearly every anecdote or story, and it kind of yanked me out of those individual stories and (for lack of a better word) almost cheapened them. the tone here is very weird because it vacillates between the serious moralizing (here's a terrible, cruelty-laced narrative, Wasn't It So Horrible) and pop culture references/jokes (which will not even be as effective in 10-20 years), with the result that i am walking away from this book feeling more informed but also more baffled. also, i am glad i didn't pre-order this.
August 29, 2026
What a combination of bleak and interesting. It is fascinating to think about what the world was like at the time and what misery most people experienced. Southon groups everything in a logical and readable way. You get a sense of scale here that really hammers home just what the word “slave” meant at the time. It has changed how I perceive the word in New. Testament texts (often softened by translators as “bond servant”).
It was also thought provoking to consider that crucifixion was a weapon meant to hold slaves in fear. This reinforces the whole idea that it was seen as pretty crazy to worship a God who was crucified. Christianity was described as a religion of “women and slaves” for the longest time, because that’s the demographic that took hope when everything else seemed hopeless. Reading this, you can see how Jesus might have appealed to Romans who had no exposure to the Judaic traditions.
I am docking 2 stars because of Southon’s constant use of crass language. She seems to be making a lot of effort to make this readable, but sometimes it comes across as simply trying too hard. All of the f-bombs and colloquial language just felt unnecessary and I found it distracting from an otherwise excellent read.
It was also thought provoking to consider that crucifixion was a weapon meant to hold slaves in fear. This reinforces the whole idea that it was seen as pretty crazy to worship a God who was crucified. Christianity was described as a religion of “women and slaves” for the longest time, because that’s the demographic that took hope when everything else seemed hopeless. Reading this, you can see how Jesus might have appealed to Romans who had no exposure to the Judaic traditions.
I am docking 2 stars because of Southon’s constant use of crass language. She seems to be making a lot of effort to make this readable, but sometimes it comes across as simply trying too hard. All of the f-bombs and colloquial language just felt unnecessary and I found it distracting from an otherwise excellent read.
July 4, 2026
Wowza, did I learn a lot!
This was a great in-depth account into how the Roman Empire was fueled and heavily relied on slavery. It was so eye opening and incredibly saddening to know how absolutely wretched the Romans were to people they deemed beneath them. It’s incredibly well researched and has some jests to make reading a bit more manageable and interesting.
Southon does a great job in dissecting how slavery was managed and the roles that a person played when enslaved. Breaking up the different roles was very easy and manageable to read and also gave a lot of insight into the horrors that they faced on an everyday basis. Truly so wild and horrific to see how much they went through and how it was all so normalized, just as in the United States.
Overall, Stanton is an incredible storyteller that keeps the reader informed but intrigued.
This was a great in-depth account into how the Roman Empire was fueled and heavily relied on slavery. It was so eye opening and incredibly saddening to know how absolutely wretched the Romans were to people they deemed beneath them. It’s incredibly well researched and has some jests to make reading a bit more manageable and interesting.
Southon does a great job in dissecting how slavery was managed and the roles that a person played when enslaved. Breaking up the different roles was very easy and manageable to read and also gave a lot of insight into the horrors that they faced on an everyday basis. Truly so wild and horrific to see how much they went through and how it was all so normalized, just as in the United States.
Overall, Stanton is an incredible storyteller that keeps the reader informed but intrigued.
May 25, 2026
"What did the Romans ever do for us?" eh. Well unfortunately they took plenty of slaves from throughout the empire & this book gives a voice to the marginalised who rarely feature in the official Roman histories. As there is precious little evidence left from those enslaved by the Romans, the experiences of some of those sold into the Transatlantic slave trade are used as a comparison to give some idea of how they may have felt.
From those taken as war booty, sold into slavery as punishment, or those who were born into slavery, & from the uprisings (including the most famous one led by Spartacus) to those who kept their heads down & tried to earn their freedom, Southon shows just how much the entire structure of Roman society depended on these people being kept in their place. It does also point out how those slaves could occasionally get their own small 'wins'.
From farm workers to those running street-side eateries (thermopolia), from gladiators to sex workers, from the lowest mill worker to the slaves of the Emperor himself, "millions of enslaved lives were unwillingly dedicated to the perpetuation of the empire that owned them". The Romans became the masters of 'divide & conquer' by fostering a sense of competition & hierarchy even amongst the enslaved & whilst many were kept in place by fear of punishment, others with more perks & the opportunity to earn manumission (freedom) looked down on those who were unable to do so.
This is extremely well written in a style that is packed with information but because of the way its written, it isn't a slog to get through. I will warn you now that the tone & dryly irreverent humour is possibly an acquired taste along with the strong language, but I absolutely loved it. It's a book I will probably re-read at some point.
SUMMARY:
Research: Excellent - Packed with information but because of the way its written, it isn’t a slog to get through.
Writing Style: Excellent - Tone & humour is probably an acquired taste, but I loved it.
Enjoyment Level: High - Absolutely loved reading this. If you don’t mind dryly irreverent humour & strong language, then give this a try.
My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC.
From those taken as war booty, sold into slavery as punishment, or those who were born into slavery, & from the uprisings (including the most famous one led by Spartacus) to those who kept their heads down & tried to earn their freedom, Southon shows just how much the entire structure of Roman society depended on these people being kept in their place. It does also point out how those slaves could occasionally get their own small 'wins'.
From farm workers to those running street-side eateries (thermopolia), from gladiators to sex workers, from the lowest mill worker to the slaves of the Emperor himself, "millions of enslaved lives were unwillingly dedicated to the perpetuation of the empire that owned them". The Romans became the masters of 'divide & conquer' by fostering a sense of competition & hierarchy even amongst the enslaved & whilst many were kept in place by fear of punishment, others with more perks & the opportunity to earn manumission (freedom) looked down on those who were unable to do so.
This is extremely well written in a style that is packed with information but because of the way its written, it isn't a slog to get through. I will warn you now that the tone & dryly irreverent humour is possibly an acquired taste along with the strong language, but I absolutely loved it. It's a book I will probably re-read at some point.
SUMMARY:
Research: Excellent - Packed with information but because of the way its written, it isn’t a slog to get through.
Writing Style: Excellent - Tone & humour is probably an acquired taste, but I loved it.
Enjoyment Level: High - Absolutely loved reading this. If you don’t mind dryly irreverent humour & strong language, then give this a try.
My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC.
August 1, 2026
I will read anything Emma Southon writes. I'm not that well read in this period and Southon is witty, pungent and superb at context.
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Tiny niggle. Although Southon understands the back breaking work of mining and milling, I'm not sure she's aware that both activities especially the closed and unventilated mills) would have clogged and destroyed workers' lungs. Many will have died struggling to breathe.
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Tiny niggle. Although Southon understands the back breaking work of mining and milling, I'm not sure she's aware that both activities especially the closed and unventilated mills) would have clogged and destroyed workers' lungs. Many will have died struggling to breathe.
June 21, 2026
3.75⭐️
A comprehensive book on the horrors slaves were subjected to during the Roman Republic and Post Augustus era. I particularly enjoyed the Servile wars section and how brave some of the slaves acted as a retaliation to this despicable system.
Most Roman History books don’t emphasise on how important slavery was to the entire system, or the perspectives of these marginalised groups. I felt this book was very good in outlining how difficult it was for slaves to actually earn their freedom with either purchasing, negotiating, meeting conditions such as birthing a number amount of children, and even when offered freedom, the senate would make it as difficult as possible for these freed slaves to obtain Roman Citizenship or the Dominus could even back out of the agreement last minute. Even after reading this, it’s difficult to contemplate how dreadful being a slave truly was, my 2026 brain cannot comprehend. I also enjoyed the humourous critique of the Roman Elites and system from the author throughout.
My issues with the book was at times certain points lacked direction, or ones that I found uninteresting dragged on for too long. I did enjoy the Servile Wars and Gladitorial sections the most, but felt these were rather short in comparison to other topics that I think could’ve occupied less of the book.
Overall very good book in which I have learned many new facts in which I previously was not aware of!
A comprehensive book on the horrors slaves were subjected to during the Roman Republic and Post Augustus era. I particularly enjoyed the Servile wars section and how brave some of the slaves acted as a retaliation to this despicable system.
Most Roman History books don’t emphasise on how important slavery was to the entire system, or the perspectives of these marginalised groups. I felt this book was very good in outlining how difficult it was for slaves to actually earn their freedom with either purchasing, negotiating, meeting conditions such as birthing a number amount of children, and even when offered freedom, the senate would make it as difficult as possible for these freed slaves to obtain Roman Citizenship or the Dominus could even back out of the agreement last minute. Even after reading this, it’s difficult to contemplate how dreadful being a slave truly was, my 2026 brain cannot comprehend. I also enjoyed the humourous critique of the Roman Elites and system from the author throughout.
My issues with the book was at times certain points lacked direction, or ones that I found uninteresting dragged on for too long. I did enjoy the Servile Wars and Gladitorial sections the most, but felt these were rather short in comparison to other topics that I think could’ve occupied less of the book.
Overall very good book in which I have learned many new facts in which I previously was not aware of!
July 19, 2026
This was my first Southon book and, uh, holy crap? She's so good at providing detailed information in a way that's super easy to digest, and it's entertaining as heck (well, the subject matter is awful, but her commentary is so poignant and makes you understand how awful slavery in the Roman world was without making you want to stop reading)
July 13, 2026
MERP rome did a slavery XD
Read
August 30, 2026Turns out it sucks to be a slave.
September 1, 2026
Emma Southon is one of those public historians who believes that readers have to be condescended to in order to enjoy history. Her house style consists of snark, modern turns of phrase, crude humor, and pop culture references. Given the seriousness of this particular book’s subject matter, however, I held out hope that she would drop it this time.
While it’s been a while since I read my last Southon, if memory serves correctly she does, in fact, tone it down in this book. However, just because there’s less of it doesn’t mean there’s none. Examples include describing a freedwoman named Fortunata as “a girl boss girlbossing”, repeated jokes about how some Latin names sound like English swears or anatomy, that the modern equivalent of the senate asking Pallas for money would be a CEO prostrating himself in front of a toddler and being forced to sing the Skibidi Toilet song, that slave tattooing was like “Post Malone, but with more infections”, Juvenal being a “horrible little poet” who wrote “right-wing satire”, a “Palpatine has returned” reference stuck in the middle of a section about Cicero’s slaves, Agrippa being a sensible rather than sexy man, Jerome being an Arch Christian Weirdo (the capitalization is hers), and Cato the Elder being dubbed “an unbearable prick” (which I must admit I agree with), “the worst of Roman bastards”, and having less kindness than a man-eating shark. One notable paragraph in an early section begins by talking about how humiliating it was to be sold at an auction and ends with a Mean Girls reference– and yet, she has the gall to criticize Plautus for allegedly thinking that slavery was funny.
All of this is delivered with a heaping of moralizing about how terrible slavery was, complete with detailed fictionalized vignettes about violence towards slaves, the medical accuracy of which I couldn’t help but question, given that Southon had to go to Reddit for information about the much more mundane experience of breastfeeding. Worst of all, Southon frequently inserts herself into the discussion with first-person statements about her shock and horror at slaving practices (including one instance where she claims to have almost thrown a book across the room) and her resulting disgust and disdain towards the Romans and their cruel society (though the disgust isn’t enough to get her to stop profiting off of writing about them, of course). At best, it makes her look naive by how surprised she is at sadly common and hardly obscure aspects of slavery, and at worst it makes it seem like she’s trying to make the suffering of these people about her, and that the discomfort she feels with Roman slavery means that she is somehow also a victim of it.
When it comes to her narrative about Roman slavery, I found her information to be basically fine, especially for the general audience the book is aimed at, but with several caveats. Many of her sources are pieces of fiction, such as novels and poetry, and she dismisses criticisms against relying on them too much. While I agree that the frequency of jokes about corporal punishment against slaves indicates that it was seen as normal and what not, having Roman fiction be 85% of your sources would be like (to write as Southon might) writing a book about twentieth-century college life using movies like Animal House as sources, and concluding that the genre tropes they share means that they have a basis in reality. Her section on imperial slaves shows no awareness of the fact that some of the stories of their influence must be read critically, as they were often used to criticize the alleged failings of the emperor. She frequently makes generalizations, as well as some historical errors (Cicero is stated multiple to times to have lived in 46 CE; she supports the idea that Italian peasant agriculture in the second-century BCE was being replaced by the slave-run latifundia, which has been debunked for a long time; and she uses the prosecution of Manilia the prostitute as an example of “the lack of power that these women had”, even though the prosecution was blocked because the tribunes supported her). When the topic of children arises, Southon (who mentions that she has no children herself) often becomes unrealistically sentimental, whether that be seriously arguing that a twelve year old slave living in a culture where slave boys were considered to be perfectly appropriate sexual partners, where protective phalli were everywhere, and where myths depicting sex and sexual violence could be found in private houses, wouldn’t understand what sex was, or that Gen Alpha childhood consists of idyllically watching implicitly harmless Tiktoks and giggling about Minecraft. Nevertheless, I appreciated how she points out when historians don’t know something, that she highlights the power dynamics between slaves (including slaves who owned other slaves through peculium), and that she puts nuance on slave psychology by emphasizing how they often desired the power to oppress others despite their own oppression, even though I couldn’t help but grit my teeth when she said that “we tell ourselves that Roman slavery was wrong and lionize those like Spartacus who stood against it, but we have to understand that there were many others who wanted to be part of it”, with no self-awareness of the fact that she spends the whole book doing exactly that.
One particularly big topic I took issue with was the economy. Southon claims multiple times that the Roman economy was based “entirely” on slavery, but her focus leaves little room for analysis of the economy as a whole, aside from wildly different and sometimes outdated demographical estimates. Most importantly, Southon does not compare the labor of slaves in places like farms and mines with the labor of freeborn workers, who outnumbered slaves even using the highest estimate of the slave population; there were few jobs undertaken only by slaves, and we know from archaeological evidence and slaves and free people sometimes worked side by side. An economy dominated by slavery would have also created a number of problems for freeborn people looking for work and potentially have stalled technological developments, implications that Southon does not grapple with. Part of the problem is that she focuses so much on the elite and their ways of making money without getting their hands dirty, even though said elites were hardly representative and were an even smaller portion of the population than slaves. This also gives the misleading impression that only wealthy elites owned slaves.
Ultimately, this is a fairly adequate introduction to the lives of Roman slaves if you can look past Southon’s writing, but it certainly needs to be supplemented by other work– hopefully, ones where graphic descriptions of eye trauma and Skibidi Toilet don’t co-exist.
While it’s been a while since I read my last Southon, if memory serves correctly she does, in fact, tone it down in this book. However, just because there’s less of it doesn’t mean there’s none. Examples include describing a freedwoman named Fortunata as “a girl boss girlbossing”, repeated jokes about how some Latin names sound like English swears or anatomy, that the modern equivalent of the senate asking Pallas for money would be a CEO prostrating himself in front of a toddler and being forced to sing the Skibidi Toilet song, that slave tattooing was like “Post Malone, but with more infections”, Juvenal being a “horrible little poet” who wrote “right-wing satire”, a “Palpatine has returned” reference stuck in the middle of a section about Cicero’s slaves, Agrippa being a sensible rather than sexy man, Jerome being an Arch Christian Weirdo (the capitalization is hers), and Cato the Elder being dubbed “an unbearable prick” (which I must admit I agree with), “the worst of Roman bastards”, and having less kindness than a man-eating shark. One notable paragraph in an early section begins by talking about how humiliating it was to be sold at an auction and ends with a Mean Girls reference– and yet, she has the gall to criticize Plautus for allegedly thinking that slavery was funny.
All of this is delivered with a heaping of moralizing about how terrible slavery was, complete with detailed fictionalized vignettes about violence towards slaves, the medical accuracy of which I couldn’t help but question, given that Southon had to go to Reddit for information about the much more mundane experience of breastfeeding. Worst of all, Southon frequently inserts herself into the discussion with first-person statements about her shock and horror at slaving practices (including one instance where she claims to have almost thrown a book across the room) and her resulting disgust and disdain towards the Romans and their cruel society (though the disgust isn’t enough to get her to stop profiting off of writing about them, of course). At best, it makes her look naive by how surprised she is at sadly common and hardly obscure aspects of slavery, and at worst it makes it seem like she’s trying to make the suffering of these people about her, and that the discomfort she feels with Roman slavery means that she is somehow also a victim of it.
When it comes to her narrative about Roman slavery, I found her information to be basically fine, especially for the general audience the book is aimed at, but with several caveats. Many of her sources are pieces of fiction, such as novels and poetry, and she dismisses criticisms against relying on them too much. While I agree that the frequency of jokes about corporal punishment against slaves indicates that it was seen as normal and what not, having Roman fiction be 85% of your sources would be like (to write as Southon might) writing a book about twentieth-century college life using movies like Animal House as sources, and concluding that the genre tropes they share means that they have a basis in reality. Her section on imperial slaves shows no awareness of the fact that some of the stories of their influence must be read critically, as they were often used to criticize the alleged failings of the emperor. She frequently makes generalizations, as well as some historical errors (Cicero is stated multiple to times to have lived in 46 CE; she supports the idea that Italian peasant agriculture in the second-century BCE was being replaced by the slave-run latifundia, which has been debunked for a long time; and she uses the prosecution of Manilia the prostitute as an example of “the lack of power that these women had”, even though the prosecution was blocked because the tribunes supported her). When the topic of children arises, Southon (who mentions that she has no children herself) often becomes unrealistically sentimental, whether that be seriously arguing that a twelve year old slave living in a culture where slave boys were considered to be perfectly appropriate sexual partners, where protective phalli were everywhere, and where myths depicting sex and sexual violence could be found in private houses, wouldn’t understand what sex was, or that Gen Alpha childhood consists of idyllically watching implicitly harmless Tiktoks and giggling about Minecraft. Nevertheless, I appreciated how she points out when historians don’t know something, that she highlights the power dynamics between slaves (including slaves who owned other slaves through peculium), and that she puts nuance on slave psychology by emphasizing how they often desired the power to oppress others despite their own oppression, even though I couldn’t help but grit my teeth when she said that “we tell ourselves that Roman slavery was wrong and lionize those like Spartacus who stood against it, but we have to understand that there were many others who wanted to be part of it”, with no self-awareness of the fact that she spends the whole book doing exactly that.
One particularly big topic I took issue with was the economy. Southon claims multiple times that the Roman economy was based “entirely” on slavery, but her focus leaves little room for analysis of the economy as a whole, aside from wildly different and sometimes outdated demographical estimates. Most importantly, Southon does not compare the labor of slaves in places like farms and mines with the labor of freeborn workers, who outnumbered slaves even using the highest estimate of the slave population; there were few jobs undertaken only by slaves, and we know from archaeological evidence and slaves and free people sometimes worked side by side. An economy dominated by slavery would have also created a number of problems for freeborn people looking for work and potentially have stalled technological developments, implications that Southon does not grapple with. Part of the problem is that she focuses so much on the elite and their ways of making money without getting their hands dirty, even though said elites were hardly representative and were an even smaller portion of the population than slaves. This also gives the misleading impression that only wealthy elites owned slaves.
Ultimately, this is a fairly adequate introduction to the lives of Roman slaves if you can look past Southon’s writing, but it certainly needs to be supplemented by other work– hopefully, ones where graphic descriptions of eye trauma and Skibidi Toilet don’t co-exist.
May 15, 2026
Could not put this down…..best book on Ancient Rome I have read since SPQR….Emma Southon writes in such an accessible style with razor sharp wit, bringing the past to life
September 15, 2026
Emma Southon is a wise ass historian. She says things like 'It took the Romans a long time to fuck this situation into something truly appalling." or describes "the constant boring whining of elite Romans about their households." or notes that, "like horrid Late Antique Andrew Tates, there have always been men who have been awful about sex" or describes Cato the Elder as "the worst of the Roman bastards" or she mentions "Arch Christian Weirdo St. Jerome."
She is also a very perceptive and clever historian.
This is a history and description of Roman slavery. Southon has two central themes. The Rome empire was completely dependent on slave labor and slaves lived horrible lives in Rome. Both points are important reminders. Most Roman history minimize the roll of slavery, and the traditional story is that Roman slavery was not as bad or as harsh as slavery in many other settings. Southon will have none of that.
Roman slaves were usually captured in war. All citizens in a captured city were taken as slaves. The slaves came from all over the Roman Empire. Southon points out that Roman slavery, unlike Atlantic slavery, was not based on race or color. She makes a point of showing that the conditions of slaves, however, were just as bad.
She illustrates the pervasiveness of slavery by taking us on a walk down the street of a Roman town. Almost every store, whether a bakery or a shoe store or a pottery store or a clothing store, had slave clerks selling goods manufactured by slaves. The temples were kept by slaves. The government bureaucrat were slaves. The Romans considered it disgraceful to do manual labor or to work as a clerk or a manager. That work was all done by slaves. Southon also has chapters on slave labor in Roman mines and farms. She has a chapter on house slaves and sex slaves.
She takes aim at the claim by many earlier scholars that Roman slavery wasn't that bad. For example, it is true that household slaves, particularly more senior ones, had a decent chance of manumission before they died. Which, Southon points out, means that they spent most of their life as slaves. She documents how common and acceptable it was to whip, hit, burn and scar household slaves who "misbehaved". Household slaves usually lived in tiny windowless rooms or in storage rooms.
The household slaves had it better than the other slaves. Mining slaves lived horrific lives under terrible conditions. They usually died before middle age. They were feed meager food and were constantly short of water. The work was exhausting and dangerous. There was a reason why the early Christians were sent to the mines as punishment for their heresies.
The farm workers were treated like machines. There only job was to produce crops, and they also lived in horrible conditions. Southon highlights the farming guidebooks written by noble Romans. The books instruct the rich farm owners on the best way to get maximum production from their slaves. As she summarizes the advice, "they must never forget that they are slaves."
The chapter on the sex slaves is unforgiving. Slave owners had the right to have sex with slaves they owned, and they exercised that right routinely. Young slave boys were targeted by Roman men. Raping a young slave boy was acceptable. Using a boy as favorite for sex was not questioned. Interestingly, sex between grown men was not acceptable but sex with prepubescent boys was considered fun.
There was an elaborate system of slave brothels. Smart Romans considered them good investments. The movie version of slave courtesans never happened. Southon explains that Roman slave sex workers " mostly worked in small nooks with curtains. Most of them spend their days and evenings confined to those rooms with little or no freedom of movement."
Runaway slaves were seldom successful. Capturing runaway slaves was a high priority. Captured runaways were beaten and usually branded on their face and had metal collars welded onto their neck.
Southon has tracked down every mention or discussion of slavery in the surviving Roman texts. She teases out the significance of mentions of slavery in poems, laws, novels, letters and histories. She also makes great use of the archeological finds. She argues, for example, that the fact that there are no separate slave quarters in the large noble homes suggests that the slave slept in the small windowless rooms found in most of those homes.
Southon has produced a solid historical study. she clearly explains her reasoning and conclusions. She enjoys taking pot shots at historians who, in her opinion, have gone astray.
This is a very well written and persuasive study. It changed how I look at the Roman Empire.
She is also a very perceptive and clever historian.
This is a history and description of Roman slavery. Southon has two central themes. The Rome empire was completely dependent on slave labor and slaves lived horrible lives in Rome. Both points are important reminders. Most Roman history minimize the roll of slavery, and the traditional story is that Roman slavery was not as bad or as harsh as slavery in many other settings. Southon will have none of that.
Roman slaves were usually captured in war. All citizens in a captured city were taken as slaves. The slaves came from all over the Roman Empire. Southon points out that Roman slavery, unlike Atlantic slavery, was not based on race or color. She makes a point of showing that the conditions of slaves, however, were just as bad.
She illustrates the pervasiveness of slavery by taking us on a walk down the street of a Roman town. Almost every store, whether a bakery or a shoe store or a pottery store or a clothing store, had slave clerks selling goods manufactured by slaves. The temples were kept by slaves. The government bureaucrat were slaves. The Romans considered it disgraceful to do manual labor or to work as a clerk or a manager. That work was all done by slaves. Southon also has chapters on slave labor in Roman mines and farms. She has a chapter on house slaves and sex slaves.
She takes aim at the claim by many earlier scholars that Roman slavery wasn't that bad. For example, it is true that household slaves, particularly more senior ones, had a decent chance of manumission before they died. Which, Southon points out, means that they spent most of their life as slaves. She documents how common and acceptable it was to whip, hit, burn and scar household slaves who "misbehaved". Household slaves usually lived in tiny windowless rooms or in storage rooms.
The household slaves had it better than the other slaves. Mining slaves lived horrific lives under terrible conditions. They usually died before middle age. They were feed meager food and were constantly short of water. The work was exhausting and dangerous. There was a reason why the early Christians were sent to the mines as punishment for their heresies.
The farm workers were treated like machines. There only job was to produce crops, and they also lived in horrible conditions. Southon highlights the farming guidebooks written by noble Romans. The books instruct the rich farm owners on the best way to get maximum production from their slaves. As she summarizes the advice, "they must never forget that they are slaves."
The chapter on the sex slaves is unforgiving. Slave owners had the right to have sex with slaves they owned, and they exercised that right routinely. Young slave boys were targeted by Roman men. Raping a young slave boy was acceptable. Using a boy as favorite for sex was not questioned. Interestingly, sex between grown men was not acceptable but sex with prepubescent boys was considered fun.
There was an elaborate system of slave brothels. Smart Romans considered them good investments. The movie version of slave courtesans never happened. Southon explains that Roman slave sex workers " mostly worked in small nooks with curtains. Most of them spend their days and evenings confined to those rooms with little or no freedom of movement."
Runaway slaves were seldom successful. Capturing runaway slaves was a high priority. Captured runaways were beaten and usually branded on their face and had metal collars welded onto their neck.
Southon has tracked down every mention or discussion of slavery in the surviving Roman texts. She teases out the significance of mentions of slavery in poems, laws, novels, letters and histories. She also makes great use of the archeological finds. She argues, for example, that the fact that there are no separate slave quarters in the large noble homes suggests that the slave slept in the small windowless rooms found in most of those homes.
Southon has produced a solid historical study. she clearly explains her reasoning and conclusions. She enjoys taking pot shots at historians who, in her opinion, have gone astray.
This is a very well written and persuasive study. It changed how I look at the Roman Empire.
July 16, 2026
I had a difficult experience with this book. I own about 3,000 books, and this means that I keep what I buy even if I didn't like it. All books, good or bad, are artifacts of my reading life. And still, about 25 pages into this, I strongly considered returning it to the bookshop. Then, at about 100 pages, I almost returned it again. I kept it, and finished it, and there were certainly things about it I liked, but the issue is not so much that it was bad, but that it was obnoxiously annoying.
To be clear, Southon's goal here seemed to be taking what academics know about the Roman world and making those things accessible to a wider audience. This is a laudable goal and other writers, like Mary Beard, have done this well. However, Southon's colloquial style is not merely about clarity, or even engagement, but iconoclasm. She uses profanity, conversational slang, and a sardonic tone without any real wit or finesse. The goal with this language seems to be that Southon wants to sound edgy and super cool, and although I think she's still on the younger side, these attempts at jargon are stilted - she comes off like an older person dropping slang for the youths out there in a failed attempt to "relate."
Southon also uses this awkward language in an attempt to express her moral indignation at things, and her lack of ingenuity also shows up here. Over and over again, she repeats to the reader that the things she describes are "super bad and evil," but, the reader already knows this. All Southon needs to do is the work of the historian - lay out the evidence, be as eloquently descriptive as possible, and most importantly, trust the reader. Instead, Southon writes as though she thinks little of her readers, as though we need to be told that slavery sucks. Now, Southon is correct that there is a longstanding and unfortunate misapprehension among people that slavery in Rome "wasn't that bad," but the fix here is to correct the record of the practice itself, not to correct the record and then badger the reader by constantly dropping F-bombs of indignation and telling us that this terrible thing she's describing is "really bad and evil and it sucks and stuff."
Southon's moral indignation also, at times, gets in the way of sound historiography. For example, at one point, she discusses a bishop who wrote to Christians demanding that they stop sleeping with their maids. Rather than seeing the progress in this, she then says that the bishop cared only for the morality of his people, but not for the care and autonomy of the maids themselves. There is simply no way Southon could know this. It's a self-righteous guess. The record shows the bishop addressing the Christian because he had control over the situation and the bishop addressed his audience within their realm of control, but this evidence does not at all suggest that the bishop did not care for the well-being of the maids in these households. Although anachronistic, most of Southon's moral indictments are justified. Some, however, are judgments that go beyond the evidence. The historian should always approach the past with humility before litigating it.
There were some things I liked about the book. Southon's structure was well arranged, and she relays several interesting stories. Especially good is when she uses the evidence of ancient Greek and Roman novels. If Southon had written the same book without using slang and moral pronouncements to bully the reader into her own judgments, the book would have actually been quite good. I just could not ever get over the idea that, throughout the book, Southon's goal was less about informing the reader than it was trying to manipulate the reader to feel the same way about things that she does. All writers do this, to a point, but Southon's prose is as subtle as a shotgun blast at close range.
To be clear, Southon's goal here seemed to be taking what academics know about the Roman world and making those things accessible to a wider audience. This is a laudable goal and other writers, like Mary Beard, have done this well. However, Southon's colloquial style is not merely about clarity, or even engagement, but iconoclasm. She uses profanity, conversational slang, and a sardonic tone without any real wit or finesse. The goal with this language seems to be that Southon wants to sound edgy and super cool, and although I think she's still on the younger side, these attempts at jargon are stilted - she comes off like an older person dropping slang for the youths out there in a failed attempt to "relate."
Southon also uses this awkward language in an attempt to express her moral indignation at things, and her lack of ingenuity also shows up here. Over and over again, she repeats to the reader that the things she describes are "super bad and evil," but, the reader already knows this. All Southon needs to do is the work of the historian - lay out the evidence, be as eloquently descriptive as possible, and most importantly, trust the reader. Instead, Southon writes as though she thinks little of her readers, as though we need to be told that slavery sucks. Now, Southon is correct that there is a longstanding and unfortunate misapprehension among people that slavery in Rome "wasn't that bad," but the fix here is to correct the record of the practice itself, not to correct the record and then badger the reader by constantly dropping F-bombs of indignation and telling us that this terrible thing she's describing is "really bad and evil and it sucks and stuff."
Southon's moral indignation also, at times, gets in the way of sound historiography. For example, at one point, she discusses a bishop who wrote to Christians demanding that they stop sleeping with their maids. Rather than seeing the progress in this, she then says that the bishop cared only for the morality of his people, but not for the care and autonomy of the maids themselves. There is simply no way Southon could know this. It's a self-righteous guess. The record shows the bishop addressing the Christian because he had control over the situation and the bishop addressed his audience within their realm of control, but this evidence does not at all suggest that the bishop did not care for the well-being of the maids in these households. Although anachronistic, most of Southon's moral indictments are justified. Some, however, are judgments that go beyond the evidence. The historian should always approach the past with humility before litigating it.
There were some things I liked about the book. Southon's structure was well arranged, and she relays several interesting stories. Especially good is when she uses the evidence of ancient Greek and Roman novels. If Southon had written the same book without using slang and moral pronouncements to bully the reader into her own judgments, the book would have actually been quite good. I just could not ever get over the idea that, throughout the book, Southon's goal was less about informing the reader than it was trying to manipulate the reader to feel the same way about things that she does. All writers do this, to a point, but Southon's prose is as subtle as a shotgun blast at close range.
June 18, 2026
I really thought this was going to be a book highlighting how slavery made the Roman World. Showing how crucial it actually was, how the workforce was an enslaved people and how this overlooked people were finally getting the respect and dignity they deserved.
Instead we start with slavery bad, slavery evil, everyone who took part in it evil and wrong. Which is a very valid statement but does sort of leave us with nowhere to go. Context is king, and while we should absolutely acknowledge how messed up and evil slavery is, this is also a world where the author admits, slavery is as natural as breathing and how the world worked. It's not about right and wrong, its about what happened with it.
The poet Horace is mentioned frequently in this book, and always negatively, poking fun and disgust at his surviving writing which mentions slavery. Yet nowhere does the author mention that Horace is the son of a freedman, so the son of someone who was once a slave. This would surely influence his writing but then it also works against her apparent theme that anything positive could possibly arise from the Roman World. I think the fact Horace is the son of a freedman makes for an interesting debate and topic. Yet we can't go down that route.
It's also weird that maybe the most famous Roman slave of all isn't mentioned, Sporus. He was horrifically abused by Emperors no less, and his life is one of real spine chilling cruelty that seemed to know no bounds. He would have been perfect for this book, so I don't know why he wasn't used as an example of how evil slavery really was.
Every chapter just feels like an orgy of horror, as if by beating us over the head with the viciousness of an enslaved existence, we can just all blanket hate the Roman Empire.
It's also weird that aside from a couple of comments we don't really touch on Christian Roman Empire. This is too wide a title and really the majority of the book covers the late Republic/early Empire periods.
Also apparently every single historian ever before her thought Roman Slavery actually okay? I don't deny that plenty of male historians from earlier periods probably justified it, just as they did modern slavery, but I do think historian views are maybe more nuanced these days.
I did find some useful facts in here and to get an overview of just how engrained slavery was within the ancient world - because every nation practised it, but lets save our horror for the Romans alone.
And finally, swearing funny, Latin names that sound like rude words funny, ha ha ha? Remember that bit about respect and dignity at the start of this review? Yeah.
~Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review~
Instead we start with slavery bad, slavery evil, everyone who took part in it evil and wrong. Which is a very valid statement but does sort of leave us with nowhere to go. Context is king, and while we should absolutely acknowledge how messed up and evil slavery is, this is also a world where the author admits, slavery is as natural as breathing and how the world worked. It's not about right and wrong, its about what happened with it.
The poet Horace is mentioned frequently in this book, and always negatively, poking fun and disgust at his surviving writing which mentions slavery. Yet nowhere does the author mention that Horace is the son of a freedman, so the son of someone who was once a slave. This would surely influence his writing but then it also works against her apparent theme that anything positive could possibly arise from the Roman World. I think the fact Horace is the son of a freedman makes for an interesting debate and topic. Yet we can't go down that route.
It's also weird that maybe the most famous Roman slave of all isn't mentioned, Sporus. He was horrifically abused by Emperors no less, and his life is one of real spine chilling cruelty that seemed to know no bounds. He would have been perfect for this book, so I don't know why he wasn't used as an example of how evil slavery really was.
Every chapter just feels like an orgy of horror, as if by beating us over the head with the viciousness of an enslaved existence, we can just all blanket hate the Roman Empire.
It's also weird that aside from a couple of comments we don't really touch on Christian Roman Empire. This is too wide a title and really the majority of the book covers the late Republic/early Empire periods.
Also apparently every single historian ever before her thought Roman Slavery actually okay? I don't deny that plenty of male historians from earlier periods probably justified it, just as they did modern slavery, but I do think historian views are maybe more nuanced these days.
I did find some useful facts in here and to get an overview of just how engrained slavery was within the ancient world - because every nation practised it, but lets save our horror for the Romans alone.
And finally, swearing funny, Latin names that sound like rude words funny, ha ha ha? Remember that bit about respect and dignity at the start of this review? Yeah.
~Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review~
August 6, 2026
I recently finished reading Servus: Slavery Made the Roman World by Emma Southon. Overall, I found it to be an engaging and thought-provoking book. The author presents a detailed account of the role slavery played in Roman society, and the writing is accessible and enjoyable, making it a worthwhile read for anyone interested in Roman history.
That said, there are several points where I respectfully disagree with the author's interpretation. One example is the comparison of Rome's expansion to a "virus." In my view, this analogy overlooks the broader historical impact of the Roman Empire. While Roman expansion was often achieved through conquest, it also laid the foundations for a more advanced and organized society. Roman law, engineering, infrastructure, administration, and cultural exchange influenced civilizations for centuries and continue to shape the modern world.
I also believe the book presents slavery almost exclusively from a modern moral perspective. There is no doubt that slavery was a harsh and unjust institution, but it is important to remember that the Romans did not invent slavery. It had existed in many civilizations long before Rome and continued long after the Roman Empire. To understand history fairly, we should examine slavery within the context of its time rather than through present-day values alone.
Furthermore, while the lives of many enslaved people were undeniably difficult, Roman society also provided opportunities that were uncommon elsewhere in the ancient world. Some enslaved individuals could acquire skills, earn or be granted their freedom, become Roman citizens, and improve the prospects of their families. This does not justify slavery, but it demonstrates that the Roman system was more complex than a simple narrative of oppression.
In my opinion, the Roman Empire established many of the legal, political, and social foundations that eventually contributed to the development of the concepts of citizenship, justice, and human dignity. These long-term developments helped shape the evolution of societies that would, many centuries later, abolish slavery as it had been understood in the ancient world.
Despite my disagreements with some of the author's conclusions, I found this to be an excellent and stimulating book. It challenges readers to think critically about the ancient world, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Roman history. Even if you do not agree with every argument, it is well worth reading because it encourages reflection and discussion.
That said, there are several points where I respectfully disagree with the author's interpretation. One example is the comparison of Rome's expansion to a "virus." In my view, this analogy overlooks the broader historical impact of the Roman Empire. While Roman expansion was often achieved through conquest, it also laid the foundations for a more advanced and organized society. Roman law, engineering, infrastructure, administration, and cultural exchange influenced civilizations for centuries and continue to shape the modern world.
I also believe the book presents slavery almost exclusively from a modern moral perspective. There is no doubt that slavery was a harsh and unjust institution, but it is important to remember that the Romans did not invent slavery. It had existed in many civilizations long before Rome and continued long after the Roman Empire. To understand history fairly, we should examine slavery within the context of its time rather than through present-day values alone.
Furthermore, while the lives of many enslaved people were undeniably difficult, Roman society also provided opportunities that were uncommon elsewhere in the ancient world. Some enslaved individuals could acquire skills, earn or be granted their freedom, become Roman citizens, and improve the prospects of their families. This does not justify slavery, but it demonstrates that the Roman system was more complex than a simple narrative of oppression.
In my opinion, the Roman Empire established many of the legal, political, and social foundations that eventually contributed to the development of the concepts of citizenship, justice, and human dignity. These long-term developments helped shape the evolution of societies that would, many centuries later, abolish slavery as it had been understood in the ancient world.
Despite my disagreements with some of the author's conclusions, I found this to be an excellent and stimulating book. It challenges readers to think critically about the ancient world, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Roman history. Even if you do not agree with every argument, it is well worth reading because it encourages reflection and discussion.
June 15, 2026
Emma Southon's Servus begins, with a simple, uncomfortable question: what was Roman slavery really like? Not the version in the films, the shows, the gentle novels. Rome! the Republic first, the Empire after, was built on the backs of millions of people treated as furniture. Chattel slavery: objects, not persons. You were born into it in your mother's womb, or you were made one: in war, snatched off the street, sold, condemned. And there is no single story of slavery: there are millions. People displayed for a "different" body, distant ancestors of the court jester; children and teenagers forced into sexual servitude (Tiberius on Capri isn't a spicy legend it's the abuse of enslaved minors) and the vast, nameless rest. It struck me on every page how unfair it is that only the rich stay carved into memory, like an inscription. Southon tries to give a place back even to those whose names are gone. The brilliant, terrible thing is that the cruelty comes in disguise. The masters wrote the records, so we got the Saturnalia, when for one day a slave "played" at being free (while people were handed around as gifts), and the comforting lie that "it wasn't that bad." Runaways? The lowest of the low: to flee was to break the order of the world. And those who took their own lives were strays, beasts who had "removed themselves from human affairs." Goods, never people. A few stories won't leave me. Caesar held by pirates, a fortune paid in ransom (history's little irony). The enslaved boy Augustus "saved" from Vedius Pollio and his lampreys... yet Southon never lets us call it mercy. And Constantine the "reformer": no more tattooing faces... just iron collars engraved instead. Verdict: Southon's writing is light on its feet, never walled-off academic, and now and then it makes you smile! Then you feel guilty, because irony about this is a blade. A book that takes away the alibi of "well, surely it wasn't...".
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