Jeopardy Chanced

Abstract

This study aims at exploring one category of agentic behaviour pertinent to female slaves in the classical Roman world (ca 264 BCE–235 CE), namely sexual agency. In brief, sexual agency concerns the aptitude of enslaved women to navigate erotic relationships with their master, as well as resist bodily domination and attempts to curtail their individual subjectivity. As will be demonstrated, sexual agency can be viewed as a trans-historical behaviour, observable in a myriad of heterogeneous societies where slaveholding was prevalent. To evince the intercultural value of sexual agency –– as a theoretical framework –– I turn to Han China (206 BCE–220 CE), highlighting kindred expressions of servile faculty in a coincident, though decidedly unique, social environment. Comparison here serves not only to elucidate those features peculiar to ancient Roman and Chinese slaveries, but underscore how similar historical circumstances engendered like-minded agentic stratagems.