Slavery was one of the central institutions of life in classical Greece and Rome and had a profound effect on the ways these societies represented themselves and their world. In this course we will first spend some time learning about the historical condition of slavery in these two societies, then read a variety of works that show some of the ways that slaves and slavery operated in the intellectual and imaginative life of ancient authors. The three genres we will focus on are philosophy, drama (both tragedy and comedy) and the novel. There will be a variety of writing assignments of differing lengths and a final exam.