Harriet Flower has written a surprisingly uplifting book on Roman slavery. It tells the story of highly educated slaves who gained freedom, recognition and financial security during the late Republic and early Principate. The paradox of learned slaves is neatly summed up in the clever title that describes the fact that human intellect literally could be owned in antiquity. During the later Republic a certain prestige became attached to the ownership of intellectual slaves, whose literary works and personal renown would enhance an aristocrat's cultural capital, in addition to providing stimulating company and practical assistance in their own literary endeavours.

The book is structured largely as a series of personal stories of individual scholars, who are roughly grouped around the circumstances of their enslavement, be it capture in war, birth into slavery or exposure in childhood. In most instances the evidence is scant, often just a few lines of Plutarch or a couple of paragraphs in Suetonius, but Flower does an impressive job piecing together all the evidence and gradually building a full and convincing picture of their lives and the contexts in which they operated. Flower's reconstruction of their biographies is highly ingenious and makes a real contribution to our understanding of this rarefied niche of Roman slavery.

The first chapter is something of an outlier, exploring the fascinating story of Licinius, the flute player who accompanied C. Gracchus and through subtle musical steers modulated his public speaking. While it certainly testifies to expert knowledge of Roman oratory, he seems to fall into a different category from the writers with whom the book is otherwise concerned. It is followed by two case studies of two households that exemplify the elite's active interest in educating their slaves with a view to maximising their value and optimising the benefits they could derive from them. Plutarch famously describes how the Elder Cato systematically trained his slaves in order to enhance their skill sets and resale price. This example is juxtaposed with that of Atticus, who we are told educated his slaves to levels previously unheard of; in fact, Cornelius Nepos claims that every single one of them was not just literate, presumably in both Greek and Latin, but also able to copy out texts as part of his 'publishing house'.

The difference in the types of skill imparted in Cato's and Atticus' households reminds us of the historical shifts during the roughly hundred years that separated them, when Rome experienced an influx of educated Greek slaves and intellectual pursuits became increasingly fashionable among the Roman elite. It was in this environment that the famous Daphnis, the subject of a previous study by Flower, became 'the most expensive slave in Rome', when Aemilius Scaurus bought him for seven hundred thousand sesterces. Interestingly, Flower compares him to a non-enslaved Greek intellectual, Archias of Antioch, who was a much sought-after literary figure in first-century Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of some of the grandest names in Roman society.

In the following chapters, Flower recounts the stories of other enslaved writers of the age, including Aurelius Opillus who was closely associated with Rutilius and followed him into exile, and Cornelius Epicadus, the freedman who finished the last books of Sulla's memoirs. Then follows a section on foundlings, Antonius Gnipho, Caesar's tutor, and Melissus, who enjoyed the patronage of Maecenas - so much so that he turned down a chance to have his ingenuitas restored. The final chapter is devoted to Tyrannio, who was captured and enslaved at Amisos, and Timagenes, the Egyptian intellectual enslaved during Gabinius' expedition.

Each story presents vivid illustrations of the vagaries of fate and the disastrous changes of fortune an individual might experience in antiquity. The book is also a tribute to their talents, tenacity and triumph over adversity. Indeed, Flower's study can be read as a celebration of these gifted individuals and their contribution to Roman literary culture. It thus joins a current trend towards emphasising the 'agency' of slaves and their ability to shape their own lives.

Like all good books, it provides much food for thought. The place of slaves and former slaves in the intellectual world of the elite is intriguing and paradoxical. How were the contradictions negotiated between, on the one hand, their inferior status and permanent loss of honour, and their recognised intellectual superiority, on the other? The works they produced may suggest that their servile past never quite left them, as indeed was the case for all former slaves. In this case, it is notable that most of them wrote what appears to be technical works on topics like philology, grammar, rhetoric, or compilations of stories and dates. What is notably absent is grand narrative history, which seems to have been reserved for those untainted by slavery - Epicadus was never credited as the author of Sulla's vita. It is perhaps not a coincidence that it was writers like Archias and Epiphanes of Mytilene the elite turned to when they wanted their res gestae immortalised in Greek, not intellectuals with a servile past. Tellingly, according to Plutarch, Lucullus complained to Murena that Tyrannio should never have been enslaved when they captured Amisos, despite the fact that he was quickly restored to freedom. The act of enslavement, however briefly it may have lasted, changed a person in the eyes of society and probably also his authority as an intellectual.

The personal relationship between the elite and their enslaved/freed intellectuals takes us to the book's most surprising omission which is Cicero's Tiro. He remains by far the best known of these highly skilled servants who assisted their patrons in their literary pursuits while also producing written works of their own. If Flower had wanted to put more meat on the bare bones which is all we have for most of her subjects, she might have drawn on this rich body of evidence. Paradoxically, Cicero's other in-house intellectual, Atticus' freedman Dionysios, gets more attention than Tiro himself. Perhaps he was left out because we know he filled many different roles in the household, administrative, financial, editorial etc., but we cannot exclude the possibility that this made him a typical example of the educated freedman whose talents allowed them to assist their patrons in a wide range of capacities. That might explain how they all - including Tiro and Dionysios - became financially comfortable, even when their sources of income are not always clear.

Still, these observations do in no way detract from Harriet Flower's major achievement in bringing these near-forgotten writers and intellectuals back to life in such an eminently readable and fascinating study, which is highly recommended to anyone interested in exploring the complexities of Roman slavery. The book is impeccably produced and I spotted no slips or typos.

Henrik Mouritsen