Greek papyrological evidence from the Palestine area is scarce; thus, the main source material for the sixth century ce consists of only two papyrus dossiers: one from Petra and the other from Nessana. The recent publication of the Petra papyri provides some long-awaited data on the onomastics of slaves and their existence in households of the elite and in the Christian community of Petra. The more abundant papyrological corpus from Egypt does not give a clear image of slaves this late in time. This article provides the first detailed and contextualized study on the evidence for slaveholding in the Greek documentary papyrological material of the Palestine area in the sixth century. In the first section, I give a brief overview of both the Nessana and Petra dossiers. In the second part, I review the attestations in the papyrus texts from these dossiers as well as the terms used for possible slaves in each case.

The ancient Mediterranean was home to a youthful population. Demographic dynamics favoured a relatively high proportion of children and adolescents who were visibly present in their multitudes in the cities, towns, and villages; a significant proportion of these young people were of slave status, some having been enslaved or, as is more likely, born into slavery. The presence and lives of enslaved persons are documented plentifully in textual, material, and literary evidence from across the Greco-Roman world, though almost all of this material reflects the concerns and attitudes of the slave-owning echelons of society, and we have no extant narrative testimony from any enslaved person from Roman Antiquity. Further, though the existence of children and young people is mentioned in key sources on, and studies of, Roman slavery, a specifically youth-focused perspective is meagre.