Vergil’s Eclogues are traditionally thought to depict song contests between Greek shepherds in an idealized rural world, remote from the material realities of the Roman countryside. My project challenges this view, demonstrating that the Eclogues are profoundly shaped by the ideologies and practices of Roman slavery. By reading the Eclogues alongside agronomy, Roman law, inscriptions, and material culture, I show that the poems both reflect aspects of Roman slavery and develop their own poetics of slavery by constructing a world where pastoral speakers’ capacity for song is defined by their subjection. Songs of Subjection illustrates the mutual implication of slavery and cultural production, revealing how biases derived from the practice and legacy of slavery can be traced in both the creation and interpretation of a text.