1. The Development of Greek Slavery
Terminology
Slavery in the Mycenaean and Homeric World
The development of Greek Chattel Slavery

2. Terminology Some local terms Laconia (Sparta) Helots;
Thessaly: Penestes
Otherwise terminology complex, ambiguous

3. Generic terms andrapadon – a being with human feet
(compare – tetrapadon- a being with 4 feet)
In military context = booty in power of victor (note the dehumanizing aspect)
Classical period, doulos, doule common – in opposition to full man, i.e. citizen (polites) and free man (elutheros)
Plato: use of term douleia =slavery, submission to authority, psychological servitude

4. more terms – in relation to slave’s activity
Most frequent terms: oiketes (oikiatas or oikeus ) slave in relation to household and family unit (oikos = household)
In early Greek literature indicates any servant
therapon, therapaina = servant
akoulothos = follower
hyperetes = aide
pais = child (boy)
anthropos = man
gyne = woman (derogatory in plural)
4th century – all terms used as synonyms
soma = body (human body)
in legal context more specific terms used: andrapadon doulos, soma doulikon

5. Reasons for ambiguous terminology?
terms borrowed from traditional system of dependency: household, family, clientship, etc.,
used on several levels, often emphasizing aspect of slave’s activity

6. Bronze Age Societies earliest evidence from the Greek World
Minoans
C – 1400 B.C.
Main Palace at Knossos on Crete
Phase 1 – Linear A script not deciphered
2nd phase under Mycenaean control from c B.C.
Linear B
Mycenaeans
C – 1100
peak ca B.C.
Palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, Pilos, Thebes;
Linear B Tablets, deciphered

7. Mycenaean Palace society
Centralized Administration
Social Hierarchy: King, aristocrats, warriors, priests, administrators – ordinary people (doing the work); slaves
Redistributive economy (Palace collected, processed, redistributed)
Needed complex record keeping, hence linear B, script for records/accounting

8. Model of palace at Knossos (Crete)

9. Pylos – Megaron

10. Lion Gate

11. Geometric Warrior Vase

12. Mycenaean Slavery
Owners both private and community (public slaves), deities (sacred temple slaves)
Sources of slaves: captives of war, piracy; breeding,
Identified by names of foreign places: Miletus, Halicarnassus, Chios, etc.
Similar to later Athenian chattels -but smaller in numbers

13. Mycenaean slaves Relationships between slaves and non-slaves:
Pylos tablets: 6 female slaves are daughters of a slave father and a mother possibly from Cythaera
4 are offsprings of a slave mother and a blacksmith father
Slave status seems to come from parent’s status; slave parent is mentioned first, regardless of status of other parent
Mixed unions?
Classical Athens: slave status determined by status of mother; unions between male slaves and free women were illegal.

14. Mycenaean Slavery and the notion of liberty
Land allotments were made to slaves (mostly sacred slaves) appears to have been privileged group; fewer land allotments to free men;
Small rations of food to lowest slaves
Hierarchy among slaves based on relationship to palace.
Mycenaean slavery not polar opposite to freedom; notion of distinction seems to have been undeveloped
Greek term eleutheros (free) applied to exemptions from quotas to be handed over to palace, not to free people
Liberty and status defined in relation of individuals to palace
The poor free may have been more dependent on the palace than privileged slaves
society similar to despotic societies of the Eastern Mediterranean at that time.

15. Slavery in Homeric Society
‘Homeric’ - term applied to society described in Homer’s epics.
Presents memory of Bronze Age, but describes in part the Dark Ages and mostly Homer’s own world 9th – 8th century BCE
Political organization: small kingdoms, small-scale king (aristocrat - best among equals, wealthy landowner), i.e. Odysseus on Ithaka; a much poorer world than earlier Bronze Age Societies of Mycenaeans and Minoans

16. Homeric slavery important institution
Acquisition: war, piracy, gifts, trade, exchange
Important role in aristocratic value system: as prices – very important in Homeric heroic culture – value of a slave reflects degree of honour of hero.
Iliad is about the ‘anger of Achilles’, dishonoured by Agamemnon taking his price, the captive Briseius, away from him.

17. Agamemon’s promise to Teucer
Agamemnon: “..If ever Zeus who holds the aegis and Athene grant me to sack outright the strong-founded cital of Ilion, first after myself I will put into your hands some great gift of honour: a tripod, or two horses and the chariot with them, or else a woman, who will go up into the same bed with you.” (Homer, Iliad )

18. Slaves in Homer’s Iliad
Male defeated captives immediately massacred
Children and Women often sold or ransomed
Some captives sacrificed (“dozen brave men, the sons of noble Trojans” Iliad ) massacred by Achilles over funeral pyre of Patrokles.
Women often kept by their captors, some ransomed, some used as gifts
Only female slaves in Achaean camp outside Troy – took care of heroes;

19. The fate of female captives
Hektor (a Trojan hero) wonders about the fate of his wife Andromache:
“ dragged off in tears by some Achaean man-at-arms to slavery. I see you there in Argos, toiling for another at the loom or carrying water from an alien well, a helpless drudge with no will of your own” (VI. 454)

20. Slaves in Homer’s, Odyssey
..Laertes (Odysseus’ father), ..would look after his farm and with the slaves in his household would eat and drink, .” ( XI, )
.” Your father (Laertes) remains on the estate where he is, and does not go to the city. There is no bed there nor is there bed clothing nor blankets nor shining coverlets, but in the winter time he sleeps in the house, where the slaves do, in the dirt next to the fire.” XI, 185)

21. Odysseus and his swineherd
“ But now in the shelter Odysseus and the noble swineherd (a slave) were eating their evening meal..” (XVI. 301)

22. Becoming a slave
“For Zeus of the wide brows takes away one half of the virtue from a man, once the day of slavery closes upon him.” (Odyssey XVII. 323)
“I claim that I come from Sidon (Phoenicia), rich in bronze; I am the daughter of Arybas, who has rivers of wealth, but men from Taphos, pirates, caught me and carried me away as I cam back home from the fields, and carried me to this place and sold me here in this man’s house, being paid a fair price for me.” (Homer, Odyssey )

23. Odyssey – what slaves did
Slaves are everywhere
In household: female slaves care for guests, bathe them, rub them with oil, clothe them, prepare for banquet, prepare beds, make up the fire, light and carry torches, serve food and drink, afterwards clean. Rest of time spin wool, make beautiful objects under supervision of mistress of oikos.
The lowest of slaves – toiled in the mills – grinding barley and wheat

24. Outside the house Slaves in fields, mostly men
On Odysseus’ estate 30 men guarded the herds –both slaves and free, placed under 3 more slaves, the master swineherd Eumaeus who had 4 under-slaves.

25. Acquisition and Worth of a slave in Homer
Acquisition of slaves – often by plundering expeditions in neighboring regions, piracy, trade (bronze-age practice)
Some prices: nurse Eurycleia as girl was worth 20 oxen;
Priam’s (Trojan king) son Lycaon – sold by Achilles for 100 oxen – then ransomed for 300 oxen;
The woman “skilled in fine crafts’ was offered as prize in games, worth 4 oxen

26. Nature of slavery in Homeric Society
Slave bound to master within household (oikos) seems to have been a strong sense of solidarity within oikos
Slave shared in family’s good and bad fortune;
Family and slaves often worked side by side
Term dmos (term for slave) –not derogatory;
As members of oikos participated in aristocratic network
Status of slave among peers dependent on status of owner

27. Homeric Society: The Thetes
The landless, lowest of free population, worked for wages
Not members of aristocratic oikos
Entered into contracts of obligations with aristocrats
Telemachus (Odysseus’ son talks about them as if they belonged to him like slaves – not much distinction between slave servants and free servants working for wages
Social hierarchy: Aristocracy on one side - mass of free people existed to serve them.

28. Archaic Period c. 750 – 500 BCE and the development of Chattel Slavery
Significant social and political developments: increase in political participation of citizens in Greek cities (demos) , development of polis (city state)
Spread of concept of political liberty.
Consequences: 1) decreased exploitation among civic community, increase in land-owning class with its demands – (reduced workforce to be exploited)
2) Accompanied by increase in chattel slavery – recourse to foreign labour force (slaves) -
Status of slaves reduced to polar opposite of liberty
Thus, awareness of civic freedom led to clear definition between free and slaves

29. Spartan Slavery Helots
Original native population of Laconia conquered and subjected by Spartans
Owned by the state, could not be bought and sold - not chattel
Each Spartan family had helot family living on the land and work the land for them
Allowed Spartans to focus entirely on military training; relieved them completely of need to work;
Necessary too, since helot population by far outnumbered Spartans

30. Week 2 Password for website = plato Reading will be posted there
Tuesday’s topic: Athenian Chattel slavery as model for Roman chattel slavery
Sign-up list ready on Tuesday