Lecture 15 - Slavery and status Flashcards
Chattel slavery
Finley says that chattel slaves were property, the slave owner had total rights over them.
Crete: Gortyn law code
Four main statuses: free citizens, apetairoi, serfs and slaves. “If a person commits rape on a free man or a free woman, he shall pay one hundred staters; and if on account of an apetairos, ten”
Origins of the Helots - Theopompos (Dillon and Garland)
“Spartans and Thessalians recruited their slave populations from the Greek who previously inhabited the country they now control…and they called those who tey enslaved respectively Helots”.
Origins of the Helots - Antiochos and the foundation of Taras
“Speaking about the foundation of Taras, Antiochos says that when the Messenian war took place those Spartans who did not take part in the campaign were adjudged slaves and named Helots”.
Duties of the Helots - Tyrtaeus
“Like asses exhausted under great loads: under painful necessity to bring their masters full half the fruit their ploughed land produced”.
Treatment of Helots - Plutarch
“There was the great mass of Helots spread over the whole of Lacedaemon whom it was considered best to keep constantly employed so as to crush their spirit by perpetual toil and hardship”.
Slavery in Athens - pre-Solon
Suggested by Aristotle that the poor were slaves to the rich and this was the “most grievous and bitter thing in the state of public affairs”. “All the common people were in-debt to the rich”
How did Solon help those who were slaves?
He cancelled debts and freed those who had been slaves. He abolished debt-bondage, “prohibiting loans secured on the person”.
Relationship between slavery and democracy - Chios
Chians were among the first Greeks to have slaves, but they also embarked very early on democracy.
Which came first? slavery or democracy?
Finley argues the process went: democracy -> development of slavery -> economic progress.
Rihll argues the reverse.
