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RIGHTS || WHY A SLAVE || FREEDOM || JOBS |
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RIGHTS || WHY A SLAVE || FREEDOM || JOBS |
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A slave was actually owned by a master, who had the power to tell them to do anything, go anywhere, and to punish them in any way they liked. These were some of the rights that slaves did not have:
1) In all legal matters, a slave must have his or her master represent him or her. He or she cannot represent himself or herself. If his or her master is not interested, he or she has no way to charge anyone with a crime.
2) A slave is allowed to be seized and arrested even if he or she has not committed any crime.
3) He or she can only do what his or her master orders, he or she cannot do what he or she wants.
4) The slave cannot choose where he or she wants to live, or be with who he or she wants to be with.
There were other limits to what slaves could do. They could not enter the Gymnasium or the Public Assembly. They could not use their own names, but were assigned names by their master. It is important to remember that these people were thought of as property of their masters rather than citizens of Greece.
If a slave misbehaved, he could be physically punished. In Athens, fifty blows with a whip was the common punishment. A master could only punish his own slave and not one that belonged to someone else. Here's an interesting fact: with the consent of the master, a slave could give testimony in court during a trial, but only through torture. That is, they believed that the surest way to get the truth out of a slave was by pain.
There were different ways in which a person could have become a slave in ancient Greece. The main source of slaves was prisoners of war. The prisoners of war who became slaves were sometimes other Greeks, but the majority of them were what the Greeks called "barbarians". The word "barbarian" referred to any person that was non-Greek.
Another source of slaves was children that had been born into slavery.Also, they might have been exposed as an infant, and that means that the parents abandoned their newborn baby on a hillside or at the gates of the city to die or be claimed by anyone who wanted it.
Another possible way in which one might have become a slave was if a family needed money, they sometimes sold one of the children into slavery. Usually it was a daughter because the male children were needed to help out with the business or the farm. This was illegal for Athenian citizens, but it may have happened anyway. Kidnapping was another way in which one could have been sold into slavery.
Could these slaves get their freedom?
Slavery played a major role in ancient Greek civilization. Without it, the citizens wouldn't have been able to devote so much time to other activities such as the government, art and thought.
The price one might have paid for a slave in ancient Greek times varied depending on their appearance, age and attitude. Those who were healthy, atttractive, young and submissive, could sell for as much as 10 minae (perhaps $180.00). Those who were old, weak and stubborn might have sold for as little as 1/2 a mina (perhaps $9.00) (It is hard to compare ancient money with modern money). If there happened to be a large supply of slaves on the market, the price automatically went down. This usually happened after winning a large battle, when there were many prisoners of war.
There were two basic methods used in setting a slave free. The first was if the state manumitted the slaves in a big group. (Manumission is a formal release from bondage by a slave's master.) This was sometimes done by a tyrant to strengthen his power or gain military support. The second way a slave could become free (or manumitted) was by his individual master. His master could free the slave in his will when he died, or while he was still alive. If a slave had saved up enough money to buy his freedom, then his master was compelled to accept it and set him free. In Greece, there were benefit social clubs called Eranoi. They helped some slaves by lending them money so they could buy their freedom. But, if the slaves could not pay the Eranoi back, then the deal was off and they were back to being slaves.
One important thing to note about slavery in Ancient Greece was that slavery WAS NOT based on race, as in other countries' pasts. Slavery was not identified with color, but instead with superior force.
There were two kinds of slaves: public and private. The public slaves were government owned, and they had many jobs: secretaries, clerks, prison attendants, executioners, scribes, and accountants. The most famous group of public slaves were the police force in Athens--the "Athenian archers". They were made up of about 300 Scythian slaves.
The second type of slave was the private slave. They were owned by an individual master. These slaves did everything from household chores to working in the industrial area. Some of their jobs were: maids, wet-nurses (nursing a baby when the mother could not or didn't want to), teachers, and messengers. They also worked in the fields, sometimes beside their masters. They worked in quarries and mines, and the most famous mine was the silver mine in Laurium, where it has been estimated that 30,000 slaves worked.
There were some slaves who were set apart from the others. They were skilled craftsmen who would make things such as shoes or pottery and sell them. They would live outside the master's house on their own but give a certain percentage of their profits to their master. That is why they are sometimes referred to as "pay-bringers", because they would bring some of what they earned to their master. No one could tell the difference between these slaves and regular citizens.