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Underground > Head Shop >

Greek Slaves

13:59 / 27.03.02

Can anyone tell me anything about slaves' status in BC Greece? And what percentage of the population were slaves?

16:16 / 27.03.02

I love nothing more than useless knowledge, that being said, what do you want to know? It's sort of a broad question.

How many slaves where and when, more specifically?
Their legal status or social status?

I can't tell you much (Oh how I miss my university library on days like these), but I can at least provide links if you want to do the leg work.

Are you sure you don't want to know about Rome? I can tell you about Rome.

16:23 / 27.03.02

social status, living conditions, rights/lack thereof, ratios of slaves to citizens, in either greece or rome would be great... if you want a specified when/where, try athens 300 bc...

16:46 / 27.03.02

I'll let my inner geek go wild here:

Rome:

"From evidence such as this Westermann, Hopkins and others are understandably cautious when attempting to come to a total figure for slaves in the city of Rome in the 1st century AD. Hopkins' estimate of 300,000-350,000 out of a population of about 900,000-950,000 at the time of Augustus seems plausible."
-John Madden, "Slavery in the Roman Empire: Numbers and Origins," Available at http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/96/Madden96.html

No legal status. Slave's testimony was allowed only under torture and even then worth very little against the word of a citizen.

Slaves could be and were often freed. Once freed they maintained close ties to their former masters...

And that would be my phone with work on the other end.
I'm off to do my job, but in the meantime:

Go here to scan for articles on the topic:
http://www.trentu.ca/ahb/welcome.html

Go here for a nice bibliography:
http://www.stoa.org/dio-bin/diobib?slavery
(if you have the time and inclination to do research at your own library)

17:30 / 27.03.02

I'm suddenly aware that we have nowhere to really put this, and frankly I'm slightly appalled. We should have a place other than the Conversation to put this in - it's a valuable and interesting discussion... WOuld the Head Shop be the most appropriate? Hmmm...

00:58 / 28.03.02

Switchboard. This should go to the Switchboard cuz it's the new Information.

04:47 / 28.03.02

i thought swtichboard was just for corporate / global stuff. this sure as hell wouldn't fit there. in fact, i generally find switchboard way too narrow, but maybe that's just me.

08:59 / 28.03.02

Depends on why [YNH] wants to know. If it's for some comparative political rant, then Switchboard, if it's for a theory of society, Head Shed, if it's just random curiosity conversation...

so, [YNH], tell us about your motives... *pats couch*

16:11 / 28.03.02

Does better late than never still apply?

Rereading the lovely The Ancient Greeks : A Critical History, by J.V.A. Fine yielded the following information.

Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists [Which, by the way, is fun to read for it's utter randomness. Think 15 books of dinner chit chat preserved for prosperity.], 6.103, quotes a census from around 310 B.C. which lists the population of Athens as 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metics (foreigners), 400,000 slaves. Because the number of slaves is so high scholars have thrown it out and estimated that there were around 100,000.

Most slaves were captured in war and performed most of the manual labor in workshops, farms, and homes. It's a common assumption that most homes had a slave or two, while most farms and quarries were almost exclusively worked by slave labor.

And now back to the stuff they actually pay me to do. Hope that helps.