Ancient Greece

Lesson 5: Athenian Society

Slavery

The Athenian economy was based to a large extent on slave labour.

It would be wrong to assume that slavery in Classical Athens corresponded to the stereo-typical image of slavery that we have today.

In the plays of Aristophanes, we often see slaves interacting on an almost equal basis with their masters. Although this does not of course mean that all Athenian slaves were treated well, it is strong evidence for the fact that in many cases, slaves would have been quite well-treated by their masters.

There were many different sub-groups of slaves in Athens.

At one end of the scale were the Scythian archers who policed the city. These were basically slaves who belonged to the state. We hear about them in some of the plays of Aristophanes.

These Scythian constables seem to have been quite free to come and go as they pleased within the city.

At the other end of the scale, however, were the slaves who worked in the silver mines at Laureion.

These slaves seem to have lived in very difficult conditions. Archaeological evidence shows that there were watch-towers around these mines, which would indicate that many of these slaves would have wanted to escape from the mines (and no doubt many did!!)

We must always be careful not to judge the Athenians by our own standards, especially when it comes to discussing issues like slavery. The Ancient Greeks lived in a world where slavery was considered to be part of the natural order of things.

On the other hand, in many older (and even in some new) books, you might find unsupported claims that although the Ancient Greeks did use slaves, the lot of the slave in Greece was a little better than that of the slave in "other" parts of the ancient world.

This kind of view is simply based on the worst kind of 'romantic' conception of the Ancient Greeks that I am doing my best to debunk in this course.

This view is based on outdated interpretations of Herodotus' presentation of the conflict between the Greeks and the Persians as a war between "Freedom" and "Tyranny".

One only has to bear in mind that Leonidas and the other heroic Spartan defenders of Thermopylae were actually fighting for a social system in which a very small minority (the Spartan elite) exercised political power, while the majority of the population was subject to the worst kind of discrimination and had no political rights. (The Spartan system of course was not democratic like the Athenian one).

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