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Slavery was a widely accepted practice in ancient Greece, as it was in contemporaneous societies. [2] The principal use of slaves was in agriculture, but they were also used in stone quarries or mines, as domestic servants, or even as a public utility, as with the demosioi of Athens.
Pasion was born some time before 430 BC. [2] It is unknown where Pasion came from nor when he arrived in Athens. It is widely presumed that he originated from Syria and the Levant, c. 440 BC when vast numbers of Syrian slaves were brought to Greece through Phoenician ports, Tyre and Sidon.
Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions. Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves. Greek slaves in particular might be highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those condemned to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills.
Seisachtheia (Greek: σεισάχθεια, from σείειν seiein, to shake, and ἄχθος achthos, burden, i.e. the relief of burdens) was a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BCE, by debt relief.
The Scythian archers were a hypothesized police force of 5th- and early 4th-century BC Athens that is recorded in some Greek artworks and literature. The force is said to have consisted of 300 armed Scythians (a nomadic Iranic people living in the Eurasian Steppe) who were public slaves in Athens.
Slaves had the right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights. By 600 BC, chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC, slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Between 40–80% of the population of Classical Athens were ...
Paedagogus with two boys. Small terracotta from Tanagra, Greece, 4th century BC.. In the ancient Greece, a paidagogos παιδαγωγός (Ancient greek) was a slave entrusted with supervising boys from the age of seven and in Roman Republic, the paedagogus, plural paedagogi or paedagogiani, [1] was a slave or a freedman who taught the sons of Roman citizens [2] the Greek language. [3]
In very rare circumstances, the city could affranchise a slave. A notable example is that Athens liberated everyone who was present at the Battle of Arginusae (406 BC). Even once a slave was freed, he was not generally permitted to become a citizen, but would become a metic. The master then became the metic's prostatès (guarantor or guardian).