Slavery in Ancient Greece

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SLAVERY IN ANCIENT GREECE

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Actor playing a slave
While the practice of slavery is looked upon with abomination in modern society. This was not so in ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks did not share are beliefs in universal human rights. Slavery was accepted as a normal part of society and was justified on a number of levels. Even Aristotle, the great defender of democracy and political freedom, believed that the goal of a civilized man was to attain a life of leisure so that he was free to pursue the higher things in life. How was this life of leisure attained?...With slaves, of course. Aristotle also believed that the laws of nature dictated that free men should rule and dominate slaves and women. [Source: "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum]

There are no reliable figures on the slave population in ancient Greece but it is estimated Athens had slave population of perhaps as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, with an average household having three or four slaves, except in poor families. It was a sign of the greatest poverty to own no slaves at all, and Aeschines mentions, as a mark of a very modest household, that there were only seven slaves to six persons. If we add to these domestic slaves the many thousands working in the country, in the factories, and the mines, and those who were the property of the State and the temples, there seems no doubt that their number must have considerably exceeded that of the free population. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

Cristian Violatti wrote in Listverse: “Slave population varied significantly across different regions of Greece. Modern estimations suggest that in Attica (Athens and its vicinity) from 450 to 320 B.C. there were roughly 100,000 slaves. The total population of the region was around 250,000, which would give us a slave-to-free ratio of about 2:5. Other, more general estimates state that between 15 and 40 percent of the ancient Greek population were slaves in various regions at different times. [Sources: Wikipedia, Cristian Violatti, Listverse, September 29, 2016]

A good book on slavery in the ancient world is “Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology” by Moses Finley. On this book Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard said, “When I read this book it was the first time I realized that there could be, and ought to be, an explicit connection between a modern political stance and the ancient history that I was studying....He was the first person I had read who looked ancient slavery in the eye and said it was something really terrible. All the stuff that I had read before had been slightly embarrassed about ancient slavery and saw it as a blot on the landscape. They said: “The Greeks were so wonderful and slavery was a bit of a problem but you shouldn't think about it. It was more like domestic service really!” And Finley says you can't let the ancient world off the hook. You have to have a moral stance on this one.

Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Lives and Social Culture of Ancient Greece Maryville University online.maryville.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org; Classics FAQ MIT classics.mit.edu

History Slavery in Ancient Greece

The institution of slavery in Greece is very ancient; it is impossible to trace its origin, and we find it even in the very earliest times regarded as a necessity of nature, a point of view which even the following ages and the most enlightened philosophers adopted. In later times voices were heard from time to time protesting against the necessity of the institution, showing some slight conception of the idea of human rights, but these were only isolated opinions. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

Slaves were present during the Mycenaean civilization (1600-1100 B.C.) in Greece as indicated in numerous tablets unearthed in Pylos. There were two main types: 1) "slaves" and 2) "slaves of the god" (the god probably being Poseidon). Slaves of the god were allowed to own their own land and their legal status was near that of a freemen. Slaves are mentioned in Homer’s epics. In the Iliad, slaves are mainly women taken as booty of war, while men were either ransomed or killed on the battlefield. In the Odyssey, the slaves also seem to be mostly women, mostly servants and sometimes concubines.There were some male slaves, especially in the Odyssey, a prime example being the swineherd Eumaeus.

Sources of Slaves in Ancient Greece


An elite woman with her slave

Many slaves were people captured in wars or pirates raids or were serfs, or conquered people, that came with the land and passed their statuses down from generation to generation. Many prisoner of war slaves were part of the booty seized by the victorious army. Cristian Violatti wrote in Listverse: “One famous example comes from Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father), who sold 20,000 women and children into slavery after the invasion of Scythia in 339 B.C. . The connection between war booty and slave procurement was so tight that slave traders sometimes joined the armies during their campaigns so they could buy the prisoners immediately after they were captured. “Other streams of slave procurement included piracy, debt, and even barbarian tribes who were willing to exchange their own people for specific goods. Trading posts also acted as big suppliers of slaves for Greece. Many of these were located around the Black Sea, and some cities such as Byzantium and Ephesus also had big slave markets. [Source: Cristian Violatti, Listverse, September 29, 2016 ]

From the very earliest times the right of the strongest had established the custom that captives taken in war, if not killed or ransomed, became the slaves of the conquerors, or were sold into slavery by them. This custom, which was universal in the Homeric age, continued to exist in the historic period also, so that not only was it adopted in contests between Hellenes and barbarians, but even in the numerous feuds between Hellenes and Hellenes they often condemned their own countrymen to the hard lot of slavery; in later times, however, it was only in cases of special animosity that they resorted to this expedient; as a rule, they exchanged or ransomed captive Greeks. Besides the wars, piracy, originally regarded as by no means dishonorable, supplied the slave markets; and though in later times endeavours were made to set a limit to it, yet the trade in human beings never ceased, since the need for slaves was considerable, not only in Greece, but still more in Asian countries. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

A large portion of the slave population consisted of those who were born in slavery; that is, the children of slaves or of a free father and slave mother, who as a rule also became slaves, unless the owner disposed otherwise. We have no means of knowing whether the number of these slave children born in the houses in Greece was large or small. At Rome they formed a large proportion of the slave population, but the circumstances in Italy differed greatly from those in Greece, and the Roman landowners took as much thought for the increase of their slaves as of their cattle.

Besides these two classes of slave population, those who were taken in war or by piracy and those who were born slaves, there was also a third, though not important, class. In early times even free men might become slaves by legal methods; for instance foreign residents, if they neglected their legal obligations, and even Greeks, if they were insolvent, might be sold to slavery by their creditors, a severe measure which was forbidden by Solon’s legislation at Athens, but still prevailed in other Greek states. Children, when exposed, became the property of those who found and educated them, and in this manner many of the hetaerae and flute girls had become the property of their owners.

Slave Trade in Ancient Greece

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collared slaves
Slaves were bought at markets and no doubt procured through deals made with slave owners and traders. In the historic the slaves in Greece were often foreigners, chiefly from the districts north of the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor. The Greek dealers supplied themselves from the great slave markets held in the towns on the Black Sea and on the Asiatic coast of the Archipelago, not only by the barbarians themselves, but even by Greeks, in particular the Chians, who carried on a considerable slave trade. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

These slaves were then put up for sale at home; at Athens there were special markets held for this purpose on the first of every month; the slaves were arranged on platforms, so that the buyers might examine them on all sides, for they sought chiefly to obtain physical perfection and strength of limb for hard work, and therefore, if the purchasers desired it, the slaves had to be undressed. Of course, those slaves who were bought merely for the sake of their bodily strength were least valuable.

A higher price was given for those who had any special skill or were suited for posts of confidence, and considerable prices were also given for pretty female slaves or handsome boys. Consequently, there was great variety of price; at the time of Xenophon the price for a common male slave, who was only suited for rough work, was half a mina, else the ordinary average was two minae; for slaves who possessed any technical skill or higher education the price rose from five to ten minae, and even in exceptional cases amounted to one talent.

Ownership and Treatment of Ancient Greek Slaves

Cristian Violatti wrote in Listverse: “ Owning slaves was a fairly common practice in ancient Greece. A middle-class family might have had between three and 12 slaves, but those numbers are just estimations by scholars and hard to verify. The number of slaves varied according to time and place. In his work Ecclesiazusae, Aristophanes equates not owning any slaves to a sign of poverty. The two major owners of slaves in ancient Greece were the state, where slaves were employed as police and various other public functions, and also wealthy businessmen, who supplied slaves for working in the mines.” [Source: Cristian Violatti, Listverse, September 29, 2016 ]

The position and treatment of the slaves varied in different periods, and differed also in the different parts of Greece. Here, too, the conditions of the heroic age were patriarchal, and the distinction between free men and slaves was not so great as afterwards. Trustworthy slaves superintended extensive farms and numerous herds; old female slaves had the whole direction of the household; they were often intimately connected with the inmates of the house, and showed touching fidelity and affection for their masters, with whom they lived on a familiar footing. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]


family with a slave on a funerary stele

Similar conditions existed in later times too, but only in remote pasture districts, such as Arcadia, where even in the historic age the slaves were almost regarded as members of the family, ate at the same table as their masters, and shared their labours and recreations. Generally speaking, the Dorians were regarded as stern masters, and the Athenians as kinder and more considerate; in fact, a common reproach against the Athenians was that their kindness degenerated into weakness, and that the slaves were nowhere so insolent as at Athens; they expressed themselves freely, it was said, did not give way even to free citizens in the street, they drank, they met together for common banquets, carried on love affairs, etc., just like free men.

These reproaches seem not to have been altogether exaggerated, as is proved by the important part played by slaves in the newer Attic comedy; they were usually insolent, cunning fellows, who cared little for an occasional beating, and were always ready to play their masters a trick, or to intrigue with the sons against their stern fathers. Still it was not unusual in Attica for slaves to run away, and therefore the slave-owners tried to prevent this by stern supervision, and even by chaining and branding. It is natural that the temperament of the Athenians, which changed quickly from extreme to extreme, should not often succeed in finding the right mean between severity and kindness, and therefore, in their sudden transitions from excessive consideration to severest cruelty, a real feeling of attachment between slaves and masters was very rare; still there were instances of devoted fidelity on the part of the slaves, and many inscriptions still extant speak of such devotion continuing even to the grave.

Poor Treatment of Ancient Greek Slaves

The status of some slaves could be viewed as being closer to that of an animal than a human being. They were tortured on the stand in a court of law until they told the "truth" and put to death for simply belonging to a murdered man. They sometimes held their chamber pots of their masters. Slaves were branded on their faces until the A.D. 4th century when Constantine, the first Christianized Roman emperor, decided that it was a inhuman thing to do to a creation of God, so he ordered that they be branded on their arms and legs instead."

Mary Beard said, “Slavery is a classic case for thinking about those connections. Greece and Rome were one of the few mass slave-owning societies that there have ever been. What Finley was interested in doing was looking hard at ancient slavery and thinking about how it was the same or different from modern slavery. One key difference that comes out is that modern slavery is tinged by racism, whereas ancient slavery wasn’t.


Slaves were often freed or allowed to buy their freedom. Violatti wrote: “Some slaves could hope to gain their freedom. It was possible mainly for those in a position of saving money, especially those who where involved in wage labor and therefore had some degree of financial autonomy. Slaves who were able to save enough money could buy their freedom by paying their masters an agreed sum. We also know of slaves employed in the army who were granted their freedom as a reward for their service. At Delphi, many inscriptions displaying the names of slaves who bought their freedom have been found. They illustrate the diverse array of regions from which the slave were procured: Caria, Egypt, Lydia, Phoenicia, Syria, and many other countries appear.”

There are descriptions of slaves being flogged but how slaves were treated depended very much on the type of work they did, where they resided and they type (status) of the slave. On the supposed brutal treatment of slaves Aristophanes wrote in “Peace”: "He also dismissed those slaves who kept on running off, or deceiving someone, or getting whipped. They were always led out crying, so one of their fellow slaves could mock the bruises and ask then: 'Oh you poor miserable fellow, what's happened to your skin? Surely a huge army of lashes from a whip has fallen down on you and laid waste your back?'"

Classical Writers on Slavery in Ancient Greece

Hesiod wrote in “Works and Days” (c. 750 B.C.): “First of all, get a house, and a woman and an ox for the plough — a slave woman and not a wife, to follow the oxen as well — and make everything ready at home, so that you may not have to ask of another, and he refuse you, and so, because you are in lack, the season pass by and your work come to nothing.” [Source: Fred Morrow Fling, ed., “A Source Book of Greek History,” Heath, 1907, pp. 23-26, 29-30]

Strabo wrote in “Geographia,” (c. 20 A.D.) about Greece around 550 B.C: “And the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple slaves — prostitutes — whom both free men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was also on account of these temple-prostitutes that the city was crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, "Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth."”


Antiphon wrote in “the Choreutes,” (c. 430 B.C.): “So powerful is the compulsion of the law, that even if a man slays one who is his own chattel [i.e., his slave] and who has none to avenge him, his fear of the ordinances of god and of man causes him to purify himself and withhold himself from those places prescribed by law, in the hope that by so doing he will best avoid disaster.”

Demosthenes wrote in “Against Timocrates” (c. 350 B.C): “If, gentlemen of the jury, you will turn over in your minds the question what is the difference between being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the biggest difference is that the body of a slave is made responsible for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man.”

On debt slavery, Aristotle quoted the following Solon poems: in “Constitution of the Athenians”:
And many a man whom fraud or law had sold
Far from his god-built land, an outcast slave,
I brought again to Athens; yea, and some,
Exiles from home through debt’s oppressive load,
Speaking no more the dear Athenian tongue,
But wandering far and wide, I brought again;
And those that here in vilest slavery (douleia)
Crouched ‘neath a master’s (despōtes) frown, I set them free.

Laws and the Rights of Slaves in Ancient Greece

The rights assigned by law to the master over his slaves were very considerable. He might throw them in chains, put them in the stocks, condemn them to the hardest labour — for instance, in the mills — leave them without food, brand them, punish them with stripes, and attain the utmost limit of endurance; but, at any rate at Athens, he was forbidden to kill them. These severe punishments were generally reserved for special cases of obstinacy, theft, or such like; as a rule, the slaves were treated much as our servants are. Their masters gave them the ordinary dress of artisans and workmen — the exomis, or short garment with sleeves; their food was simple but nutritious, chiefly barley porridge and pulse, sometimes meat; their drink was the cheap wine of the country; they had their own sleeping apartments, usually those of the male slaves were separated from those of the female, except when the master allowed a slave to found a family and to live with one of his fellow-slaves. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

Legal marriages between slaves were not possible, since they possessed no personal rights; the owner could at any moment separate a slave family again, and sell separate members of it. On the other hand, if the slaves were in a position to earn money, they could acquire fortunes of their own; they then worked on their own account, and only paid a certain proportion to their owners, keeping the rest for themselves, and when they had saved the necessary amount they could purchase their freedom, supposing the owner was willing to agree, for he was not compelled. Generally speaking, the position of the public slaves was even more favorable. There were certain occupations which free men were unwilling to undertake, and for this purpose the State used slaves; thus, for instance, at Athens the executioner, torturers, gaolers, and police were all slaves; they had their own dwellings assigned them by the State, could possess property, and received a small salary from the State out of which they had to feed and clothe themselves; they could also earn money by other kinds of work, and sometimes attained a position of fortune. Some of them, as for instance the Athenian police, held a position which gave them certain rights over the citizens, and, therefore, the position of these public slaves must have been a very independent one, while the numerous temple slaves also felt the hardness of their position much less than those whose owners were private persons.

The protection given to slaves by the State was very small, but here again there were differences in different states. It was only in cases of the utmost emergency that the State interfered between master and slave. In the oldest period the owner had power of life and death over his slave, but later legislation put an end to this, and at Athens, in particular, the master might not even kill a slave if he found him committing a crime, the penalty of which was death; cases of necessary defence, or such where the crime could only be prevented by killing the perpetrator, were, of course, excluded. If any owner had killed his slave without being able to justify himself, he was punished for so doing, not as severely as though he had murdered a free man, but only as if it were a case of manslaughter. Further protection against excessive ill-treatment from their masters was given by the right of sanctuary, which permitted the slave to take refuge at the altar of some god, where he found, at any rate, protection for the time being; they might even, supposing they were too cruelly used by their masters, ask to be sold to another master, and it even appears as if the owner could be legally compelled to grant this request. In other respects the State took little notice of slaves, except to forbid certain things, such as athletic exercises, love-making with free citizens, participation in certain festivals and sacrifices. Very curious and characteristic of the view they held of slaves, were the arrangements when a slave had to give evidence in a court of law. So bad was their opinion of the moral character of barbarians, and especially of those who were not free, that they thought the slaves could only be induced to speak the truth by direct physical compulsion, and consequently they were always questioned under torture. If in a suit one party required the testimony of his opponent’s slave, the latter could refuse it, but he did so at the risk of losing the suit. Sometimes a master voluntarily offered his slave as witness. If the torture, of which there were various grades, some of them very severe, inflicted any lasting injury on his body or health, the owner might demand compensation, supposing that he was not the loser in the case.

Law Code of Gortyn (450 B.C.) on Slavery

The Law Code of Gortyn (450 B.C.) is the most complete surviving Greek Law code. According to the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: “In Greek tradition, Crete was an early home of law. In the 19th Century, a law code from Gortyn on Crete was discovered, dealing fully with family relations and inheritance; less fully with tools, slightly with property outside of the household relations; slightly too, with contracts; but it contains no criminal law or procedure. This (still visible) inscription is the largest document of Greek law in existence (see above for its chance survival), but from other fragments we may infer that this inscription formed but a small fraction of a great code.” [Source:Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]


drunk man vomiting while a slave holds his forehead

“I. Whoever intends to bring suit in relation to a free man or slave, shall not take action by seizure before trial; but if he do seize him, let the judge fine him ten staters for the free man, five for the slave, and let him release him within three days. But if he do not release him, let the judge sentence him to a stater for a free man, a drachma for a slave, each day until he has released him. But if he deny that he made the seizure, the judge shall decide with oath, unless a witness testify. If one party contend that he is a free man, the other that he is a slave, those who testify that he is free shall be preferred. But if they testify either for both parties or for neither of the two, the judge shall render his decision by oath. But if the slave on account of whom the defendant was defeated take refuge in a temple, the defendant, summoning the plaintiff in the presence of two witnesses of age and free, shall point out the slave at the temple; but if he do not issue the summons or do not point him out, he shall pay what is written. And if he do not return him, even within the year, he shall pay in addition to the sums stated one-fold. But if he die while the suit is progressing, he shall pay his value one-fold. “XI. If a slave going to a free woman shall wed her, the children shall be free; but if the free woman to a slave, the children shall be slaves; and if from the same mother free and slave children be born, if the mother die and there be property, the free children shall have it; otherwise her free relatives shall succeed to it.

Freed Slaves in Ancient Greece

There were various ways of liberating slaves, and the proceedings were different in different states; it was a matter of some importance too, whether a slave was private property or owned by the State or by some sanctuary. There was no definite legal formula for the manumission of private slaves as at Rome; the State did not interfere in the matter, but only demanded a certain tax from the liberated slave. As a rule, the act of manumission was performed before witnesses or publicly in some large assembly, at the Theatre, in courts of law, etc., in order to give the freed man a guarantee of its validity. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

It often happened that an owner gave all or some of his slaves their freedom in his will, either immediately upon his death or on the condition that the slave should serve his heirs for a certain period, or pay a certain sum to them out of his own earnings in return for his freedom. If a slave purchased his freedom during the lifetime of his master there was a curious arrangement for establishing the legality of the proceeding, since a slave was not able to conclude a legally valid contract. We owe our knowledge of this proceeding chiefly to documents at Delphi. A mock sale had to be carried on; the master sold the slave for a sum mentioned in the contract (which was paid by the slave himself, unless it was remitted by the master) to some god, e.g. at Delphi to Apollo, under the condition that he should be free as soon as he entered the possession of the god. The slave did not then become a temple slave, but was set free by the god, probably in return for some small payment to the sanctuary. As these contracts were concluded in the presence of witnesses, usually priests of the divinity in question, and deposited in the sanctuary, the freed slave had the security of not being afterwards claimed by his former master or his heirs, and again losing his freedom. Sometimes these contracts contained clauses which pledged the slave to certain obligations towards his master as long as he lived, or towards his heirs, or to care for the burial and grave of his former master, etc.

In most cases the freed slave did not immediately lose all connection with his old master; he was not a citizen, and therefore his former owner became his legal patron. It was not unusual for the contract to specify that in case the slave should die without children, his property should belong to his former master or his heirs, and sometimes this even extended to the children of the slave, supposing they in turn died without legal heirs. It may have often happened, as was also the case among some of the Russian serfs in our own time, that the freed slave was richer than his master, and we may thus explain such obligations as those already mentioned, or the condition that the liberated slave should maintain his master until his death. The right of citizenship was seldom conferred on slaves when they were set free; supposing this was the case, of course, all such obligations were omitted. This was usually done when a slave had deserved especially well of his country; thus, for instance, all those who fought at the battle of Arginusae received their freedom and the right of citizenship. The conditions at Sparta were different; sometimes the Helots received their freedom from the State, especially those children of Helots who were educated and brought up together with the sons of citizens, but the right of citizenship was never combined with this freedom. Still, it was not unusual for children who were born of Spartan fathers and Helot mothers to be both free men and citizens; the celebrated Spartan generals Lysander, Gylippus and Callicratidas, were sons of Spartans and Helots.

Documents Freeing Slaves at Delphi


About a thousand Greek inscriptions have been found at Delphi, recording the manumission (freeing) of slaves between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D., through fictitious sales to the god Apollo. It is not clear how these fictitious sales were worked or what advantages they had over with secular contracts. Most of the inscriptions are very formulaic in their wording. The ones here have been translated by M.Austin in "The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest" (no. 147). Over 60 percent of the inscriptions record the manumission of female slaves. In "Women in the Manumission Inscriptions at Delphi", C.W.Tucker says that the average price for the manumission of an adult woman in this period was between three and five minas, which was 20 percent less than for a man. [Source: attalus.org]

1) Greek text: SGDI_2.1708 (c. 160/59 B.C.): The provision in this contract for the support of Meda's parents is unusual; they had probably provided the money for their daughter's manumission. “When Amphistratos was archon, in the month of . . ., Timo daughter of Eudikos, with the consent of her son Ladikos, sold a young slave girl whose name is Meda, for the price of two minas of silver, on these conditions. Accordingly Meda has entrusted the sale to the god, on condition that she shall be free and unseizable 10 by anyone for her whole life, and shall do whatever she wishes. Guarantor according to the laws of the city: Dromokleidas. Meda shall support her own father Sosibios and her mother Soso and shall take care of them, when she becomes of age, if Sosibios or Soso have need of support or care, regardless of whether they are still slaves or if they have become free. If Meda does not support or care for Sosibios or Soso when they have need of it, Sosibios and Soso shall have the power 20 to punish Meda in whatever manner they wish, and anyone else whom Sosibios or Soso instructs shall have the power to punish her on behalf of Sosibios or Soso. If anyone seizes Meda to enslave her, the vendor Timo and the guarantor Dromokleidas shall provide surety of the sale to the god; if they do not provide this, the vendor and the guarantor shall be liable to pay compensation of four minas to Meda and Sosibios and Soso, according to the law. Similarly anyone who meets her shall be authorised to take Meda away as a free woman, without being subject to prosecution in respect to 30 all legal process and fines, as long as he takes her away to her freedom. Witnesses:
priests of Apollo: Amyntas and the magistrate Asandros
private individuals: Menes, Eukles son of Etymondas, Mesateus, Archon son of Kallias, Athambos son of Agathon and Tyrbaios.”

2) Greek text SGDI_2.1715 (c. 161/0 B.C.): “When Kaphis of Phanotis was general [of the Phocians], in the third month, and when Andronikos was archon at Delphi, in the month of Poitropios, Agamestor of Lilaia, the son of Telestas, [sold] to Pythian Apollo a female slave whose name is Zopyra, a Thracian by race, [and] two home-born male slaves, whose names are Agamestor and Telestas, for the price of seven minas of silver, on the following terms. Accordingly Zopyra , Agamestor and Telestas [have entrusted] the sale price to the god, on condition that they shall be free and unseizable by anyone for their whole life; and they shall remain by Agamestor for as long as he lives. Guarantor according to the contract: Polygnotos of Lilaia, the son of Polyxenos. Witnesses:
priests: Amyntas and Tarantinos
magistrates: Kallimachos and Euagoras
private individuals Mantias son of Damochares, Kallon son of Leptinas, Sodamos son of Andropeithes, Astyochos, Orthagoras, Xenokrates - all from Delphi - and Kallixenos of Lilaia.
The sale contract was deposited with Xenokrates of Delphi and Kallixenos of Lilaia.

3) Greek text: SGDI_2.1722 (158/7 B.C.): “When Archon son of Kallias was archon, in the month of Endyspoitropios, Ateisidas son of Orthaios sold to Pythian Apollo three women slaves whose names are Antigona, of Jewish origin, and her daughters Theodora and Dorothea, at the price of seven silver minas, and he has the whole price. Guarantor according to the law of the city: Eudokos of Delphi, the son of Praxias. Accordingly Antigona, Theodora and Dorothea have entrusted the sale to the god, on condition that they be free and unencumbered in every respect for all their lives. But if anyone seizes them to reduce them to slavery, the vendor Ateisides and the guarantor Eudoxos shall provide surety. If the vendor and the guarantor do not provide surety, they shall be subject to prosecution according to the law. Likewise also, those who meet the women shall be empowered to take them away as free persons, without being subject to prosecution in respect to all legal process and fines. Witnesses:
priest of Apollo: Amyntas
magistrates: Nikarchos, Kleon son of Damosthenes and Hagion son of Ekephylos
private individuals Archon son of Nikoboulos and Eudoros son of Amyntas. [Source: Adapted from the translation by M.Reinhold, "Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans" (1996 - Google Books)].

4) Greek text: SGDI_2.1747 (165 B.C.): In this contract, the paramone is extended until the marriage of the owner's son. The boy's mother, who is not mentioned in the contract, was probably no longer alive. “When Menesthenes of Hyampolis, the son of Krinolaos, was general of the Phocians, in the eighth month as the Phocians reckon; and when Theoxenos son of Kallias was archon at Delphi, in the month of Herakleios; Euphranor of Lilaia, the son of Kallikrites, with the consent of Euphranor's son Timangelos and his daughter Xeno, sold to Pythian Apollo a female slave whose name is Phalakra, in origin an Aetolian from Kallipolis, at the price of four minas, on these terms. Euphranor possesses the entire price, and accordingly Phalakra has entrusted the sale price to the god, on condition that she shall be free and unseizable by anyone for all her life, and may go wherever she wishes. Guarantors according to the law: Dion of Delphi, the son of Aristoboulos, and Aris... of Lilaia, the son of Nikeas. Phalakra shall remain by Euphranor for [as long as] Euphranor lives, doing everything possible that she is told to do. If Euphranor suffers anything {dies} before his son Timangelos takes a wife, Phalakra shall remain by Timangelos until he takes a wife, doing everything possible that she is told to do. If Phalakra fails to remain as is written here, the sale shall be invalid.
Witnesses:
priest of Apollo: Tarantinos
magistrates: Philokrates, Polemarchos and Archon
private individuals, from Delphi: Aristomachos son of Olympogenes, Damon son of Dexondas, Dromokleidas son of Hagion, Hippon son of Athanion and Menes son of Peisistratos
private individuals, from Lilaia: Stratolaos son of Lykinos, Kleon son of Xenokrates, Nikarchos son of Petraios, Zoïlos son of Heroidas and Kladon son of Xenokrates.”

5) Greek text:SGDI_2.2123 (194 B.C.): In this case, it seems likely that the mother who "entrusted" her daughter to Timon was forced by poverty to sell the girl into slavery; but later she may have collected enough money to make her free again. “When Dikaiarchos of Trichonion was general {of the Aetolians}, in the month of Panemos, and when Peithagoras was archon at Delphi, in the month of Boukatios, Timon of Amphissa, the son of Phillidas, sold to Pythian Apollo a little girl named Eukleia, of Delphian origin, whom her mother entrusted to him, for the price of three minas of silver. Accordingly Eukleia has entrusted the sale to the god, on condition that she shall be free and unseizable, and shall do whatever she wishes. Guarantor in accordance with the law: Lamprias of Amphissa, the son of Alexomenos.
Witnesses:
priests: Xenon and Athambos
private individuals from Delphi: Aristainetos, Damochares and Xenostratos
private individuals from Amphissa: Philon, Pyrrhinos, Ariston and Ainias
private individual from Phlygonion: Kallon “

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024


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