Every ancient society was structured along several different lines. Most importantly, those born free were distinguished from slaves and ex-slaves, and citizens from non-citizens.
These dichotomies were crisscrossed by other distinctions: age, sex, wealth, descent, place of residence, occupation, and education; male versus female, rich versus poor, noble versus commoner, town dweller versus rustic, and so on and so forth. In this way, a complicated network was created within which every individual found his or her place.
In the classical period, those born free and “the others” were clearly defined groups. Rome in the 5th and 4th centuries BC still knew debt slavery or debt bondage, but when we speak of slaves here, we mean slaves from outside the community who were bought (and sold). Such slaves were people who were enslaved during warfare, robbed by pirates or other traffickers, abandoned or sold by their parents, or condemned to slavery. If slaves had children, they also became slaves. But such natural propagation of slaves would have been comparatively rare: male slaves always far outnumbered female slaves, and not all slaves were allowed to start families. In classical Athens, there definitely was no systematic “breeding” of slaves. Concurrent with slavery, there existed many other forms of dependent labor and serfdom, often outside the Greco-Roman world in a narrow sense. Examples from Greece proper were the helots in Sparta and groups in Thessaly and on Crete that were in a comparable position.
The existence of “un-free,” in whatever form, was taken for granted in all ancient societies (whether there were a large number of un-free present or not). There were a few thinkers (and comedians) who tried to imagine a society without slave labor, but this was never a serious option. Slave labor was indispensable, or was thought to be so. The treatment of slaves was extremely variable. The individual who was condemned to live out his life as a slave in a copper, silver, or sulfur mine was to be pitied indeed, but a slave who was a trusted housekeeper or steward could be in much better circumstances than many free people could ever dream of. Nevertheless, every slave was, from the standpoint of the law in an extremely inferior position: a slave was an object or rather an animal, an animated tool that was the property of its owner, who could freely dispose of it. But then again it turned out to be difficult to keep denying that slaves were fellow human beings: in classical Athens, one was not allowed to kill one’s own slave, and a slave who was ill-treated could run away and ask for asylum (which implied being sold to another owner).
An implicit recognition of a slave’s humanity lies also at the basis of the fact that a slave could be liberated: a slave could be given his or her freedom or could be bought free, by anyone willing to do so, or by himself. In practice, though not recognized as such in the law, a slave could own property. If a slave could earn and save, he could in due course put up his own price. In the Greek world, only a small minority of the slave population could expect to liberate themselves or be liberated. Liberated slaves and their descendants did not get citizen rights but became free non-citizens. In contrast, in Rome the liberation of slaves became a common occurrence that many slaves could look forward to. And although the libertus usually remained tied to his former master, as to a patronus, still, he did obtain citizen rights, with only a few political restrictions.
World History
