The presence of do(h)eloi of gods in Mycenaean society suggests that, like contemporary temples in the Near East, Mycenaean temples also controlled estates which needed tending. Even in classical Greece a temple usually had land attached which might be worked or used for grazing (see Box 9.1). Slaves could have filled the role of managing and working temple lands, and some do(h)eloi who competently managed a temple estate could have achieved enough wealth and social status in that role to acquire a lease on land where they could work independently. Such do(h)eloi, however, were clearly the exception.
While some do(h)eloi obtained a degree of social mobility, one remarkable Pylian text, An 607, illustrates how unfree-status was inherited. In this text unfree women are listed with their parentage, and some have an unfree mother but a free father or vice versa. In each case the status of the woman in question goes according to the status of her unfree parent. Thus, the children of unions between Free and Unfree were themselves always unfree.
The Mycenaeans recognized (as did the classical Greeks) various gradations of Unfreedom, probably with differing legal rights. Because texts commonly note someone’s status as a “do(h)elos of a deity” one should assume that such a do(h)elos had a different legal status from someone who was a do(h)elos of another human being. On An 607 in the case of one do(h)ela it is actually noted that her father was a do(h)elos, but her mother a do(h)ela of a goddess. It is unclear if do(h)elai of such mixed parentage had a specific legal status on that ground.
World History
