THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE IN ANCIENT GREECE


LUCIE OBROVSKÁ

Právnická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity v Brně


LADISLAV VOJÁČEK


Key words

Slave, slavery, dischargee, submission, asylum, slaver, captive, perioics, helots, metics, public
slave, private slave, Athens, Sparta


The legal status of the slave in ancient Greece


This paper deals with a problem of describing the legal status of slave in ancient Greece. As the
Roman empire is, beside Greece, considered to be the most important ancient state and just this
state is well known partly through its wholesale exploitage of the slavish work and partly due to
the cruelty which was so typical for the Roman slavers, this article is entirely focused on the
confrontation of the legal status of the slave in these two ancient states. This is why even the
basic information about specifics of the roman slavery are stated in this treatise.

It seems to be logical that in many aspects of this matter we can find parallels in both mentioned
states. In both cases the slave isn´t regarded as a subject but as an object of the legal
relations. This is really substantial because it predestinates most of other consequences. The
slave can´t conclude the legal relations, on the contrary the relations are routinely concluded in
such a way that the slave himself is their object.  Then the slave is an object of the purchase, of
rent, even of a deposite etc.

It is also unmistakable that if the slave is thought of as an object, actually as a „thing“, then
the slaver´s handling with the slave as well as the living conditions of slaves correspond to this
fact. Both in Greece and Rome it was possible for the slave to enjoy relatively good social status
(depending on his abilities). However,  he remained under almost absolute command of the slaver.
The striking exposure of this was the Romish ius vitae necisque, it means the master‘s claim on
slave´s life and death. According to this right the master was allowed to maltreat, torture,
sexually abuse and even kill his slave, with impunity. The master was not punishable for this act:
the slave is simply a part of his property just like any other „thing“.

It is obvious, from the confrontation of Greek and Roman slavery, that both the origins of slavery
as well as the forms of enslavement are very similar (in both cases also the overdraft slavery is
documented). From both states are known the situations when the slave, which is intolerably
tortured or hacked by his master, can turn away into the temple and enjoy the right of asylum.


Differences between Greek and Roman slavery


Indeed just in the field of the guttural law we can trace up the most important difference between
Greek and Roman form of slavery. In the most developed Greek city state, in Athens, the
nonpunishable killing of the slave which we mentioned above, didn´t exist at all – in constrast to
the legal situation in other Greek city states, where much like in the Roman empire the slave is
perceived as a part of the master´s property.

One of the most considerable ancient philosophers Aristotelés is known for his opinion, that the
slavery is a natural part of common life: some of us are born as citizens and some others as
slaves. Nevertheless in Athens, in contrast to Rome and evidently thanks to their advanced humane
thinking, they realized, that the slave isn´t just an instrument, which should serve to his master
but the slave is a human being, too.

Even thought the master was allowed to castigate his slave and in general to treat him only by his
private decision, yet there existed a noted legal regulation in Athens, which made it impossible to
kill the slave with impunity.  In contrast to the situation in Rome, the greek owner of the slave
was called before the judge in case of killing some of his slaves. Anyway he didn’t have to answer
for the murder, this would happen only in case of killing a free citizen. The slave was
qualitatively different from the free citizen: the master was liable for his death as if he killed
him inadvertently. Thanks to this he naturally got a lower punishment.

It is necessary to introduce another speciality of the Greek city states. Particular  groups of
insiders had by some reason the similar position as the classical slave. This category includes
perioics, metics, as well as some other insiders. A specific position is partly occupied by the
public slaves - because they have a little bit different position than the private slaves, partly
also by the helots.





Slavery in Athens and Sparta


There were two best known city states in ancient Greek: Athens and Sparta. Both states were
politically and economically very strong, however they presented different conception at the very
same time. Their dissimilarity is shown also in the point of view regarding the slavery. The
economy in Athens was as well as in Sparta built on slaves work, but the Athens citizens treated
slaves much better. The cruelty of Athens slavers didn´t reach such a level as it occured in
Sparta.

Sparta was very famous for its rigid discipline and importance of the army. It presented an
antipole, compared with Athens. There was a large number of slaves in Sparta and therefore there
existed huge fear for the slaves rebellions (nevertheless in Greece the rebellion never reached a
great importance – the slaves came from various regions and did not understood each other).
Therefore the Spartan strongest slaves were killed constantly (so-called krypteia).

It is necessary to mention a particular category of  resident population in context of Spartan
slavery, namely the helots. According to some authors helot had the same position as slave.
However, this opinion seems to be dramatically simplifying: helots distinguished from slaves in
couple of ways. Some authors comprehend helot as a connection link between the slave and medieval
serf, others identify them with slaves. This conception is perhaps more logical but the proper
definition of the helot´s position is rather difficult – helot stands somewhere between the private
and public slave.


The question of the ancient Greece slavery is actually interesting field of scientific activity :
wether watching certain differences compared with some other ancient states (first of all with
Rome, as a classical slaver‘s system) or in the matter of some specific groups of the population,
which differs from each other by their legal position or factual living conditions. Right on this
aspect it is possible to realize to what extent varied mixture the  ancient Greek society was. One
on these groups of insiders were helots. Helots obviously represent a connection between the
ancient and the medieval world because they resemble the medieval serf.


Contact– email:

ObrovskaLucie@seznam.cz