Slavery in ancient Greece

Slavery was a very common practice in Ancient Greece, as in other places of the time. Some ancient writers (including, most notably, Aristotle) considered slavery natural and even necessary. This paradigm was notably questioned in Socratic dialogues; the Stoics produced the first recorded condemnation of slavery.

Modern historiographical practice distinguishes chattel (personal possession, where the slave was regarded as a piece of property as opposed to a mobile member of society) slavery from land-bonded groups such as the penestae of Thessaly or the Spartan helots, who were more like medieval serfs (an enhancement to real estate). The chattel helot is an individual deprived of liberty and forced to submit to an owner, who may buy, sell, or lease them like any other chattel.

The academic study of Slavery in Ancient Greece is beset by significant methodological problems. Documentation is disjointed and very fragmented, focusing primarily on Athens. No treatises are specifically devoted to the subject, and jurisprudence was interested in slavery only inasmuch as it provided a source of revenue. Comedies and tragedies represented stereotypes while iconography made no substantial differentiation between slaves and craftsmen.

The ancient Greeks had several words for slaves, which leads to textual ambiguity when they are studied out of their proper context. In Homer, Hesiod and Theognis of Megara, the slave was called δμώς / dmōs. The term has a general meaning but refers particularly to war prisoners taken as booty (in other words, property). During the classical period, the Greeks frequently used ἀνδράποδον / andrapodon, (literally, "one with the feet of a man") as opposed to τετράποδον / tetrapodon, "quadruped", or livestock. The most common word is δοῦλος / doulos, used in opposition to "free man" (ἐλεύθερος / eleútheros); an earlier form of the former appears in Mycenaean inscriptions as do-e-ro, "male slave" (or "servant", "bondman"; Linear B: ...
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