Chronology of

WORLD
SLAVERY
Junius P. Rodriguez
Foreword by Orlando Patterson

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Copyright 1999 by Junius r. Rodriguez
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Rodriguez, Junius P.
Chronology of world slavery / Junius P. Rodriguez; foreword by
Orlando Patterson.
p. cm.
Incl udes bi bliogra phical references and index.
ISBN 0-87436-884-7 (alk. paper)
1. Slavery-History-Chronology. 2. Slave trade-His tory
Chronology. 1. Title.
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J
To the memory of
Gary E. Gammon
(1942-1998)
colleague & friend
cc but now you are light in
the Lord; walk as children of
light. "
Ephesians 5:8

John Boles
Rice University
Joan Cashin
Ohio State University
Philip Curtin
Johns Hopkins University
Winthrop Jordan
University of Mississippi
Igor Kopytoff
University of Pennsylvania
Orlando Patterson
Harvard University
James Walvin
University of York, United Kingdom
Bertram Wyatt-Brown
University of Florida
~ F O R E W O ~
Orlando Patterson
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
In spite of the vast outpouring of works on slavery in
recent decades, it is still remarkable how unaware
the proverbial educated layman is of its extent and
significance in human history. Students and even aca
demics often assume that slavery was largely con
fined to the U.S. South and Latin America and that
the only slaves were people of color. It comes as a
shock to many of my students when I inform them
that the typical slave throughout the Middle Ages
was a blond, blue-eyed Slav and that slavery per
sisted in Eastern Europe right down to the early nine
teenth century.
The Chronology of World Slavery should dis
abuse all its readers of such a mistaken view. It
makes clear that slavery was a worldwide institution.
It has existed in some form in every region of the
world, at all levels of sociopolitical development,
and among all major ethnic groups. All peoples had
ancestors who at some time suffered the ultimate in
humanity, the social death that was slavery. And
nearly a[l[ peoples can count slaveholders among
their ancestors.
While universal, slavery varied considerably in its
level of structural significance. In most areas of the
world it was economically marginal, demographi
cally no more than 5 percent of the population, and
confined to the household. Slavery was important in
the Islamic world, although mainly for military, ad
ministrative, and household purposes. It was also so
ciologically important for ritual and honorific pur
poses among advanced premodern groups such as
the ancient Carthaginians, the Aztecs of Mexico, and
several of the more centralized precolonial African
states such as Dahomey, Benin, and Ashanti.
However, it is in Western civilization that slavery
attained its greatest structural and cultural signifi
cance. With the possible exception of medieval
Korea, it is only in the West that slavery became a
major economic institution. It is remarkable that at
all the watershed periods in Western history slavery
played a key role in the transition process. Ancient
Greece, the source culture of the West, rose to promi
nence on the basis of slave labor. By the late fifth cen
tury B.C., one in three adults in Athens was a slave, a
proportion similar to the U.S. South at the height of
its slave order. Rome was even more dependent on
the institution, not only for its vast latifundia-the
ancient counterpart of the modem plantation-but
for its urban economy and for the lower-level clerical
staff of its imperial bureaucracy. There was a resur
gence of slavery in Europe during the late ninth and
early tenth centuries; another during the late me
dieval and early Renaissance period of the Italian
Mediterranean empires where the sugar plantation
originated; and, of course, the rise of the modern
state and capitalism went hand in hand with the rise
of the slave plantation system and the vast intercon
tinental enslavement of some 12 million Africans in
the New World.
But slavery's impact went well beyond the eco
nomic in the Western world. It profoundly influenced
all the key cultural institutions of the West. Thus the
social construction of freedom in ancient Greece and
Rome was intimately linked to the centrality of the
institution in these societies. Christianity, the very
foundation of Western civilization, emerged in the
slave society of ancient Rome, and its theology--es
peciaiJy its central doctrine of Christ as the redeemer
(literally, one who purchases a slave out of slavery) of
mankind from the thralldom of slavery, was a pow
erful introjection of the most important event in the
secular life of most members of the primitive church.
In modern times, it has been shown that the move
ments to abolish slavery were themselves strongl y
linked socially and symbolically to the rise of liberal
ism and the reinvigoration of the idea of freedom as
the absence of constraint on persons and property.
It has been difficult for those who cherish the
Western heritage to admit to its long and constitutive
relationship with slavery. We prefer to see it as an
anomaly confined to the U.S. South, Latin America,
and the Caribbean. And persons of European ances
try would like to believe that only people of African
ancestry were enslaved. The Chronology of World
Slavery not only dispels these myths, but presents a
wealth of evidence demonstrating the institution's
antiquity, universality, and disproportionate impact
on Western history and culture. This book is an in
valuable resource, not only for students of slavery
but for all who wish to understand the West, the ex
tent of man's inhumanity to man, and the often para
doxical ways in which many of the values and ideals
we most cherish emerged from the struggles to over
come and change the evils that we most abhor.
Foreword lX

The Contributors, xv
Introduction, xxi
Maps, xxv
Preface, xvii
Acknowledgments, xix
Chronology of
WORLD
SLAVERY
Ancient World, 1
Europe, 49
Asia, 93
Africa, 119
Latin America, 147
United States, 191
Contemporary History, 367
Documents, 389
1 Excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi, 389
2 Verses from the Old Testament, 390
3 An Excerpt from On the Laws by Marcus Tullius Cicero, 392
4 My Slave Is Free to Speak Up for Himself, by Horace, 393
5 Tuan Ch'eng-shih Describes Po-pa-li in Yu- Yang- Tsa- Tsu, 395
6 A Tenth-Century Slaving Venture, 395
7 Description of East Africa (1178),396
8 From the Travels of Ibn Battuta, 396
9 Pope Alexander VI, Inter Caetera (1493), 397
10 Pope Alexander VI, Dudum Siquidem (1493), 399
11 The Requirement (1510), 400
12 Decree Prohibiting the Personal Servitude of Indians (1549), 401
13 Charter of the Dutch West India Company (1621), 402
14 Czar Michael Romanov's Decree on Runaway Peasants (1635), 408
15 Antonio Vieira's Sermon Condemning Indian Slavery (1653), 408
16 A Description of Brazil's Sugar Industry (1654), 411
17 Description of the African Slave Trade (1682), 412
18 The Germantown Protest (1688), 413
19 Mutiny during the Middle Passage (1704), 414
20 Description of Slave Trading in Massachusetts (1706), 415
21 Description of a Slave Conspiracy in New York (1712), 415
22 Description of Lima, Peru (1748), 417
Contents Xl
23 Repeal of the Act Excluding Negroes (1750),419
24 From David Hume, "Of National Characters" (1754),421
25 A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture Smith (1798),421
26 Excerpt from Knowles v. Somersett (1772), 424
28 Description of Tobacco Planters' Extravagance (1775),425
29 Description of an Arrangement to Supply Slaves from Kilwa to French Possessions
31 Thomas Jefferson Condemns Slavery but Asserts Racial Differences (1787),427
32 The Northwest Ordinance (July 13, 1787),431
36 Congressman Describes Petition to Ease Plight of Slaves (1800),438
37 An Act to Prevent the Importation of Certain Persons into Certain States,
Where, by the Laws thereof, Their Admission Is Prohibited (1803),439
40 Henri Christophe's State of Hayti Proclamation (1810),448
41 The Observer, on the East African Slave Trade, February 22,1819,449
44 Captain W. F. Owen Visits Port Quelimane (1822),451
47 The First Negro Newspaper' Opening Editorial (J 827),454
50 Pope Gr gory XVI, In Supremo (1839),457
52 Excerpts from Lieutenant Barnard after Seizing the Progresso near Quelimane (1843),460
58 Report by Commander Wyvill (1852),471
59 Appeal of the Independent Democrats (1854),471
61 Thomas Ewbank Describes a Brazilian Slave Auction (1856),474
63 John Brown's Last Speech (1859),478
65 Crittenden Compromise (1861),481
66 An Act for the Release of Certain Persons H Id to Service or Labor
67 The Emancipation Proclamation (1863),484
27 Slaves Petition for Freedom during the Revolutionary Era (1773), 424
in the Indian Ocean (1776), 425
30 Prince Hoare Describes the Zong Case (1783), 426
33 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 434
34 Olaudah Equiano Describes the Horrors of the Middle Passage (1789), 435
35 Rules of the Boston African Society, an Early Negro Society (1796), 437
38 An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1806), 439
39 Closing of the African Slave Trade (1807), 445
42 Robert Walsh Describes Conditions in a Brazilian Slave Market (1828), 449
43 Slave Captain Joseph Crassons De Medeuil on the East African Slave Trade, 450
45 The Louisiana Slave Code of 1824, 451
46 A Letter by Simon Bolivar to Francisco De Paula Santander, 453
48 Excerpt from the Liberator (1831), 456
49 Frederick Douglass and the Slave-breaker (1834), 457
51 Solomon Northup Describes a Slave Auction, 459
53 The Slave Must Throw Off the laveholder, Henry Highland Garnet (1843), 460
54 "What Is It to Be a Slave" (1846), 464
55 The Queiros Law (1850), 464
56 Fugitive Slave Act (1850), 465
57 Henry Brown Escapes in a Box (1851), 468
60 Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act (1855), 473
62 Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech (1858), 475
64 William Lloyd 'Garrison's Speech on the Execution of John Brown (1859), 479
in the District of Columbia (1862), 482
68 The Civil War Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, 485
XlI Contents
69 The Law of Free Birth (1871), 486
70 Egyptian Judicial Ruling on Slavery and Islam (1882), 488
71 The Berlin Act (1885), 488
72 The Golden Law (1888), 489
73 Frederick Dealtry Lugard on Slavery (1893),489
74 A Memorandum Concerning Islamic Laws Governing Slavery in East Africa (1895),489
75 Decree Respecting Domestic Slavery in German East Africa (1901),493
76 League of Nations Slavery Convention (1926),494
77 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948),496
78 United Nations Protocol Amending the Slavery Convention Signed at Geneva
on 25 September 1926,498
79 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade,
and Institutions and Practices similar to Slavery (1956), 500
80 Brazilian Government Recognizes Slave Labor (1995), 502
Bibliography, 505
Index, 553
SIDEBARS
ANCIEN[ WORLD ASIA
Theories of Slavery, 4 Slavery in Southeast Asia, 97
Israelites and Slavery, 8 Arab World, 102
Prisoners of War as Slave Laborers, 11 Central Asia, 104
Greco-Roman Women as Slaves, 18 T'ai Tsu, 106
Alcidamas's Messenian Oration, 21 Proslavery Argument in Asia, 109
Slavery in the Mediterranean, 22 Khanate of Khiva, 111
Slave Diet, 28 Transition from Slave Labor to Free Labor
Blossius of Cumae, 29
in Asia, 114
Delos, 31
Mui Tsai, 116
Cyprus, 35
Transition from Slave Labor to Free Labor
AFRICA
in the Ancient World, 41 Psychology, 120
Constantinople Slave Trade, 44 Rice Cultivation and Trade, 124
Libanius's On Slavery, 46 Diogo Cio, 126
Duarte Pacheco Pereira, 127
EUROPE Indian Ocean Slave Trade, 128
Theodore of Studius, 51 Madagascar, 135
Eustathius of Thessalonica, 53 Comoro Slavery, 138
St. Thomas Aquinas, 56 Oba Kosoko, 143
Church Attitudes, 60 Madagascar Slave Trade, 145
Benedictus de Spinoza, 67
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in LATIN AM RICA
Foreign Parts, 69
New Laws of the Indies, 151
David Hume, 71
The Proslavery Argument in Latin America,
Adam Smith, 75 154
George Canning, 83 Creoles, 157
Gregory XVI's In Supremo, 85 Coffee Cultivation and Trade, 162
John Stuar t Mill, 88 West India Regiments, 168
Friedrich Nietzsche, 90 Spanish Slave Code, 171
Contents XlII
Supreme Junta of Caracas, 174
Jose de San Martin, 176
Hausa Uprising, 180
Umbanda, 184
Ostend Manifest, 186
Nutrition, 188
Antonio Conselheiro, 190
UNITED STATES
Passing, 194
Punishment, 198
Arts and Crafts, 201
Slave Artisans, 203
Jews and Slavery, 206
Mutilation, 210
Education, 212
Louisiana, 217
South Carolina, 220
Triangular Trade, 224
Society for the Relief of Free Negroes
Unlawfully Held in Bondage, 232
James Derham, 237
Free African Society, 240
Brown Fellowship Society, 242
Short-staple Cotton, 244
Cotton Gin, 246
abriel Prosser, 250
Samboism,254
War of 1812, 259
Union Humane Society, 260
Tallmadge Amendment, 264
Margaret Mercer, 265
Missouri Compromise, 266
The Emancipator, 268
Genius of Universal Emancipation, 269
Denmark Vesey, 272
Josiah Henson, 274
Communitarians and Slavery, 275
James Louis Petigru, 277
Edward Beecher, 278
South Carolina Exposition and Protest, 280
New England Anti-Slavery Society, 282
Nullification Doctrine, 283
John Mifflin Brown, 285
Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, 286
Joshua Leavitt, 287
American Anti-Slavery Society, 290
Elizabeth Buffum Chace, 292
Whig Party, 294
Antiabolition Riots, 296
Charles Lenox Remond, 298
Joshua Reed Giddings, 299
Elizur Wright, 301
National Anti-Slavery Standard, 304
Giddings Resolutions, 306
Bluffton Movement, 307
Henry Clay, 309
Gamaliel Bailey, 311
Alabama Platform, 313
Popular Sovereignty, 315
Compromise of 1850,319
Fire-eaters, 321
Hannah Peirce (Pearce) Cox, 322
George Washington Julian, 326
"Appeal of the Independent Democra ts,"
327
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 329
Jayhawkers, 332
Border War, 335
Hinton Rowan Helper, 337
James Buchanan, 339
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 342
Freeport Doctrine, 344
Democratic Party, 348
Stephen A. Douglas, 350
Wade-Davis Bill, 360
Freedmen's Bureau, 363
Charles Waddell hesnutt, 365
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
Peonage, 369
Anna Julia Cooper, 372
Slave Labor in the Holocaust, 376
Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF), 382
Enslavement of Undocumented Aliens, 384
Iqbal Masih, 386
XIV Contents

Jim Baugess
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Beverly A. Bunch-Lyons
Virginia Polytechnic Institute &
State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
Joseph P. Byrne
Belmont University
Nashville, Tennessee
Charles W. Carey, Jr.
Central Virginia Junior College
Lynchburg, Virginia
Henry Y. S. Chan
Moorhead State University
Moorhead, Millllesota
Dallas Cothrum
Uniz;ersity of Texas-Tyler
Tyler, Texas
Charles A. D' Aniello
State University of New York-Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
James di Properzio
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
Clifford R. Dickinson
SI. Christopher's School
RiclJ/llOlld, Virginia
Francis A. Dutra \
Uniuersity of California-Santa Barbara
Sailla Barbara, California
Peter Eardley
University of Toronto
Toronlo, Canada
James C. Foley
University of Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
Daniel L. Fountain
University of Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
Dan R. Frost
Dillard Unh' ersity
New Orleans, Louisiana
Marti J. Gastineau
Brown Uuiversity
Providellcc, Rhode Island
John C. Gibson
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
Jennifer Lynn Himelstein
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Claude F. Jacobs
University of Michigan-Dearborn
Dearborn, Michigan
Mark L. Kamrath
University of Central Florida
Orlando, florida
Frances Richardson Keller
San Francisco Statc University
San Francisco, California
Mary L. Kelley
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, Texas
Stephen C. Kenny
John Moores University
Liverpool, Ellgland
Yitzchak Kerem
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
Yasue Kuwahara
Northern Kentllcky University
Highland Heights, Kentucky
David J. Libby
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Richard D. Loosbrock
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Jennifer Margulis
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
James D. Medler
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia
Liliana Mosca
Frederico II University
Naples, Italy
Beatrice Nicolini
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Milan, Italy
Onaiwu W. Ogbomo
Allegheny College
Meadville, Pennsylvania
Michael Polley
Columbia College
Columbia, Missouri
Remco Raben
Netherlands State Institute for War
Docl/mentatioll
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Maria Elena Raymond
Robhins, California
Manisha Sinha
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
Gene A. Smith
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, Texas
Richard D. Starnes
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, North Carolina
Torrance T. Stephens
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
Stephen A. Stertz
Dowling College
Oakdale, New York
Carol J. Terry
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, Texas
Eric Tscheschlok
Aubllrn University
Auburn, Alabama
Peter M. Voelz
Eastern Illinois Ulliversity
Charleston, Illinois
Judith Ann Warner
Texas A & M International University
Laredo, Texas
Michael Washington
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, Kentucky
Contributors XV
~ P R E F A C E ~
The Chronology of World Slavery is designed as a
complementary volume that expands the breadth of
knowledge about world slavery initiated in The His
torical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1997). Like
the Encyclopedia, the Chronology examines the in
stitution of slavery throughout history and across
cultures, but by using the methods of a chronologi
cal framework, detailed sidebar articles, and a col
lection of primary documents, this reference tool
provides a unique perspective for identifying histor
ical patterns and cause-and-effect relationships that
relate to a more complete understanding of slavery
in human history. Taken together, these two refer
errce works constitute the most complete examina
tion of slavery as a phenomenon in world history
available today.
The chronological method employed in this vol
ume offers a vivid and compelling documentary
record of slavery's place in the annals of human his
tory. This work serves as an educational tool, but it
also exists to convey a more intrinsic message about
human history that should find resonance at many
levels. This work is testimony to the tragedy and tri
umph of the human condition, and its words speak
to us of deeds that must not be forgotten.
A reference work that seeks to document the pres
ence of slavery throughout human history should
touch two aspects of the human consciousness-one
effective, and the other affective. It is the nature of
history to educate in the hope that past errors are not
replicated by those who are either unaware of prior
misdeeds or unwilling to learn from such bygone ex
periences. The very process of education is one that is
designed to facilitate change-to effect transgenera
tional reform that holds the potential for bettering so
ciety at large. It is such a belief that positions progress
as a unifying theme in history when the discordant
threads of continuity and change are evaluated over
time. But works such as this one must also educate at
a more visceral level. It is the affective power that
these pages command that affords the opportunity
for the reader to move beyond mere knowledge and
to be stirred to action. Rather than being only passive
observers of the historic present, we might become
activists who are stirred by a more fundamental call
ing. This affective response is equally important-and
equally valid-as we recount the presence of slavery
in the human experience.
Slavery is an issue that troubles the human spirit.
Our better angels seem to focus upon the triumph of
abolitionism rather than concentrating upon the
dark past of human subjugation, but despite such ef
forts, the fact remains that abolitionism would have
been unnecessary had peoples not been enslaved in
the first place. We cannot boast of a holier-than
thou morality because of abolitionism without reck
oning with the troubling reality that the recessive
gene of a slaveholding past still haunts the social
consciousness of many. Even still, in a world poised
to enter a new millennium, we must ask where is the
outrage today as instances of slavery persist in a
modern world that finds it increasingly difficult to
recognize that the most easily marginalized are often
the most easily victimized by the practice of en
slavement.
In a 1995 speech South African President Nelson
Mandela stated, "The struggle for freedom, equality
and dignity is an on-going one in which one must
have the modesty to learn from the past and from
each other, as well as the courage to meet the fu
ture." It is in this his torical process where the past
touches the present and influences the future that
we must struggle to learn and to adapt new behav
iors that redefine our understanding of human dig
nity. All too often in times of crisis society surren
ders itself to pobtical, economic, or religious
exigencies that serve to devalue the worth of the in
dividual, making the practice of enslavement an ac
ceptable, if not invisible, part of the human experi
ence. It is indeed ironic that those who trace
historical progress over time often find it difficult to
explain how liberty and the lash have coexisted
across cultures throughout time. Mandela's call for
the attributes of modesty and courage have special
meaning here.
It is important that we study the chronology of
slavery throughout human history. This somber re
minder should serve to educate, to challenge, and
even to inspire. We can learn from the past only if we
are willing to examine all elements-even the most
unpleasant-as we strive to make sense of our his
torical legacy and redirect the energies of our human
potential. The chronology of slavery in history offers
ample evidence of both tragedy and triumph, but
how this information is received and to what extent
it moves us must be the measure by which we judge
Preface xvii

Undertakings like the Chronology of World Slavery
mean that many people must offer their time, talents,
and skills to a project that calls them to a higher pur
pose. To all who in any way aided the development
and production of this book I am deeply indebted
and forever grateful. It has been a singular honor to
work with so many colleagues and friends in prepar
ing the world's first chronological history of slavery
across cultures and times, and I believe we have cre
ated a product we can all be proud of.
Micia Merritt, Todd Hallman, and Susan McRory
of ABC-CLIO have supported my efforts in produc
ing The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery
(1997) and the Chronology of World Slavery. Their
guidance and cheerful encouragement have provided
me with direction and vision as these two reference
works have come to fruition over the past three
years. I thank them for their support and for the con
fi dence they placed in me throughout this extended
project.
This book was made possible by the contributions
and advice offered by hundreds of scholars of slavery
woddwide. I am certainly appreciative of all who of
fered their assistance and helped to make this a bet
ter work and a more valuable scholarly contribution.
Over the course of the three years, many people who
started working on this book as professional ac
quaintances have become good friends, and I have
relied quite frequently upon their insight in complet
ing this project.
I am especially grateful to a team of assistants
who worked on various components of the manu
script as it came together. Nathan Meyer served as
the research assistant for this volume, and his efforts
have been tremendous. I am certain that I would not
have met important deadlines had he not worked
tirelessly to see this work through to completion. His
expertise has been invaluable. I also wish to thank
several student assistants and interns who have had
a hand in helpi ng to develop this project through the
years. Sarah Lunt Ewart, Shannon Wettach, Jill
Zielinski, Byron Painter, David Steinbeck, and Ryan
Tompkins all assisted in the endeavor. Joy Kinder of
fered secretarial assistance and always helped to
make sure that important mailings went out on time.
Lynne Rudasill, Paul Lister, Ann Shoemaker, Peg To
liver, Ginny Mc oy, Dana Dempsey, Eldrick Smith,
and Kathy Whitson all pitched in to help when
glitches of varying types appeared, and I appreciate
their kind assistance.
I must also thank the Eureka College Faculty Sta
tus and Development Committee, which provided
funding for this project when it was in its early de
velopmental stages. I am also deeply indebted to Dr.
Gary E. Gammon, Academic Dean of Eureka Col
lege, who encouraged my work on the world slavery
volumes. Gary's tragic death in May 1998 as I was
completing the work on this book was a shocking
occurrence, but it was also the impetus for a renewed
dedication on my part to complete the work in his
honor. As a bereaved friend and colleague, I dedicate
this volume to him.
I am proud to have been associated with the de
velopment of the Chronology of World Slavery and
take responsibility for its inevitable shortcomings. I
hope that the work will be valuable to students and
researchers alike and that this labor of love will serve
as a valuable reference tool for years to come.
Acknowledgments XIX

If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it.
-Democritus (460-370 B.C.)
Slavery is a practice that seemingly defies logic and
human understanding, yet it is an indelible part of
our heritage and something tha t challenges us still
today. It is ancient yet modern-that is the paradox
of slavery-and in exploring the complexities of this
societal institution, we learn more about ourselves as
the glories and failures of our past become the foun
dations upon which we measure the human potential
for good and evil. Slavery is the dark mirror that al
lows us to reflect upon past episodes of social injus
tice as we trace the events, both great and small, that
have defined the meaning of civilization for peoples
in bondage throughout the ages.
The pages in this volume chronicle the institution
of slavery in its various manifestations through time
and across cultures. This powerful testimony re
minds us that man's inhumanity to man is limited by
neither spatial nor temporal boundaries and that,
perhaps not surprisingly, such evil is with us still
today. Not all stories conclude with happy endings.
Social scientists maintain that slavery somehow
evolved during the era when man's social accultura
tion had developed to a point that could be deemed
civilized. The practice was born out of a benign
benevolence that spared the Eves of war captives by
granting them the right to live-to live a life pro
scribed by the dictates and the occasional whims of
one's conqueror. Our most ancient historic forebears
bequeathed to us a cultured past but also left behind
less noble legacies amid their ancient grandeur. We,
the inheritors of this enigmatic birthright, have been
bedeviled by slavery, that recessive gene that waxes
and wanes but wears upon us still.
It is not an easy task to study slavery in human his
tory. Our better angels, which call upon the nobility
in humans, find it often incomprehensible that so
many sagacious minds of the past have defended slav
ery and found it compatible with natural law and
God's will. It is indeed shocking to modern sensibilJi
ties to discover that the antislavery impulse is a rela
tively new concept in human thought and can be
traced back only two centuries to the era of the En
lightenment. Since who we are is directed in large
measure by who we were, we sift through the chrono
logical record of the past hoping to find some ratio
nal explanation of how a social system like slavery
could have evolved and endured among civilized peo
ples. Although various historical threads abound,
they all become meshed into a social fabric that ac
cepted slavery as a protected institution and shrouded
it with legal sanction and popular condonement so
that it might endure. We must first be able to expose
slavery if we desire ever to understand it.
Historians use facts to telt the story of the past,
but facts alone are often insufficient to comprehend
past reality. The historian must interpret upon the
basis of what is known, to postulate upon the inter
relationships between often discordant details, and
historical revisionism is born when later scholars,
unsatisfied with the original interpretation offered,
develop alternative models Ibased once more upon in
terpretation of the known facts. In such a schollarly
milieu one, two, three, or perhaps an endless number
of "truths" are possible as historical interpretation
brings the past alive when the facts do not speak. Re
ality, or the postmodern multiple realities, are born
of this creative process as we struggle to find a usable
past from our scant historical records.
The nature of historical facts themselves becomes
particularly burdensome when we contemplate the
history of slavery. We mark the historic era by man's
development of techn,iques whereby written records
might be kept. Unfortunately, wr,itten records have
been both the boon and the bane of the historical
profession. Written records imply a certain degree of
literacy on the part of the record keepers, but often
through history the classes that were enslaved were
kept illiterate as a means of keeping them subdued.
Although there were certainly exceptions to this pol
icy-for example, Greek slaves were often well-edu
cated tutors to their Roman masters-many slaves
were ahistorical creatures who left no documentary
record of their lives. The work of recording their
story was relegated to the literate classes, often the
master class, which viewed the lives of slaves from a
different, and certainly unique, perspective. Their
facts, however imperfect, are the documents with
which we must work.
There is a tremendous difference in the world
view held by masters and the one held by slaves. The
ability to hold dominion over another and the feel
ing of abject powerlessness provide rather distinct
perspectives from which to interpret one's place in
the world as well as the place of others. Friedrich
Nietzsche even postulated that separate master and
slave moralities exist in the world with ramifications
Introduction XXI
that touch all aspects of the human condition. The
manner in which we define "other," that which is dif
ferent from us, is especially telling in that it often says
much about how we comprehend ourselves in rela
tion to th:1t which we are not. Slaves became the mir
ror by which a ruling class defined itself and formed
its own cultural ethos. Nebulous concepts like free
dom are defined by the absence of freedom; leisure,
by the absence of work. It was such a class, the mir
ror image of the nonslave, that produced the docu
mentary record by which we must study the past and
make value judgments about the historical record.
Despite the often one-sided nature of the docu
mentary record regarding slavery, there is another
concern that generally makes the factual record woe
fully incomplete. Left to their own devices, historical
facts seldom impart an affective meaning or re
sponse. Although it is important to know that an
event occurred, the modern reader expects more
from the text than the certitude of detail-larger
questions must be answered as well. It is difficult for
the facts alone to present a sensory record of the
past, but that is what we often desire as we scour the
pages of history to find a greater understanding of
the institution and practice of slavery. Facts may
speak of labor, but facts alone cannot replicate the
weariness of Roman slaves toiling in the silver mines
of the ancient Mediterranean rim or African slaves
struggling in the cotton fields of Georgia. The his
torical record does not permit us to feel the bleeding
fingers wrought from excessive work or the bruised
body and spirit of one who has been savagely flogged
for alleged misdeeds. The facts alone are silent when
we try to comprehend the anguished thoughts of a
young mother who has smothered her own child
rather than have the baby grow up to become the
property of another as asiave. Just as the ancient
Greeks knew that sometimes the gods were si'lent,
sometimes the facts leave mllch unspoken.
Given these genuine limitations, what ,then is the
value of a chronological study of slavery across cul
tures and throughout history? Facts and details pre
sented in the order of their occurrence do have a
powerful effect in helping us to understand the mag
nitude of slavery's impact upon history and the ex
tent to which our world still reels from this bitter
legacy. The chronological record clearly demon
strates that the practice of enslaving others is a cus
tom that has existed from time immemorial, and re
cent experiences with contemporary slave like
practices reveal a disturbing awareness that great evil
can endure when good people remain silent. Knowl
edge about the past-even when it is a painful les
son-is empowering and can be therapeutic if the
greater awareness of injustice moves one to become
a stronger advocate of freedom for all. Many slave
owners throughou t history denied their sla ves the
XXII In trod llction
right to an education because they knew that knowl
edge was power and that empowered bondsmen are
the antithesis of a slave society. Yet it was this same
awareness that persuaded many abolitionists to be
patrons of higher education because they understood
the intrinsic power of the biblical dictum, "You will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John
8:32) . Certainly, today we can learn much from the
hard task of trying to reckon with slavery.
There is an additional benefit that we can gain
from viewing the history of slavery in chronological
form, as doing so helps LIS fachom a greater under
standing of how the practice endured and the noble
efforts of many people to abolish it. History is a
rather inexact social science that does not easily lend
itself to quantitative analysis or empirical research,
but it does have tools and methodologies that allow
the enlightened reader to make informed judgments
on the basis of the available evidence. One of the
most basic methods of historical presupposition
the observation of cause and effect-can help us un
derstand the history of slavery if we look at individ
ual decisions and events in the greater context of the
times in which these events occurred.
Elie Wiesel, who experienced firsthand the horrors
of the Nazi Holocaust and has observed the grim re
ality of slave labor in the modern world, has spent
much of his lifetime teaching others about the im
portance of remembering the past. Wiesel has stated:
"That is my major preoccupation-memory, the
kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich
that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it"
(Wiesel, 1995). History is the collective cultural
memory of a people, and its lessons should impart
values that sustain and nurture even when the topics
are particularly difficult. There are those people who
see slavery as something that took place in the an
cient past-a bitter chapter in societal development
yet something that should be relegated to the archives
and the curious antiquarianism of scholarly dis
course-but they are misguided and they are wrong.
We must study slavery to sustain our memory, to
comprehend our world, and to explore the nature of
our humanity. As Malcolm X stated, "History is a
people's memory, and without a memory man is de
moted to the lower animals" (Malcolm X, 1964).
Amid the disturbing details and potent images of
slavery one can find hope in the pages that follow.
Despite society's inclination to enslave throughout
much of human history there has been resistance to
the practice of slavery as captive peoples have fash
ioned and used the weapons of the weak and as free
individuals with liberty of conscience and moral con
viction have agitated for an end to the practice. He
roes do abound in slave societies, for not only do
slave rebels and abolitionists deserve such recogni
tion but all who toiled under the burden of forced
labor were also ennobled . To endure life as a slave
and to maintain a sense of human decency in a sense
less world that has thrust abject powerlessness upon
you evokes a special sense of bravery.
This chronology of slavery is a testament to the
men, women, and children who have gone before us
and to those who Jive among us today who have ex
perienced and do experience the "social death" of
enslavement. For most of human history such people
have been a nameless, faceless mass, but these unfor
tunate brethren share a common kinship with us in
the human family. We need to attempt to understand
their history if we ever hope to comprehend our
own, because both stories are inextricably inter
twined. If they could speak-if they could scream
perhaps we could hear and begin to comprehend the
Jives that they endured, but in so many respects their
story is silent. As you read these chronologies and
allow the historical record to "tell the story" of slav
ery, listen for the silences-and interpret their mean
ing. Sometimes even the gods are silent.
Introduction XXUI
West Africa
..
XXVll
Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa
XXVl11
The African Diaspora
XXXIX
The Caribbean
XXX
The United States
XXXI
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CANADA
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Ocean
c. 6800 B.C.
Neolithic (New Stone) Age peoples had congre
gated in the region of Jericho and established
the world's first town. The town was sur
rounded by a protective wall, which indicates
that the region was susceptible to enemy raids
and that warfare may have been common. The
oldest slaves were war captives whose lives were
spared so they might endure "social death" and
become the servants of the victors who had de
feated and captured them. One of the great
ironies of the beginnings of civilization is that
the ownership of land and other goods made
one a target of enemies. who desired the prop
erty of others. Civilization bred warfare, and
warfare created the institution of slavery; thus,
from the dawn of civilization, one of the most
barbaric human practices-slavery-was insti
tutionalized.
c. 6000 B.C.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the island
of Crete was settled by Neolithic ( ew Stone)
Age peoples. These early peoples would have
needed seaworthy vessels that could have sailed
on the Mediterranean in order to establish these
initial settlements.
c. 4200 B.C.
Ancient Sumerian peoples had begun to settle in
the marshy delta region where the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf.
Also, archaeological evidence suggests that the
ancient Egyptians established their first towns
along the Nile River during this period.
c. 3600 B.C.
The ancient city of Ur (Uruk) was esta blished in
Sumer. The birth of the earliest cities marks the
birth of civilized society. Unfortunately, the
birth of those cities also led to warfare, which,
in turn, produced slavery.
c. 3500 B.C.
In Sumer, the first war chariot was developed.
Such an innovation in warfare has had a desta
bilizing effect upon societies both ancient and
modern. The war chariot represented an imple
ment of war that could easily change the tide of
battle and result in more military victories and
more war captives.
2 Ancient World
c. 3200 B.C.
There is evidence of a division of labor in the
primitive societies that developed in both Sumer
and in Egypt. Slavery would eventually become
an esta blished part of the social hierarchy that
evolved in each of the regions.
c. 2750 B.C.
Probable date for the founding of Troy in Asia
Minor.
c. 2600 B.C.
Burial of Queen Shub-ad, whose grave was later
discovered by archaeologists, in the city of Ur.
This location and other royal graves of Ur sug
gest the social structure of society in ancient
Sumer. The queen was buried along with 74
other persons, probably slaves and retainers
who took poison to follow their queen into the
next world, where they could continue to serve
her.
c. 2575 B.C.
Cheops (or Khufu), the Egyptian pharaoh, sent
expeditions up the Nile River into Nubia to cap
ture slaves. In Egypt itself, the construction of
the pyramids reflected the powerful belief in life
after death that was an important concept in
polytheistic Egyptian religion. The pyramids
were probably constructed by free laborers,
who worked on a corvee system when they were
not tending their crops, rather than by slave la
borers. Still, much of the art in the pyramids re
flected the great triumphs of the pharaoh, which
included victory in warfare and the taking of
many captives who could become slaves.
c. 2465-2323 B. C.
Egyptian records on the Palermo Stone (one of
the historical artifacts that tells us much about
Egyptian society and culture) descri be military
campaigns during the reign of the pharaoh
Snofru that resulted in the taking of 7,000 Nu
bian and 1,100 Libyan captives and making
them slaves of the state.
c. 2250 B. C.
In Egyptian pyramids and tombs, the image of a
sla ve-manned boat was a symbolic representa
tion that one could expect a happy and pros
perous afterlife.
. --
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A drawillg made from an impression of a cylinder seal dating from the second half of the fourth millennium B.C., found
at Urllk ill Babylonia. It is the earliest known depiction of war captives. (British Museum)
c. 2134-1785 B.C.
Egyptian papyrus records from the Middle
Kingdom constitute the first evidence of slave
ownership by private indi viduals in Egypt. Pre
viously, the slaves in Egypt had been the prop
erty of the pharaoh and the gods.
c. 2100 B.C.
Society in Sumer was based upon the mainte
nance of law and order. King Ur-Nammu pro
claimed a code of laws in which he declared,
"By the laws of righteousness of Shamash [a
god] forever, I establish justice."
c. 2000 B.C.
Sumerian documents indicate that the cost of a
healthy male slave was 11 silver shekels at this
time. That amount of money could have also
purchased 1,276 square feet of agricultural
ground (less than 3 percent of a square acre).
c. 1962 B.C.
Evidence found in the tomb of an Egyptian
leader at Kerma (in modern-day Sudan) suggests
that wives, slaves, and other attendants were
commonly buried with the body of a dead
leader. This practice was also common in
Sumerian society.
c. 1929-1892 B.c.
Egyptian records from the Middle Kingdom
show that during the reign of Pharaoh Amen
emhet II, a slave-raiding expedition conducted
in Syria resulted in the capture of 1,554 slaves.
These slaves were needed as laborers for public
works projects that were under way, including
the construction of the pharaoh's pyramid.
c. 1800 B.C.
Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew people,
left the Sumerian city of Ur and wandered west
ward, perhaps as far as Egypt. Eventually, Abra
ham and his Semitic followers settled in the
" land of milk and honey" in the region of mod
ern-day Palestine. According to the Old Testa
ment (Gen. 11:31), they settled in the region of
Haran (Hebrew) in the land of Canaan.
c. 1790 B.C.
Hammurabi developed a code of laws to govern
the city-kingdom of Babylon. Several of the
laws related specifically to the rights of slave
owners in maintaining their property in slaves.
The detailed laws that Hammurabi decreed
demonstrate the complexi ties of administration
that had evolved in the Babylonian state by this
time. The preambl e to the laws stated Ham
murabi's reason for issuing the code of laws-to
establish justice in the land. Each of the laws in
the code was constructed with a protasis and an
apodosis (i.e., "if this shall happen, then thi s
shall happen "), and the measures related to all
the classes of people who li ved in Babylonian
society. [See Document 1.]
c. 1700 B.C.
The horse was introduced into Babylonia by the
Kassites and into Egypt by the Hyksos. Like the
Ancient World 3
OF
Slavery has existed as a social institution in differ
ent societies all over the world from c1asslcal an
tiquity to the modern day. Throughout history,
peoples with widely varying types of social organi
zation have held slaves. Slavery thrived in medieval
Europe, pagan and Islamic Arabia, sub-Saharan
Africa, Asia, Scandinavia, the pre-Cotlombi:m New
World, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ameri
cas, and elsewhere. Although European thinkers
have debated the legal and moral dilemmas evoked
by slavery since classical times, the fundamental
premise of slavery-that a human could be both
property and a human being-and the morality of
the institution itself were not called into question
until relatively recently. The Stoic philosopher
Seneca (c. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65), for example, urged that
slaves be treated as human beings without ever
mentioning that the system itself was either im
moral or should be abolished.
Although the definition of slavery proves a de
bated topic among historians, sociologists, and
economists, most theorists agree that the slave is
a social outsider, a person who is considered to
be someone else's property, cannot hold property
himself, is denied a cultural and social identity
outside of being a slave. In addition to being clas
sified as the property or chattel of another
human being and being socially ostracized, the
sla ve has little or no a uthority and is generally
denied the human dignity accorded free members
of society. 51a ves have been alternately described
throughout history as ideal servants-loyal,
faithful, and servile-on the one hand and as
brutes in need of domination on the other
hand-lazy, conniving, rebellious, untrustworthy,
and sexually promiscuous. Slaves have generally
fallen into two categories: those who are taken in
war or are captured from an outside culture and
those who, although not culturally "other," vol
untarily sell themselves or are forced to become
slaves because of debt, destitution, or criminal
behavior.
Including slavery of "barbarians" in his descrip
tion of an ideal state, the Greek philosopher Plato
(c. 427 B.c.-347 B.C.) might have been the first to
argue the natural inferiority of slaves. Aristotle (384
.8.c.-322 B.C.) believed, too, that there was a uni
versallogic to slavery. From birth, asserted Aristo
tle, "some men are marked out for subjugation,
others for rule" (Davis, 1966). Echoing Plato and
Aristotle, pros lavery thinkers, including the best
known American defender of slavery, philosopher
and southern politician John C. Calhoun
(1782-1850), have argued that no advanced society
has existed without a disequilibrium of labor and
that some people are naturally unfit for freedom.
Some social theorists, such as Auguste Comte,
Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, have believed
that slavery represented a progressive step in
human history. Instead of being sacrificed in war
by death, the slave was taken into captivity and
forced to work. However, despite the prevalence
of slavery, and its socioeconomic importance in
many different cultures, Western thought early
posited that slavery was contrary to man's natural
state. Seeking universal norms in nature, philoso
phers contrasted the corruption of civilized society
with a simpler, purer, more natural, and more
primitive state. When England's King Henry VII
(1457-1509) asserted that nature made all men
free but the" law of nations reduced some under
the yoke of servitude" (Davis, 1966), he was echo
ing an already well-established medieval belief.
Philosophers who early defended man's free
dom and inalienable rights, the best known of
whom was the Englishman John Locke (1632
1704), were not, however, staunch critics of slav
ery. Although Locke believed in equality and
man's right to "life, health, liberty, [and] posses
sions" (Davis, 1966), he placed slavery outside the
social contract, considering it a lawful state of war
between conqueror and captive. Yet Locke's think
ing also urged philosophers to question past as
sumptions and to subject ideas to the test of rea
son. As European Enlightenment thinking gained
ground, proslavery arguments began to lose their
force. Indeed, in the eighteenth century, slavery
took a more central position in philosophical,
moral, legal, and economic debates. The French
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
attacked the institution of slavery, championing
the emancipation of all mankind and insisting that
slavery contradicted man's liberty. Rousseau re
jected Locke's analysis of slavery as being outside
the social contract and asserted instead that no
man had the right to claim mastery over another.
One of the first eighteenth-century thinkers to
analyze the institution of slavery in terms of eco
nomics, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) calcu
lated the financial cost of American slavery and
concluded that Negro slavery as an institution was
more costly than free labor in England, that it en
couraged sloth in the white population, and that it
was detrimental to both rich and poor. Olaudah
Equiano, who published The Interesting Narrative
of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus
AnCIent World

4
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Yassa. the African (1789) a year before Franklin's
death, in which he claimed to have been kidnapped
as a child from Igboland, similarly argued against
the institution of slavery for economic reasons.
Equiano believed that Africa could be more effec
tively exploited for mutual financial gain if allowed
to participate freely in a market system.
As public sentiment became increasingly critical
of the institution of slavery, some philosophers be
came interested in explaining the role of the mas
ter, and the German philosophers eorg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and Friedrich Wil
helm Nietzsche (1844-1900) both explored slav
ery theoretically from the perspective of its influ
ence on the master. Hegel argued that slavery
produced a dependency between master and
bondsman. Mediated through the slave's con
sciousness, the master's consciousness could not
exist outside of the slave's; indeed, both the mas
ter's lordship and his very existence became, for
Hegel, dependent on the slave, which in turn
forced the master into a subservient role at the
height of his power. Lordship then, in Hegel's
thinking, was necessarily "the reverse of what it
wants to be" (Davis, 1975). Unlike Hegel, Niet
zsche identified a master's morality that was
supreme over the slave's. Positing his theory in a b
stract terms, Nietzsche argued that sIa ve mora lity,
akin to Christian ethics, was perverse and debili
tating because it aimed to preserve the herd
whereas master morality demanded that its mem
bers expend their power to excel over one another.
The expansion of the slave trade to the New
World and the reliance of the American South on
slave labor in the late eighteenth and early nine
teenth centuries coincided with a widespread
growth of antislavery sentiment and an increasing
international awareness of the evils of slavery. By
the I 760s, an unprecedented revolution was taking
place in Western thought-the belief in the evil of
slavery and its ability to destroy man's destiny.
Working with escaped slaves, antislavery champi
ons used public forums, private newspapers, and
the publication of slave narratives to convince the
public of the evils of slavery. Slave narrativ s by es
caped slaves such as Harriet Jacobs, Frederick
Douglass, Solomon Northup, William and Ellen
Craft, and William Wells Brown were popular in the
nineteenth century and elaborated theoretical, hu
manistic, religious, and economic arguments against
slavery. These firsthand testimonies of the experi
ence oj slavery insisted on the humanity of the slave,
the brutality of the slave system, and the hypocrisy
of professed Christian slaveholders who treated
their slaves with the antithesis of Christian kind
ness, debasing them sexually and morally as well.
Many of the most outspoken American aboli
tionists, including Lucretia Mott and Lydia Maria
Child, were women who came increasingly to iden
tify their lot with that of the slaves. With the Eman
cipation Proclamation and the end of the American
Civil War, slavery as an institution no longer ex
isted legally in the United States. However, the lan
guage of slavery was still used long afterward to
describe everything from the plight of the newly
emancipated slaves to dependency on alcohol in
America's immigrant Irish communities.
Although slavery is not as prevalent as it was in
the past, there continues to be widespread schol
arly interest in the institution. The twentieth cen
tury has seen a plethora of literary, historical, and
theoretical works about slavery, some of which
look at the broad historical and cross-cultural con
texts of slavery. The most eminent contemporary
scholars of slavery include Orlando Patterson and
David Brion Davis.
-Jennifer Margulis
For Further Reading
Davis, David Brion. 1966. The Problem of Slavery
in Western Cltlture. lth::tca, NY: Cornell University
Pre s; Davis, fhvid Brion. 1975. The Problem of
Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-1823. Ithaca,
Y: Cornell University Press; Davis, D::tvid Brion.
1984. Slavery and Human Progress. ew York:
Oxford University Press; Foner, Laura, and Eugene
D. Genovese. 1969. Slavery in the New World: A
Reader ill C()mparative History. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall; McKitrick, ric L., ed. 1963.
Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old Suuth.
Englewuod Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; Patterson,
Orlando. 1982. Slauery and Social Death.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ancit nr World 5
---- - ---
-- - -- --
Haml1lllrabi stands before the sun-god Shamash on this
engraved Babylonian stele dating from the eighteenth
century B.C. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource)
war chariot, the use of the horse in battle made
warfare more intense, and the number of cap
tives taken in battle probably increased. Such
innovations in warfare tended to increase the
number of war captives who could be enslaved.
C. 1650 B. C.
The Hittites established a law code containing
nearly 200 edicts in their capital at Bogazki>y in
Asia Minor. Like the Code of Hammurabi, each
of the H ittite laws was constructed with a pro
tasis and an apodosis, and the measures related
to all classes of people in Hittite society.
C. 1650 B.C.
A famine struck in the land of Canaan (the re
gion of Palestine), and the Hebrew people be
came nomads wandering in search of food. One
group, led by Joseph, entered Egypt in search of
sustenance, and its members eventually became
enslaved as laborers on the pharaoh's public
works projects. The Hebrews remained in this
condition for nearly four centuries until Moses
led them out of captivity during the Exodus. Ac
cording to the Old Testament (Exod. 2:12),
Moses killed an Egyptian for oppressing a He
brew slave.
C. 1570 B.C.
The Hyksos had dominated Egypt for nearly
150 years, but the rulers of Egypt were finally
able to overthrow their foreign overlords, and
the Egyptians then enslaved all foreigners
within the country. The Hebrew people, who
had wandered into Egypt to escape a famine in
Canaan, became enslaved by the pharaoh and
were put to work on various public works pro
jects . Among other things, Hebrew slaves
helped to build the Egyptian cities of Pithom
and Ramses.
c. 1550 B.C.
The Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose I revised his na
tion's foreign policy and decided to extend the
country's boundaries southward. He began to
subdue and colonize the region of Nubia, an
area where previously, the Egyptians had con
ducted slaving raids.
1524 B.C.
The Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose I returned to
Egypt from an expedition to conquer the region
of Nubia. He carried the dead body of the Nu
bian king back to Egypt as proof that the region
had been subdued.
C. 1501-1447 B.C.
During the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh
Thutmose III, military campaigns into Syria
and Palestine were regularly conducted, and
large numbers of slave captives were carried
back to Thebes in Egypt. These slaves were
considered to be the property of the gods and
the pharaohs and were not offered for sale to
private citizens.
c. 1500-1450 B.C.
The Hittites established a law code in their
capital at Bogazkoy in Asia Minor. This code
was an abridged version of the older one es
tablished c. 1560 B. C. , but it did include some
modifications. Each of the laws in the code
was still constructed with a protasis and an
apodosis and related to all classes of people
6 Ancient World
iV/en carry grail! as slave girls fight over the leftovers in this wall painting fro I/! an t;gyptian tomb dating from the
eighteenth dynasty (sixteenth t o fourteenth centuries B.C.). (Erich Lessing/Art Resource)
who lived in Hittite society. In this code, defi
ance on the part of asIave was deemed to be a
capital crime punishable by death, but the code
also included provisions that required slave
holders to discipline their slaves without use of
excessi ve violence.
c. 1450 B.C.
A volcanic eruption destroyed the island of San
torin (Thira) off the coast of Crete. Both Crete
and Santorin were at the center of the Minoan
civilization, a culture that was known for its ex
pertise in seafaring and trade, including the
trading of slaves. After the volcanic eruption at
Santorin, the Nllnoan culture of Crete never re
covered its former level of greatness.
c. 1415 B.C.
An Egyptian wall painting found in the tomb of
Menena, a scribe, depicts a large number of
slaves participating in the agricultural harvest.
C. 1350 B.C.
A carving on the limestone walls of the tomb of
the Egyptian pharaoh Horemheb depicts an
Egyptian scribe registering a group of African
captives who had recently become Egyptian
slaves.
C. 1306 B.C.
The Israelites begin to infiltrate into the region
of Palestine.
1290 B.C.
The Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II (the Great)
built the city of Per-Ramesse. Much of the labor
for the building of this city was provided by He
brew slaves in Egypt.
C. 1235 B.C.
Probable date for the Exodus, the departure of
the Hebrew people from Egypt. Led by Moses,
the Israelites fled from the slavery that had been
Anci ent World 7
AND
Abraham was told by God that his descendants
would be strangers in a land that was not their own
and that they would be enslaved and oppressed for
400 years. In biblical times, Joseph was beaten by
his brothers, thrown in a pit, and sold to the Ish
maelites, who took him to Egypt. Joseph was
bought from the Ishmaelitcs by Potipher, an officer
of the pharaoh and captain of the guard. In Egypt,
Joseph interpreted the dreams of the pharaoh's
chief of butlers, chief of bakers, and captain of the
guard and requested that they tell the pharaoh
about him and that he be freed from the dungeon,
but they forgot about him. Joseph had correctly in
terpreted one dream to mean that the pharaoh
would hang the chief baker.
Two years later, the pharaoh had a dream that
none of his wise men couldolve. The chief butler
told the pharaoh that he, the captain of the guard,
and the chief baker had had dreams and that Joseph,
a Hebrew servant belonging to the captain of the
guard, had correctly interpreted each man's dream.
The pharaoh requested that Joseph be quickly
brought to him. He told Joseph that he had dreamed
about seven bad and starved cows eating seven fat
healthy cows and seven meager ears of corn eating
seven fat ears of corn. Joseph interpreted the dream
as meaning that God was telling the pharaoh that
Egypt would have seven good years of plenty and
then seven bad years of famine. Joseph went
throughout Egypt for seven years and collected all
the food of the land. Then, there was famine in all
the lands, but in Egypt there was bread. The people
of Egypt cried to the pharaoh for food, and he sent
them to Joseph, who opened all the storehouses and
sold the Egyptians food. Because of the famine in
Canaan, all the people went to Egypt to buy corn
from Joseph, and Jacob told his sons to go to Egypt
to buy corn. Joseph became governor, and the chil
dren of Israel came to buy food.
Jacob himself went to Egypt when the famine in
anaan was very severe. Jacob's son Joseph re
quested permission for Joseph and his brethren to
settle in Goshen, and the pharaoh willingly gave
Joseph and his brethren the right to settle in Rame
ses, the best of the land. Later, when there was
famine in Egypt, Joseph gave the Egyptians bread in
exchange for their animals. The Jews dwelled in
Goshen, were fruitful, and multiplied. Jacob lived in
Egypt for 17 years and told his son Joseph to take
his body back to Machpelah in Hebron after his
death. Joseph and his brothers had numerous de
cendants, who continued to prosper in Egypt.
A new pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, was
very cruel to the Jews. He envied their strength and
numbers and decided that the Jews need to be dealt
with wisely to prevent them from multiplying and
joining Egypt's enemies. So, he set upon the Jews
taskmasters who afflicted them with burdens. But
the more the Jews were afflicted, the more they mul
tiplied and spread abroad. The Jews were forced to
work with rigor, their lives were" bitter in hard ser
vice, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of
service in the field; in all their service" (Exod. 1:14).
The king of Egypt commanded two Jewish mid
wives, Shiphrab and Puah, to kill all the Jewish sons
and allow the daughters to live. Fearing God, they
disobeyed orders and saved the male children. Then
the pharaoh decreed to all of his people that every
son born should be cast into the river and daughters
should be saved. Moses and Aaron went to the
pharaoh and told him that the God of Israel said he
should "let my people go." The pharaoh responded
that he did not recognize the Lord and refused to let
the children of Israel go. Accusing Moses and
Aaron of trying to cause the Jews to break loose
from their work, the pharaoh instructed the
taskmasters to make the Jews get and gather their
own straw to make bricks, and they made the Jews
wander throughout Egypt to get the needed straw.
God then told Moses that he had established a
covenant with the Jews to give them the land of
Canaan and that he heard the groaning of the chil
dren of Israel in their bondage at the hand of the
Egyptians. God reaffirmed his covenant and in
structed Moses to tell the children of Israel, "I am
the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you
from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an
outstretched arm, and with great judgments; and I
will take you to me for a people, and I will be to
you a God; and ye shall know that I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you
unto the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to
Isaac, and to Jacob" (Exod. 6:6-8).
God commanded Moses and Aaron to request
that the pharaoh let the children of Israel go out of
the land of Egypt. Aaron took his rod before the
pharaoh, and it turned into a serpent. The pharaoh
called his wise men and sorcerers to cast down
their rods, and they became serpents. However,
Aaron's rod swallowed their rods. The pharaoh's
heart turned hard, and God commanded Aaron to
lift the rod above the waters in the sight of the
pharaoh, and when he did, the waters turned to
blood. When the pharaoh refused to let the Jews go
8 Ancient World
free, God smote the rivers and homes with frogs.
Each time the pharaoh hardened his heart, Aaron
was commanded by God to use his rod to issue an
other plague against the Egyptians. N ext came
gnats, then swarms of flies. Then God killed the
cattle, horses, camels, herds, and flocks of the
Egyptian. The next plague was boi ls; t ben hail and
thunder. The Egyptians were then plagued by lo
custs, darkness, and the death of the fi rstborn
human males and cattle. The children of Israel
were ordered by God not to eat leavened bread for
seven days and to kill the Passover lamb and put its
blood on doorposts 0 that w hen God passed he
would not smite the Jews. The pharaoh ordered the
Jews to take their flocks and herds and leave Egypt.
The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses
to Succoth east of the Ni le Delta. There were some
600,000 adults on foot. God took the children of Is
rael out of Egypt and led t hem through the Sinai
Desert al1d wilderness for 40 years until they
reached the land of Israel. When the pharaoh
learned that the children of Israel had fled, he sent
600 chariots to chase the Israelites. The children of
Israel cried out to God for protection, and God in
structed Moses to lift up his rod and stretch it over
the sea. \X
1
hen the waters divided, the children of Is
rael went into the midst of the sea on dry ground,
and when the Egyptians pursued the Jews into the
sea, God set up a pillar of fire and cloud to separate
the Jews from the Egyptians. God then instructed
Moses to stretch his hand out over the sea, and the
waters came back upon the Egyptians and their
chariots, destroying all of them. " But the children
of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the
sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their
right hand, and on their left" (Exod. 14:29).
The Jews were slaves in Egypt for 430 years. Ac
cording to biblical law, a Hebrew could not become
a slave un1less the court deemed so or one voluntar
ily volunteered to enter bondage-which was
prevalent in cases of debt. In general, slaves for t he
Israelites were to be acquired from outside the He
brew nation. Jewish paupers were forbi dden to vol
unteer for bondage, but some did so anyway. Pri s
oners of war could be taken into bondage, but it has
been thought that no prisoners of war were taken
into prrvate slavery. A Jewish father could sell his
daughter into slavery-usually for household obli
gations and marriage. Hebrew slaves only had to
serve for six years and had to be freed in the seventh
year. Alien slaves were to serve the Israelites for
eternity and coul d be passed down to children as
part of their inheritance. The same applied to pris
oners of war. Paupers and debtors had to be freed
after the first J ubilee year (in the seventh year). Fe
male slaves sold by their fathers into bondage were
to go free if their master's sons did not want to
marry them, and slaves were to be released if their
masters caused them grave physical damage, like
gouging their eyes or knocking out teeth.
The slaves of Israelites were to be part of the
master's home and enjoy and observe the Sabbath
and holidays; they had to be circumcised and take
part in the Passover sacrifices after circumcision;
and they were able to receive inheritance from their
masters. Slaves could acquire property and even buy
their freedom if they acquired enough assets. Kil ling
a slave was punishable in rhe same way that kil ling
a freeman was. Masters were obligated to not mis
treat sllaves, injure them, or obl igate them to work
beyond their physical strength. A fugitive slave was
to be given refuge and not returned to his master.
In the Bib,le a slave was caJled an eved from the
Hebrew verb laavod, meaning "to work." Under
Talmudic law, a Hebrew slave, eued iuri, was a thief
who was unable to pay restitution and was sold or
sold himself into bondage. A Hebrew slave could not
be resold. It is forbidden by Talmudic law for a He
brew woman to seUherself into slavery. Female He
brew slaves could only be under 12 an d sold by her
father into bondage when he had no other means of
subsistence remaining, and he was obligated to buy
her back as soon as he could obtain the necessary
means. According to the Tal mud, non-Hebrew slaves
could be bought by paying money, the deli very of a
deed of sale, or after three years of undisturbed pos
session. These slaves were to be later bartered or ex
changed or taken possession of physically.
A slave could be released if he bought his ransom
or if a court compell ed tbe master to deliver a deed.
The slave could also be released if the master caused
him grave physical harm and permanent disfigure
ment. A slave would have also been released if his
master bequeathed him all of his property. Marriage
to a freewoman in t he presence of the master would
also guarantee a slave freedom. Additionally, mar
ri age to the master's daughter was a means to free
dom. Slaves could not be sold to nOll-Jews. In such
a case the court could order the seller to repay the
buyer at a price that could be as much as 10 times
the initia,1price. The slave would a'lso go free in such
a case. Any slave, except a pauper who had sold
himself into bondage, could be married by his mas
ter to a non-Jewish female slave.
- Yitzchak Kerem
For Further Reading
Leibovitch, Nehama. 1967. Studies in GenesIs.
Jerusalem: World Zionist Organizati on, Department
for Torah Education and CuitLl[e in the Diaspora.
Ancient World 9
imposed upon them for four centuries. During
the reign of Pharaoh Rameses II (the Great), ac
cording to the Old Testament, Moses brought
his people out of captivity in Egypt after he had
killed an Egyptian for oppressing a Hebrew
slave (Exod. 2:12).
c. 1200 B.C.
Probable date of the Trojan War, which was
memorialized in Homer's epic, the Iliad (proba
bly composed in the eighth century B.C.), but ac
counts of it are highly fictionalized with mytho
logical references. In the thirteenth century B.C.,
there was economic rivalry in the Aegean world
between the Achaean Greeks and the residents of
Troy, a city in Asia Minor. Homer's work sug
gests that Greeks of the archaic period believed
that conquest in battle entitled the victors to the
spoils of war, including the right to take war cap
tives and make- slaves of them. In effect, the pre
vailing attitude in the Iliad is that the right to
take slaves was a privilege granted by the gods.
Other references to slavery appear in Homer's
Odyssey, which contains insight about Greek at
titudes toward the proper behavior of slaves.
Slaves in the Odyssey are depicted as being faith
ful to their masters' interests; those who did not
live up to that standard were tortured or killed.
c. 1195 B.C.
Probable date of the death of Moses and the en
trance of the Israelites into the region of Pales
tine under the leadership of Joshua.
c. 1120-950 B.C.
According to Greek tradition, an invasion by the
Dorian peoples (Hylleis, Dymanes, and Pam
phyloi tribes), who used iron weapons, took
place about 80 years after the Trojan War (c.
1200 B..). The Dorians attacked central Greece
and the Peloponnesus both by land and by sea
and ushered in "the dark age" of Greek history
(1120-800 B.C.). The iron weapons of the Dori
ans enabled them to overcome the bronze
weapons of the Mycenaeans and Achaeans, who
had previously occupied Greece. As the victors,
the Dorians acquired land and slaves.
c. 1000 B.C.
Among the Hebrew people, the custom of rule
by various judges (chiefs) changed as the Twelve
Tribes ofIsrael decided to form a kingdom. Saul
was selected as the first king of the Hebrews.
10 Ancient World
c. 970 B.C.
King Solomon of the Hebrews began to con
struct the temple at Jerusalem and other royal
palaces. In order to obtain the labor needed for
these projects, Solomon raised a levy of laborers
and also reduced the Canaanites to serfdom.
Most slaves of the Hebrews were captives of
war, but occasionally the Hebrews purchased
slaves from Phoenician slave traders.
c. 945 B.C.
Probable date of the encounter between
Solomon and the queen of Sheba (the latter lo
cated in the southern part of the Arabian penin
sula). Solomon maintained a vast harem of for
eign women, many of whom were traded as
slaves.
c. 925-914 B.C.
The Israelites divided into two kingdoms. The
10 northern tribes became known as Israel and
maintained a capital at Samaria. The 2 southern
tribes became known as Judah and maintained
a capital at Jerusalem.
c. 900 B.C.
In the Odyssey, Homer describes the household
of Odysseus and claims that he held 50 female
slaves at his palace and also had 30 herdsmen in
bondage. When the island of Lesbos was cap
tured, Homer records that Odysseus took 7
women from the island as slaves. References
such as these would indicate that slavery was
accepted as a regular part of life in Greece dur
ing the archaic period.
c. 884-859 B.C.
Reign of Ashurnasirpal II, king of Assyria. As
syrian records describe one of the military ex
peditions that King Ashurnasirpal II conducted
against his enemies. Besides capturing vast
amounts of copper, iron, silver, gold, grain,
wool, and linen, Ashurnasirpal was also able
to seize 15,000 captives and used them as
slaves.
c. 827-800 B.C.
The Chinese began to drive the nomadic Huns
out of China toward the west. This event set in
motion a chain reaction of migrations as other
groups started to move westward through the
interior of the Eurasian landmass.
OF WAR AS SLAVE
Prisoners of war (POWs) were the earliest known
slaves. Evidence indicates that the Sumerians en
slaved enemy soldiers captured in battIe in the third
millennium B.C., and Mesopotamian rulers also
placed captured POWs under their authority. The
state used these men to work in various tasks in
cluding the construction of fortifications, irrigation
systems, roads, and temples. The use of prisoners
as slave labor developed throughout the Fertile
Crescent, including the Babylonian, Egyptian, and
Assyrian empires.
The practice of enslaving POWs also served as
the basis for the development of sla very in the city
states of ancient Greece-though Greek soldiers
frequently failed to give mercy to a defeated enemy
on the battlefield. Likewise, a Roman triumph re
quired that 5,000 enemy soldiers be killed in battle,
which dampened the zeal of the generals for too
many prisoners. Nevertheless, the enslavement of
POWs spurred the growth of slavery in Rome.
Throughout antiquity, enslaved POWs worked
in a variety of fields as administrators, agricultural
laborers, domestics, miners, and swineherds
among others. Not all prisoners were enslaved,
however. The families of politically important or
wealthy prisoners frequently paid a ransom to re
trieve their captive relatives, and this practice con
tinued in Europe even as slavery declined there
over the centuries following the collapse of Roman
authority.
As late as the nineteenth century, European and
American governments ransomed prisoners seized
by Islamic pirates. The rulers of the states lining the
coast of northern Africa-Algiers, Tripoli, and
Tunis-commissioned corsairs to ply the Mediter
ranean and the Atlantic for ships in order to seize
their cargoes and enslave their crews.
Islam sanctioned the enslavement of non-.Mus
lims though it exempted other monotheists, partic
ularly Christians anel Jews, from slavery except for
POWs. Over time, Muslim slavers increasingly ex-
c. 765 B.C.
In the region of Judah, the prophets Amos and
Hosea began to speak out against the social ills
of their community. They became public spokes
men for the poor and downtrodden as they de
nounced the social injustices of the kingdom. In
their preaching against the evil of their time, the
two prophets began to describe the god Jehovah
as a god of righteousness for all people.
tended the practice to include all non-Islamic cap
tives-not just POWs but noncombatants as well
as being suitable for slavery. Muslim rulers ac
quired slaves from all the lands they conquered,
including central Asia, North Africa, and Eastern
Europe. In addition to using slaves in traditional
occupations, Muslim rulers frequently used their
bondsmen as soldiers, which allowed some POWs
to continue to practice their profession.
Islamic traders also penetrated the sub-Saharan
s,lave trade. \'\fest African domains, including those
of the Ashanti and the Dahomeans, traditionally
acquired slaves through raiding and warring
against their neighbors. Frequently, however, male
prisoners were executed instead of enslaved.
During the American Civil War, free blacks and
former slaves who served in the Union army faced
potential execution and enslavement if captured by
Confederate forces. The rebels compelled many
black POWs to work as laborers for the army and
the use of POWs as slave laborers continued into
the twentieth century. The Nazis required many So
viet POWs to labor involuntarily during the World
War II in industries supporting the German mili
tary. Now, international agreements reacheu dur
ing the twentieth century prohibit signatories from
forcing POWs to work Jl1 military industries or
without compensation.
-Dan R. Frost
For Further Reading
Hopkins, Keith. 1978. Conquerors and Slaves:
Sociological Studies in Roman History. Vol. 1.
Cambridge: ambridge University Press;
Mendelsohn, Isaac. 1949. Slavery in the Ancient
Near East. New York: Oxford University Press;
Smith, Rohert S. 1989. Warfare and Diplomacy in
Pre-colonial West Africa. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press; Westwood, Howard C. 1992.
Black Troops, White Commanders, and Freedmen
during the Ciuil War. Carbondale: Southern !I[inois
University Press.
c. 753 B.C.
The city of Rome was founded along the banks
of the Tiber River on the Italian peninsula.
C. 735-715 B.c.
In the First Messenian War on the Greek Pelo
ponnesus, the Spartans defeated the Laconians
and then conducted a 20-year campaign to sub
jugate the Messenians and make them Helots
Ancient World 11
(serfs). The Spartans were descendants of the
Dorians, who had invaded the Peloponnesus (c.
1120-950 B.C.) and settled in the Lacedaemon
Valley in the eastern part of the peninsula. The
Laconians and the Messenians occupied the rich
agricultural Stenyclarus plain in the western
part of the peninsula, which the Spartans de
sired. Led by the legendary King Theopompus,
the Spartans were able to subjugate the indige
nous inhabitants of the region and force them to
surrender one-half of their annual produce to
Sparta. Thus, as Helots, the Messenians became
virtually enslaved to the Spartans.
721 B.C.
Assyrian forces under King Sargon II captured
the region of Samaria and made Israel a vassal
state. The Assyrians took 27,000 Israelites into
eastern Syria-these were the legendary 10 lost
tribes of Israel.
705 B.C.
In Greece, the author Hesiod wrote Works and
Days. This work was a treatise on agriculture
and proper farming techniques, but it also por
trayed the social classes of the Greek countryside.
Hesiod, himself a farmer, revealed that slaves
constituted an important part of the labor force
on large reek farms. Hesiod did not describe the
slave as a commodity, and he depicted the life of
the slave as being not unlike that of a freeman
one filled with hard agricultural labor. The slaves
that Hesiod described were generally foreigners
who were captives of war or the children of such
foreigners who were held in bondage.
689 B. c.
The forces of the Assyrian king Sennacherib
launched a military campaign to punish the res
idents of Babylon who had rebelled against As
syrian rule. The city was besieged by the Assyr
ians for nine months until it was destroyed. The
Assyrians diverted the Arakhatu Canal so that
its waters flowed over the ruins of the city and
completely obliterated them.
c. 670 B.C.
Greece faced an internal conflict caused by com
mercial rivalries during the Lelantine War. The
city-state of Chalcis (Khalkis), assisted by
Corinth, Samos, and the Thessali an League,
fought against the city-state of Eretria, which
was assisted by Aegina, Miletus, and Megara.
12 Ancient World
The two sides engaged in land battles on the
Lelantine Plain, which was located in the region
of Boeotia, and Chalcis eventually emerged vic
torious from the conilict.
c. 669-630 B.C.
One Assyrian inscription that dates to the reign
of King Ashurbanipal includes a contract for the
sale of a slave on Cyprus. Another inscription
from the same era includes a judicial ruling
from a suit involving slave trading on Cyprus.
c. 650-630 B.C.
Having been subjugated as Helots by the Spar
tans for more than 70 years, the Messenians re
volted on the Greek Peloponnesus. During this
Second Messenian War, the Messenians, under
the leadership of the semillegendary Aris
tomenes, waged a 20-year-Iong insurrection
against the Spartans. In order to overcome this
massive revolt of the Helots, the Spartans
tmned to the legendary ruler Lycurgus, who
turned Sparta into a military state. Although the
Spartans were able to suppress the insurrection
and restore the Messenians to their status as
Helots, the Spartans had learned that a milita
rized society was needed if they were to main
tain a slave society among the Messenians.
c. 600 B.C.
Gladiator fights became popular among the an
cient Etruscans on the Italian peninsula. The
gladiators, who were generally slaves, fought
one another to the death before an audience as
part of a public spectacle.
597 B.C.
Under the leadership of King Nebuchadrezzar
II, the New Babylonians (Chaldeans) exacted re
venge upon a king of Judah who had refused to
pay tribute to the Babylonians. Nebuchadrezzar
invaded Judah and installed Zedekiah as a pup
pet ruler over the Hebrew people. The Babylo
nians also enslaved 3,000 Hebrews and took
them to Mesopotamia as laborers. During the
time of King Nebuchadrezzar II, the average
sale price for a healthy male slave was 40
shekels of silver. The price rose by 50 percent
during the following century.
594-560 B.C.
As the leader of Athens, Solon instituted many
reforms. One of his more notable contributions
A Babylonian warrior guards Hebrew slave musicians as they play the kinnor (harp). (Touer Lihrary, Harvard University)
was the prohibition of enslavement for debt
many Athenian citizens had seen their wives and
children enslav d because they were the collat
eral for family de bts that had not been paid.
Another of Solon's reforms called for a compul
sory reduction in all debts that were owed by
Athenjan citizens. Some scholars maintain that
the class of bondsmen who were imprisoned for
debt at Athens (hektemoroi) were treated in
much the same way as the Spartans treated the
Messeni ans as Helots.
c. 590 B.C.
The Fir t Sacred War was fought in Greece as
dwellers from the region around the shrine of
Apollo at Delphi fought against the Phocian city
of erisa, which had attempted to impose a toll
on all pilgrims who traveled to Delphi. The res
idents of Delphi and Thermopylae formed the
Amphictyonic League and made war upon
Crisa. With naval support offered by Cleis
thenes of Sicyon, the league was able to defeat
Crisa and assume control of the shrine and the
Pythian games, which were held there every
fourth year.
c. 590 B. C.
King Zedekiah decreed that all slaves held by
the Hebrews sh uld be freed. Those H brews
who were slaveholders complied with the re
quest initially but later found ways to enslave
their former slaves once again. The prophet Jer
emiah said that Israel would be punished for its
failure to keep its pledge to free the slaves.
586-538 B.C.
At the directi on of King N buchadrezzar II, the
Babylonian Captivity began after an 18-month
siege of Jerusalem by the New Babylonians
(Chaldeans). After the walls of the city were
breached, Jerusalem was burned and its walls
were demolished. Most of the citizens of
Jerusalem were d ported 800 miles away to
Babylon where they remained as captives until
King Cyrus II (the Great) of Persia conquered
Babylon in 539 B.C. and allowed the Hebrew
people to return to their homeland in 538 B.C.
C. 563 R.C.
Siddhartha Gautama (known as the Buddah)
was born in northern India near modern-day
Nepal. He eventually became one of the leading
Ancient World 13
religious figures of southern Asia and, later,
much of the world.
C. 560 B.C.
Aesop, the famous Greek teller of fables, was a
freed Greek slave who lived in Samos around
this time. Though his stories have been handed
down through the ages, Aesop himself, almost
certainly a legendary figure, never wrote them
down. Some of his fables were later put into
verse by Socrates, and they were written down
many years later. Many of the common phrases
associated with Aesop's fables, such as "United
we stand, divided we fall" and "Better to die
once for all than live in continual terror," per
haps give great insight into the mentality of a
fonner Greek slave.
c. 560 B.C.
Images on a Greek vase dating from this time
depict slave women involved in the entire
process of textile manufacturing-carding, spin
ning, weaving, and stacking the finished cloth.
522-486 B.C.
Reign of King Darius I (the Great) of Persia who
began to enlarge the borders of his empire after
he had consolidated power within Persia. He
extended the empire eastward toward the Indus
Valley, northward toward the Caspian Sea, and
westward into the region of Asia Minor. Ac
cording to Herodotus, Darius subdued lthe
Scythians in eastern Thrace and eventually
moved his army across the Bosporus and en
tered Europe. After withdrawing his army, Da
rius directed the governors (satraps) that he left
behind to continue the subjugation of Thrace
and the Ionian Greek city-states that had been
estabTished along the coast of Asia Minor.
530 B.C.
In India, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddah) with
drev,; from his worldly life and became an ascetic
seeking answers to the great mysteries of life.
c. 530 B.C.
In the region of Mesopotamia, the average sale
price for a healthy male slave was 60 shekels of
silver.
509 B.C.
The Roman Republic was established when the
last of the Tarquin kings was ousted in a coup.
14 . ncient World
C. 500-493 B.C.
Ionian Greek city-states revolted against Persian
rule and attempted to overthrow the tyrants
whom the Persians had assigned as rulers in the
region. Led by the actions of the port city of
Miletus, other Ionian Greek city-states joined
the struggle against Persian authority and de
posed the Persian governor (satrap) who ruled
at Sardis in Lydia. Darius I (the Great) re
sponded to this insurrection by besieging the
port city of Miletus, defeating the Ionians in the
Battle of Lade, and eventually sacking the city
of Miletus. Darius displayed his wrath with the
Ionians by ordering that all the males of Miletus
be killed.
500-448 B.C.
Because Athens aided the Ionian Greek city
states in Asia Minor during their revolt against
Persian authority (c. 500-493 B.C.), King Darius
I (the Great) attacked the Greek mainland. This
war between the Persians and the Greeks was
viewed as a monumental conflict between the
East (barbarism) and the West (civilization), and
sacred
the Greek historian Herodotus believed the con
called
flict to be the greatest historical event of the an
greate
cient world.
ularly
The R!
497 B.C.
ating 1
In China, Confucius began to wander through
fice d
the countryside teaching the people ethics.
of Ro
496 B.C.
490 B
Diplomats from Rome and Carthage agreed to
GreelJ
a treaty whereby the Romans would not send
ships into the Mediterranean Sea west of
Carthage and the Carthaginians promised not
to attempt colonization in any part of Roman
territory. This agreement, and modifications
that followed, helped to avoid open warfare be
tween the two city-states for more than two cen
turies.
494 B.C.
The Greek city-states of Sparta and Argos com
peted for supremacy in the Peloponnesus. The
Spartans were able to defeat the Argive forces in
the Battle of Sepeia.
494 B.C.
In Rome, the Secession of the Plebs was a strike
staged by the Roman plebeians when they
walked out of the city of Rome and retired to a
Detail from the Law Code of Gortyn, inscribed in the city walls of Gortyn, Crete. (Kevin Schaferl Corbis)
sacred mountain outside the city. The strike was
called to force Roman political leaders to grant
greater concessions to the plebeian class, partic
ularly a greater representation in civic matters.
The Roman Senate conceded somewhat by cre
ating the position of tribune, which was an of
fice especially created to represent the concerns
of Roman plebeians.
490 B.C.
Greek historians maintain that Hanno, a
Carthaginian navigator, traveled beyond the
Mediterranean Sea along the western coast of
Africa. According to a Greek version of Hanno's
account of the expedition, Hanno sailed as far
as the Cape Verde Islands and as many as 60
ships and 30,000 sailors were involved in the
expedition. In September, the Greeks defeated
Persian invaders in the Battle of Marathon.
c. 480-460 B. C.
The laws of Gortyn were carved into the walls of
the town on the island of Crete. The laws were
primarily a civil code and reflected the many so
cial classes that existed in Cretan society as well
as the inequality of justice that members of dif
ferent classes received. For example, the fine for
raping a free woman was 50 times more severe
than the fine for raping a slave woman.
480 B.C.
The Persian king Xerxes I (the Great), son of
King Darius I, invaded Europe by crossing the
Hellespont and defeated the Greeks at Ther
mopylae. In the same year, the Greek city-states
defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis. The Per
sian fleet was destroyed the following year off
of Mycale.
478 B.C.
Under the leadership of Athens, several Greek
city-states united to form the Delian League for
defensive purposes.
C. 468 B. C.
The Athenian admiral Cimon, who had earlier
commanded a fleet against the Persians during
the Greco-Persian \XTars, captured 20,000 pris
oners who were sold into slavery in Greece.
C. 464-455 B.C.
The Messenian Helots of the Greek Pelopon
nesus Llsed the occasion of a severe earthquake
in Sparta as an opportunity to rebel and try to
overthrow the Spartan overlords who had con
trolled them for nearly 250 years. In this Third
Messenian War, the Messenian rebels en
trenched themselves into positions on Mt.
Ithome and were able to resist initial Spartan
Ancien[ World 15
attempts to besiege them. Eventually, however,
the Spartans, led hy the semilegendary ruler
King Archidamus, defeated the Messenians
after having appealed for aid to the Athenians
who p rovided 40,000 hoplites (foot soldiers) to
assist the Spartan cause (although the Spartan
leader rejected the troops that were offered by
Athens). Many Messenians were exiledfr m the
Peloponnesus after this conflict.
460-445 B. C.
The Fir st Peloponnesian War was fought be
Cause t he Delian League had gradually made
Athens into a maritime power, which angered
both Sparta and Corinth. After Sparta had re
jected the aid of Athens during the Third
Messenian War (c. 464-455 B.C.), Athens of
fered assistance to the enemies of Sparta. By 455
B.C., the Athenians had received the vassalage of
many of the Helots who had formerly served
Spartan overlords.
451 B.C.
The Roman Senate established a committee of
10 (decemviri) and char ged it with the task of
codifying Roman law. The Twelve Tables were
eventually formul ated and put on display so
that all Romans would know the laws by which
they were governed. Primarily a civil code, the
Twelve Tables reflected the many social classes
that existed in Roman society and t he inequality
of justice that memb rs of different classes re
ceived. For example, the fine for breaking the
bone of a freeman was twice the fine imposed
for injuring a slave.
449 B.C.
Pericles began refortifying Piraeus, the port of
Athens. Athens enjoyed a brisk business in the
manufacturing of potter y, and many slaves were
invol ved in this tas k. It is believed that half of
the population in Athens at this time may have
consisted of slaves.
448-437 B.C.
The Parthenon was constructed in Athens as a
temple to Athena, the patron goddess of the city.
Slave craftsmen assisted the master artisans who
built and embellished the structure. They also
as isted in the completion of the Erechtheion on
the Acropolis as a storage place for sacred reli
gious treasures such as Athena's olive tree and
the trident of Poseidon.
16 Ancient World
445 B.C.
In Rome, the Senate enacted Lex Canuleia (Law
of Canuleius, a Roman tribune), which removed
all prohihitions concerning intermarriage he
tween plebeians and patricians. The reform did
not affect the condition of slaves in Roman so
ciety.
C. 440 B.C.
The Athenian general Nicias reportedly leased
1,000 of his slaves to the owner of a mine at
Laurion in Thrace. The operator of the mine
paid Nicias one obol per slave per day and was
responsible for replacing any slaves who died
while they worked in the mines. The mining
shafts at Laurion were only two feet square, and
the slaves who worked in these tight quarters
wore iron shackles. As one might expect, the
death rate was exceptionally high.
431-404 B.C.
The Second (Great ) Peloponnesian War was
fought between Athens and Sparta for su
premacy in Greece. Athens was primarily a
naval power whereas Sparta had an impressive
army, but th oIlict had the effect of weaken
ing the entire Greek region so that invasion
from outside enemies, particularly the Macedo
nians, became more likely. parta was eventu
ally vict rious in the conflict.
c. 430 B.C.
Until the time of the Second Peloponnesian War,
slaves were generally the captives of war, but
during that conflict, the situation began to
change. The need for slaves in Greece was so
great during the war that the Greeks began to
purchase slaves from harbarian slave traders,
and soon here were brisk slave markets on the
Aegean islands of Chios and Delos. Large num
bers of slaves from non-Greek lands were pur
chased, including many from Phrygia, Colchis,
Malta, Syria, Caria, Paphlagonia, Illyria, and
Scythia. Many different peoples sold their crimi
nals into slavery, and some residents of Thrace
sold their children. Eventually, as the demand for
slaves continued to ,increase, the slave markets in
the Aegean islands were selling slaves from Per
sia, Egypt, and Libya. The estimated population
of Attica (the part of Greece where Athens was
located) totaled 315,500 individuals as the Sec
ond Peloponnesian War began. Of this total,
172,000 were citizens, 28,500 were resident
aliens (metics), and 115,000 were slaves. At the
time, Athens, the birthplace of democracy, was
the largest slaveholding city-state in all of Greece.
427 B.C.
In his History of the Peloponnesian War, tbe
Greek historian Thucydides remarked that in
this year, the slaves in the city-state of Kerkyra
(Corfui sided with the democrats as opposed to
the oligarchs when both sides appealed to the
slaves for support.
423-403 B.C.
The Greek historian Thucydides wrote his His
tory of the Peioponnesian War, in which he
commented that many slaves commonly ran
away to joi n the enemy camp during that con
flict. He maintained that in the final decade of
the war, 20,000 slaves fled Athens and escaped
to the Spartans occupying a position near the
city of D celea in Attica. The Spartans had en
couraged the slaves to run away from their
Athenian masters by promising them freedom,
but more than likely, the Spartans sold these
fugitive slaves back into captivity in Thebes.
415-413 B.C.
Under the leadership of Alcibiades, the Atheni
ans mounted an iU-fated excursion to conquer
the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily dur
ing the Second Peloponnesian War. The city
state of Athens lost 40,000 men and 240 vessels
during this failed invasion, and all Athenians
who were captured were made sla ves.
414 B.C.
Slave trading in ancient Greece took place in the
central market (agora) of each city-state. The
record of one slave auction held at Athens re
veal that a slave child sold for 72 drachmas, a
female slave sold for 170 drachmas, and a male
slave sold for 301 drachmas.
411 B.C.
The G eek playwright Aristophanes used humor
in his plays Lysistrata and Women at the Thes
lI1ophoria to refer to " the Scythian archers"
the police force at Athens that was composed of
slaves. Aristophanes had his characters who
represent the police force appear as ignorant
outsiders who have a poor understanding of
Greek and difficulty communicating effectively
in the language.
409 B.C.
The Carthaginian general Hannibal (d. 406
B.C.) avenged the death of his grandfather
Hamilcar, who had died in battle at Himera on
the coast of Sicily in 480 B.C., by laying siege to
Himera and eventually destroying the city-state.
Hannibal ordered that 3,000 of the region's in
habitants be slain to avenge the death of Hamil
car, and the remai ning captives were sold as
slaves.
c. 408 B.C.
In the play Jon, the Greek playwright Euripides
did not believe that slavery was a part of the
natural order of things, writing, "The name
alone is shameful to the slave-in all things else
an honest man enslaved falls not below the na
ture of the free."
406 B.C.
The Athenians promised both freedom and citi
zenship to slaves and metics (resident aliens
who were non-Athenian Greeks) who fought on
Athenian ships in the Battle of Arginusae. This
special privilege was noted by the playwright
Aristophanes in Frogs.
405-396 B.C.
Roman forces besi ged the Etruscan city of Veii
irregularly for a period of 10 years, but an at
tack upon the Romans by the residents of
Capua and Valerii stymied the Roman efforts.
When the siege was renewed by the Roman dic
tator M arcus Furius Camillus, the city of Veii
was destroyed, and its citizens were sold into
slavery.
405 B.C.
The tyrant Dionysius I (the Elder) came to
power at Syracuse on the island of Sicily and
soon dominated much of western Greece. In a
series of wars against Carthage, he would con
quer a city and then demand ransom for its in
habitants. If the ransom were not paid, Diony
sius would sell the entire captive population
into slavery and thereby have his enemies fi
nance his military campaigns. It was Dionysius
who introduced large-scale enslavement prac
tices into t he western Mediterranean region.
401-400 B.C.
A group of 10,000 Gre k mercenaries who were
fighting in Persia retreated 1,000 miles while
Ancient World 17
WOMEN AS
The societies and economies of the classical wodd
were built upon the institution of slavery, and fe
male slaves suffered an additional burden because
of their sex. As Cato the Elder summarized it,
"Our fathers have willed that women should be in
the power of their fathers, of their brothers, of
their husbands" (Pomeroy, 1975) . In many ways,
classical women of all classes shared some of the
disabilities of slavery, and female slaves thus found
themselves at the very nadir of society. Generally
relegated to domestic duties, the female slave was
usually overseen by the household's mistress but
subjected to the sexual whims of the master and
those to whom he offered hospitality. female slla ves
are rarely mentioned in Greek and Roman sources,
and many aspects of their lives remain hidden to
us. The Homeric canon presents Bronze Age female
slaves as war captives, prizes whose duties centered
on serving the noble class. Chores connected to the
processing of wool and grain, carrying water, and
caring for guests dominate, though some women
were important concubines. Later, military con
quests by Greek city-states entailed the enslaving of
entire populations (e.g., the Messenians by Sparta),
whi ch then became the self-reproducing property
of the city-state rather than of individuals. In such
cases, women lived and served within the exi sting
social structure rather than within an owner's
household.
Most slaves in classical Greece were non-Hel
lenic, acquired as chattel through piracy, war, and
external trade or through breeding and internal
trade. Exposed infant girls of unknown or slave
status were also likely to become slaves. A wealthy
household might own from 10 to 20 domestic
sllaves, mostl y female, in addition to many more
male farmhands or industrial workers. Females
were housed separately from males, and astute
masters attempted to control their sexualit y.
Xenophon wrote that "slaves should not breed
without our approval" but that "good slaves are
generally more Iloyal if they have children." He
went on to warn, however, that "if bad ones co
habit together, they are more resourceful at devis
ing mi schief" (Pomeroy, 1975).
Women raised as slaves from childhood learned
domestic skills including working with wool-the
most common attribute mentioned in surviving
manumission documents-and light agri cultural
work. Women who served food were sometimes re
quired to wear a throat-choke (pausikape, "gulp
preventcr") to keep them from eating the master's
delicacies. Masters had full sexual access to their
slaves and could share them with whomever they
pleased. Lactating women were often used or
rented out as wet-nurses. Brothel whores and
streetwalkers were generally slaves and were promi
nent in port cities like Corinth. Higher-class slave
prostitutes (hetairai) were often skilled musicians
and dancers and sometimes highly cultured courte
sans, such as the famous Aspasia, companion of the
Athenian leader Pericles. In the later Hellenistic
courts, such sophisticated and ambitious women
played important cultural and political rol es.
We learn of Roman female slaves from sepulchral
inscriptions, wills, and legal and literary works. The
sources of Roman female slaves and the outlines of
their domestic duties were similar to those of the
Greek slaves. Major differences included the scalle of
the Roman households, which commanded hun
dreds rather than dozens of slaves, and the resulting
specialization of labor. The Ilegal code's Digest
(33.7) specificalll y mentioned slave women who
made the household's clothes, baked bread, and pre
pared relishes; maidservants and kitchen maids; the
overseer's wife; and the villa's custodian. A list of
the female servants of Emperor Augustus's wife
Livia added midwife and wet-nurse, personal atten
dant, dresser, clothes mender, and masseuse; other
sources indicate women slaves served as cooks,
laundresses, singers, barbers, tailors, and children's
nurses. The moralist and histOrian Tacitus lamented
the fact that "in our clay we entrust the infant to a
little Greek slave-girl who is attended by one or two
others, commonly the worst of all slaves, creatures
utterly unfit for any important work" (Dial.
28-29). Romans were of two minds regarding the
Greekness of such a slave nurse, since they thought
that her culture (and status) undermined a male
child's Roman virtus ("superiority in human
achievement") while simultaneously introducing
him to the superior Greek culture.
Marriage between sllaves (contubernium, liter
ally, "sharing a tent") was not uncommon, but it
was legally invalid. Children (vernae) shared the
mother's status and might have been exposed or
nursed and raised outside the household (perhaps to
avoid parental distraction and bonding). Some
sources suggest that breeding was encouraged, per
haps especially after the closing of Roman expan
sion in the third century. Regarding his own slaves,
Columella (first century A.D.) wrote that "for a
mother of three sons exemption from work was
granted; to a mother of more, her freedom as well"
(Pomeroy, 1975). Instability within slave " fami
lies," however, resulted from the fact that a slave
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18 Ancient World
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woman was most likely to be sold during her fertile
years (a virgin commanded the highest price), and a
, male slave was more likely to be sold during his
most vigorous years. A male slave could purchase a
female slave (vicaria) to serve as a personal atten
dant, but ultimately, the woman (and any offspring)
belonged to his master. In any case, children born to
a slave woman were the property of her master.
Sexual relations between a master (or his sons,
male relatives, and friends) and slave women were
accepted and did not carry the stigma of adultery.
As in the Greek world, th,is practice may have alle
viated some of a wife's burden of perennial child
bearing, but there is evidence that in smaller house
holds, there was tension between the wife and
female slaves. Additional problems could spring
from emale slaves' interest in nontraditional, East
ern religions such as the cult of Isis and Christian
ity. The latter's appeal to the lowly and its messages
of human equality and freedom of the spirit were
thought to threaten the hold of master over slave,
though its indifference to human bondage ensured
no real social impact.
Manumission was legally possib1le after age 30,
with exceptions for slave women who validly mar
ried, bought their own freedom, or were freed by
provisions in a testament. After manumission, the
unmarried woman remained under the tutelage of
a master as a servant or concubine, as the concu
bine of a young man between the onset of pu berty
and marriage, or as the concubine of an older man
with children. Since Roman males, especially freed
men, sought socially advantageous marriages, the
freedwoman was very unlikely to marry above her
station.
-Joseph P. Byrne
For FUl"ther Reading
Bradley, Keith. 1994. Slavery alld Society at Rome.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Joshel,
Sandra. 1986. "N urturing the Master's Chitd:
Slavery and the Roman Child-nurse." Signs 12:
3-22; Pomeroy, Sarah. 1975. Goddesses, Whores,
Willes, alld Slaves. New York: Schocken Books;
Rawson, Beryl. 1986. The family in Ancient Rome:
New Perspectives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
being pursued by Persian troops. Xenophon, a
general and a future historian, recorded the ad
venture, known as the March of the 10,000, in
Anabasis. Only 6,000 of the mercenaries sur
vived the march.
c. 400 B.C.
The earliest books of the Hebrew Bible, the
Pentateuch, had been written by this time.
These early books present a historical overview
of the Hebrew people and their relationship
with Yahweh (God). Included are references to
slavery and the process of manumission that
was established by Hebraic law. According to
custom, slaves were to be freed after 7 years of
service, and every 50 years, in the year of the
Jubilee, all slaves were to be set free. [See Doc
ument 2.1
399 B.C.
The teacher and philosopher Socrates was con
demned to death in Athens for "corrupting the
youth" of the city.
c. 387-347 B.C.
As part of his writings during this period, the
Greek philosopher Plato tried to create a
model of the ideal state in his work The Re
public, and slavery would have been a part of
Ancient World 19
this perfect state. Plato saw nothing wrong
with the enslavement of foreigners and be
lieved that slavery should be confined to bar
barians; he did not believe that freed slaves
should be allowed to become citizens of the
ideal state.
370 B.C.
The Thebans were able to defeat the Spartans in
the Battle of Leuctra during the Theban-Spartan
War (379-370 B.C.). As a result of this victory,
the Spartans were no longer able to maintain
hegemony over the Messenians, whom they had
held in virtual slavery as Helots for centuries.
Upon the emancipation of the Helots from
Spartan subjugation, the rest of the Greek world
recognized the Messenians as free people. This
case represents the ease with which the transi
tion from slavery to freedom was possible in the
ancient world.
c. 366 B.C.
The Greek author Isocrates wrote the rhetorical
exercise called Archidamus as a speech that the
Spartan leader Archidamus III should have
given when the Thebans demanded the emanci
pation of the Messenians. The "speech" pre
sented a clear expression of the Spartan right to
enslave the Messenians as Helots.
c. 361 B.C.
In his Messenian Oration, the Greek sophist
philosopher Alcidamas taught his students that
"God created us all free; nature makes no
slaves." This oration may well have been Alci
damas's effort to counter the arguments made
by Isocrates in Archidamas.
c. 360 B.C.
Like most Greeks of his time, the historian
Xenophon was a slaveowner. In Oeonomicus
(Economics), he shared his thoughts on selecting
the most trustworthy housekeeper, saying that
he always sought "the woman who seems least
inclined to gluttony, drink, sleep, and running
after men; she must also have an excellent mem
ory, and she must be capable of either foreseeing
the punishment which neglect will cost her or
thinking of ways of pleasing her masters and de
serving their fa vor. "
347 B.C.
The Greek philosopher Plato died and left five
domestic slaves in his will.
C. 338 B.C.
The Greek author Isocrates noted in Trapeziti
cus (For the banker) that a former reek slave
named Pasion had been a banker in Greece and
that he had been given Athenian citizenship. Pa
sion had been purchased by two bankers, and
they made the slave a partner in the Antisthenes
and Archestratus Banking and Loan Company,
which was located in Piraeus, the port city near
Athens.
335 B. C.
The philosopher Aristotle was in Athens teach
ing at the Lyceum and writing his treatises on
philosophy, science, and logic. In his Politics,
Aristotle argued, "From the hour of their birth
some are marked out for subjection, others for
rule."
335 B.C.
In September, the city of Thebes was destroyed
during the conquest of Greece by the Macedon
ian general Alexander the Great. Alexander's
forces killed 6,000 of the city's inhabitants,
and another 8,000 were captured and sold into
slavery.
20 AnCi ent World
333-332 B.C.
The forces of Alexander the Great besieged the
city of Tyre, which was located on an island off
the coast of Phoenicia. Alexander's forces con
structed a causeway and built siege towers to ef
fect the surrender of Tyre, but the siege still
lasted nine months. All Tyrians who were cap
tured during this conflict were sold into slavery.
333 B.C.
Alexander the Great fought against the Persian
forces of King Darius III at the Battle of Issus in
Asia Minor. Although his forces were outnum
bered, Alexander was able to defeat the Persian
force, losing only several hundred men while the
Persians reportedly suffered 110,000 casualties.
Many of the captives who were taken in the bat
tle were later sold as slaves.
326 B.C.
The Roman Senate enacted Lex Poetelia Papiria
(Law of Gaius Poetelius Libo Visolus and Lu
cius Papirius Cursor, the two consuls) to pro
hibit debt-bondage and imprisonment for debt
within the Roman Republic. This reform
marked a tremendous victory for the plebeians,
and it was described by the historian Livy in his
history of Rome (Annals of the Roman People)
as "a new beginning of freedom." Although
creditors could still require debtors to work for
them in order to payoff their debts (addictio),
such labor was not to be a permanent condition
of servitude. Anyone who desired to keep some
one in permanent servitude had to purchase a
foreign slave.
324 B.C.
The world's first known system of insurance
was esta blished on the island of Rhodes. The
purpose of the insurance was to protect one's in
vestment in the event that slaves escaped.
323 B.C.
Alexander the Great died. In the years follow
ing his death, wars of succession were fought
throughout Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Egypt, and during these conflicts, many Hel
lenic captives were taken and sold into slavery.
In the Roman world, these well-educated,
Greek-speaking slaves were highly prized, and
many of them became tutors and government
administrators.
MESSENlAN
The rhetorician and sophist Alcidamas, born in
Elaea in Aeolis (in modern-day Greece), taught in
Athens in the fourth century B. C A few of his writ
ings have come down to us, but one that is lost
surviving only in quotations in Aristotle's Rhetoric
and in anonymous commentaries on Aristotle-the
Messenian Oration, is reported to have included
statements that the divinity made everyone free and
that nature made no one a slave: in other words,
everyone is born free, and slavery is an artificial
human invention. Earlier Greek thinkers had es
tablished a distinction between the natural and the
artificial; according to some modern scholars, Alci
damas was referring to this distinction and was
making a universally valid statement, despite the
historical context of the oration.
More recently, such scholars as Keith Bradley
and Giuseppe Cambiano have taken the viewpoint
that the use of the terms "everyone" and "no one"
in the quotation from Alcidamas, which itself is in
complete and mayor may not have been cited out
of context by Aristotle and the anonymous com
mentators, must be viewed more narrowly and
contextually. The slaves referred to by Alcidamas,
according to this viewpoint, were Helots, a group
of Greeks who had been conquered and enslaved
by the Spartans at a much earlier date. Some of
these Helots were Messenians who had been liber
ated after the Thehans defeated the Spartans in 370
B.C. The oration was written after this victory when
Alcidamas was living at the time in Athens, a tra
ditional enemy of Sparta. The Athenians saw
Sparta's defeat as revenge for the Spartan defeat of
Athens in the Second (Great ) Peloponnesian War,
which had ended in 404 B.c.-within living mem
ory when the oration was written.
Alcidamas may have been replying to his profes
sional rival, the orator Isocrates (436-338 B.C. ),
who had written a work, Archidamas, a few years
earlier tha t had defended the legitimacy of the en
slavement of the Helots and asserted the conse
quent illegitimacy of their liberation and subse
quent treatment as equals who were allowed to
own land by other Greeks. The validity of this par
ticullar enslavement was, as Plato said in the Laws,
a frequently debated topic in Athens in this period.
Thus, Alcidamas was not attacking the legitimacy
of slavery in general. On the other hand, in the Pol
itics Aristotle mentioned unnamed thinkers who
opposed slavery in general as unnatural, a state
ment that appears in a number of Greek authors of
the fourth and third centuries B. C.
Alcidamas was an orator, not a philosopher, but
given the extremely fragmentary nature of his ex
tant writings, it is impossible to determine how
much philosophical material appears in his works.
-Stephen A. Statz
For Further Reading
Bradley, Keith. 1994. Slal'ery and Society at Rome.
Cambridge: Ca mbridge University Press; Cambiano,
Giuseppi. 1987. " Aristotle and the Anonymous
Opponents of Slavery." In Classical Slaucry. Ed.
Moses 1. Finley, London: Frank Casso
322 R.C.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle died and left
14 domestic slaves in his will.
312 R.C.
The Roman censor Appius Claudius declared
that freed slaves had the right to hold office in
the Roman Republic.
c. 300 R.C.
The Athenian orator Demosthenes inherited
slaves upon the death of his father. These slaves
were artisans and craftsmen who earned an in
come for Demosthenes-32 of them made
knives and swords, and another 20 were bed
manufacturers. The ancient Greeks called such
slaves "paybringers" because they could be a lu
crative source of income for their owner.
c. 300 B.C.
The Stoic school of philosophy was founded.
Believing in the brotherhood of man, the Stoics
did not support the notion that slavery was a
part of the laws of nature.
c. 290 B.C.
Greek historians note that a slave insurrection
occurred on the island of Chios in the Aegean
Sea.
c. 287 B.C.
The Greek philosopher and naturalist
Theophrastus died and left seven domestic
slaves in his will. Theophrastus had inherited
Aristotle's librar y and had continued his teach
ing at the Lyceum in Athens.
Ancient World 21
IN THE
The Mediterranean Sea both divides and unites the
continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Its roughly
970,000 square miles of generally navigable sur
face is punctuated by the major islands of Sicily,
Crete, Cyprus, Majorca, Corsica, Sardinia, and
Rhodes. The Nile, Rhone, and Po Rivers allow
deep penetration into their respective continents,
and access through the Dardanelles opens the
Black Sea and its great hinterland to trade and
travel. Most important, perhaps, direct access to
the Atlantic has provided an enormous stage on
which patterns of slavery nurtured along Mediter
ranean shores would play their part.
Until only recently, slavery was a structural ele
ment of Mediterranean society. Trade in slaves re
quired a supply of unfree people, a demand for
Iabor-usual'ly found in hierarchical, settled agri
cultural or urban communities with a high Iand-to
labor ratio-and a means of acquiring the unfree
labor. When war captives, debtors or their families,
or the offspring of slaves proved insufficient, the
purchase of slaves, often from nomadic or piratical
peoples who did not themselves utilize slaves, aug
mented the supply. When huge numbers were en
slaved simultaneously, as in 167 B.C. when the Ro
mans so reduced some 150,000 inhabitants of
Epirus in a single day, an efficient market proved
invaluable. Race and ethnicity meant little in the
trade, which easily followed the developing sea
lanes and caravan routes that flowed into the
Mediterranean basin from the interiors of all three
continents. Important marketplaces likewise devel
oped, their locations generally determined by the
dominant maritime power of the region.
The slave trade among the ancient Near Eastern
empires seems to have only brushed the Mediter
ranean, and the Hebrew and Egyptian demand for
slaves was consistently fairly low. The Phoenicians,
however, developed along the central North
African littoral (Carthage) agricultural, ranching,
and shipbuiIding operations that were slave labor
intensive. This large-scale application of unfree
labor required an internal market and drew unfor
tunates from well outside the bounds of the empire.
Early Greeks utilized relatively few slaves in their
households and fields, but classical Greek advances
in colonization and trade in manufactured goods
increased the demand for agricultural and indus
trial slaves. Alexander the Great's conquests, the
later wars among his successors, and general eco
nomic prosperity increased both supply and de
mand in the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean.
The traditional Rome of small farmers and sub
ject villages had limited use for slaves, but the
Punic Wars of the third and second centuries B.C.
devastated the Italian population and introduced
Rome to Carthage's system of agricultural slave
gangs. The development of latifundia and further
imperial expansion in the second century B.C. both
increased and fed the Roman hunger for slaves
up to 500,000 new slaves per year. As the Roman
Republic collapsed, pirates and their markets-for
instance, Delos in the Aegean-thrived despite
Roman control of mare nostrum ("our sea") and
supplied the many hungry Roman markets for field
slaves and domestic and industrial slaves, many of
whom were highly skilled or educated. The city of
Rome had one market for common slaves in the
Roman Forum and a second for more sophisticated
slaves in the Saepta Julia. In the Black Sea region,
slave traders obtained human beings in exchange
for grain and salt, and in Gau'!, perhaps 15,000 in
dividuals per year were purchased for coins and
metal objects. Traders sold both to other traders
and to ultimate customers, who themselves might
sell or trade their slaves in the highly regulated
Roman marketplaces.
The slave economy thrived into the early Roman
Empire, but as Roman conquests subsided, the sup
ply of slaves shriveled. Tenantry, sharecropping,
and eventually serfdom replaced large-scale agri
cultural slavery as the empire crumbled. Although
early Christians (and later adherents of Islam)
counseled humane treatment of slaves, neither reli
gion inveighed against either slavery or the slave
trade. In the Byzantine Empire, slaves were im
ported, especially Slavs from the Black Sea re
gion-often t ransported by the Scandinavian
Rus-and a market developed in Constantinople
that flourished until the eleventh century A.D.
In the chaotic early medieval period, pagans,
Jews, Christians, Arians, and Muslims were all tar
gets of slavers from both belligerent or indifferent
faiths as the ensla vement of coreligionists was for
bidden. Trade was usually dominated by the
strongest naval power-in turn, Vandal, Byzantine,
Muslim, and Italian. Unlike in the manorial north,
there was continued slaving activity in the more
highly urbanized seacoasts of the Christian and
Muslim Mediterranean. From the east flowed Rus
sians, Serbs, Bulgars, Caucasians, Tatars and, later,
Turco-Mongols, generally through Constantinople.
Blacks- the males often castrated- filtered north
along the caravan routes from central Africa and
the Sudan to the Islamic entrepots of North Africa
(Tunis, Tripoli, Fez, Algiers) and Iberia. An esti
22 Ancient World
mated 7,500,000 enslaved blacks traveled this
route between 650 and 1900. Unbaptized captive
Gennans and Slavs were forced across the Alpine
passes to Venice or to the southern French coast
where Jewish merchants (radaniya) ferried them to
Spain. Seville boasted a brisk trade in slaves, who
were paraded through the streets and then bought
by tOwnspeople as servants and industrial laborers,
and tenth-century C6rdoba contained about
14,000 slaves. At the same time, Amalfi and Naples
emerged as important centers of the Italian trade.
By the thirteenth century, Italians (Venetians,
Genoese) handled much of the Mediterranean slave
trade, and soon Italian colonies in the eastern basin
(Phocaea, Cyprus, Crete) and Majorca were estab
lishing the patterns of estate or plantation slavery
that would travel to the Canary Islands and later the
Western Hemisphere. Trade in the Black Sea ports of
Kafb (Feodosiya) and Tana, the Spanish Recon
quista (the reconquering of the Iberian Peninsula
from the Muslims, 711-1492), and random raids fu
eled their needs while the Genoese illicitly supplied
the Egyptian slave armies with non-Muslim slaves
from the Black Sea. With the Turkish conquest of the
eastern basin in the fifteenth century, black and
North African sLaves became more important in the
Christian West, the former increasingly supplied by
the Portuguese (after 1444), while piracy and raiding
continued to feed Christians to the Muslim markets
in North Africa. Although Venice's public auctions
ended as early as 1366, domestic slavery in Italy con
tinued into the seventeenth century.
Christian-Muslim rivalry and antagonism had
fueled the supply of slaves, but the demand dimin
ished as the Mediterranean's importance waned.
Christian Mediterranean countries abandoned
slavery piecemeal and without fanfare during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the
Turks ceased international trade, which left only
the western North African areas of "Barbary" as
active pirate dens of slavers, dens successfully sub
dued by American and British naval efforts to pro
tect their shipping and citizens in the early nine
teenth century. Ironically, liberal European
imperialism and Turkish modernization eradicated
the last remnants of the slave trade in the Mediter
ranean basin during the nineteenth and early twen
tieth centuries.
-Joseph P. Byrne
For Further Reading
Boese, Wayne E. 1973 ... A Study of the Slave Trade
and Sources of Slaves in the Roman Republic and
the Early Roman Empire." Ph.D dissertation,
Universiry of Washington; Bradley, Keith R. 1986.
"Social Aspects of the Slave Trade in the Roman
World." Munsterische Beitrage zur antike
Handelsgeschichte 5(1): 49-58; Fisher, Alan W. 1978.
"The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire."
B o g a z i ~ i Universitesi Dergisi 4: 149-171; Heers,
Jacques. 1981. Esc/aves et domestiques au moyen
age dans Ie l110nde mediterramien. Paris: Fayard;
Verlinden, Charles. 1969-1970. "Medieval
'Slavers.'" Explorations in Economic History 7:
1-14.
280 B.C.
Under the leadership of the Seleucids, several
cities in Asia Minor regained prominence as
commercial centers. In Miletus, there was large
scale production of textiles, which involved
mass production on the part of a slave labor
force.
264-241 B. c.
During the First Punic War, Rome fought
against the Phoenician city of Carthage for con
trol of trade, colonization, and navigation in the
Mediterranean. The Romans became concerned
when the North African city of Carthage threat
ened to take Messina on the island of Sicily,
which would have limited Roman navigation of
the Mediterranean. Most of the fighting in this
war took place on the island of Sicily. The Ro
mans defeated Carthage, and the Carthaginians
were forced to pay a huge indemnity to Rome.
The Romans began to acquire large numbers of
slaves as a result of this conflict.
264 B.C.
Gladiator games first became popular in Rome.
Gladiators, who were generally slaves, would
fight one another to the death before an audi
ence as part of a public spectacle. The abun
dance of Punic War captives who were made
into slaves in Rome made such a form of public
entertainment possible. Many Romans who
could not fight the Carthaginians in the war ex
perienced vicarious pleasure by watching their
enemIes murder one another in these public
games.
c. 263 B.C.
The Greek comic playwright Philemon did not
believe that slavery was a part of the natural
order of things. He wrote: "Though one is a
slave, he is a man no less than you, master; he is
made of the same flesh. No one is a slave by na
ture; it is fate that enslaves the body" (Meltzer,
1993).
Ancient World 23
254 B.C.
During the First Punic War (264-241 B.C.), the
Romans sold 13 000 captives into slavery after
capturing the arthaginian naval base located
at Panormus (modern-day Palermo) in Sicily.
Another 13,000 captives were able to escape
certain enslavement by being ransomed.
240 B. C.
The Cre k slave Livius Andronicus, a noted
poet and playwright in Rome, produced his first
tragedy in Rome. Later, he translated Homer's
Odyssey into Latin.
219-218 B.C.
The residents of Saguntum (Sagunto in modern
day Spain) were allies of Rome, which was
enough to stir the wrath of the Carthaginian
general Hannibal (247-183 B.C.). Hannibal laid
siege to the city for more than a year, and after
he had captured it, thousands of the city's in
habitants were sold into slavery.
218-202 B.C.
The Second Punic War again matched the forces
of Rome against the North African city of
Carthage. The Romans had become concerned
about colonies that the Carthaginians had es
tablished in the area of Spain, and Hanni bal
raised a Carthaginian army that was assisted by
troops from Gaul and crossed the Alps to in
vade Italy from the north. The Romans were
unable to defeat Hannibal's forces, and his anny
roamed freely through ll t Italy for several years.
Hannibal had hoped that there would be an in
ternal rebellion in Italy from which he could
draw support, but such an insurrection never
occurred. Hannibal returned to Carthage when
an army led by the Roman general Scipio
Africanus threatened to attack that city and was
defeated in the Battle of Zama. Carthage paid a
huge indemnity to Rome, the Romans acquired
Spain as a province, Romans enslaved in North
Africa were emancipated and allowed to return
to Rome as free people, and Rome acquired ad
ditional numbers of slave as a result of this war.
After the Battle of Zama, Scipio Africanus sold
50,000 Carthaginian captives into slavery.
207 B.c.
In Sparta, a Syrian slave named Nabis rose to
power and started a social revolution to free the
24 Ancient World
Helots, destroy the ruling oligarchy, redistribute
land, and cancel debts. He was defeated by the
Achaean League and was later assassinated.
200 B.C.
Writings from this period indicate that Greek
slaves were commonly employed as teachers in
the Roman Republic.
198 B.C.
After the Second Punic War (218-202 B.C. ),
Roman authorities had to suppress a slave re
volt t hat began among many of the North
African slaves who had belonged to Carthagin
ian captives who had been taken to Rome.
196 B.C.
A Roman legion had to suppress a revolt among
the slaves of Etruria (modern-day Tuscany) .
Once the rebellion was suppressed, the leaders
of the uprising were crucified.
190?-159 B. C.
The former slave Terence Afer (Terence the
African) lived in Rome where he was a re
spected playwr ight. He is credited with coining
the phrase Homo sum; humani nihil a me
alienum puto (" I am a man and nothing human
is alien to me" ).
188 B.C.
In the Greek P loponnesus, Philopoemen, the
leader of the Achaean League, marched into
Sparta and restored order after a revolt that had
been led by Nabis, a Syrian slave. All of the
remammg followers of Nabis were sold into
slavery.
187 B.C.
By this date, the senatorial class in the Roman
Republic had been barred from any type of
commercial activity, but the practice was com
mon. Many Roman patricians began to invest in
land in Italy in the hope that intensive agricul
tural production from the land might produce
enough food to feed a growing urban popula
tion and yield impressive profits. In order to
make such a system work, the patrician class
needed a sufficient labor force to work the vast
estates that they purchased in the countryside.
This need was satisfied by the massive influx of
foreign slaves into the Roman Republic.
Siaz'es llJere tralls/lorted along Mediterranean trade routes in vessels like this Assyrian ship. (The Granger Collc{:tiQn)
185 B.C.
A serious revolt occurred among the slave shep
herds of Apulia, who rose in rebellion to try to
effect their freedom. Roman forces were sent
into the mOllntainous region to quell the revolt,
and 7,000 of the slave rebels were condemned
to work in the mines.
176 B.C.
The Roman general T,iberius Gracchus (senior)
crushed a revolt that occurred on the island of
Sardinia. Gracchus later boasted that in the
process of quelling the unrest, 80,000 people
were either killed or captured. Those who were
captured became slaves of the Romans.
170 B.C.
The Roman statesman Cato the Elder wrote De
re rustica (On farming). On the subject of slav
ery in the Roman Republic, Cato noted that it
was more efficient for Roman slaveholders to
work their slaves to death and then replace
them than it was for the owners to be kind to
their slaves and get less productivity out of
them. There were so many slaves in the Roman
Republic at this time that the value of a slave's
life was exceptionally cheap. Cato's advice to
the slaveholder was to "sell the old work oxen,
the blemished cattle, the blemi shed sheep, the
wool, the skins, the old wagon, the worn-out
tools, the aged slave, the sla e that is diseased,
and everything else that he does not need." In
another passage, Cato advised the owners of
large estates (\atifundia) that slaves would be
most productive if they were "working in
chains" upon the land. Cato the Elder himself
made many profitable investments in slaves. ]n
Parallel Lives, Plutarch wrote that "Cato pur
chased a great many slaves out of captives taken
in war, but chiefly bought up the young ones,
who, like whelps and colts, were still capable of
being reared and trained." According to
Plutarch, Cato often boasted that he never paid
more than 1,500 drachmas for a slave.
168-166 B.C.
A freed slave from Carthage named Terence
(Publius Terentius Afer) was given recognition
at Rome for his play Andria. The play was pro
duced at Rome despite jealous opposition from
some Roman playwrights. Terence's plays were
an important commentary on the social issues of
Ancient World 25
A(rica// elephants were employed in Carthaginian general Hannibal's invasion of Italy, as depicted in this sixteenth-centur)1
painling by Italian artist Jacopo Ripanda. Carthage was ultimately defeated in the Second Punic War, and Romans
ens/ailed ill North Africa were freed. (Gianni Dagli Ortil Corbis)
his time, including slavery. In one play, he
described a Greek merchant who carried women
and other trade goods from Greece to Cyprus
and feared the possibility of a financial loss.
167 B.C.
The Roman general Lucius Aemilius Paulus took
revenge upon the inhabitants of Epirus because
they had joined Macedonia in the Third Mace
danian War (172-167 B.C.) against Rome. Aemil
ius destroyed 70 of the Epirot towns in Greece
and sold 150,000 of its citizens into slavery.
166 B.C.
The Roman Senate declared the Aegean island
of Delos to be a free port-meaning that no cus
toms duties were to be collected there-after
Rome destroyed the power of Rhodes. This spe
cial economic privilege made Delos an attractive
location for trading slaves, and the island soon
became a center of much of the trade in captives
who had been taken in pirate raids in the east
ern Mediterranean. In Geographical Sketches,
the Greek geographer Strabo claimed that the
port facilities at Delos were capable of sending
and receiving 10,000 slaves per day.
166 B.C.
In the Apocrypha, there is the story that King
Antiochus of Syria attempted to get the Is
raelites to abandon their God but they chose
death rather than violate their holy covenant.
This is the first recorded episode of martyrdom
in the history of religious persecution.
153 B.C.
Cato began the practice of ending all of his
speeches in the Roman Senate with the expres
sion Delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be
destroyed"). It was the Punic Wars (264-146
B.C.) that were responsible for transforming the
Roman Republic into a slave-based society.
c. 150 B.C.
Although the enslavement of war captives was
the most common way to acquire slaves in the
ancient world, other methods were used. Pirate
raids became common in the eastern Mediter
26 Ancient \'(Iorld
ranean as the demand for vast numbers of slaves
made such raiding a potentially lucrative enter
prise. Two centers of the pirate slave trading
were the Aegean island of Delos and the port
city of Side in Pamphylia. The Romans had de
clared Delos to be a free port in 166 B.C., which
meant that no customs duties were collected
there, and this special economic privilege made
Delos an attractive location for trading slaves.
149-146 B.C.
The Third Punic War resulted in the complete
destruction of Carthage at the hands of the Ro
mans. Ninety percent of the residents of
Carthage died either in battle or of disease, and
the survivors of the city were sold into slavery in
Rome. By the end of this conflict, Rome had
truly developed into a slave-based society.
146 H.C.
War bet\veen the Achaeans and the Romans
broke out after the Achaeans of south-central
Greece formed the Achaean League with other
city-states on the Peloponnesus and tried to force
Sparta, which was under Roman protection, to
join the league. A Roman army commanded by
Lucius Mummius Achaicus defeated the Achaean
army, which consisted primarily of ill-equipped
slaves, in a battle near Corinth. The Romans
sacked and burned Corinth, dissolved the
Achaean League, and took possession of Greek
territory. Mummius slaughtered all the males of
Corinth and sold the women and children into
slavery. The fall of Corinth greatly enhanced
commerce on the Aegean island of Delos, com
merce that was especially active in the slave trade.
140 H.C.
Popillius Laenas, a Roman praetor, returned
917 fugitive slaves from Sicily to their masters
on the Italian mainland. Many of the slaves of
the Roman Republic who attempted to escape
their servitude were able to make their way to
Sicily; many tried to live in freedom, but some
chose a life of brigandage.
137-133 B. C.
During the Celtiberian wars, the Roman forces
attempted to subjugate the Celtic peoples who
lived on the Iberian Peninsula. Celtic forces in
the town of Numantia (Soria in modern-day
Spain) defeated a 20,000-man Roman army
commanded by Gaius Hostilius Mancinus. The
Romans later returned to Numantia and con
ducted an eight-month siege. The town was de
stroyed by the Romans, and its 4,000 inhabi
tants were either killed or enslaved.
135-132 B.C.
A Syrian slave named Eunus led a large slave re
volt (First Servile War) against Roman overlords
lin Sicily. Angered by the mistreatment that they
received on the large agricultural estates, Eunus
and an army of 70,000 rebel slaves won several
victories against the Romans. Eunus proclaimed
himself Antiochus, the king of the Syrians, and
fought bravely against the Roman forces. The
slave rebels terrorized the island of Sicily until
they were defeated. The Romans crucified
20,000 slaves after suppressing this revolt.
Eunus was not crucified, but he was locked into
a cell and left to rot to death. According to the
Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, who wrote
about the conditions that precipitated the First
Servile War in Historical Library: "The Sicil
ians, being grown very rich and elegant in their
manner of living, bought up large numbers of
slaves. They brought them in droves from the
places where they were reared, and immediately
branded them with marks on their bodies ....
Oppressed by the grinding toil and beatings,
maltreated for the most part beyond all reason,
the slaves could endure it no longer."
134 B.C.
The Roman historian Paulus Orosi us recorded
that the Roman consul Piso captured the town
of Mamertium in Sicily during the First Servile
War (135-132 B.C.) and killed 8,000 fugitive
slaves. Piso crucified those fugitive slaves that
he was able to capture alive.
134 B.C.
Inspired by the early success of Eunus and the
rebel slaves on the island of Sicily, as many as
4,000 slaves on the Italian mainland attempted
to revolt in the cities of Rome, Minturnae, and
Sinuessa, but the Roman authorities were able
to suppress these attempted rebellions. A similar
uprising occurred among the slave miners in the
region around Mount Laurium in Greece,
which was noted for its vast silver mines.
133 B.C.
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was elected tri
bune of the people in Rome but was assassinated
Ancienr World 27
':'>SLAVE D I E T ~
Food has been one of the slave's primary concerns
throughout history. In many systems of slavery, one
of the servant's few rights was that of sustenance.
Greek city-states of the pre-Christian era, Judea
(200 B.C.), Sicily (135-132 B.C.), and the Roman
prefecture in Egypt (A.D. 46) all mandated food ra
tions. The Chinese, and later the Spanish, ex
pressed concern about provisioning slaves, and
Islam went further and leveled sanctions: owners
unable to feed their vassals were obligated to sell
them.
Since antiquity, cereal grains-rice, maize,
wheat, millet, sorghum, oats, rye, and barley
played a significant role in the diet of slave popu
lations. Comparing favorably with protein-rich
foods in energy value, cereals were inexpensive to
produce and rich in carbohydrates, and they may
have exceeded 80 percent of slave food intake.
Eaten in raw grain form, or as ingredients in vari
OllS dishes (gruel and porridge), cereals were most
commonly baked into bread. Vegetables, fruits,
and nuts were the chief articles of sustenance in the
ancient and Mediterranean worlds after grains
while meat was a rare luxury.
Prior to the sixteenth century, the African diet
was based largely on taro (bull yam), the smaller
African yam, imported Asian bananas, millet, and
rice. Most of the high-yield plants grown today
manioc (cassava) and maize (corn)-were intro
duced into the Mediterranean culture after 1500.
Portuguese traders carried New World crops to
Africa and later utilized them on the slave ships
during the Middle Passage between Africa and the
Western Hemisphere. Manioc and corn rapidly be
came important parts of the slave diet on both
sides of the Atlantic, which led to protein deficien
cies, particularly in areas where animal protein was
excluded from the diet. Symptoms of vitamin-defi
ciency diseases associated with eating habits
scurvy, rickets, beriberi, nyctalopia (night blind
ness), xerophthalmia, and pellagra-are well
chronicled, and there were also many African
taboos regarding the eating of fruit (vitamin C),
vegetables (vitamins A, C, B
1
, B
2
, B
3
), eggs (pro
tein), and milk products (calcium).
Increasing the quantity and expanding the range
of foods necessitated great ingenuity on the part of
slaves. Many masters expected their servants to
provision themselves, at least partially, by raising
fruits, vegetables, and livestock. Even in regions of
intensive agriculture and sizable slave populations,
where owners considered every mouthful of food
in terms of cash, the bulk of the slave diet consisted
of salt fish, pork, and corn.
In the southern part of the United States, rations
allocated to slaves were more protein-laden than
those consumed in West Africa and the Caribbean.
Weekly food allotments generally included a peck
of cornmeal and two and a half to four pounds of
pork or bacon. Abundance and variery of foods in
the slave diet, however, depended heavily on sea
sonal variation, economic standing, and the liber
ality of the owners. Nevertheless, the diet of ante
bellum slaves in the United States represented a
nutritional improvement over that of colonial
slaves and counterparts 'laboring in Central and
South America. Before 1850, six southern states re
quired owners to provide servants with adequate
provisions, and current research suggests that
American slave diets were quantitatively adequate
but deficient qualitatively. A general ignorance of
nutritional principles, more a state of antebellum
medical knowledge than the nature of the institu
tion of slavery, produced unbalanced diets for both
masters and slaves.
-Clifford R. Dickinson
For Further Reading
Hilliard, Sam Bowers. 1972. Hogmeat and Hoecake:
Food Supply in the Old SOllth 1840-1860.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press;
Kiple, Kenneth E, and Virginia H. King. 1981.
Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet,
Disease, and Racism. Cambridge: Cambridge
Univcrsity Press; Owens, Leslie H. 1976. This
Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the
Old South. New York: Oxford University Press;
Stutch, Richard. 1975. "The Trcatment Received by
Amcrican Slaves: A Critical Review of the Evidence
Presented in Time on the Cross." Explorations in
Economic History 12: 335-448.
28 Ancient World
~ B L O S S I U S OF CVN1AE (?-c. 129 B.C.)"'-=-
Gaius Blossius of Cumae, who lived in the second
century B.C., supported the policies of the Roman
reformer Tiberius Sempronius racchus, a per
sonal friend. Although tradition states that the very
patriotic Cornelia, mother of Tiberius Gcacchus,
had employed Blossius to teach her sons Stoic phi
losophy, which was popular in Roman senatorial
circles at the time, there is no evidence for this be
lief. After Gracchus, whose reforms had nothing to
do with slavery, was killed in 133 B.C., Blossius fled
to Pergamum in Asia Minor and joined the revolt
of Aristonicus, pretender to the throne of that
country. Blossius committed suicide after Aristoni
cus's defeat in 129 B.C.
Blossius was an adherent of the Stoic philosophy,
which had first been taught by a former slave
(Epictetus), and some supporters of that philosophy
preached the equality of all human beings, includ
ing, at least theoretically, slaves. Blossius seems to
have supported democracy in theory and the revolt
of the slaves in parts of western Asia Minor
(132-129 B.C.) in practice. For these reasons, earlier
scholars pur him forward as an opponent of slavery
and even as a sort of proto-Marxist revolutionary
theoretician, although his writings have not come
down to us. More recent scholarship has taken the
position th:lt Blossius supported the slave revolt only
because he was a supporter of Aristonicus, who was
before he was able to finish enacting the drastic
land reforms he had promised the Roman poor.
As a result of his land reforms, more than
80,000 Roman citizens were able to resettle on
land in the republic.
132-129 B. C.
Roman forces intervened when slaves at Perga
mum in Asia Minor, inspired by the Stoic
philosopher Aristonicus and others, rose in re
bellion and attempted to establish a "city of the
sun" in which all "citizens of the sun" (he
liopolitani) would live on an egalitarian basis.
This revolt was supported by the Roman Stoic
Gaius Blossius of Cumae.
131 B.C.
The Roman historian Paulus Orosius recorded
that the Roman consul Rutilius captured the
towns of Tauromenium and Henna (modern
day Taormina and Enna, respectively), which
had been strongholds of fugitive slaves during
the First Servile War (135-132 B.C.). Rutilius re-
merely using the slaves against the Romans (Aris
tonicus gathered slaves and the poor around him,
calling them "citizens of the sun," [heliopolitaniJ),
and there is no evidence that Blossius inspired the
movement. In fact, Aristonicus appears to have
begun the movement long before Blossius's arrival.
Blossius, a strong supporter of local autonomy,
came, it is believed, from a family that had long
supported democracy (which in antiquity had noth
ing to do with opposition to slavery) and opposed
Roman expansion. He joined Aristonicus and thus
supported the slave revolt beca use he was opposed
to the centralizing policies of the senatorial faction
in Rome that had had Tiberins Gracchus assassi
nated- and, not incidentally, had presumably had
similar plans for 'Blossius himself. It has been noted
that had Blossius in fact been a radical opponent of
slavery, :he would have joined the sbve rebels in
Sicily, who were led, not by a royal pretender, but
by a slave. To what extent Blossius's Stoic ideas in
fluenced his political views is unknown.
-Stephen A. Stertz
For Further Reading
Dudley, D. R. 1941. "Blossius of Cumac." Joumal of
Roman Studies 31: 94-99; arlan, Yvon. 1995. Les
esc/aves en grece al/denne. Rev. ed. Paris: Editions Ia
Decouverte; Vogt, Joseph. 1974. Ancient Slavery and
the Ideal of Man. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
portedly killed more than 20,000 slaves when
these towns were taken.
c. 130 B.C.
The Greek historian Polybius noted in his writ
ings that approximately 40,000 slaves worked
each day in the silver mines that were located
near Carthago Novo (Cartagena in modern-day
Spain).
121 B.C.
When hls fellow Romans turned against his re
forms, Tribune Gaius Sempronius Gracchus
conv,inced one of his own slaves to kill him. In
th r ioting that followed, more than 3,000 sup
porters of Gracchus were murdered.
120-56 B.C.
In his Annals, the Roman historian Tacitus de
scribed the extent of slavery in the Roman Re
public: "Segregate the freed and you will only
show how few free-born there are."
Ancient World 29
105 B.C.
The Roman practice of holding gladiator games
became sanctioned by Roman authorities when
Rome's two consuls authorized the year's enter
tainment. Gladiators, who were generally slaves,
fought one another to the death; the number of
war captives who became slaves in Rome made
this form of public entertainment possible.
104-99 B.C.
A large force of 6,000 slaves led by Salvius,
Tryphon, and Athenian, angered by the mis
treatment they received on the large agricultural
estates, rebelled against their Roman overlords
on the island of Sicily. The insurrectionists
gained control of most of the rural areas of
Sicily and laid siege to the island's cities. The
slave rebels defeated the first Roman army that
was sent against them but were defeated by a
second army that was put into the field against
them. The Roman Senate reported that it cost
the lives of 100,000 Roman citizens to suppress
this uprising. In Historical Library, the historian
Diodorus claimed that the captives taken when
the rebellion ended were shipped to Rome
where they were to die fighting beasts in a pub
lic arena. Many of the captured slave rebels
chose to die by suicide or by killing one another
rather than submit to being entertainment for
the Roman masses.
104 B.C.
When the Roman Repu blic was threa tened by
Germanic invaders, the Roman Senate re
quested that the Roman ally state of Bithynia in
Asia Minor provide soldiers to assist the Roman
forces. The leaders of Bithynia complained that
all of their young men had been carried off as
slaves by pirates who operated with the blessing
of Rome. The Roman Senate decreed that all
slaves that were held by allies of Rome should
be emancipated so they might help defend
Rome against the potential Germanic threat.
c. 104 B.c.
In the wake of Germanic barbarian invasions of
the Roman Republic, slave unrest occurred in
several different regions of the Italian peninsula,
and there were slave revolts in Nuceria and
Capua. Near the town of Capua, one slave re
volt began when a Roman eques ("middle-class
citizen") armed his own slaves. Roman authori
ties were able to quell all of these disturbances.
30 Ancicm World
102-101 B.C.
The Roman general Gaius Marius engaged in
battle against Germanic invaders and defeated
his foes in the Battle of Vercellae in the Po Val
ley. An estimated 120,000 of the Germanic in
vaders were killed in the fighting, and Marius
also captured 90,000 Teutons and 60,000 Cim
bri; they were sold into slavery in Rome.
95 B.C.
Increasing numbers of rural residents flocked to
Rome seeking the benefits of Roman citizen
ship. The transformation occurred in the coun
tryside, and Rome changed from being a soci ety
of free holding small independent farmers to one
of large landed estates farmed by slave laborers,
a pattern that would continue and become more
common.
91-88 B.C.
Marcus Livius Druses, tribune of the people, in
troduced a measure to extend Roman citizen
ship to the rural Italians but was killed before
action was taken on the measure. The ruralltal
ian residents rose up against the Romans in the
Social War of 91-88 B.C., seeking the benefits of
Roman citizenship. Social and economic pres
sures since the end of the Third Punic War (146
B ) and the rise of a slave-based economy had
put great pressure on the rural Italians. Roman
citizenship would have provided prestige, re
dress against injustice, the privilege of fighting
in the Roman legions, and relief from burden
some taxation.
88 B.C.
The Aegean island of Delos was sacked by
Mithridates VI (the Great), king of Pontus, a re
gion that bordered on the Black Sea. Delos had
operated as a free port for nearly 75 years and
had become the center of the slave trade in the
Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean regions.
82 B.C.
The Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus
became a very wealthy man by investing in
slaves. Crassus obtained slaves through military
conquest and educated them before selling them
at high prices. Crassus believed that it was his
responsibility to treat slaves as necessary imple
ments for effective household management, and
he became immensely wealthy by selling his
trained skilled slaves to Roman buyers.

In the center of the Cyclades, strategically located
in the southern Aegean Sea within easy trading dis
tance of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, the Black
Sea, and North Africa, the very small (2 square
miles), barren, nearly waterless island of Delos de
rived its economic importance in antiquity from
trading and pilgrimages to its shrine of Apollo. Al
though agricultural goods grown elsewhere were
traded, the most important trading activity was in
slaves. Although slavery seems to have existed on
the island from its earliest habitation by the Cari
ans, a non-Greek people, the importance of the is
land as a center of the slave trade dates from the
Hellenistic Age, especially after the establishment
of the Roman province of Asia (modern-day west
ern Asiatic Turkey) in 133 B.C., when the pernla
ncnt population of the island was only about
4,000, mostly Greeks but also Italians and other
non-Greeks, mainly slave traders.
According to the Greek geographer Strabo, at
the height of the island's importance in about 100
B.C., 10,000 slaves might have been sold on the is
land in a single day. At that time, when Delos was
the greatest slave market of the Mediterranean, the
majority of slaves came from lands bordering the
eastern end of that sea, although others came from
Gaul, Spain, and all parts of North Africa. Histor
ically, the island was at its height commercially be
tween 166 B.c:., when the Romans made the island
a free port and populated it with Athenians, and 88
B.C., when it was sacked by soldiers from Rome's
enemy, the kingdom of Pontus. Pirate raids, while
supplying slaves when other islands were raided,
81 B.C.
The Roman dictator Sulla developed a list of
political enemies he wished to have murdered.
He maintained a personal bodyguard consisting
of former slaves of all the enemies on the list.
78-77 B.C.
The Roman consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
was a champion of the Roman poor and the dis
possessed. When his efforts to alleviate the suf
fering of these groups failed, the peoples of west
central Italy revolted, and Lepidus supported
their cause. He raiseu an army and attempted to
march on Rome but was defeated by the forces
of Quintus Lutatius Catalus and Pompey the
Great. Lepidus and some of his supporters were
ahle to escape to Sardinia; those who remained
in Italy were destroyed hy the Roman forces.
caused the final decline of the island when Delos it
self was in 69 B.C. The recovery from war
fare of other islands, such as Rhodes, was also a
factor.
By 100 B. C., many people important in the poli
tics of Athens had made their fortunes as slave
traders on Delos. The slaves included prisoners of
war and victims of raids; many were literate, ac
cording to archaeological evidence. One graffito
written by a slave expresses regret at the barrenness
of the island and nostalgia for his vegetation-rich
native land. Inscriptions by freed slaves express
thanks to Zeus. Other inscriptions indicate that an
organization of slaves and freedmen celebrated
games, apparently including boxing. Other less
fortunate slaves were castrated, becoming eunuchs.
A great slave revolt in 130 ll.c:. was brutally put
down by the Delians themselves according to the
historian Diodorus Siculus. An inscription of the
time curses those, including pirates, who helped the
slaves flee the island Llnd asserts that certain gov
ernment officials were given police powers against
the "thieves and pirates."
-Stephen A. Stertz
For Further Reading
Bruncau, Phillippe. 1968. "Contribution aI' histoire
urbaine de Delos aI'epoque hellenistique er a
I'cpoquc imperiale." Bulletin de correspolldall ce
hellenique 92: 633-709; Dconna, Waldemar. 1948.
La vie priuee des Deliclls. P:Jris: E. de Boccard;
Laidbw, W. A. 1933. A History of Delos. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
76 B.C.
Julius Caesar was enslaved briefly when Cilician
pirates captured him while he was sailing to
Rhodes to study law. Caesar was freed after a
ransom was paid, and he later returned to cap
ture and crucify the pirates who had captured
him.
73-71 B.C.
The Thracian gladiator Spartacus led a large
slave revolt (Third Servile War) against Roman
authority. Spartaclls's primary lieutenants in this
well-organized insurrection were Crixus and
Oenomaus, slaves from Gaul. Beginning in
Capua when a group of 70 slave gladiators took
refuge on Mt. Vesuvius and became the leaders
of an army of 10,000 rebel slaves, the insurrec
tionists won several victories and terrorized the
Ancient World 31
Italian countryside. Eventually, Spartacus com
manded a rebel force that was estimated to in
clude 70,000 rebel slaves. The rebel forces de
feated four Roman armies sent into the field
against them, and they were able to plunder
much of southern Italy. Eventually, the forces of
Roman general Marcus Licinius Crass us de
feated Spartacus's army at the Battle of Brundi
sium (Brindisi) and were able to suppress the re
bellion and restore order in the region. The
Romans crucified 6,000 of the captured slave
rebels along the Appian Way between Capua
and Rome. In 71 B.C., the Roman historian
Paulus Orosius, in Adversus paganos histori
anon (History against the pagans) wrote of the
Third Servile War: "As soon as Crassus began
the fighting against the runaways, he killed
6,000 of them, and captured 900 alive. Then be
fore taking on Spartacus himself, who was men
acing the camp at the head of the Silaris River,
he defeated his Gallic and German auxiliaries,
of whom he killed 30,000 together with their
leaders. Finally he smashed Spartacus himself,
who had come against him in a pitched battle,
together with the majority of his army of run
away slaves ... the remainder, who had gotten
away from this battle and were wandering
around, were wiped out thanks to constant
hunting parties under various leaders."
69 B.C.
The Aegean island of Delos was sacked by pi
rates, and the island never recovered its original
prominence as a slave-trading center. After the
sack of Delos, the city of Rome became the
greatest slave-trading market in the Mediter
ranean world.
67-66 B.C.
The Roman Senate declared war upon the pirates
who roamed the Mediterranean Sea. Many
Roman citizens had been enslaved by pirates who
attacked both coastal communities and ships at
sea. The Roman Senate authorized Gnaeus Pom
peius Magnus (Pompey the Great) to conduct a
three-month campaign against the pirates. The
results were quite impressive as to,OOO pirates
were killed and nearly 400 pirate vessels were ei
ther captured or surrendered to the Romans.
63-62 B.C.
The Roman politician Lucius Sergi us Cataline
hoped to be elected a Roman consul, but he was
32 Ancicnr World
not chosen for the position. Cataline decided to
seize power by force and organized an army
while his supporters conspired with slaves in
Apulia to stage a revolt as a diversionary tactic.
Many rural slaves and gladiators were said to
have been a part of CatiJ.line's army. Marcus
Tullius Cicero, the consul, learned of the plot
and exposed Cataline's plans in blistering at
tacks in the Senate. The revolt was suppressed
as Cataline and his conspirators were eventually
executed or killed in battle with Roman forces.
59 B.C.
Julius Caesar, naeus Pompeius Magnus (Pom
pey the Great), and Marcus Licinius Crass us
formed the First Triumvirate to govern Rome.
Caesar and Pompey were both generals, and
Pompey was also a wealthy merchant. It was
said that Pompey owned 20,000 slaves that he
hired out as laborers in various types of manu
facturing and industry within the Roman world.
58-51 B.C.
During the Gallic War, the Roman general Julius
Caesar reportedly captured 500,000 inhabitants
of Gaul and sold them into slavery. In one town
alone, Caesar was able to take 53,000 captives.
C. 55 B.C.
The Roman writer Marcus Tullius Cicero dis
cussed the condition of slaves in his ethical trea
tise On Duties: "Let us also remember that jus
tice ought to be preserved even toward the
lowest level of persons. The lowest level is the
condition and fortune of slaves. Those who ad
vise us to use them as we would hired workers
don't give bad advice: work must be done; but
justice must be shown." In his treatise On the
Laws, Cicero considered the nature of justice in
a slave-based society. [See Document 3.]
C. 50 B.c.
The Roman poet Lucretius commented upon
the enormous number of slave laborers who
were employed in mining operations and ruth
lessly exploited throughout the Roman world.
In On the Nature of Things, Lucretius noted
that the mortality rate among these laborers
was excessively high: "Know you not by sight
or hearsay how they commonly perish in a short
time and how all vital power fails those to
whom the hard compulsion of necessity con
fines in such an employment."
Death of Spartaws. A Thracian slave and gladiator, Spartacus led a significant revolt against Roman authority but was
defeated and hlbf by the forces of the Roman general Crassus. (Corbis-Bettmann)
1
c. 50 B.C.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. first
century B.C.) wrote a 40-volume Historical Li
brary and was one of the few historians to write
a sympathetic account of the suffering of slaves
in the Roman world. In describing the condition
of slaves in the Spanish mines, Diodorus wrote:
"The workers in these mines produce incredible
profits for the owners, but their own lives are
spent underground in the quarries wearing and
wasting their bodies day and night. Many die,
their sufferings are so great. There is no relief,
no respite from their labors. The hardships to
which the overseer's lash compels them to sub
mit are so severe that, except for a few, whose
trength of body and bravery of soul enables
t hem to endure for a long time, they abandon
life, because death seems preferable."
44 B. C.
On March 15, assassins murdered Jul ius Caesar
in Rome. Conspirators within the Roman Sen
ate, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus
Junius Brurus, feared that Caesar wished to be
come king and claimed they killed Caesar in
order to preserve wbat remained of the Roman
Republic. When the Roman general Sextus Pom
peius Magnus (Pompey the Younger) promised
freedom to slaves who joined him in a campaign
against Cassius and Brutus, thousands of slaves
abandoned their masters and volunteered their
service to help apprehend the conspirators.
Later, after Pompey had been defeated by forces
loyal to Octavian (the future emperor Augustus
aesar), 30,000 of the slave soldiers were given
back to their masters and 6,000 of them were
impaled upon orders of Octavian.
C. 40 B.C.
The Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro
wrote a treatise on agriculture entitled De re
rustica (On farming, the same title Cato the
Elder had used a century earlier). Varro devoted
much attention in his work to the proper treat
ment of slaves in order to maximize profitabil
ity but also maintain order. Varromaintained
that slaves "should be neither cowed nor high
spirited," and he warned prospective slavehold
ers to "avoid having too many slaves of the
same nation, for this is a fertile source of do
mestic quarrels."
38 B.C.
Concerning the siege of Perugia in Italy, the
Roman historian Appian (fl. second century
A.D.) described the brutal means employed by
Romans against their slaves during that siege. In
Civil Wars, Appian wrote: "Lucius collected the
remaining provisions and forbade them to be
given to the slaves; but he took care that the
slaves should not escape to inform the enemy of
the city's extremity. The slaves then collected in
crowds and lay down within the city, or be
tween the city and the defending wall, feeding
on any grass or green leaves which they could
find. Lucius buried those who died in long
trenches, so that he might not inform the enemy
of the fact by burning the bodies, nor allow
stenches and disease to arise if they were left to
rot. "
34 B.C.
The Roman lyric poet and satirist Horace main
tained a small farm in the Sabine Valley near
Rome that had been given to him by a wealthy
patron named Maecenas. Horace had eight
slaves who farmed his land, and he rented five
plots to tenant farmers. One can discern Ho
race's attitude as a slaveowner in his dialogue
My Slave Is Free to Speak Up for Himself [See
Document 4.]
c. 30 B.C.
In De vita contemplativa (About the contempla
tive life), the Hellenistic Jew Philo Jud;]eus of
Alexandria wrote about the Jewish sect known
as the Essenes. Philo said of this group, "There
is not a single slave among them, but they are all
free, serving one another; they condemn masters
not ollly for representing a system of unrigh
teousness in opposition to that of equality, but
as personifications of wickedness in ,that they vi
olate a law of nature which made us aJI
brethren, created alike." Phi lo also wrote about
the antislavery community of Therapeutae,
which was located near Alexandria: "They do
not have slaves to wait upon them as they con
sider that the ownership of servants is entirely
against nature. For nature has borne all men to
be free, but the wrongful and covetous acts of
some "vho pursued that source of evil-inequal
ity-have imposed their yoke and invested the
stronger with power over the weaker."
34 Ancient World
------------------------------------------ -- -- --

Cyprus, the largest island in the Mediterranean
east of Sicily, is within easy sailing distance of the
Greek islands farther west, Anatolia (modern-day
Asiatic Turkey) to the north, the Syrian-Palestinian
coast to the east, and Africa to the south. Conse
quently, in antiquity Cyprus was an important cen
ter for trading, including slave trading, and other
contacts among all parts of the eastern Mediter
ranean. In particular, it was an important point of
contact between the ancient Near Eastern and
Greek civilizations.
The island, rich in natural harbors, traded with
Egypt in the second millennium B. C., and Egyptian,
Mesopotamian, and Hittite texts refer to raids, in
which captives were enslaved, and tribute, includ
ing slaves of both sexes. During the Minoan-Myce
naean period, from about 1700 to 1050 B.C., war
fare and invasion resulted in the enslavement of
much of the population of Cyprus, and Greeks set
tled on the island, which enjoyed prosperity. Dur
ing the subsequent "Greek dark ages" at the begin
ning of the Iron Age (after 1050 B.C.), warfare
between local rulers on the island resulted in fur
ther enslavement, and tribute to Assyrian and later
Persian kings included slaves in the first half of the
first millennium B.C. Such cities as Sa'lamis became
important centers for the international s'lave trade.
One Assyrian inscription dating from the reign of
Ashurbanipal (669-630 B.C.) records a contract for
the sale of a slave on Cyprus, and another gives the
judge's decision in a civil suit regarding slave trad
ing on the island. In the early Greek period, one
local Cypriot ruler was said, by the later Greek
writer Athenaeus, to have been fanned by pigeons
that were shooed off by special slaves.
After the time of Alexander the Great, in the
fourth century B.C., the island lost its indepen
dence. Ruled by the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt and
then by the Romans, Cyprus enjoyed prosperity,
and its cities continued to be important centers for
the slave trade. The Roman playwright Terence,
writing in the second century B. C., referred to a
Greek trader bringing a cargo of "women and
other goods" to export from mainland Greece to
Cyprus while fearing a financial loss (Hill, 1972).
Those women were at least more fortunate than
the slaves quarrying gypsum and other stones
found on Cyprus; there, as elsewhere in the Greek
world, slaves in mines and quarries received the
worst treatment. The medical writer Galen men
tioned the miserable treatment of slaves who tun
neled deep into the island's earth to collect miner
als used for medicinal purposes; he had seen them
naked because of the heat and able to tolerate the
tunnel's unhealthy air for only short periods, and
he had heard that on one occasion, a tunnel col
lapsed, killing numerous slaves. On the other hand,
the philosopher Persaeus had been a s'lave of the fa
mous philosopher Zeno, the founder of Stoicism.
During the last two centuries before the begin
ning of the Christian era, there was considerable
trading in slaves between Cyprus and the islands
of Delos and Rhodes farther west. During this pe
riod, pirates in the Aegean and eastern Mediter
ranean dealt in slaves, or pretended to be slave
dealers; the Romans gradually wiped out piracy in
the first century B. C. , but the slave trade remained
legal. In A.D. 115-116, the Jews of Cyprus, to
gether with Jews in parts of Roman North Africa,
revolted against Rome, and after the revolt was
defeated, many were enslaved and sent to Italy.
Slave traders occupied some important political
posts in the island's cities under the Roman Empire,
but this phenomenon was less pronounced in
Cyprus than in other centers of the slave trade such
as Rhodes. There were associations of freedmen
who, as elsewhere, held minor priesthoods. Under
the Christian emperors, slavery continued to exist
on Cyprus, as elsewhere in the Roman Empire.
Arab invasions in the seventh to the ninth centuries
again resulted in the enslavement of much of the
population. Under restored Byzantine rule in the
tenth century, slavery continued, with many of the
slaves engaging in crafts. After 1J 92, the Lusignan
family, of French origin, ruled the island, and under
circumstances not fully understood by modern
scholars, rural slavery, perhaps under Western Eu
ropean influence, gradually gave way to serfdom.
For several centuries thereafter, female slaves were
employed as maids. In 1570, the Turks invaded
Cyprus and enslaved the captured inhabitants of
several cities, but a few years afterward, serfdom
was a bolished. Until the early nineteenth century,
the Turkish rulers of the island kept a few slaves
brought from Africa, Circassia, and elsewhere.
--Stephen A. Stertz
For Further Reading
Geneva, University of. 1975. Chypre des origenes au
moyen-age: Semillaire intr:rdisciplinaire. Geneva:
Univcrsite dc Gcnevc; Hill, G. 1972. A History of
Cyprus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ancient World 35
C. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14
During the reign of Emperor Augustus Caesar,
large numbers of war captives continued to be
sold into slavery. When the Salassi, an Alpine
tr ibe, was subdued, the Romans sold 5,000
captives as slaves. Later when the Bessii tribe
of Thrace was conquered, the entire tribe was
enslaved.
22 B.C.
The Roman emperor Augustus Caesar orga
nized a fire brigade for the city of Rome, and
this public service was provided by slaves who
were owned by the state.
8 B.C.
The estates (latifundia) that were owned by many
Roman patricians were quite extensive. Pliny the
Elder mentioned one individual who died leaving
behind an estate that contained 4,117 slaves,
7,200 oxen, and 257,000 other anima'ls.
4 B.C.
Possible date of the birth of Jesus Christ.
2 B.C.
The emperor Augustus Caesar formed the Prae
torian Guard to serve as the imperial body
guard. H e also proclaimed the Lex Furia
Caninia (the Furian Caninian Law, named after
P. uri us Camillus and C. ani nius Gallus, two
Roman consuls), which restricted t he number of
slaves that could be freed upon the death of a
master. Augustus was concerned that the eman
cipation of slaves was occurring too rapidly.
A. D. 4
The emperor Augustus Caesar proclaimed the
Lex Aelia Sentia (the Aelian Senti an Law,
named after Roman consuls Sex. Aelius Catus
and C. Senti us Saturrunus), which imposed fur
t her restrictions upon the manumission of
slaves. Roman leaders noted public concern that
there was too much alien blood coming into
Roman citizenship.
A. D. 9
The emperor Augustus Caesar proclaimed the
Lex Papia Poppaea (the Papian Poppaean Law,
named for two Roman consuls), which encour
aged strictly moral procreation. In 18 B.C., the
Lex J ulia de Adulteriis Coercendis (Julian Law
on the Orders Permitted to Marry) had encour
36 Ancient World
aged procreation within the family and had at
tempted to restrict unions between free persons
and slaves.
A.D. 19
The Roman geographer Strabo expanded his
Geography by incorporating new material ac
quired during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Part
of the supplementary material included eco
nomic data from the Roman province of
Britain, as Strabo provided data on the amount
of wheat, cattle, gold, silver, iron, brides, slaves,
and hunting dogs to be found in Britain.
A.D. 30
Probable date of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
in Jerusalem.
A.D. 40
In De vita contemplativa (About the contempla
tive life), the Hellenistic Jew Philo Judaeus of
Alexandria wrote: "Behave well to your slaves,
as you pray to God that he should behave to
ward you. For as we hear them so shall we be
heard, and as we trear them, so shall we be
treated. Let us show compassion for compas
sion, so that we may receive like for like in re
turn."
A. D. 41-54
During the reign of Roman emperor Claudius I,
an imperi al decree prohibited masters from ar
bitrarily killing sick and aged slaves or turning
them out so they would become a social and
economic burden to the empire. Claudius's ac
tion also freed those slaves who previously had
been abandoned by their masters because of age
or infirmity. Also during Claudius's reign, two
former slaves served with distinction in the ad
ministration of the emperor: Narcissus as secre
tary of state and Pallas as treasurer. Both of
these ex-slaves were among the wealthiest men
of their time.
C. A. D. 50
The Roman writers Apion and Aulus Gellius
told the story of the semilegendary fugitive slave
Androclus (Androcles). According to legend,
Androclus was spared from death by a lion dur
ing one of the Roman spectacles in which cap
tives were fed to the beasts for public entertain
ment. The legend maintains that Androclus had
removed a thorn from the paw of the lion many
years earlier in Africa and that the beast would
therefore not harm the slave. As a result, An
droclus was reportedly emancipated.
A.D. 52
Roman emperor Claudius I proclaimed that any
woman who chose to be the concubine of a
slave effectively became a slave herself regard
less of her prior status.
A.D. 54-68
During the era when Nero was the Roman em
peror, an organized slave market existed in the
Roman Forum near the Temple of Castor. War
captives were brought to the market and sold at
public auction.
C. A.D. 55
During Nero's reign (A.D. 54-68), the Spanish
born Roman author Columella wrote his De re
mstica (On farming, both Cato and Varro had
written similar works). Columella mentioned
slavery throughout this treatise on agriculture,
and his references give an indication of the sta
tus of agricultural slaves at the time: some slaves
were employed in chain gangs, some were fet
tered, and others were imprisoned under
ground. Columella's advice to slaveholders was
they should avoid excessive cruelty when disci
plining their slaves.
A.D. 56
In Roman society, it was possible for a freed
slave to achieve a position of status within soci
ety. One Roman senator commented that "most
of the knights [a class of Roman businessmen],
and many of the Senators, are descendants of
slaves" (Meltzer, 1993).
A.D. 61
One of the slaves belonging to the Roman pre
fect Pedanius Secundus killed his master. The
Roman Senate vowed to set an example that
such action would not go unpunished in Rome,
and thus 400 other slaves belonging to Pedanius
were put to death. This type of retributive jus
tice was meant to discourage slaves from rising
up against the authority of their masters.
A.D. 64-67
Major public works projects were initiated
under the direction of the Roman emperor
Nero. A canal was cut from Ostia to Lake Aver
nus on the Italian peninsula, and an abortive at
tempt was made to cut a canal across the isth
mus of Corinth in Greece. The Roman general
Vespas1ian gave 6,000 war captives to Nero,
who used them as slave laborers on these public
works projects.
C. A.D. 64
The apostle Peter was in Rome trying to spread
the good news of Christianity. In his iletters, he
addressed the question of slavery and wrote,
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all
fear; not only to the good and gentle, but a'\so to
the froward [harsh]" (1 Pet. 2:18).
C. A.D. 65
Following the mysterious fire that had de
stroyed Rome one year earlier, Emperor Nero
began the first wave of persecutions against
Christians in the Roman mpire. Many Chris
tians were enslaved and subjected to the brutal
forms of blood sport that had become institu
tionalized as public entertainment in Rome.
C. A.D. 65
The Roman philosopher Seneca, who had been
a tutor and adviser to Emperor Nero, did not
approve of the Roman practice of killing slaves
as a part of the entertainment in glladiator
games. In Letters (7.4.1), neca wrote of these
events: "I come home more greedy, more cruel
and inhuman, because I have been among
human beings . ... Man, a sacred thing to man,
is killed for sport and merriment." In an essay
that he wrote on the nature of anger, Seneca
speculated on why slaves might rise up in revolt
against their masters and believed that
"wooden racks and other instruments of tor
ture, the dungeons and other jails, the fires
built around imprisoned bodies in a pit, the
hook dragging on the corpses, and many kinds
of chains, the varied punishments, the tearing
of limbs, the branding of foreheads" were
sufficient reason for slaves to revolt (On
Anger).
A.D. 66-73
A Jewish revolt against Rome occurred when
Jewish zealots tried to remove all foreigners
from Palestine. Roman legions were sent into
Palestine to restore authority, and many of
the war captives were sold as slaves by the
Romans.
Ancient World 37
A.D. 69-79
During the reign of the Roman emperor Ves
pasian, production from the gold mines in Spain
was at its peak, an estimated $44 million (mod
ern figures) per year. The mines were operated
primarily by slave laborers, and the mortality
rate in this enterprise was said to have been ex
tremely high. The vast profits acquired from
these mines and the callous disregard for the
health and safety of those who worked in them
reflect the cheapness of and the utter disregard
for the lives of slaves in the Roman world.
However, also during Vespasian's reign, an im
perial decree prohibited masters from selling
slaves into prostitution.
A.D. 71-73
In the aftermath of the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66
73, the Roman emperor Vespasian sold 97,000
Jews into slavery. Some of these Jewish slaves
were able to purchase their freedom, and a com
munity of these ex-slaves was eventually estab
lished at Cologne (in modern-day Germany).
A.D. 75-80
Under the direction of the Roman emperors
Vespasian and Titus, the Roman Colosseum
was built. The facility was used for various
forms of public entertainment, including gladia
tor games and the feeding of slave captives to
wild beasts. The Colosseum could seat 45,000
individuals, and there was standing room for an
additional 5,000 observers. Similar structures
were constructed throughout the Roman Em
pire (with the exception of Greece) so that
Roman citizens in the provinces could experi
ence the same types of public entertainment.
A.D. 77
The Roman scientist Pliny the Elder's Historia
naturalis (Natural history) presented his scien
tific philosophies, which were based upon ob
servation of the natural world. One of the com
ments in the work is that Pliny regretted the
discovery of iron since that innovation had
made warfare more horrid. Since slaves in the
ancient world were generally the captives of
war, any device that made warfare more likely,
or its effects more horrible, would have a direct
bearing upon the expansion of slavery.
A.D. 81-88
During the early years of his reign (A.D. 81-96),
38 Ancient World
the Roman emperor Domitian was almost puri
tanical in his enforcement of the moral laws that
had been enacted by his predecessors. He en
forced the Lex Julia de Adulteriis Coercendis
(Julian Law on the Orders Permitted to Marry),
which had encouraged procreation within the
family and had attempted to restrict unions be
tween free persons and slaves. Additionally,
Domitian also ended the creation of eunuchs,
banned the mutilation of slaves, and canceled
all tax debts that were more than five years old.
A.D. 95
During the later years of his reign (A.D. 81-96),
the Roman emperor Domitian ordered that all
philosophers be banned from Italy. One of the
philosophers forced into exile was the Stoic
philosopher Epictetus, who was a freed Greek
slave. Epictetus moved to Epirus in northwestern
Greece where he continued to teach. Epictetus,
who had been born a slave in Phrygia, was an op
ponent of slavery. In The Golden Sayings, he of
fered his own version of the Golden Rule, "What
you shun to suffer, do not make others suffer."
A.D. 97
Sextus Julius Frontinus was a Roman soldier
and historian. He had previously served as the
Roman governor of Britain (A.D. 75-78) and
had become the superintendent of the water
supply for Rome. In his history of Rome, Fron
tinus stated that it was slaves-240 belonging to
the Roman state and 460 belonging to the im
perial household-who were responsible for the
upkeep of the Roman water supply. These slaves
were responsible both for maintaining the 280
miles of channels and aqueducts (most of which
were located underground) and for smelting
and manufacturing the lead pipes that were
used to carry water into the cities and homes.
c. A.D. 98-117
During the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan,
the frequency and duration of the gladiator
games were increased to satisfy popular demand
for the blood sport. One particular game during
Trajan's reign reportedly lasted for 117 days
and involved matches in which 4,941 pairs of
gladiators fought to the death. War captives
who had been made into slaves generally were
trained to fight as gladiators in the public spec
tacles, which were sponsored by the Roman
government.
C. A.D. 100
An anonymous author from Alexandria in
Egypt wrote the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
This navigator's guide to the eastern coast of
Africa suggests that slave trading in that region
was an active enterprise at the time. The author
mentioned that the region produced "the better
sort of slaves" who were brought into Egypt on
a regular basis.
A.D. 110-113
The Column of Trajan was constructed in Rome
to commemorate the emperor's military victory
against the Dacians. The depiction of warfare
on the column is po\;>,!erful, and some scenes
show slaves and people who are about to be
come enslaved.
A.D. 115-116
A revolt occurred among the Jews of Cyprus
and North Africa. Roman forces were able to
quell the uprising, and large numbers of cap
tives were sold into slavery.
A.D. 117-138
The Roman emperor Hadrian used public funds
to provide games and gifts to the people of
Rome, thus initiating the "bread and circuses"
system that later evolved into a Roman welfare
state. Additionally, Hadrian canceled all debts
for tax arrears and had the tax records burned
publicly, thus eliminating the chance that some
one might become enslaved for failing to pay a
debt to the state. He also abolished the right of
slaveholders to kill their slaves (unless by judi
cial authority) and instituted the recommended
policy of patria potestas in pietate debet, non
atrocitate consistere (" paternaJ power must
consist of love, not cruelty").
A.D. 127
Hadrian's Wall was completed in Roman
Britain. The structure was constructed "to di
vide the barbarians from the Romans" and
served, among other purposes, to reduce the
likelihood of slave raids on Roman Britain from
the north. Occasional slave raids along the coast
did occur periodically.
C. A.D. 130-201
The Roman physician Galen wrote many med
ical treatises that constitute an authoritative
view of medical theory and practice in the an-
The Coillmn 0/ Traian, erected to cOll1memorate a
Roman victory over the Dacialls. Scenes depict slaues
alld captives ahout to he ellslcwed. (Vitt oriml o
Rastel/i/Cor/)is)
cient world. In some of his writings, Galen men
tioned that he often treated patients who had
incurred severe bruises while they were disci
plining their slaves. He also made many refer
ences to the practice of mutilation, which was
used to discipline slaves. Galen wrote, "Such are
they who punish their slaves for some error by
burning, slitting, and maiming the legs of run
aways, the hands of thieves, the bellies of glut
tons, the tongues of gossipers-in short by pun
ishing each offender on that part of the body by
which he has offended" (Meltzer, 1993).
A.D. 130
The Arch of Constantine was constructed in
Rome as a military monument to celebrate re
cent conquests. The monument is unique in that
on it, slaves are depicted as being much smaller
than those who are free. This artistic represen
tation says much about the perceived social sta
tus that existed among the different classes 111
the Roman world.
A.D. 132
Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph (A.D. c. 40-c. 135) rec
ognized the growing social and economic crisis
that had developed in Israel because many of
the poor had sold themselves and their children
into slavery in payment of debts. Akiba tried to
convince the wealthy to consider the poor "a
patrician who has lost his possessions; for they
are all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and
Ancient World 39
-------- ----
The Anh of Constantine in Rome, a monument to Roman conquests. Uniquely, in the relief sculpture on the arch,
slaves are depicted as smaller than free people. (Histori cal Picture Archive/Corhis)
Jacob" (Meltzer, 1993). According to Leviticus
25:42, God had promised Moses after the Exo
dus that the Hebrews "shall not be sold as
bondmen."
A.D. 138-161
The reign of the Roman emperor Antoninus
Pius was noted for a high level of humanitarian
concern for all inh abitants of the Roman Em
pire. Antoninus Pius directed all governors and
client kings within the empire to punish those
masters of slaves who resorted to harsh violence
as a means of disciplining their slaves. Under
these reforms, a slave could appeal to a munic
ipal judge if he believed that he had been disci
plined too harshly, and in certain circum
stances, the Roman authorities might require
that slaves who had been mistreated be sold to
other masters.
A.D. 151
Later discovered by archaeologists, a papyrus
document contained a bill of a sale for a sllave
girl. The document, written in both Latin and
Greek stated, "Sambatis, changed to Athenais,
or by whatever other name she may be called,
by nationality a Phrygian, about twelve years of
age . .. in good health as required by ordinance,
not subject to any legal charge, neither a wan
derer nor a fugitive, free from the sacred disease
[epilepsy]" (Meltzer, 1993).
A.D. 161
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius continued to
spend public funds to provide games and gifts to
the people of orne, a policy that had been ini
tiated by his predecessors. Rome continued to
maintain the "bread and circuses" system that
evolved into an institutional welfare state over
the course of several centuries.
A.D. 166
In a meeting of East and West, Chinese records
indicate that Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
40 Ancient Worl d
&&TRANSITION FROM SLAVE LABOR
TO FREE LABOR IN THE ANCIENT
In the Roman Empire, the economy, especially the
agricultural economy, was based on slavery. In the
early Middle Ages, large agricultural estates in the
empire were first worked by landless laborers
known as co/ani (singular c%nus) and later by
serfs who primarily differed from slaves in that
they could not be sold apart from the land. Schol
ars, particularly those influenced by Marxism,
have believed that the transition from slavery to
free labor toward the end of the ancient world was
primarily the result of the barbarian invasions of
the Roman Empire. At first, the di slocations caused
by the barbarian threat were said to have disrupted
markets and the value of slaves. Later, small farm
ers, seeking security from the invaders, sought the
protection of large landowners and gradually de
clined to the status of totally dependent tenants
and eventually into serfdom.
More recent scholarship has characterized the
transition as more complicated than previously be
lieved and emphasized the incomplete and prob
lematical nature of the evidence. In the Byzantine
Empire, vvhich occupied much of southeastern Eu
rope, slavery continued to be a recognized and
ubiquitous institution for 1,000 years, and in some
Western European countries, slaves composed as
mllch as 10 percent of the population even in the
late Ages-some domestic servants were
slaves even as late as the sixteenth century. In fact,
large estates worked by large numbers of slaves in
the Roman Empire were confined to a few areas, of
which central Italy was the largest, and even in
those areas, farms worked by free tenants existed in
large numhers. There is no evidence of any substan
tial change in this situation in any period of Roman
imperi31 history.
In Italy in late antiquity, one type of slave was a
sharecropper working his own piece of land, the
reside/IS, apparently the forerunner of the colonus
while another type of slave, the manualis, worked
the master's central domain. In the East, there were
several types of agricultural slaves, the exact defin
itions of which have not come down to us although
some undoubtedly corresponded to the two Roman
types. Much of the evidence is vague and ambigu
OllS, since slavery was not a literary topic and is ei
ther referred to in passing in works on other topics
or mentioned in business documents with the terms
being understood and thus undefined.
Any shift to tenant fanning in the age of the bar
barian invasions is now believed by scholars to have
been very gradual. In many Roman provinces, agri
cultural laborers were free and paid wages, the same
was true of urban unskilled workers, and skilled
workers were often self-employed. Not all the bar
barian invaders of the Roman Empire were success
ful. Some were defeated and enslaved, and accord
ing to St. Al'i gustine (Letter to), other slaves were
villagers who had been kidnapped by slave dealers.
The earliest laws concerning c% ni, in the law
code compiled by order of Emperor Theodosius in
450 B.C., defined their status as very similar to that
of s'laves, but later law codes drawn up in the East
stated that coloni were in full control of their prop
erty. The status of rural slaves and free tenants
seems to have gradually increased in similarity
until the two groups were assimilated together, but
this process seems to have been a very slow, grad
ual one. The collapse of central authority caused by
the barbarian invasions, which placed the tenant
farmer totally at the mercy of the landlord, was the
primary factor in this transformation.
Well before the fall of the Roman Empire, the
power of local rich men had supplanted that of the
government in many areas. lJl the early Middle
Ages, there was a lease in which the tenant had no
rights whatsoever. Details regarding the transfor
mation of the cololli into serfdom are lacking
owing to a lack of records from the period of an
archic disorder following the barbarian invasions,
a period traditionally known as the Dark Ages.
Thus, it is impossible to characterize a "slave soci
ety" as immediately or even gradually giving way
in identifiable stages to a "feudal society." The dis
appearance of serfdom itself was a much later de
velopment, occurring as late as the nineteenth cen
tury in some parts of Europe; only in England did
it occur as earl y as the late Middle Ages.
-Stephen A. Stertz
For Further Readi ng
Brockmeyer, Norbert. 1979. Antike Sklaverei.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft;
Finley, Moses L 1980. Ancient Slavery and Modern
Ideology. New York: Penguin Books; Whittaker,
C. R. 1987. "Circe's Pigs: From Slavery to Serfdom
in the Later Roman World." In Classical Slavery. Ed.
Moses 1. Finley. London: Frank Casso
Ancient World 41
Slaves attending their owner ill a drapers ' shop. This bas
relief dates frolll the second cel/tury A.D. (British Museum)
sent a diplomatic representative to meet with
the Chinese at Tongking (Tonkin).
A.D. 167
A plague affected Rome and cities in the eastern
part of the Roman Empire. It is believed that the
disease (perhaps bubonic plague) was carried
into the empire by soldiers who had traveled
into Asia.
A.D. 174
During t he reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius
(A.D. 161-180), the Romans began to settle
caprured Germanic "barbarian" peoples on
Roman imperial estates. These Germanic agrj
cultural cultivators became known as co/ani,
tenant farmers on the Roman estates, and
some were actually slaveholders themselves.
Some Roman writers referred to quasi-ca/oni,
who were probably slaves on the Roman
estates.
C. A.D. 175
The Roman jurist Florentinus wrote of slavery
in one of his judicial rulings, saying, "Slavery is
an institution of the law common to all peoples
by which, in violation of the law of nature, a
person is subjected to the mastery of another"
(Meltzer, 1993).
A.D. 177
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius issued an
order calling for the punishment of those reli
giolls sects that "excite the ill-balanced minds of
men." In response to this decree, 47 Christians
were killed in an attack at Lyons (in modern
42 Ancient World
day France); the dead included a slave girl,
Blandina, who had become a Christian.
A.D. 181
The Roman emperor Commodus was notorious
for his life of debauchery and legendary excesses.
It was reported that during his reign (A.D.
180-192) he maintained a harem of 300 women
and a separate collection of 300 yOllng boys. The
sexual exploitation of women and children was
a common aspect of enslavement during this era.
A.D. 185
The former slave Cleander became the leader
of the Praetorian Guard and the favorite of
the Roman emperor Commodus. Much like
Commodus, Cleander was notorious for his
corruptIOn.
A.D. 190
When Roman citizens rose up to oppose the
corruption of Cleander, the former slave who
had become the leader of the Praetorian Guard
and a favorite of Roman emperor Commodus,
the emperor had Cleander put to death to ap
pease the Roman mobs.
A.D. 193-211
The Roman emperor Lucius Septimius Severus
continued the practice of settling captured Ger
manic "barbarian" peoples on Roman imperial
estates. These Germanic agricultural cultivators
became known as co/ani. This practice was
replicated by many Roman landowners through
out the Roman Empire, who noted there was a
labor shortage because of a scarcity of slaves.
Since slaves were commonly the captives of war,
the apparent policy of Pax Romana (Roman
peace) during this era bad the unforeseen conse
quence of reducing the available number of war
captives who could be enslaved.
A.D. 212-216
The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoni
nus (called Caracalla) issued the Constitutio An
toniniana (Constitution of Antonius), which ex
tended the rights of Roman citizenship to all
free male adults throughout the Roman Empire.
A.D. 217-222
The former slave Calixtus (Callistus) became a
Christian and eventually became Pope Calixtus 1.
His accession to the office of bishop of Rome
(the papacy) demonstrated the levels to which
freed slaves could rise in the Roman world.
A.D. 223
The Roman jurist Ulpian was an adviser to Em
peror Severus Alexander, who ended the perse
cution of all Christians in the Roman Empire. In
writing upon the subject of slavery, U1pian said,
"As far as Roman law is concerned, slaves are
regarded as nothing, but not so in natural law as
well: because as far as the law of nature is con
cerned, all men are equal."
A.D. 239
The elder Roman statesman Timesitheus (Mis
ethueus) served as a counselor to the young em
peror Gordian III (his son-in-law) and helped
him escape the power and the intrigues of the
eunuchs (many of whom were slaves) who dom
inated the imperial court.
A.D. 271-275
Roman emperor Aurelian had new walls built
around Rome and other major cities of the em
pire. The emperor also tried to stabilize a strug
gling economy by regulating trade, directing
labor within the empire, and fighting rising in
flation. Under the economic directives of Aure
!ian, the Roman state became more regimented.
A.D. 283-284
The first of the so-called Bacaudae insurrections
occurred in Gaul as peasants, slaves, and other
lower-class elements rose up in rebellion against
Roman authority. The rebellion was suppressed
by Roman forces under the command of Max
imian, who later became co-emperor with Dio
c1etion (293-305).
A.D. 284-305
The Roman emperor Diocletian had been born a
slave in Dalmatia in A.D. 245. His skills as a sol
dier had allovved him to rise through the ranks of
the Roman legions, and his accession to the of
fice of emperor demonstrated the levels to which
freed slaves could rise in the Roman world.
C. A.D. 285
The Roman emperor Diocletian decreed that
slaveholders were prohibited from abandoning
infant slaves and allowing them to die from ex-
Slave badge, which illstructed the reader to seize the slave
and return him ur her to the mastel; served as an arrest
warrant for a runaway slalle. (British Mll seum)
posure to the elements. Increasing financial bur
dens during a time of economic decline had
caused large numbers of slaveholders to practice
infanticide by abandonment as a means of re
ducing their household costs.
A.D. 293
Emperor Diocletian created a vast bureaucracy
within the Roman Empire and ushered in the
beginnings of a managed economy under state
socialism. Among the economic reforms that
Diodetian instituted was one that took away
the freedom of Roman citizens to change their
jobs. The emperor also created a new agency of
tax police, who used torture to prevent tax eva
sion within the empire.
A.D. 301
As part of his continuing efforts to stabilize the
Roman economy, Emperor Diocletian issued the
Edictum de pretiis (Edict of prices), which insti
tuted wage and price controls throughout the
Roman Empire. These policies were not popular
among the Roman citizens, who found ways to
work around them.
A.D. 313
The Roman emperor Constantine I (the Great)
issued the Edict of Milan, which ended the
Ancient World 43
SLAVE
The Roman emperor Constantine transformed the
town of Byzantium into his eastern capital city in
the A.D. 320s. From then until its conquest by the
Muslim Ottoman Turkish sultan Mehmed II in
1453, Constantinople was the capital of the eastern
Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. After 1453, it was
the Ottoman sultan's capital until the dissolution
of the Turkish empire after World War 1. Located
on a narrow strip of water connecting the Black
Sea and the Mediterranecln, the city controlled all
passing trade and served as a market for goods that
arrived by overland routes from the Balkans and
Anatolia (Turkey). Since slavery was a vital feature
of Roman, Byzantine, and Turkish life, this admin
istrative center also served as a central marketplace
for slaves in the eastern Mediterranean for almost
1,600 years.
During the Byzantine millennium, the Christian
city followed traditional Roman patterns of slave
trade and usage, relying primarily on prisoners of
war and the children of slaves as laborers. Emperor
Leo VI forbade the selling of oneself into slavery,
but the effect of the prohibition was short-lived.
The trade apparently languished in the eighth and
ninth centuries but seems to have picked up in the
tenth century, as evidenced in the Life of St. Basil
the Younger, who mentioned slaves serving in im
perial workshops and as assistants to goldsmiths
and weavers. Other documents mention Jewish
merchants who transported slaves from Turkistan
through Constantinople to as far away as Spain
and France. Although sources are scanty, it seems
that the trade declined again in the el eventh and
twelfth centuries. Exchanges of slaves took place in
"the valley of lamentations," a fitting name for the
slave market for which captives from Slavic Europe
and the Black and Caspian Sea regions provided
the bulk of supply.
Although the Byzantine use of slaves for other
than domestic purposes declined from the eleventh
to the thirteenth centuries, trade accelerated when
Russian merchants sold their Caucasian and Turco
Tatar slaves in Constantinople to the dominant
Venetian and later Genoese merchants who
shipped them to Chios, Crete, Sicily, Venice, and
Spain as well as to the Mamluks in Egypt. In the
12905, the Cenoese established themselves along
the Black Sea itself, but their colony in the Con
stantinople neighborhood of Pera continued to
thrive. Black African slaves appeared sporadically,
and Muslim merchants traded in the city in the
fourteenth century and again in the 1430s.
following the Ottoman conquest, Constantino
pie's population was enslaved, and Italian mer
chants lost their markets in the Black Sea and much
of the eastern M editerranean. In rebuilding Con
stantinople, the sultan located the slave market
(Esir Pazari) south of the huge bazaar (Bedestan).
As the sultan's armies marched, they took huge
numbers of captives as slaves: 60,000 from the
Greek isthmus and over 200,000 from Serbia in the
1450s and 10,000 from Kiparissia on the Ionian
Sea in the 1460s. Many of these captives were
bought by merchants (esirdjis) who herded them
back to Constantinople (now Istanbul) for sale.
They augmented the continued flow of Circassian,
Caucasian, and Polish slaves from the north and
east. Turkish successes in North Africa opened the
market for black Africans, and they began to ap
pear in great numbers.
Tax records reveal that in the 1550s, about
25,000 slaves were sold each year in the city, and
in the seventeenth century, the average was 20,000.
In the mid-1800s, between 11,000 and 13,000
slaves were shipped in from Africa each year with
young black women dominating. Young women
were often bought by other women who taught
them basic domestic skills and resold them at a
profit. Other slaves reentered the market through
their judicial petition to be resold because of mis
treatment.
The sulta n himself controlled an increasing
number of slaves, including administrators, sol
diers, eunuchs, and women of the harem. From
around 20,000 in the 1400s, their number grew to
nearly 100,000 in 1609. Throughout the Ottoman
period, perhaps 20 percent of the city's population
was unfree. Domestic service was most common,
but slaves also worked in luxury goods production
and as business factors and hired laborers.
Beginning in the seventeenth century, the num
ber of young Christians (devshirme) who served as
soldiers and administrators (kul) decl ined as free
Muslims vied for these places. Domestic slavery re
mained popular, however, and was challenged only
in the nineteenth century under pressure from
Great Britain to abolish first the slave trade, then
the institution of slavery. The period of the Ot
toman Tanzimat ("reform") from the 1830s to the
1880s saw the closing of the public slave market in
1847, but slaves continued to be exchanged in pri
vate houses. The empire's 1909 ban on slavery sat
isfied the British but did not abolish the practice or
the trade, and only after 1926 did the government
effectively shut down the slave trade.
-Joseph P. Byrne
44 Ancient World
For Further Reading
Bon, Ottaviano. 1996. The Sultan's Seraglio.
London: Saqi Books; Frances, E. 1969.
"Constantinople Byzantine aux XIVe et Xve siedes.
Population-Commerce-Metiers." Revue des Etudes
Sud-Est EUTopeennes 7: 405-412; Mansel, Philip.
1995. Constantinople: City of the World's Desire,
persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
According to this declaration, all property that
had been seized from Christians was to be re
stored, and Christianity was declared to be on
a par with other religions within the Roman
Empire.
A.D. 330
Officials in Rome were concerned about a pop
ulation decline that was occurring throughout
the empire. Contributing factors to this demo
graphic change were infanticide and other ef
forts to limit the size of families bee a use of eco
nomic distress and the large number of eunuchs
throughout the empire.
A.D. 341
The ouncil of Gangra condemned any Roman
citizen who, under the pretext of Christianity,
taught slaves to resist the authority of their
masters or to flee from their life of servitude.
Much of this concern had resulted from the rise
of the Donatists, members of a North African
heretical Christian sect who were known for
their proclivity for violence and fanatical self
immolation practices. It was common practice
among the Donatists to attack the people who
had wealth and privilege in order to benefit the
poor.
A.D. 345
Julian and Gallus, the two young sons of the
Roman emperor Constans I, were kept isolated
as virtual prisoners for their own protection be
cause their father feared for their safety. An aged
slave who served as a teacher to the young boys
was their only companion during this captivity.
A.D. 362
Christian leaders meeting in council at the
Synod of Alexandria denounced as sinful "any
one who under the pretence of godliness should
reach a slave to despise his master, or to with
draw himself from his service" (Meltzer, 1993).
1453-1924. London: John Murray; Toledano, Ehud.
1983. The Ottoman Sialle Trade and Its
Suppression. Princeron: Princeron University Press;
Verlinden, Charles. 1963. "Traite des esdaves er
traitants iraliens aConstantinople (XJlIe-XVe
siecles)." Moyen Age 69: 791-804.
C. A.D. 370
In letters addressed to fellow churchmen, Basil
the Great, bishop of Caesarea, advocated social
justice for the poor and the oppressed, and he
urged masters to use kindness toward their
slaves. Although Basil recognized the social in
equalities of his time, he argued that there was
a greater spiritual force that united all men de
spite any secular divisions.
A.D. 377
Roman emperor Valentinian I issued an imper
ial decree stating that those slaves who were
held as quasi-colani could not be sold separate
from the land they cultivated. This decree shows
the gradual transformation from slavery to serf
dom that was beginning to occur in the later
centuries of the Roman Empire.
C. A.D. 380
According to the historian Gregory of Nyssa,
during religious festivals of the early fourth cen
tury in Rome it was common for Christians to
manumit deserving slaves.
A.D. 380
The Roman emperor Theodosius I (the Great)
was baptized a Christian. During his reign (A.D.
379-395), Christianity became the official reli
gion of the Roman Empire.
A.D. 387
Libanius of Antioch delivered an oration On
Slavery in which he depicted slavery as an ordi
nary aspect of life in the Roman Empire and
speculated that all individuals, in one respect or
another, could consider themselves slaves to
some type of occupation or controlling force in
their lives.
A.D. 395-405
Roman-occupied Britain was attacked along the
western coast from Strathclyde southward to
Wales by pirate bands of marauding Scots (as
World 45
ON
At or after the middle of A.D. 387, Libanius (314
c. 392) of Antioch in Syria, one of the most famous
orators of his time, wrote and probably delivered
orally an oration, On Slavery. Although, in accor
dance with the rhetorical conventions of the time,
the theme of the oration was each man's "slavery"
to his passions as well as the professional orator's
"slavery" to the demands of his work, the work
gives us information that is unavailable elsewhere
about agricultural slavery in the eastern part of the
later Roman Empire.
According to Libanius, there were numerous
types of slaves, some of whom were, in effect,
sharecroppers tending their own pieces of land
while others tended only or primarily their master's
land, and there were several types of slaves (or
serfs), the definitions of which are not now exactly
known. Mention of these social classes is also made
in Ljbanius's Oration 47, On the Protection Rack
ets, which he delivered a few years after On Slav
ery. In neither oration, nor anywhere else in the ex
tensive writings of Ljbanius, is slavery depicted as
anything but a fully accepted part of life. Slave mar
kets are spoken of as normal pans of life, and else
where (Oration 66) Libanius comp.lained that his
poor students could afford only two or three slaves
who, being too small a household, were insolent.
In the oration On Slavery, people in a large
number of occupations are successively character
ized as slaves of the more-onerous aspects of their
work and sometimes compared with particular
kinds of slaves. Thus, teachers are slaves of their
students as well as their students' parents and
grandparents. When teachers travel, they are slaves
of doorkeepers and the city gates and innkeepers.
Curiafes, certain part-time local officials who had
to contribute out of their own pockets to the pub
lic expense and who were given that duty against
their will, as was Libanius himself, were slaves, not
only of the city magistrates but even of their lowly
assistants, who had to be flattered. Some of the
people to whom everyone in various occupations
was "enslaved" were actually slaves themselves.
Everyone with hands and a tongue was, in fact, a
slave. Libanius strongly implied that he himself, a
professional orator and a curialis, was subject to
the most onerous form of slavery.
On Slavery was not intended to be taken literally
or even, in some respects, very seriously. Libanius's
message was merely that life is hard. As was cus
tomary, the orator was straining for effects; he was
trying to impress his hearers more with the form
than with the content of his words, using clever
variations on old and well-known rhetorical con
ventions like a musician performing improvisations.
-Stephen A. Stertz
For Further Reading
Fesrugiere, A. ]. 1959. Antioche paienne et
chretierme: Libanius, Chrysostome, et les moines
de Syrie. Paris: E. de Boccard; Petit, Paul. 1955.
Libanius et fa vie mllilicipale aAntioche au IVe
siec/e apres].e. Paris: Paul Geuthner.
they were called) from Ireland. Thousands of
British slaves were carried off during these
raids, including a young Briton named Patricius,
the son of a Roman official living along the Sev
ern estuary. Patricius later escaped from slavery
but returned to Ireland as the missionary (Saint
Patrick) who carried Christianity to the people
of Ireland.
A.D. 407-417
The second of the so-called Bacaudae insurrec
tions occurred in Gaul as peasants, slaves, and
other lower-class elements rose up in rebellion
against Roman authority. The rebellion was
suppressed by the Roman forces of Flavius
Honorius, the emperor of the West.
A.D. 409-410
Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, besieged the
46 \'(/o rld
city of Rome during the reign of the Western em
peror Honorius, and the Romans were unable to
placate him with bribes of gold, which had
worked twice in the past. The situation was
grave, and many Romans nearly starved. A large
number of barbarian slaves escaped to Alaric's
lines and joined the Visigoth forces. In August of
410, King Alaric and the Visigoths were ahle to
enter Rome when a slave opened the gates to the
city, which allowed the Germanic" barbarians"
to enter. Since Alaric was an Arian Christian, a
sect that had been outlawed in the Roman Em
pire in 379, he did not allow the churches of the
city to be destroyed, but the rest of the city was
sacked by the Visigoths.
A.D. 411
The Donatists, members of a North African
heretical Christian sect, were known for their
proclivity for violence and fanatical self-immo
lation practices. Members of the sect formed a
group called the circumcellions (or prowlers)
and began to steal from the wealthy in North
Africa in order to benefit those who were in
need. St. Augustine of Hippo was one of the
biggest opponents of the Donatist cause. In his
Epistles (185), Augustine questioned, "What
master was there who was not compelled to
live in dread of his own slaves, if the slave
had put himself under the protection of the
Donatists?"
C. A.D. 412
St. Augustine of Hippo wrote De civitate Dei
(The city of God) sometime after this date. In
the work, St. Augustine maintained that slavery
was something that "has been imposed by the
just sentence of God upon the sinner."
A.D. 476
Traditional date for the fall of the Roman Em
pire in the West. Emperor Romulus Augustulus
resigned his position, and the Germanic com
mander Odoacer became the king of Italy.
Ancient World 47