Slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome Essay

Slavery has been a major component of human civilization all throughout history. People turn to slavery for many reasons, such as fear of different ethnicities and fear that these new foreign people will take over land that is not theirs. The conditions under which slaves work and live varies greatly by the time and location of which the slaves lived. Slaves play a major role in their society and contribute greatly to their communities, often forming one of the largest masses of the population. Though the accuracy of the information from primary sources may be tainted with exaggeration and bias, it is easy to deduce from primary works the treatment of slaves and the working and living conditions surrounding them. According to many sources,

Slavery can be dated back to very early civilizations and were crucial in everyday activities, also to the economy. Some of these ancient civilizations include the India, Mesopotamian and Chinese and these had slaves work in their homes or their shops. Another early civilization who used slaves were the Egyptian who used the slaves to build their monuments, castles, palaces and statues. Hebrews also used slaves but were a little more moral on how they were identified. The Aztec, Inca and Mayan used slaves in many forms and most of these slaves were optained through war prisoners and were used in agriculture and warfare.

In Aristotle's "Justifying Slavery" and Seneca's "On Master and Slave," the two authors express their opposing sentiments on the principles of slavery. While Aristotle describes slavery as predestined inferiority, evidenced greatly by physical attributes, Seneca emphasizes the importance of "philosophical" freedom as opposed to physical freedom. (p. 58). The authors' contrasting views are disclosed in their judgments on the morality of slavery, the degree of freedom all people possess at birth, and the balance of equality between a slave and his master.

Children who are selected by their owners live and work in the house as attendants and other small jobs. Although they were under the watchful eye of other slaves, the child would still look up to their owners and fear their wrath. Some children would not see their parents after they start working in the house. The long hours adults worked meant that many did not see their parents even if they

Slaves were used to do chores around the house, watch children, as well as clean and cook. At this time most of the slaves weren’t native rather they were from West Africa. Since the slaves were from a different part of the world and had a much different lifestyle (culture) than the Americans did, white people always made sure to keep a close eye on the slaves, almost as if they were afraid of their own black slaves, matter of fact they probably were. The whites seemed to be so afraid of them that they put bans on West African cultural practices, such as night burials, group gatherings, and the purchase of

The experiences of enslaved women differed from the experience of enslaved men in ancient Rome; slavery within ancient Rome can be traced back to the first century BCE and was based primarily on the chattel slave system. Slavery within the ancient roman society was highly normalised as it was considered a part of roman culture. Slavery within ancient Rome was so heavily normalised that it is considered to be described as a “slave society” Joshel (2010, p. 6) states that “For slaves living in the Roman world, there was no outside – no place without slavery and no movement that declared slavery wrong. Slavery was a normal part of life, and this was true not only for the Romans but for every neighbouring ancient culture”. Not only was

Once the slaves were brought to their new home they were put right to work. Slaves did all sorts of tasks such as heavy labor, farm work, cleaning, cooking, construction, animal tending. Basically a slave did everything the owner didn’t want to do. If the slave refused to work or weren’t working hard enough they would be whipped.

Those who were forced into Slavery in America had many jobs and tasks to accomplish throughout the years. According to Heather Williams in her book American Slavery, in the beginning stages of American development slaves “built the roads, cleared land, cut down trees to produce lumber for buildings and wood for fires, and they burned the lime used in outhouses for burial”. On top of already being overworked, slaves had to maintain livestock including producing dairy products, grow crops so the people in their colony could have food to eat, and take care of issues inside their owner’s home such as cooking, knitting and cleaning. Depending on what environment they lived in, slaves were also forced to fish, or work in a printing press. Those who worked in

When you look at the word slavery most have this fixed characterization of the word and refer back to when Europeans enslaved Africans. If we look in ancient Greece times we see slavery was around for years. Not only do we see that slavery has been around for year we also see that there were many different uses of slavery and the meaning of slavery. For instances, the Greeks used slavery as reasoning for their actions. Also, people such as the Athenians used slavery as a word to describe people as someone who needed to be ruled. Greeks looked down upon other Greeks being used as slaves, when they were not enslaving them. During these ancient times, many tyrants had many slaves but these tyrants were very relatable to their subjects.

Work, discipline and feeding are three words that would perfectly sum up the daily routine of slaves in ancient Greece. Slaves were the backbone to the greatness, strength and stability to the ancient Greeks, according to Aristotle. Being divided into many different city-states, Greece as a whole contained a variety of social structures, and therefore, a range of positions occupied by slaves. Slavery allowed the citizens of Athens and also Sparta to focus on the aspects of life they thought were important. Most slaves did not appear any different from the poorer Greek citizens, therefore making it much more difficult for historians to determine exactly how many slaves there were during these times. Ascertaining a true understanding of

Despite harsh stereotypes of the institution of slavery there were not overwhelming reports of harsh conditions for slaves during the time of the Republic. Eventually, the Roman slaves were treated as members of the family unit in the earlier days of slavery. Their punishments were mild, and they were given holidays from their regular duties on certain occasions and festivals.

First off, let take a look at the slavery in Athens. It would be indecent for me to say that these slaves had an easy life because slavery is simply cruel and inhumane. However, Athenian slaves were the least ill-treated. There were two types of Athenian slaves; privately owned and state owned. For privately owned slaves, depending on the master, the slave either had domestic responsibilities or was a tutor and caretaker of the master’s children. “Slaves purchased by the master of the household were received into the household community with a ceremony, attended family ceremonies, adopted the family’s religion and were buried in the family graveyard” (Bowman, 2007, p34). We can say that Athenian slaves were very well integrated into their master’s family, it even seems like they were treated pretty similarly to their owner’s children.

A slave could be privately owned or the state could buy he or she and they would do work for the state such as sanitary, cleaning, construction, etc.

The physical cruelty portrayed to the Roman slaves also supports how they were treated as things, and not human beings. The beating and cruelty involved in slavery comes to no surprise when mentioning Ancient Rome. Slaves were of course punished for critical mistakes, but they were also punished to the highest degree for minor mistakes. For example, in a passage by Martial it says, “You say, Rufus, that your rabbit has not been cooked well, and you call for a whip. You prefer to cut up your cook, rather than your rabbit” . Here, a slave is whipped fiercely, simply because the rabbit was not cooked well enough. With this in mind, it is evident that slaves were mistreated even due to the slightest mistakes. Next, it is hard to believe that some slave owners performed methods of punishing their slaves in this matter. Pliny the Elder describes Vedius Pollio’s actions as, “He used to toss slaves sentenced to death into ponds of

As theory cannot escape the social, economic and political of the time in which it was developed, one cannot truly consider critiquing Aristotle’s natural theory of slavery without some knowledge of slavery in Aristotle’s world. First and foremost, slavery was ubiquitous. Furthermore, they were employed not only as household servants and stewards, but in Aristotle’s Athens, they are worked in the fields, the mines, as craftsman, traders, secretaries, accountants, teachers, doctors, public servants, and participated in the arts. Hence they were indispensable for satisfying the needs of Athenians of even modest affluence. The perfect household was one that had slaves (Politics 1253b 4). Without their exploitation, the middle and upper classes’ good life would cease to exist. Moreover, the Aristotelian, ideal citizen would not be free to engage in the rational activities prescribed. While Aristotle’s defense of slavery can be considered morally repugnant to