What conditions modified the slavery of the helots? What do you think were the reasons for such conditions?
How does Strabo try to conceptualize the peculiar slavery of the helots? With what does he compare them?
1.7 Plutarch, Spartan Sayings 239d–e: Greek Collection of Sayings (Late First/Early Second Century CE)
Literature: Hodkinson 2008; Luraghi 2009.
Lycurgus15 was thought to have secured for the citizens a fine and blessed good: abundance of leisure. For it was absolutely forbidden to touch manual work; moreover, there was no need at all of money-making, which involves painstaking accumulation, or of business activity, because Lycurgus had rendered wealth wholly unenviable and dishonorable. The helots worked the land for the Spartans, paying to them a part of the produce (apophora), which was regularly set in advance. A curse was in place against anyone who rented out the land for more, so that the helots might serve gladly since they were making some gain, and the Spartans themselves might not try to get more.
In which way did the Spartans benefit from the agricultural work of their helots? How did it differ from other forms of employing slaves in agriculture? Cf. 4.2–6.
How does Plutarch explain the reason for this arrangement?
Do you accept Plutarch’s explanation? What other explanations can you think for this arrangement?
Does this arrangement make helots completely different from chattel slaves? Cf. 12.18–9.
1.8 Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, 28: Greek Biography (Late First/Early Second Century CE)
Literature: Luraghi 2002; Luraghi and Alcock 2003.
In other respects, too, the Spartans used to treat the helots harshly and cruelly, to the point that they would force them to drink great amounts of unmixed wine and introduce them to the communal messes, thus demonstrating to the young what it meant to be drunk. And they would order them to sing songs and dance dances ignoble and ridiculous and abstain from the songs and dances of the free. This is why they say that later, during the invasion of Laconia by the Thebans,16 when the Thebans would order the helots they captured to sing the songs of Terpander, Alcman, and Spendon the Spartan, they used to refuse, saying that their masters would not wish it. So those who say that in Lacedaemon the free man is freest, while the slave is most a slave, have correctly gauged the difference.
How did the Spartans try to humiliate the helots?
Why did the Spartans enforce such practices on the helots?
What example does Plutarch cite to show the effects of such practices on slaves?
Does Plutarch think that helots were “between slave and free”? Cf. 1.3.
What do you think?
1.9 Aristotle, Politics, 1264a17–22: Greek Philosophical Treatise (Fourth Century BCE)
Aristotle draws attention to the vagueness of Plato’s Republic about whether the ideal of communal property would apply to all the classes in the ideal city or to the guardians only.
Literature: Lewis 2018: 147–65.
If everything is common to all in the same way as among the guardians, then in what way will the farmers be different from the guardians? Or what benefit will there be to those who submit themselves to their rule? Or on what consideration will they submit themselves to the guardians’ rule unless the guardians think of a clever idea similar to that of the Cretans? For the Cretans have allowed to their slaves everything they allow to themselves, with only two exceptions: they forbid them to use the gymnasia and possess weapons.
What activities are prohibited to Cretan slaves? Why?
Does this necessarily mean that Cretan slaves were better treated than Spartan helots?
Does the description “between slave and free” (see 1.3) fit Cretan slaves better than helots?
1.10 Ps.-Xenophon, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.11–2:17 Greek Political Treatise (Probably Fifth Century BCE)
This text, while critical of Athenian democracy, attempts to offer a sociological analysis of why the Athenian system works and is difficult to overthrow.
Literature: Vlassopoulos 2007; Canevaro 2018.
If anyone is also surprised at the fact that here they allow their slaves to live in luxury and, some of them, magnificently, they could be shown to be doing this too with good reason. For where there is a naval power, it is necessary for financial reasons to be slaves to the slaves − so that we may receive the payments (apophora) the slaves make − and then to let them free. “But in Lacedaemon, my slave would have been in fear of you!” But if your slave is in fear of me, there will be a risk that he might even give his money so as not to be in danger. Where there are wealthy slaves, it is no longer useful that my slave should be in fear of you. This is why we established equality of speech between slaves and free men and between metics and citizens.
How does the author describe the condition of slaves at Athens?
How does he explain the peculiar condition of Athenian slaves?
Do you find his explanation credible? What is the author’s agenda?
Why would a Spartan helot fear a free man who is not his master more than an Athenian slave would?
Can we say that Spartan helots behaved more slavishly than Athenian slaves?
Can we say that some Athenian slaves worked and lived as independently as most Spartan helots?
In the light of this and the above passages, does it make sense to posit a single categorical distinction between helots and chattel slaves?
SOCIAL DEATH
1.11 Social Death and Roman Law
Civil law was the law applying to Roman citizens; the law of nations refers to rules common to all human communities; natural law was law according to nature. On the Digest, see 1.2.
Literature: Buckland 1908: 397–418; Wieling 1999: 1–30; Bodel 2017.
1.11.a Digest, 50.17.32: Collection of Latin Juristic Texts (Sixth Century CE)
Ulpian, On Sabinus, Book 43: As far as the civil law is concerned, slaves are regarded as nobodies. However, this is not the case with natural law because as far as natural law is concerned, all human beings are equal.
1.11.b Digest, 50.17.209: Collection of Latin Juristic Texts (Sixth Century CE)
Ulpian, On the Lex Iulia et Papia, Book 4: We compare slavery closely with death.
1.11.c
