Archaic Slavery

Slavery in Ancient Greece

In this course, Dr David Lewis (University of Edinburgh) explores slavery in ancient Greece. We begin by looking at the earliest evidence for slavery in the Greek world, focusing in particular on the descriptions of slavery in the Linear B tablets of Mycenaean Greece (c. 1400 BC) as well as in the poetry of Homer and Hesiod – the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Works and Days. After that, we think about where slaves actually came from, and how they were delivered from the places that supplied them to the places that needed them. In the third module, we think about the role of slavery in Classical Athens, before turning in the fourth module to see how different the situation for slaves (or helots) in Sparta. In the fifth module, we think further about the diversity of the slave experience, and look at what slavery was like in other areas of the Greek world: Chios, Thessaly, Crete and Rhodes. Finally, in the sixth module, we think about manumission. Why did slave-owners sometimes free their slaves? How often did this happen? And what was the process involved?

Archaic Slavery

In this module, we think about the earliest forms of slavery in the Greek world, focusing in particular on the descriptions of slavery in the Linear B tables of Mycenaean Greece, as well as the presentation of slaves and slavery in the poetry of Homer and Hesiod.