Kathy Gaca is very concerned that people are incorrectly using a word that is almost never used. That word is andrapodize, which, apparently, has been used enough by scholars of ancient Greek to warrant a place as an English word. The Greek word from which it is based is ἀνδραποδίζω (andrapodizo). The definition of this Greek word provided in a dictionary is “reduce to slavery or enslave”. It is this definition that Gaca has a problem with. She argues, quite successfully, that the Greek word actually refers to a very specific process, one that illuminates how ancient warfare was very much a matter of gender.
Gaca notes how there is a phrase frequently found in Greek historians when they describe a military force moving in on a besieged city. For example, the historian Herodotus describes the process as φόνος καὶ ἐξανδραπόδισις (3.140.5). This phrase has frequently been understood to mean that the soldiers are going to go into the city, kill all the armed men and then enslave the rest of the population. Sometimes translators will insist that part of this enslavement includes the soldiers selling these slaves. Gaca’s work changes this picture. She shows that what andrapodizing entails is spectacular violence directed against women and adolescent boys and girls.
Gaca’s article examines pretty much all uses of the word in the entire corpus of Ancient Greek literature, from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in 1453. In doing so she suggests that we have enough examples to reconstruct what kind of violence civilians faced when this stage of warfare began. Specifically, in included the soldiers killing and maiming a number of people, primarily the very old and the very young, who would serve no use to them as slaves or potential underlings. This spectacle of violence established the dominance of the invaders. Then the soldiers would enslave a minority of the population, primarily women and adolescents.
An important aspect of Gaca’s account is that she emphasizes that andrapodizing is not committed against men of fighting age. Those men are killed prior to the act of andrapodizing beginning. Andrapodizing is carried out against a civilian population, with the purpose of terrorizing them into obedience through pitiless and seemingly random slaughter and with capturing the desirable women and adolescents.
As Gaca notes, as a consequence of this gendered process, there are two types of captives after a battle: there are soldiers who are taken on the field (the Greek phrase used for them is often δέσμιοι) and then there are those who are enslaved as a result of andapodizing.
Gaca notes how there is a phrase frequently found in Greek historians when they describe a military force moving in on a besieged city. For example, the historian Herodotus describes the process as φόνος καὶ ἐξανδραπόδισις (3.140.5). This phrase has frequently been understood to mean that the soldiers are going to go into the city, kill all the armed men and then enslave the rest of the population. Sometimes translators will insist that part of this enslavement includes the soldiers selling these slaves. Gaca’s work changes this picture. She shows that what andrapodizing entails is spectacular violence directed against women and adolescent boys and girls.
Gaca’s article examines pretty much all uses of the word in the entire corpus of Ancient Greek literature, from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in 1453. In doing so she suggests that we have enough examples to reconstruct what kind of violence civilians faced when this stage of warfare began. Specifically, in included the soldiers killing and maiming a number of people, primarily the very old and the very young, who would serve no use to them as slaves or potential underlings. This spectacle of violence established the dominance of the invaders. Then the soldiers would enslave a minority of the population, primarily women and adolescents.
An important aspect of Gaca’s account is that she emphasizes that andrapodizing is not committed against men of fighting age. Those men are killed prior to the act of andrapodizing beginning. Andrapodizing is carried out against a civilian population, with the purpose of terrorizing them into obedience through pitiless and seemingly random slaughter and with capturing the desirable women and adolescents.
As Gaca notes, as a consequence of this gendered process, there are two types of captives after a battle: there are soldiers who are taken on the field (the Greek phrase used for them is often δέσμιοι) and then there are those who are enslaved as a result of andapodizing.