This week I am working on a part of my introduction in which I explain why I don’t want want to include discussions of helots in my dissertation. For the most part this writing is kind of annoying as I have to do some research that is not going to have immediate impact in my dissertation. However, one of the advantages of it is that it gives me a chance to think about ancient slavery and manumission more theoretically. In doing so, I’ve realized that when I think about ancient slavery I tend to use three different, albeit related paradigms. I’ve attempted to visualize these paradigms in the attached schemes.
Number One: This scheme is the most simplistic. Citizens have a number of rights that slave does not and furthermore have political power in a way that slaves do not. We can therefore think about power and status in a society as represented in on the vertical access: the higher on the vertical access, the more power and status. In this scheme, all the citizens are in the white area and all the slaves are in the area represented by diagonal lines. The implication is that all citizens are more powerful than all slaves. This scheme pretty much represents slavery in Greek and Roman law. Furthermore, in this scheme, manumission is always a promotion in status: crossing over the line always involves an increase in status.
Number Two: In this scheme, slaves are again represented by the spaces marked by the diagonal lines and citizens by the white space. There is an additional line: a dotted line that goes across the top. Those above the dotted line are part of the elites, that is those who have the influence and authority to create laws and move armies. In this scheme, power and status is again represented on the vertical access. However, this scheme is not concerned with the law but rather with political, social and economic power. This scheme points out that there are in fact slaves who have more power than citizens. This scheme also points out that slaves with a lot of power are a minority; indeed, the more power a person has, the less likely he or she is a slave. This scheme points out that manumission is not a guarantee of an increase in status, as one can be a citizen with less power than a slave.
Number Three: In this scheme, power and status are not represented by axes. Rather, people are embedded in networks. In this scheme, there are nodes that are the center of local networks that are also part of larger networks. These central nodes represent the heads of Greek and Roman families, the men who have authority over their families as fathers and husbands. Their families, which include wives, children and slaves, are indicated by the dots in the local networks. The fathers/husbands connect to each other because as male citizens they participate in public institutions like the military, the government and religious organizations. Families are also connected by marriages, which although they obviously included women, this diagram also emphasizes how for the Greeks and Romans, a marriage was very much a woman moving from her father’s family to her husband’s family. This diagram does not capture the relationships among women or among slaves. Such relationships existed, but we know little about them, as the exclusion of women from literary pursuits means we know very little about them compared to men. This schema points out how manumission could mean very little for a slave: a freedman or woman was still part of a patriarch’s network, albeit they did have more independence than a slave. This schema also points out why manumission could be valuable though: freedmen now had the potential to become their own central nodes in a family network. The case for freedwomen, however, was generally as depressing as it was for citizen women, if not worse.
Number One: This scheme is the most simplistic. Citizens have a number of rights that slave does not and furthermore have political power in a way that slaves do not. We can therefore think about power and status in a society as represented in on the vertical access: the higher on the vertical access, the more power and status. In this scheme, all the citizens are in the white area and all the slaves are in the area represented by diagonal lines. The implication is that all citizens are more powerful than all slaves. This scheme pretty much represents slavery in Greek and Roman law. Furthermore, in this scheme, manumission is always a promotion in status: crossing over the line always involves an increase in status.
Number Two: In this scheme, slaves are again represented by the spaces marked by the diagonal lines and citizens by the white space. There is an additional line: a dotted line that goes across the top. Those above the dotted line are part of the elites, that is those who have the influence and authority to create laws and move armies. In this scheme, power and status is again represented on the vertical access. However, this scheme is not concerned with the law but rather with political, social and economic power. This scheme points out that there are in fact slaves who have more power than citizens. This scheme also points out that slaves with a lot of power are a minority; indeed, the more power a person has, the less likely he or she is a slave. This scheme points out that manumission is not a guarantee of an increase in status, as one can be a citizen with less power than a slave.
Number Three: In this scheme, power and status are not represented by axes. Rather, people are embedded in networks. In this scheme, there are nodes that are the center of local networks that are also part of larger networks. These central nodes represent the heads of Greek and Roman families, the men who have authority over their families as fathers and husbands. Their families, which include wives, children and slaves, are indicated by the dots in the local networks. The fathers/husbands connect to each other because as male citizens they participate in public institutions like the military, the government and religious organizations. Families are also connected by marriages, which although they obviously included women, this diagram also emphasizes how for the Greeks and Romans, a marriage was very much a woman moving from her father’s family to her husband’s family. This diagram does not capture the relationships among women or among slaves. Such relationships existed, but we know little about them, as the exclusion of women from literary pursuits means we know very little about them compared to men. This schema points out how manumission could mean very little for a slave: a freedman or woman was still part of a patriarch’s network, albeit they did have more independence than a slave. This schema also points out why manumission could be valuable though: freedmen now had the potential to become their own central nodes in a family network. The case for freedwomen, however, was generally as depressing as it was for citizen women, if not worse.