Since the eighteenth century, historians, philosophers and social theorists have debated the degree to which ancient economies were slave dependent. Smith, Hume, Marx, and Engels all saw slavery as the driving engine of economic production in antiquity. In the late nineteenth century, this older model drew criticism. Eduard Meyer argued that ancient societies were quasi-feudal and that slavery only became a major concern in Athens when the state began to give handouts to the free poor.[1] Meyer’s model was borrowed and adapted in the twentieth by Moses Finley, who thought that Greece became a slave-society when Solon abolished debt-bondage.[2] Edward Harris has since shown that Homeric society did depend on slaves and that Solon did not abolish debt-bondage.[3] More recent studies, including those of David Lewis and Kostas Vlassopoulos,[4] have further challenged Finley’s views, and in that same revisionist vein, this new study by Jason Douglas Porter of slavery in fifth- and fourth-century Athens throws into relief the variant forms of Athenian slavery.
In an introductory chapter, Porter invokes Joseph Miller’s coinage of ‘slaving strategies’ and focus on ‘motivated human action’.[5] Institutions, according to that model, do not exist in vacuo but depend on human decision-making and, therefore, must operate within shifting historical frameworks. In contrast to some questionable earlier treatments, especially Kurt Raaflaub’s, which did not understand slavery institutionally,[6] Porter prioritises an institutionalist approach whilst acknowledging that institutions of necessity mutate over time and concedes, at least in part, to Miller’s critique of traditional institutionalism as ‘overly static’ (4). Porter challenges monolithic conceptions of slavery, recognises ‘a complex and diverse set of attitudes towards enslaved persons’ (4), and follows William Westermann regarding the changing economic uses of slaves from one epoch to the next.[7] Porter cites Deborah Kamen’s work as ‘probably the most detailed attempt to resolve the difficulty in scholarship on Athenian slavery’ (12) and proposes to improve her model, although critical of her binary vision of ‘privileged’ and ‘underprivileged’ slaves who occupied self-contained statuses..[8]
The first chapter proper examines the multiplicity of economic and social forces behind different slaving strategies and draws attention to the ‘multifaceted value of slave ownership’ (15). Porter distinguishes slave ownership purely for economic profit from slave ownership for the acquisition of social capital, such as status or prestige. Challenging Finley’s notion of social embeddedness, which denied that acquisition of wealth, a moving factor in industrial and post-industrial economies, was a prime mover behind economic transactions in the ancient world, Porter correctly sees maximisation of profit as a chief incentive behind the amassing of slaves. Drawing on Lys. 3.6–7 and Thuc. 2.45.2, Porter shows that seclusion for wealthy women was connected in the public eye with perceptions of their aristocratic virtue. In the case of male slaveowners, Porter points to sources, such as Lysias 1 (On the Murder of Eratosthenes), which illustrate that slaves were used as bodyguards, and Thucydides (3.17.4; 7.75.5), who attests to the use of slaves in the Athenian military. Alongside the purely economic factors, following the observations of Vlassopoulos that prestige played a large role in slave-owning societies, Porter draws on disparate evidence from Demosthenes, Plutarch, and Euripides to show that to own even one slave gave a free person social status.[9] In line with the iconoclastic study of Vincent Rosivach and, more recently, that of Lewis, Porter emphasises that slave-ownership was a phenomenon shared by a much wider circle than the narrow socio-economic elite, as claimed by some, and points to cross-cultural comparisons in North America and Brazil where small markets seem to have been a feature of the economic landscape.[10] In a final section, Porter examines the mysterious and widely debated institution of apophora and compares it to the Roman peculium. On the strength of the Old Oligarch, he concludes that those obliged to pay the apophora could keep whatever else they wanted.
The second and third chapters highlight the diversity of conditions, as well as occupations, under which slaves were kept in Classical Athens. Porter notes that within the overarching category of slavery ‘lay a wide range of roles performed by different enslaved persons that required different levels of skill and different degrees of responsibility and independence’ and that ‘[t]he idea that they can be neatly divided into a category of either skilled or unskilled labour is reductive’ (68). He points to evidence, such as IG I3 422.71–3, 77–8, 74–6, 206–7, which shows that in slave-markets the occupation of the slave for sale could be listed. Porter examines slave monitoring and points to Syriscus, an apophora-paying charcoal-burner from Menander’s Epitrepontes, who enjoyed a degree of independence that might have been convenient to the master. He cross-references the Attic Stelai (IG I3 426.43–51) to highlight similar patterns and surveys examples of slaves placed in responsibility, commercial agents, epitropoi, and paidagogoi, stressing the importance of trust. He challenges Paulin Ismard’s view that the renting of slaves to third parties was ‘quasi exclusif’[11], pointing to the mining, farming, and sex industries where the evidence paints a more complex picture. He observes that ‘of the few classical Athenian herders of whom we know, all were enslaved with one exception (Lys. 20.11), as was often the case in the Greek world generally’ (70) but shows that shepherds could be subjected to direct and indirect methods of exploitation. Similarly with prostitution, Porter notes that whilst sex workers could be male or female, slave or free, among the enslaved there was considerable divergence, many being bought for a single act, but others, often the more expensive, for purposes beyond sexual gratification, some of whom, like Neaera ([Dem.] 59), purchased freedom. Others were used for musical entertainment (Xen. Symp. 4.50–60), and others could operate semi-independently. Porter notes that the mines of Attica had been in use from the sixth century and, from archaeological evidence, that the extent of the mining industry was enormous. Silver extraction demanded a variety of skills, however, and from Xenophon’s Poroi (4.14–15) Porter infers that industry deployed both state-owned slaves and rented private slaves, a picture confirmed by the practice of leasing of mines to private lessees (SEG 16.123, 16–17; 12.100, 55–7). The status of Sosias the Thracian has been subject to long-standing dispute, but Porter presents balanced arguments that he paid the apophora.
The fourth and fifth chapters focus on slaving strategies within Athenian households, examining two test cases, one known to us from Xenophon’s Oeconomicus (Ischomachus), the other the orator Demosthenes. Porter argues that in the first, a complex hierarchy operating within the household was essential to maintaining order. The Oeconomicus is a theoretical work that cannot be treated as historical ‘evidence’ in the same way that, for example, a Demosthenic speech can, and Porter notes the methodological limitations involved when using such a text as a source for Athenian slavery. As he observes, ‘the value of the Oikonomikos as either an economic handbook or a moral guide would be hard to imagine if its recommendations were far outside the possible configurations of Athenian households’ (128). Preconceptions derived ultimately from Aristotle (Pol. 1.1256b40–1258a18) about self-sufficiency (autarkeia) as the ideal led Finley to suppose that pursuit of surplus was not a typical goal of economic production at the level of the household, but Finley put statements of Aristotle into the mouth of Xenophon. As Porter cautions, Xenophon never states explicitly that self-sufficiency was ideal, even if it might in some respects have been desirable. Archaeological surveys have indicated use of vast tracts of land for farming in the Classical age, and Porter argues that the farming conditions described in Oeconomicus indeed relate to farming on a large scale. Porter sheds light on the economic importance of female slaves in food preparation, textiles, and, not least, human reproduction. The complexity of the imaginary household described by Xenophon must imply a much larger and more intricately interwoven economic structure than the small-scale concern envisioned by Finley, and on that basis, Porter argues that slaving strategies deployed by Ischomachus must relate to a sizable estate that operated on a scale that reached beyond subsistence. To turn to Demosthenes, though there are differences, such as the fact that whereas the slaves of Ischomachus were directly exploited, the household of Demosthenes depended chiefly on rent arrangements and payment of apophora, what stands out in the case of Demosthenes’ household is that, like Ischomachus’ in the portrait by Xenophon, it depended vitally on an elaborate network of slaves for its day-to-day functioning.
The final chapter looks at slavery through the other end of the microscope, that is, from the perspective of the enslaved, showing that there was a kaleidoscope of experiences ranging from the very worst — usually, those slaves who were under the direct control of their masters — all the way to the experiences of epitropoi, who did not suffer physical brutality nearly to the same degree. Porter suggests that slaves in non-elite households might have been in a less enviable position that those who were possessed by the rich in that in richer households there was probably greater opportunity for slaves to be only partially supervised by their owners than they would have been if living in households where economic production was simpler — and, therefore, where the supervisory role of the owner might have been more scrupulous. Porter nevertheless points to Lys. 1 to show that even in less wealthy households, slaves would have enjoyed certain flexibilities. Limitations of wealth would have imposed restrictions on the indulgences available to slaves from poorer owners, but on the other side of the coin, poorer slave owners were less at liberty to abuse their property egregiously if constrained by an economic concern to maintain slaves more diligently. In the final analysis, the condition of slavery did not necessitate a life of pain and drudgery, but the real threat of such a life was omnipresent in the lives of most, as Apollodorus stated about his stepfather, Phormion, who, he said, should have been put to work in a mill rather than given liberty and control of a banking business ([Dem.] 59.33). Porter summarises succinctly the choice for a slave in fourth-century Athens: ‘either to risk suffering a fate like that of enslaved millworker, or to enjoy a more comfortable life by acting to the best of their abilities in their master’s interests.’ He concludes: ‘Athenians expected nothing less than this from their enslaved, and any action to the contrary justified a condemnation to brutal exploitation and, ultimately, violence.’ (191–2).
An enviable achievement, Porter’s book recognises slavery as a legal institution and, at the same time, eschews a monolithic picture of what slavery entailed from the point of view of both exploiter and exploited. This book should be consulted by anyone who desires to know what slavery at Athens was in the period of history we can best document, how it functioned, and how it shaped the economy. Methodologically rigorous and evidence-based, it shows, like Lewis’s, that slavery was not monolithic and that its forms varied considerably. Porter is never doctrinaire and is ready to nuance his discussion as and when the state of the evidence does not permit definitive conclusions, or where the picture that emerges is not always clear-cut. His book is a welcome addition to the Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Slavery series.
Works Referenced
M.I. Finley [1980] 1998. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, Expanded Edition. Edited by B. D. Shaw (Princeton).
P. Ismard (2019). La cité et ses esclaves: institution, fictions, expériences (Paris).
E.M. Harris 2006. Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens: Essays on Law, Society, and Politics. (Cambridge).
E.M. Harris 2012. ‘Homer, Hesiod, and the “origins” of Greek slavery’, Revue des Études Anciennes 114: 345–66.
C.J. Joyce (2025). ‘Status Polarities in Classical Athens’. Mnemosyne 78: 1–46.
D. Kamen (2013). Status in Classical Athens (Princeton).
D. Lewis 2018. Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterranean Context: c. 800–146 BC (Oxford).
E. Meyer (1898). Die Sklaverei im Altertum (Dresden).
J. Miller (2008). ‘Slaving as historical process: examples from the Mediterranean and the Modern Atlantic’, in E. Dal Lago and C. Katsari eds. Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern (Cambridge), 70–102.
J. Miller (2012). The Problem with Slavery as History: A Global Approach (New Haven).
K. Raaflaub (2005). The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece (Chicago).
V.J. Rosivach (1993). ‘Agricultural slavery in the northern colonies and in classical Athens: some comparisons’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 35: 551–67.
K. Vlassopoulos (2016). ‘Does slavery have a history? The consequences of a global approach’, Journal of Global Slavery 1, 5–27.
K. Vlassopoulos (2021). Historicising Ancient Slavery (Edinburgh)
L. Westermann (1955). The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia).
Notes
[1] Meyer 1898.
[2] Finley [1980] 1998.
[3] Harris 2006: 249–270; 2012.
[4] Harris 2012; Lewis 2018; Vlassopoulos 2021.
[5] Miller (2008: 72; 2012: 20).
[6] Raaflaub (2005); extensively and justifiably criticised by Harris (2012) and Lewis (2018).
[7] Westermann (1955:1).
[8] Kamen (2013); for my own critique of that model, see Joyce (2025).
[9] Vlassopoulos 2016:14.
[10] Rosivach 1993; Lewis 2018: 183–5.
[11] Ismard 2019: 80.