"Asp c s

Ch
to

lavery
's Dsc urses"
bnitted

Dissertation s
for the
Deg ee of ..

Ancient

History
by
. .

STANTINOS MANTAS

to the

University

1 91

Brist 1

TABLE ofCONTENTS
.

Introduction, 1 - 3.
Dio Chrysostom's discourses as a source for Social

History, 4 - 27

a. The Seventh or Euboean discoUIse, 4 - 10.

b. Three discourses slaves (1 , 14, 15), 10 - 18

c.

comparison between Dio Chrysostom's work as a

source for Social History and a real picture of
Greek slavery in the 1st Century A.D., 18 - 27.

C. Cynic and Stoic influences Dio Chrysostom's

thought : 27 - 53.
a. Introduction, 27 - 31.
b. The cynic discourses of Dio Chrysostom, 31 - 32.
c. Parallels between the concepts of slavery and
freedom the works of Epictetus and Dio
Chrysostom, 32 - 38.
d. Dio Chrysostom, Seneca and the amelioration of
slavery, 39 - 45.
e. Plato, Astotle and Dio Chrysostom slavery:
comparison between the doctrines of 'natural'
slavery and Stoicism, 45 - 53.
D. Conclusions: 54 - 59.
.

End Notes 59 - 63.

F. Synopsis : 63 - 64.

G.

Bibliography : 65 - 68.

Appendix

11

INTRODUCTION

Dio Chrysostom was born in Prusa in Bithynia about A.D. 40 and died about
A.D. 120. Like most of the intellectuals of his epoch, he was descended
from local

astocratic

families; his father Pasicrates had played

both sides

energetic role in

local politics, whereas his maternal grand.father and his mother, in her own

ght,

had

been benefactors of the city.

After the completion of his education, Dio started his intellectual career as a
sophist and his attitude towards philosophers in general
hostile, but later

ad

Stoics

particular was

he was converted to philosophy by his ex-opponent, the Stoic

Musonius. His life

ad

work was radically changed because of his political

adventures. He was forced into exile from both Rome and his native Prusa by the
Emperor Domitian
travel

A.D. 82. Unti1 the death of this emperor, Dio was obliged to

Greece and Asia Minor,

perfoning every

kind of manual work for a living.

According to many modern scholars, this misfortune made Dio sympathetic towards
working-class people of free status, something really striking for a member of the
Graeco-Roman elite (this sympathy is basically expressed in the 7th or Euboean
Discourse). Dio was a member of the intellectual movement called "the Second
Sophistic", a literary movement which
the second and the early third
even

physicias

floUshed

centues

like Galen; the vast

A.D. It

majt

in the Greek world of the late first,

inclu~ed sophists,

orators,

hstas,

of them were members of the upper

class because for a good education, huge amounts of money was a basic
presupposition. Many of these intellectuals were involved
benefits

ad

f10Ushing of

their influence

politics and with their

the Roman Court, participated in the economic

their cities: Athens, Smyrna and Ephesus were the major centres of the

movement.

Not all of the "sophists" were willing to spend money or hold offices

fOT

the

sake of their fellow citizens (for instance the orator Aelius Aristedes was at pains to
avoid

electon

perfon

as archon or to

But Roman legislation,

liturgies, using his bad health as an excuse).

order to keep the

cites

Roman citizenship to members of the local

alive, took care that the bestowal of

astocracy

did not entail immunity: "In

their own cities and provinces the old mode of indicating the government's favour and
support, namely bestowal of the Roman citizenship, was becoming increasingly
inadequate; most of the sophists had the citizenship already and in any case
other people had it for

Because:

'busl the

many

be disti.nctive. But the granting of immunity still meant

something. Caesar and Augustus had long ago taken care

the citizenship should

to

be thought

entail imrnunity

men and families most likely

establish that bestowal of

fom

taxation or liturgy" 1.

receive the citizenship were

also those wealthy persons most needed by the cities: if they were
local liturgies, they had at least to provide voluntary

benefactons

perfonn

or else the cities

would suffer"2.

As for the content and style of their work, the members of the Second
Sophistic imitated the ones of the classicalliterature, especially the
of the 4th Century B.C. This insistence

the imitation of a

rhetcal

glus

works

past could be

interpreted as the Graeco-Roman elite's denial of its new, constrcted role

contemporary politics. "The political situation of the Greek
seems

offer an answer.

astocracies

two related levels their power was

comparison with their memorable forbears.

Within the

cites

for each individual

precaous,

and dependent

centUes.

emperor.

by

they were still

charactesed

the dominance was

persuading their fellow

citzens

elect them to public office or exempt them from compulsory liturgy, but

ultimate decision of a governor

ed

constrcted

dominant, more so, indeed, than under the democratic regimes that had
Athens and other Greek cities n the fifth and fourth

the

the

wrong move, and their estates might be

confiscated and their persons banished, while a

well-tined

al,

securing his advancement by

delation or prosecution, took over primacy

WTOllg move but his punishment was not so severe; and

A.D. 96 his exile came to an end.
successors,

Nera

Dacian carnpaign

He was

the polls"3. Dio made the

the death of Domitian

friendly

tens

with Domitian's

and especially Trajan, whom Dio was with before he set

102. He continued his occupation

his

trying to beautify Prusa but

this cost him involvement in a lawsuit and he had to plead his case before the

imeal

legate in 111-112. And this is the last hstcal evidence for his life.

the following chapters, we will try to show that Dio Chrysostom's picture of

slavery was an artificial one; his

descti

of a semi-fictional or very ancient world

did not allow him to do anything else. He is interested in the institution of slavery as
a contemporary issue only when its blackest aspects (i.e. prostitution) became a
danger for public morality. We will try to show, also, that he gave a new meaning to
the words 'slavery - slave', 'freedom - free', by applying them at the
is not the condition of one's body that

defnes

spituallevel.

It

status but that of one's soul. For him,

like the other Stoics, slavery is not a social institution but a state of soul. Dio uses
slavery as a metaphor for social and political evils: Tyrants are "slaves" (to their
impulses) and so are common people whenever they succumb to temptations of the
flesh. But because he was influenced by classical literature and subconsciously
reflected images of his contemporary social reality, Dio cannot avoid either using
contemptuous

charactesatis for

slaves or the word

'drada"

(= chattel slaves)

when he refers to them as "items". His work reflects the inconsistencies which
from the antithesis between the Stoic philosophical view and his realistic
of

cterary

social problems, of his

penanent

descti

social status as a wealthy

landowner and intellectual and his temporary one as worker and exile.

dee

Dio Chrysostom's Discourses as a source for Social

Hjstory

a. The Seventh or Euboean discourse.

Dio Chrysostom belonged to one of the intellectual movements of the 1st and
2nd

Centues

A.D., better known as the Second Sophistic.

As we have already

emphasized in the introduction, the Second Sophistic had as its basic charactestics:
a) archaic style and content;
b) nostalgia for the

biant

by-gone days of

classical antiquity;
c) prestige of its members who were, usually, members
of the elite.
This makes the work of these "Sophists" of the 1st and 2nd
topic not so interesting for either philologists or

histans.

Centues A.D.

For the

foner,

the

Second Sophistic's literature simply lacks the

blliance

and the vividness of the

classical one,for the latter there is not enough

mateal

which could help them to

reconstruct a picture of their epoch.

But this is not absolutely true. Dio Chrysostom was an orator with
philosophical interests, a moralist who was not interested in giving information for a
histcal

researcher of the future but in giving answers 10 some of the moral and

social problems of his epoch. The subject of the morality of his discourses is a very
old one, a mythical or semi-mythical event (like the Fall of Troy)
discussions between

hiS1cal

fictional

characters of the 4th Century B.C., between Alexander

the Great and his father Philip or the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope.
course there are his discourses

particular cities,

Alexanda,

Of

Rhodes, Tarsus,

Apamea, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Borysthenis.

matea1,

mainly,

reconstruction

politica1 history.

these discourses there is

hstan

who wants 10 mak:e a

But again
The

Dio's contemporary society has to study his 7th

discourse, his 10th

"

servants" and both

his discourses

Euboean

freedom and

slavery, 14th and 15th. There are useiul passages in other discourses as well, but only
these four can be used as a whole body

The 7th

research

socia1 history.

Euboean discourse is the only one which has been given attention

by both philologists and

hstans.

For instance Gilbert Highet tried to make a

literary comparison with the bucolic poetry and the New Comedy
ed

the Hellenistic

in his article "The huntsman and the castaway" (in Greek, Roman and

Byzantine Studies 14, 1973,

35-41), whereas Peter Brunt used this discourse as the

main body of the research in his article "Aspects of the social thought of Dio
Chrysos1Om and the Stoics" (in Proceedings of the
19, 1973,

Cambdge

Philological Society

9-34). The philological interest is justifiable because a great part of the

discourse (2-83) has been constructed in the form of a bucolic poem, but

The story has the structure of a fairy tale. After his boat had been wrecked

prose.

the

rough beach of the southem part of Euboea, Dio was rescued by a huntsman who took

him to his hut He told Dio how his father and uncle, hired herdsmen for a wealthy
landowner, becarne huntsmen after the former's execution and confiscation of his
property by the emperor (probably Domitian). AIso, he told Dio the unpleasant story
of his compulsory

isit 10

the city. After these subnarrations, there follows the vivid

and highly romanticised picture of life in nature. The families of the huntsman and
his brother live

happiness though they are

There are

marage

at puberty for both sexes.

anxieties

moral corruption, sexuality is

this

pmitive,

happy poor life

dven

the ght channels by

Endogamy, in the form of

cousins, strengthens the family ties. There seem to be

between parents and children

rather because they are such.

tensions

marage

the relationships

between husband and wife. The entire

nature, rosy enough as it is

gien

between

descti

of

by Dio, reminds us

of the enthusiasm of the

majt

of French intellectuals of the Enlightenment in 18th

Century for the life of the so-called "noble savages".

The
certainly,

hista

has to try to define the social status of the huntsmen. They are,

slaves: ''Our fathers, though free, were just as

as we are - hired

herdsmen tending the cattle of a wealthy man, one of the residents of the island here,
a man who owned many droves of horses and cattle, many flocks, many good fields
too and many other possessions together with all these hil1s" (7, 11-22). After the
death of their employer, they found themselves without means, so they turned to
hunting. Later

the huntsman narrated his unpleasant

eeece

of being taken,

when he was very young, to the city and there being accused as usurper of public land
and

tax

payer (7,24-30).

DUng his

defence, the huntsman insisted

his citizen

status (7, 49), he declared that both he and his brother were raising their children as
citizens.

his arguments are not so persuasive and his treatment by his accuser

seems to be more suitable to a person of limited ghts rather than to a ful1 citizen.

1t seems that Dio presented the huntsmen's life in so idyllic a way because he

wanted to contrast it, sharply, with the gloomy life of poor people in the city. The
general

descti

of the city underlies its decay. The land just outside the city was

wild, whereas a place with such an_ important role in the public life of classical city,
the gymnasium, had been transformed into a ploughed field (7, 38-40). The
cties

were reduced to idleness and poverty, because they did not own land

10

cultivate and they could not frnd a suitable occupation for persons of free status. It
seems that the city-state had started to become a bankrupted institution in the Greek
world under Roman rule.

Dio's sympathy

slavery. He

towads

compaes

the

the

fend1y

is responsib1e for some indirect

infonation

behaviour of the huntsman and his family with

the hospitality which the swineherd Eumaeus gave to Odysseus though he was a slave
and

in this examp1e even a queen, Pene10pe, and a

themse1ves 1ess generous than a mere slave.

When Dio discusses the prob1em of the
expelling the

ut

pnce,

this is just a mythical examp1e.

citizens, he conc1udes that in the event of

of the cities, all the manua1 work will be performed by slaves (7,
perfon in

107), but he does not refer to the work which the slaves had

Te1emachus, proved

reference to wet-nurses and female

of grapes reveals that these

ones for ma1es, schoo1masters and tutors, were

reserved on1y for slaves; poor citizens could perform them too, and this was

occupations as well as the

simi1a

haresters

the cities.

moral1y degrading for them; according to Dio, these were decent jobs (7, 107). Dio
disapproves of many occupations as suitab1e for free but decent men; dyeing (j.nd
perfumery, hairdressing, al1 the occupations whose function is to beautify peop1e
even inanimate

tlngs

like walls

ae

rejected for mora1 reasons (7, 117-119). The

artistic jobs of acting and participating in a chorus

ae

considered morally unsuitab1e

too, but Dio exc1udes :from his list of decent jobs auctioneers, proc1aimers of rewads
for the

aestof

thieves

runaway slaves

indecent 1awyers (7, 123-124). It is

obvious that slaves were engaged in some of these occupations (for instance in
hairdressing), but the under1ying idea of these rejections is that they
for moral1y degraded men of whatever status, free

ae

suitab1e on1y

slave. 1t is interesting enough

that as mentioned above the hunter of runaway slaves is he1d in contempt. And Dio
expresses a strong contempt
had been ens1aved in

wa

slave-traders who sell the women and children who

had been bought into prostitution; in 7, 133-138 he

deve10ped a moral theory containing

humanitaan e1ements

slaves. His pity reaches wide enough to inc1ude even

against the prostitution of

babaan

women in this call

against the sexual exp1oitation of slaves. Prostitution is worse even than the mating
of animals, because in it human beings have to fulfi1 the sexua1 desires of other, not so
human ones, who have enough money to. pay the owners of the former.

support

this

agument

against the usua1 statement of c1assical philosophy that these almost

identical

categes

of people,

moral qualities, Dio insists

barbaans and

slaves, are creatures without dignity and

every human-being's

ght

to be treated as such because

even the outcast and enslaved creatures have been begotten by God and consequently
have a share of decency and moral quality (7, 138). According to Brunt, "it would be
too cynical to suppose that either Posidonius or Pius depreciated ill-treatment of
slaves merely because of the dangers for their masters or for society that it might
foment. Like 5eneca, both produced as argument for the protection of slaves that
might gain the assent of owners who would not themselves have regarded humanity a
dictate or morallaw. Dio's contention that slave prostitution injured society may be

construed as

the same basis" 4 In other words, he believes that Dio's rejection of

the prostitution of slaves or 5toic

founded

humanitaanism in

good feelings, at least partly.

general towards slaves was

But when Dio develops his reasons for

rejecting this institution in 139-148, it becomes clear that his main concem is the
preseration

of the moral system of the Graeco-Roman world, a new one less flexible

and far more

cticised

conserative

than the classical one. Adultery and homosexuality are

and rejected. For Dio prostitution is the first step in the decline of moral

values associated with sexuality; when a man has the opportunity to fulfil his sexual
appetite, it will soon be extended towards decent womenfolk,

mared

women and

virgins alike, and worst of a1l to those precious jewels, the free boys - homosexuality,
as Plutarch's

'rtics"

informs us, with its mild but steady rejection of sexual

relationships between males in favour of marage, is not fashionable anymore.

This is the source of Dio's anxiety which rerninds us of, but reverses, modem
moral commonplaces: prostitution is justifiable when it protects the sexual order of
society but can be dangerous because it allows men to overcome certain sexuallimits.
50, according to Dio, cities are places not l economically but also morally
degraded: tutors, nurses (probably slaves) and even mothers are not reluctant to be
bbed by

men who want to corrupt decent maidens (7, 143-145). And this corruption

ends in the creation of a large category of outcasts: people whose mothers are not
mared and who are reduced to a status similar to one of the slaves. They are

the margins of an alien society.

infoms

us indirectly that the slave is still

creatures who are obliged to live an obscure life

This statement is really important because it

the best expression of the marginal figure of the external outcast. Unfortunately,
Brunt mistranslates the passage (7, 148) and interprets it in a way that cannot be
accepted because it changes the meaning of the Greek text: "In the Euboicus he pities
the slave girl reduced to prostitution against her will

ad

unable to

bng

up children

even if she wished (148)"5. But Dio in the text refers to "Partheniae", men who were
born by "parthenae" (the Greek word for virgins,

unmared

women of young age),

not to children who were born by slave girls. The passage has a

metahcal

meaning. It expresses the fact that prostitution of slaves makes them to extend their
sexual desires to "parthenae", this causes the birth of bastards and creates unhappy
men who like slaves lack social status and

matea

support. It is an argument which

defends the sanctity of the family and pre-marital chastity

amorality reduces men to slavery

ad

warns that sexual

a situation like slavery. There is

reference to

pitiable slave-girls who cannot bring up children.

Generally, in the Euboean discourse Dio Chrysostom, by dividing the

discourse in two different parts,
civic life, attempts a
natural

l:fe

shar

idyllic, romantic, pastoral life in nature

in which slavery does not exist because the Euboean huntsmen are

the turbulent, morally corrupt

significat

the

contrast between two worlds: the highly idealised world of

economically self-sufficient and sexually satisfied through their early

ad

l:fe

marages,

and

of the cities in which slavery perhaps does not play

role in the economy (but this does not mean that slaves are not used in

economic activities: the citizen who accuses the huntsman as usurper of public land
refers to him as owner of "andrapoda", the Greek word for chattel slaves in 7.31,
in 104 there is a reference to

"adrapoda"

alongside with tenement houses

ad

ad

again as part of wealthy citizens' property

ships).

Brunt

inteupts

this passage thus:

"presumably in this reference 10 slaves Dio is thinking of the common practice of

hiring out slave workmen or setring them up

business for a share of the takings" 6.

But this interpretation seems to fail to persuade us because the text refers
tenement houses.

Slaves are simply mentioned as being owned

to

great numbers

("andrapoda polla"), so it remains a simple hypothesis without backing from the

Greek text. But slavery functions

the city at a sexuallevel which is destrucrive for

public morality. Family life in the cities is

descbed

in morbid tones as falling victim

to sexual amorality, adultery and even of love for money which makes mothers accept
bbes

from their daughters' seducers.

b. Three discourses

s)aves: 10, 14, 15.

There are three discourses of Dio Chrysostom's which are deeply concemed
with slavery: the 10th or "Diogenes" or

" serants",

the 14th and 15th both

slavery and freedom. These, with some support from references scattered in the other
discourses, will be our

mateal

for commenting

Dio Chrysostom's thought

slavery. But slavery is not the author's basic interest, it is rather an instrument for the
expression of moral beliefs
interpretation of the

hista

the true freedom, the freedom of the

spit;

so the

becomes rather difficult.

The 10th discourse has as its centre of narrative the debate

the usefulness

or not of the pursuit of a runaway slave. It is significantthat, as we mentioned

page 6, the pursuer of runaway slaves is condemned. It seems, at first sight, strange
that the "hunters" of runaway slaves and slave-traders, especially those who sold their
slave stock into prostitution, were morally stigmatized by moralists like Dio.
Finley in his essay

'ulus

Kapreilius Timotheus, slave trader", refers to the moral

10

contempt which was expressed towards slavers: "it is not his occupation that makes
Timotheus a rare figure, but his publicly expressed de in The ancient world was

not altogether unlike the southern United States

southern judge WTote:

this respect. After the Civi1 War a

the South the ca1ling of a slave trader was a1ways hateful,

odious even among the slave-holders themselves'. This is

than two thousand years earlier a character

cUous

but it is

SO"7.

More

Xenophon's Symposium said to

Socrates: ''It is poverty that compels some to steal, others to burgle, and others to
become slavers".

neither case was the mora1 judgement quite so simple or so

cared

universa11y accepted as these statements might seem to suggest, nor was it

any practica1 conclusion, for the most respectable people depended

to

these same

'hateful' men to provide them with the slaves without whom they could not imagine a
civilised existence to be possible "8. Finley's approach seems to be
insct

ght:

the

of Aulus Kapreilius Timotheus, freedman of Aulus, slave trader was

peculiar and not oly its epoch (1st Century A.D.).

But Dio this specific

discourse uses the theme of the runaway slave as not worth hunting as an excuse to
prove that a "civilised" life Can be imagined without slaves, but this is not the same
civilised life which Finley refers to, it is a Cynic way of life very different from the
civic life of the classical epoch.

The motif of runaway, fugitive slaves is rather frequent

Dio Chrysostom's

discourses: "The boys, anyhow, know that the winner who has the title of
oly

'ing'

is

the son of the shoemaker or a carpenter - and he ought to be learning his father's

trade, but he has played truant and is now playing with the other boys, and he fancies
that now of all times he is engaged

seus

business - and sometimes the

ing

is

even a slave who has deserted his master" (4.49).

"Nay, a man who is buying a slave inquires if he ever ran away, and if he would not
stay with his first master" (31,42).

11

'h,

but, says he, his name is publicly proclaimed by his fellow citizens - just as is

that of a runaway slave" (66, 3).

From these passages as wel1 as from Diogenes' comments

the runaway slave

("Besides, what is your object in hunting for the boy? Was he not a bad slave?"

[(10,2)]) we
a)

ca

deduce:

that fugitive slaves were considered as the extreme marginals (a slave

was marginal by defmition, he/she was always

alien violently uprooted

from his/her own community and transplanted in another, which could never
accept him/her as its member with some
pushed to the extreme when the slave
nowhere to go and he/she

ra

ghts;

but this marginality was

away because he/she simply had

in jeopardy the little security which hislher

master provided);
b) that fugitive slaves were a usual social problem in
antiquity; and
c) that fugitive slaves were bad ones, they did not
function as a good slave whose only

'irtue"

Diogenes challenges this statement

is obedience to his/her master.

transfeing

the nastiness from the

slave to the master ("Perhaps he thought you were a bad master, for if he had
thought you were a good one he would never have left you", 10,3).

Strangely,

the main core of the discourse, Diogenes is at pains to prove that

the institution of slavery is more of a burden than a convenience for slave-holders.

Slaves need to be looked after when they are sick and according to Diogenes they are
neglectful towards their health by intention, in order to damage their bodies, because
their bodies are the property of their masters. So, this self-destructiveness is the only
sabotage which a slave can make against his master.

this pre-supposes that he

will suffer too. Indirectly, Dio states that the link between master/slave is so strong
that the latter can cause damage to the

fer

only by self-destruction. But even

when the master tortures his slave he is not at ease because he is afraid of probable

12

revenge. 50 Dio

Diogenes as his mouthpiece deduces that

is better to be

with serants than a ch man who owns a large number of them.

The main argument of the owner of the fugitive slave is that he has
domestic. 1t is

obious

that for the

died two years ago.

craft can only
difficulty, and

bng

do

other

man his only slave is a means of economical

necessity not of luxury. This reminds us of Lysias'

father did not leave me anything and

'

behalf of a

ce", "

stopped suppo:rting my mother when she

yet have any children who could provide for me.

me very limited assistance, and

can

exercise it with

am quite unable to buy (Kthesasthai) anyone to tak.e

over from

me"9.

But Lysias' client was a

ce.

According to Diogenes every man who is of

nonnal physical condition is self-sufficient and does

need slaves. He can support

himself without using the labour of others. Apart from this philosophical rejection of
the necessity of slavery, Diogenes is at pains to prove that slaves are more of a burden
than a convenience to their owner.

the economic level slaves had to be fed and to

be 100ked after when they fall sick, so they cost money whose value is perhaps greater

than the value of their work.

the moral level domestic slaves are a destructive

force who mak.e the wife neglect her husband and the children lazy and contemptuous
towards manual work.

The emphasis
his 13th discourse.

t11e unproductive aspect of slavery is backed by a passage in

Athens "in short a11 the things which are now considered

13

your

city precious and worth fighting for, you will need

smaller

qua ti.ties, ad

you have reached the summit of virtue, not at all. And the houses

when

which you live

will be sma11er and better, and you will not support so great a throng of idle and
utterly useless slaves.... "(13, 35-36). But this passage can be interpreted as simply
cticzing

the elite's use of 1arge numbers of slaves as symbol of status and wea1th,

not as a rejection of the institution.

Another argument against the image of

Chrysostom's advocation of abolition of slavery ls the

"andrapoda" (= chatte1 slaves) in his discourses.

fequent

use

the word

The word ls usually used when

slaves are mentioned as being part of someone's property. "But if someone wants to
buy an

andraIJodon,

first he as.ks if he ever had run away" (31,42). "And lt ls impossible

for anything thus adminlstered to be annul1ed, elther in case one buys a piece of land
o~"a

ship

andrapodon

if a

ma

makes a

10a

to another

sets free

oiketis,

makes a gift to someone" (31, 51). "For that reason, lt ls believed that according to

Homer, Zeus ls the father of gods and men but not of the andrapoda
ignoble men" (4,22). "For he rea1ly resembled a
beggar moved among his andrapoda

ad

ing

of nasty and

and lord who in the guise of a

douloi while they caroused

ignorace

his identlty..... " (9, 9-10). ''1 had many and great competitors not lik:e those

of

adrapoda

who now are fighting and throwing the discus and running..... " (9, 11-12). "But come,
consider if anyone told you that lt was better after a11 to sell the most of them
to be well supplied with funds you could have considered him as being an
'cet

(31, 109).

order

andrapodon"

that you are selling them to yourselves and not for export, just as

you deport to foreign places your nastiest slaves" (31, 109). "But the fight was not for
a woman

for a death that

for a pa1try bit of silver,

ctous,

but

andrawda

hags

the ba1ance, nay, lt lS only a contest of andrapoda

andrapoda

who sometimes are defeated and sometimes

in any case" (32 76).

discover that the master himself ls

a andrapodon

''1

fact lt ls just as if you should

and not fit to be even the porter" (32,

87). "Not only because even a man of account might have all other things, such as
money, houses,

andrapoda,

lands whereas those two possessions are enjoyed by

virtuous men a1one.... "(31, 58). Less frequent ls the use of the word doulos: (15, 25
26), (1, 22), (4,64), (4, 60), (4,73-76), (4,79-81), (33,51), (51, 1), (64, 19), (7, 138),

14

(4, 41), (15, 8-9). As for oiketes it is rarely used: (15, 25), (31, 51), (15, 21-22), (66,
16), (10, 13) and it seems to be applied to domestic servants in particular, Oiketes
also seems

be a milder word than andrapodon

doulos, which, sometimes were

used metahcal1in order emphasize a free man's slavish character

behaviour.

Followers of the idea of Dio Chrysostom as an "abolitionist" can defend their opinion
insisting

wastage"

the neutral use of the word (just as everybody uses words like "neutral

charactese

military casualties

believing that either the former

factory workers nowadays without

the latter are reduced to things).

The 14th discourse has the forrn of a dialogue between the author and another
unidentified person.

The purpose of this dialogue is the definition of these basic

words: freedom and slavery. Dio follows a philosophical approach highly influenced
by Stoicism, whereas his opponent uses the conventional and widely accepted
arguments rooted in low and everyday practice rather than in abstract ideas. The
latter considers as free men, men who can do whatever they want to, but this
argument is easily rejected by Dio who observe that men when they belong 10 certain
hierarchical groups obey their

SUers

because otherwise nothing functions. The

important thing here is the comment that sick people obey physicians even when they
presCbe painfu1

remedies which include thirst

hunger. If the patients do

co-operate, their relatives, even their slaves, oblige them

else the doctor had ordered. Even the Great

slave-physician's orders.
contbute

ing

be burnt

want

whatev..e r

Xerxes had to be subjected to his

The important issue in this point is that slaves could

to a kind of 10rture of their master but for his own sake, though Dio is

interested in analysing the psychological complexity of this situation, the

(excluding the supervision of boys by paedogogi)
kind of violence

one

which a slave could perform a

his master's body. But some Roman intellectuals had commented

the awfulness of free Roman citizens depending

slave-doctors for their health.

,

instance, according to Pliny the Elder in his "Natura1 History": "We

15

desere

what

we get [i.e. being murdered by physicians], since none of us wants to leam what he
has to do for his health. We use other people's feet when we go out, we use other
people's eyes to recognise things, we use other people's memory to greet people, we
use someone else's help to stay alive; but what is worthwhile amongst Nature's
products, what is useful to life, these are utterly neglected" 10. Accordi.ng to other
definitions of slavery, which had to be faced and then rejected by Dio, slaves are
people who are purchased by money, who could be physical-ly punished

put to

death by another man.

the 15th discourse, the content is again a debate

the definition of 'real'

freedom and slavery. This debate takes the form of a dialogue between an Athenian
citizen and a slave: the former uses the widely accepted definitions of freedom and
slavery whereas the latter

bws

his evidence from myths, literature and

philosophy. The fITst definition of slavery concerns a man's parentage:

jf

his mother is

a slave he is a slave too. From the s1ave's answer we are informed that persons with a
slave father and free mother were considered to be bastards not slaves, but the
Athenian women's state of enforced chastity makes these instances rather a rare
phenomenon. The slave's reply to the citizen's ironic statement that he knows for sure
that his father is a slave is that many times a slave-woman's sexual partner is not the
father of her children. Of course it was taken for granted that male masters had sexual
relationships with their female slaves, they could even have them as concubines,
open1y. The citizen's argument is that very often, female slaves, in contrast to free
women, use abortion

exposure of their new-born babies, sometimes having their

- '''husband's'' permission. The slave rejected this as abnormal

level: female slaves have maternal instinct enough to

bng

children, but also foundlings, and again he uses as proof

drama.

16

stes

the psychological

not

their own

from mythology

The basic difference between the two sides is that

freedom depends

slave

ad

status

1aw

iS a matter of character

ad

the citizen slavery

socially accepted definitions, whereas

ad spit:

but they never become real slaves. The

captives of war can be reduced

Athenias

the

slavery

who were ens1aved after the

disastrous Sicilian expedition were given their status of citizenship back. The slave
wats

to prove that slavery is

artificia1 and abnormal institution; that there are

''natural'' slaves but peop1e who due

ill-1uck have 10st their freedom. He conc1udes:

"lt is the 1aw that the peop1e who had been unjustly ens1aved are
me in the god's name what does make me be
18). The citizen's reply is based
YOUT

charactesed

real slaves. Tell

as a slave by you?" (15,

the hard truth of reality: "You are maintained by

master, you have to follow h:im

ad

do whatever he commands. Otherwise you

will be beaten" (15, 18). Dio mentions again the slave's punishment by beating:
"Many times, the master makes the slave cry whenever he finds him p1aying and
doing his work" (66, 16). The
is striking.

simi1aty with

the punishment of a naughty schoolboy

is obvious that slaves were considered

have the psycho10gy of a

chi1d. This connection between ch:ild and slave is emphasized by the fact that both
groups can be punished physical1y.

The citizen insists that though

some

re1ationships among free peop1e there is an e1ement of vio1ence, the man who
performs the vio1ent punishment cannot do the th:ings which can destroy the free
status of his

fers.

is permissib1e

the slaves argues again that n many states with good 1a\vs

fathers to do al1 these

horb1e

them (probab1y he refers indirectly to the Roman

There follows a short 1ecture

things

the 1egal ways of emancipation:

b) by the state's decision to free ma1e slaves before

(

their children, even to k:ill

pata potestas).

a) by will of the master;

using them as soldiers

times of great necessity)

c) by the purchase of the slave's freedom by himself.

17

The slave insists

abstract generalisations which confuse the

status of chattel

s1avery with the one of a subjugated nation: the slave's insistence

emancipated the Persians (15, 22) is

tyical

how Cyrus

of the indifference of Dio to treating

slavery from a more practical point of view. He concludes that the true slave is not
someone whose body has been purchased but someone who lacks a free

c.

spit

comparison between Dio Chrysostom's work as a

source for social history and a real picture of Greek slavery

the 1st

Century A.D.

Dio Chrysostom's discourses are a basic literary source for the institution of
slavery in the 1st Century A.D.
they inform the reader only

the Greek world, but like every philosophical work,

the ideological level - reading Dio

any other

philosopher is very useful for the researcher who \vants to draw a general pattern of
the ideology of the Greek elite of the 1st Century A.D. But for information
like the

ce

things

of slaves, manumission and other practical aspects of the institution one

has to study other documents.

manumission of slaves have been
histan

Fortunately, two corpora of records

presered,

whose

matea

the

can give to the anclent

a slight idea of the conditions of a slave's life and the transformation of the

institution, from the monolithic, eternal harshness of the classlcal chattel slavery to a
more temporary though

less exploitative situation "between slavery and freedom".

These are the records of manumissions in the form of selling the slave to the god
,

Apollo at Delphi (from 201 B.C. to 100 A.D.) and a less

18

ch

and more fragmentary

corpus of

isctis

dated to the 1st Century A.D. from the Aegean Island of

Calymna.

Both of these records are invaluable as sources for the study of ancient Greek
slavery in the 1st Century A.D. Though as legal documents, they do not give direct

infonnation

the everyday life of slaves, they nevertheless illuminate the

psychological and economic aspects of the master-slave relationship. For instance,

statistics

infonnation

the number of manumitted slaves according to sex and age can give

the frequency of sexual relationships between male masters and

female slaves.

The number of insctis manumission of slaves in the 1st Century A.D.

is very small: it represents

9% of the whole. But its study can give enough

ground for the development of thees the evolution of manumission from the last
centues

B.C. to the 1st Century A.D.

many

isctis

of the two

centUes

B.C. there are references to fully released slaves, whereas in the end of the B.C. era
and during the 1st Century A.D. the

majty

of manumitted slaves had to

"paramenein" (= to stay with) their masters as long as the latter lived. In many cases
the female slaves were obliged to give one
two years to their masters

two male children of usually the age of

their masters' heirs.

This insistence of masters

demanding their ex-slaves' flesh and blood has been

solution to obtaining new slaves

dUng

interreted

as the masters'

the peaceful years of the 1st Century A.D.

"And although the number of instances known from Delphi is limited, many similar
cases have been found from the same ed, the 1st Century A.D.
Greek island near Cos.

Calymna, a tiny

Perhaps this development can be partly explained by the

,

increasingly peaceful conditions of the early 1st Century A.D., which drastically

19

reduced the numbers of

sners

of war enslaved. The fall in slave supp1ies may

have forced masters to seek replacement slaves outside the market, from among the
children of their own slaves"ll. Also, there is a tendency towards the establishment of
"paramone" as a basic presupposition

the manumission of slaves at Delphi, from

the end of the B.C. era, onwards. "Paramone" is a strange situation. The ex-slave
remains under his/her master's control and his/her new status of freedom cannot be
established before the master's death. It is part of the mechanism which masters used
in order to exploit their slaves. The manumissions which required the "paramone" of
the ex-slave and replacement by her,

by their children, help the masters to

presere

the

stct

(n

even him

the

insctins

from Ca1yrnna)

the institution of slavery, though not n

way of the classica1 epoch.

1t is not

surpsing that

a great number of slaves who were manumitted both at

Delphi and Ca1yrnna were home-bred (in the Ca1yrnnian

"threptoi"

insctins

they are called

"thremata", foundlings). 1t is understandable that a kind of affection and

trust could more easily be developed between masters and slaves who had been
brought

the household than with bought slaves who,

be a1iens. For instance, the home-bred slaves being freed

one way, never ceased to

the 1st Century A.D. at

Calyrnna represent a1most 35% of the whole. The Ca1yrnnian

insctins

are a1so

important because they inform the researcher that the male slaves were obliged to
give one

two children to their masters

order to be manumitted: the sex of the

child is usually ma1e and his age is specified (he must be two years old). (Nos: 171,
179, 185, 188, 197, 200

n .

Segre (1944-5), ed. 'Titu1i Ca1yrnnii', Annuario della

Scuola Archaelogica di Atena 22/3). On1y

n :

188, does a mistress not demand

that her ma1e slave's two year-old child who must be given to her as part of the
manumission contract, has to be male. This is

stking

because, usually, only the

fema1e slaves had to give their children as replacement slaves when they were
manumitted, because ma1e slaves were refused the status of being legally recognised

20

fathers. For a better understand.ing of the manumissions from Calymna we can read
Append.ix 111-1 in Hopkin's Conquerors and 51aves. "13 male slaves and 13 female
slaves were released

cond.ition of paramein with their ex-owners.

8 males and

8 females had to paramein and give two children; 1 male and 1 female had to give 2
children without paramone obligation. For 3 males and 3 females the cond.itions of
release are not specified" 12. From this elementary statistic it becomes clear that the
'paramone' and the giving of children as replacement slaves were the basic

presuppositions of a slave's manumission contract at this Aegean island

Century A.D. Unfortunately, many of these

the cond.itions of manumissions: in

isctis

are fragmentary

the 1st
obscure

16F master, Zopicus, declares that he has

set free his home-bred slave Eudon, according to "the laws of manumission"; we
cannot be sure

what he meant by this. Other

insctis just

referring to slaves

being freed without giving other information are Nos: 169,170,178,181, 189,190,

201.

The masters' reasons for manumitting the slaves

cond.itions of 'paramone'

and giving of children can be understood. They could be generous to their

favoUte

slaves without los:ing their services and they prevented the 10ss which these
manumissions could cause to their heirs by obliging the slave:
a) to 'paramenein' with both his master and mistress;
and
b) by giving two
heirs, sons

more of his children to their

daughters.

50, the manumission of a number of slaves could

the institution of slavery in

danger because some of the ex-slaves' children succeeded their parents as slaves.
Under these cond.itions the reproduction of the slave population was secured.

is

obvious that the paramone-type manumission was a mechanism which helped the
,

masters to exploit the freedmen keeping them as unpaid servants as long as they were

21

a1ive, and to

povide

complex institution.

their heirs with fresh slave livestock at once. But slavery was a
Sentimental feelings could play a part

some manumission

cases. Many of the freed slaves were home-bred, but they did not therefore avoid the
obligations which the manumission contracts
threptoi, meant that they had a better chance
without obligations.

he

them.

heir

status as home-bred,

be manumitted but not

be freed

fact that more female than ma1e slaves were freed, irnplies

that sexua1 relationships between master and fema1e slaves were common and played
a role in the manumission of the latter. For instance, the

iscti :

333,

Fouilles de Delphes 3.3 (lst Century A.D.), which makes clear that the master
leomantis had
dUng

a sexua1 relationship with his manumitted slave Eisias (she bore a son

her 'pararnone'

whom she gave her master's narne) is the rule and the

exception at once.

Relationships of this kind were

rare but it was

leave his freed woman concubine and his bastard, as

usual for a master

Ieomantis

did, as heirs to his

legal wife. The argument that sexual relationships between master and femaleslave
were the reason for the fact that women outnumbered men

the manumission

records at Delphi can be undermined a1so by the fact that female slave-owners freed
fema1e slaves

great numbers too.

here

is on1y one kind of slave who seem

be

manumitted without obligations for reasons of sentirnentality: nurses and foster

fathers. In the corpus of the Calymna insctins there are three (Nos: 170, 189, 190)
in which nurses ("amrna" = nurse,
n :

190), are declared

170 and 189) and one foster father (= "appas",

be freed by their masters. Perhaps there is some truth

J. Vogt's statement that nurses and tutors were the only slaves who had a kind of
human relationship with their masters ( in Ancient
O:xford 1974).

22

Slavey

and the ideal of Man,

But if masters had their reasons to manumit slaves in this way, why were
slaves willing 10 pay money and give children 10 their ex-masters and "Paramenein"
with them until their death? According to

Hoplns:

''At conventional wheat

ces

the

sum of 400 drachmae which was commonly paid for conditional release equalled
some three and a half 10nnes of wheat equivalent, enough 10 feed a

peasant

family for over three years. Such a calculation is inevitably crude and gives only a
rough order of magnitude. Yet halve

double the

ce

of wheat and the sum still

remains the sizeab1e, difficult enough for a peasant 1et alone a slave 10 accumulate"13.
Why were slaves willing to pay so much money in order to obtain a limited freedom
which was

theoretical

ti

their ex-master's death? Perhaps because the children

who would be born 10 the female slaves during their 'paramone' would be free. We
cannot be sure if this was a concept generally accepted in the Delphic manumissions

(the Calymnian ones make

reference to the subject), though in some

insctins

the master dec1ares that chi1dren who would be born 10 their female slaves
their 'paramone' will be free

(:

dUng

303,307, FD Nos: ed. by G. Daux, 1943), but there

always remained the danger that these children could be reduced to slavery if the
master had to overcome great economic difficulties
Valrnin 1939: The master

Astion

has retained the

(:

39, FD

ght

10 sel1 the children who

ed. by

wou1d be born 10 his slave-girl Sostrata during her 'paramone' in case of great need;
otherwise they will be free). Consequently, we cannot be sure of the status of children
born

dung

text of the

their mother's 'paramone' whenever there is

explicit reference in the

insctin.

From the study of these

isctins

we can deduce some oconclusions

the

economic character of slavery in the 1st Century A.D. Greece. It seems that slaves
were not used in great numbers

agculture.

This seems to agree with Dio

Chrysostom's reference 10 slaves as only domestics. But according to other sources:

"... a imeal edict of 124/125 A.D. assumes that slaves and freedmen will be

23

employed

the land"14 and the

charactesed as

were not used

insufficient

manussion

matea

records at Delphi and Calymna can be

for making generalisations of the kind "slaves

agricu1ture" because both of them are not

nevertheless slaves seem to be

ecncal1 productive

ferile

places. And

in other areas. They had to

be skilful craftsmen order to accumulate the huge amounts of money for buying

their freedom. As
very few

the females, due to the fact that in ancient Greece there were

opportunties for

women to accumulate money "by decent means", the only

logical hypothesis seems to be either that they were prostitutes or, as Hopkins
suggests, that their manumission fees were paid by men, probably ex-slaves, who
wanted to marry them.

Calymna is a tiny island which has very limited water

supplies and very infertile ground: its small dimensions and its infertile ground turned
its inhabitants to earn their living by fishing (especial1y of sponges). This combined
with other elements such as:
a) the insistence of masters that slaves of both sexes
had the obligation to give them, when they were manumitted, a two-year old
child

more always of male sex;

b) the fact that fishing is a male-only occupation;

c) that domestic

serice was

usually perfonned by slaves

of female sex,
gives the indirect evidence that slaves were used

the island's basic economic

activity: fishing.

Another interesting element can be found

and "'paramone'.

Westenann

According to W.

the

similaty

between serfdom

there are four things whose

combination constitutes the concept of liberty in the Delphic

manumission:
a) Legal status as a protected member of the community;
b) Immunity from arbitrary seizure
c) The

ght

arrest;

of ''occupational mobility";

24

insctins

of

d) Freedom of movement.
Of course, the 'paramone'
maumitted slave

restcted

had to stay with his/her master

c)
ad

ad

d) severely because the

to continue working fOT him.

Again, accorcling to Westermann: ''It is this paramone manumission which

explains a statement of Aristotle to the effect that craftsmen, meaing free artisans,
live in a condition of limited slavery. He did not need to amplify the idea for his
Greek readers. Expanded it means that the artisan, when he made a work contract,
disposed of two of the four elements of his free status, by his own volition
temporary

ed.

ad

for a

The whole concept of labour and life involved is peculiarly Greek.

Men are not completely free, said Herodotus, because 'law is the master over them"
Under the Greek idea freedom and enslavement merged one into the other over a vast
part of life. Dion of Prusa, living at the turn of the 1st
philosopher of

tst-rate

Chstian

Century, was not a

quality. For that precise reason, he is useful to us.

his

essay 'Regarding Slavery and Freedom' Dion says 'Tens of thousands of people who
are free sell themselves, so that they are contractually enslaved, sometimes

tens

which are not very easy, but are very harsh in all respects" This is the attitude of a
man, of a better than average training, from the Hellenistic eastem

editeanean"15.

The underlying idea of this passage is that the bounds between freedom and
slavery had started to diminish in the 1st Century A.D. 1t is interesting that

Finley

interprets this specific passage (15, 23) as that: people whose parents had been
enslaved due to debt bondage
some
one

ed

ca

inheted

their status though they had

bee

free for

of time. 16 But the text is obscure. Though Dio uses the verb "douleuein",

argue that its meaning is

metahcal

and does

imply real slaves but free

,

men obliged by contract to work

semi-servile occupations. This approach seems to

25

be closer that of /estenann, who is at pains interpret the peculiar institution of

varamone manumission as a step in a process from the chattel slavery of classical

antiquity

a kind of serfdom. For instance, he refers 10 decrees of Macedonian

Ptolernies "who ruled Egypt after Alexander,

charactesed

which "debtor slaves" were

as being "free". The unspecified "free men" of Dio Chrysostom's 15th

discourse and the freed slaves in paramone

because neither of them can be

hae

been

charactesed absolutely

free

the same level, sirnply

slave.

there are

two arguments against the traditiona1 idea of evolution from chattel slavery to
serfdom:
slaes

a) chattel

and serfs co-existed

the Greek

world, at 1east from 8th Century B.C. onwards; and

b) though there are

similaties

serfs and freed slaves

between the status of

paramone (the protection against selling of members of both

these socia1 groups, the obligation

work for their masters) there is a fundamental

difference:
freed slaves' bondage was 1imited in time (they were free after their master's death
and at least in some cases their children bom

dUng

their paramone were free too,

the etema1 hereditary bondage

whereas serfdom of the Helotage kind was founded

of a native population 10 the new inhabitants of the land.

references

There are two direct

serfs in Dio Chrysostom's work:

a) One to the Messenians who were liberated after the

Spartan defeat at Leuctra (371 B.C.) (15,28) and
b) Another which

cticies

the harshness ofLaconian

legislation towards Helots (36, 38).

According to T.R.S. Broughton, the

'slaes

in the middle of

hrygia' (

rnust also be interpreted as being serfs. His opinion is that "there is little
the existence of agcultura1 slavery
to him slaves were used only
domestic

serice.

Asia

31, 113)

eidence

for

the Roman ed" 17. According

cultivating gardens, a type of work closely related

Nevertheless, it's very difficult for the researcher to make a

26

distinction between slavery and serfdom

the author uses the same work (doulos) fOT

Dio Chrysostom's wOTk simply because

charactesing

members of both groups.

As fOT the idea of the institution of slavery as starting to decline in the 1st
Century A.D. nothing certain can be said. R. MacMullen presents contradictory
conclusions: "At Delphi, the

sees

of texts appears to show a similar decline of

slavery as such after A.D. 102. Such is the interpretation drawn from their diminished
numbers. Yet only ten miles away slaves the time of Pausanias (10.32.91) were

sale at the annual fare of Tithorea... "18 And both the epigraphical and the literary
mateal imply

that thongh slavery had been put a new phase it stil1 was a basic

social institution. Though the slave labour was not used

still economically active (e.g.

agculture,

slaves were

crafts) and useful as domestics, nurses, concubines

and prostitute

c.

Cynic and Stoic intluences

Dio Chrvsostom's
thought:

a. Introduction.

Though Dio was not a philosopher

his discourses are based

the strict meaning of the word, most of

the moral grounds of two philosophic schools: Cynicism

and Stoicism.

27

Cynicism was
early Hellenistic

older school of philosophical thought which flourished

ed ad

the

its basic thinker was Diogenes from Sinope, who like

Socrates never wrote a line, so his ideas were

ad

so their authenticity is dubious.

presered in

the works of later authors

Diogenes became a serni-fictional character

whose legendary personality was used by other philosophers whenever they wanted to
express aspects of thought which they considered as being "cynic".
cynic concept of philosophy

ad

what was the

life and its relevance to the concept of slavery?

Again, we have to consult later authors such as Diogenes Laertius

Dio

hirnself. Cynic thought according to D.R. Dudley had as its psychological background
"the reaction against an overdeveloped urban civilisation" 19. It's not by chance that
cynicism flourished
A.D. Both
foner,

the

eds

ings

are

the 4th CentUIy B.C. and in the early years of the 2nd CentUIy
charactesed

by the decay of the institutions of cities. In the

of Macedonia were the catalysts of the political destruction of the

Greek city-states,

the latter the new socio-econornic conditions which were

established by tbe Roman rule.

The cynics denied every fundamental institution not only of the city-state, but
also of almost every organised society;

marage,

others such as cannibalism. They rejected the

favour of a cosmopolitanism.
behaviour.

sexual taboos such as incest and

patotic

conscience of the city-states in

Shamelessness was the basic element of their

According to them every natural act had to be perforrned in public.

Hence the praise of masturbation by Diogenes who did it

public (6, 17). This has

not as its purpose causing public scandal, it was proof of the effectiveness of one of
the cynic ideas: self-sufficiency at the sexual level. For Cynics, men had to live
harsh conditions

nature, like the animals, abandoning the artificial and unhealthy

28

civilisation which was a product of life

the cities: "Living

a cistern, taking food

whenever and wherever he happened to feel hungry, pe:rforming bodily functions

the same 'natural' way, defending even cannibalism and incest - all this is part of the
legend of Diogenes (and some

all of it may be true)'20.

There is an interesting paradox here.

and again looked to animals
in.fer,

his search for Man, Diogenes time

a model. Animals, too, were natural beings even if

and their behaviour was altogether natural. What was natural was good - that

was the great law of the universe, and the wise and virtuous man was he who knew
the natural from the unnatural, and who then had the discipline to live according to his
knowledge. The cynic idea of self-sufficiency and hard labour and life seemed to be
close to the ideals of the ancient Attic peasantry. Hesiod

the archaic epoch

"Work and Days" praises similar things: hard work and self-sufficiency. It is

coincidence that the Prometheus' myth had been examined from a negative point of
view by both Hesiod and the Cynics: "Such a background may also be reflected in
Hesiod's version of the myth of Prometheus, in which the fue-thief is the author of
human misfortune, including the burden of labour.
sharply with later versions of the myth

any case, this account contrasts

which Prometheus is the benefactor of

humanity, the bringer of those human acts which are the foundation of civilisation." 21
Hercules was the Cynic's
~
~.

favoUte

hero because he lived a hard life, always

struggling for the good of mankind, whereas Prometheus was rejected as the inventor

'"t,

of civilisation whose consequence was the spoiling of men by a

Cynicism was

luxUous

way of life.

direct opposition to all the ideals and values of classical Greek

civilisation, because of its hatred towards the easy-going life, the institutions of every
,-

kind, everything which was considered as being unnatural.

29

~' ..'.

Stoicism
by

the other hand, was also flTst developed

and C1lTysippus,

floUshed

the Roman Empire from the 1st Century A.D.

until the end of late antiquity (Stoic influences can be found

..

works of the emperor Julian). Because of its qua1ity of

Plato's and Aristotle's, but improved

the 4th Century B.C.

the philosophical

conseratism, equa1

to that of

the swface by a new "philanthropic" image,

Stoicism was welcomed by the elite of the Graeco-Roman wor1d.

Seneca, Dio

Chrysostom, Plutarch, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, were influenced by these new
philosophical movement which denied the worth of pleasure and rejected the body

favour of the soul. The Stoic ideals are not very different from the ones created by
Plato and Aristotle: Man's purpose is the "good life" but not exactly with the
Aristote1ian meaning. Aristotle was concemed

to

much with the

matea

means

which are necessary for the maintenance of the "good life". The Stoic ideals are far
more abstract: virtue must be the pursuit of the men but this virtue is not the same as
the classica1 one. Despite all these differences and the more "philanthropic" view

the weak creatures, women and slaves, Stoicism was a perfect ideologica1 instrument
fOT

the maintenance of the "status quo" because:

a) In contrast to Cynics, Stoics did not reject socia1

institutions - these were considered as part of Man's duty towards the world;
b) Their milder treatment to

nfers

could function

as a safety-va1ve for the existing social system;

c) With their credo that everybody has to do whatever

he is ordered to by his status and position

the socia1 hierarchy, they

cultivated the ideal of "apatheia",

d) Sexua1ity was seen from a pUtan point of view: as
a

instrument for procreation through lega1

maiage.

Stoics shared with Cynics some elements of thought: "Like other ancient philosophers
the Stoics assumed that each man does and must pursue his individua1 happiness.
This he can secure

oly

if he conforms his life to nature, his own nature and that of

the universe of which his own is of necessity a part.

the impulses of anima1s and

children we can see how nature herse1f directs living beings to seek what is conducive

30

to life and to avoid what is contrary.

~

Life itself and all that assists the proper

functioning of the living creature belong 10 the category of things that are natural and
therefore can be

descbed as

things of 'value'; they lnclude wealth, health, and nearly

all that men generally make the objects of their endeavour"22. But it was a far more
abstract and conformistic k:ind of philosophy than cynicism with its peasant ideals and
roots of mitiveess.

..

The cynic discourses of Dio Chrysostom.

Four of Dio's discourses have as their central character the most famous Cynic
thinker, Diogenes of Sinope: the 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th - the last lS subtitled
servants" and gives us some evidence

''

the cynic concepts of freedom and slavery.

even the previous discourses, especially the 6th, though they do not refer directly

10 slavery, are very useful because in them Diogenes develops his thoughts
self-sufficiency.

Man's

Slavery lS an institution which was considered by the classical

authors, especially by Plato and

Astotle,

as a necessary one which provided the

citizens wlth the tirne and the means needed

order to live "the good life".

Cynics had a very different interpretation of "the good life" to give. For them, the
city and lts life were evil things which had 10 be abandoned, lik:e everything civilised,

favour of a real good life in nature.

participates

The ideal man was not the citizen who

the politicallife of his community but the self-sufficient man who can't

tolerate the hardships which life

nature without the facilities of civilisation

demands.

The 6th discourse ls a praise of the "cynic way of life". Contrary to popular
belief, Diogenes advocates a hard life as more hygienic. The other people wlth their
lack of control of their instincts and desires, with their glut10ny

31

food, wine and sex

t-J~

: :
!1

"

are the ones who neglect health, not him.

He made a humorous

ctic

of sexual

glut10ny which according to hirn, is the reason for the destruction of so many cities.

And he proposed masturbation as a remedy to this problem because it costs nothing

and causes

evil to others.

This defence of a
"

hostility towards

slav~ry.

pmitive,

Slaves

natural life and of ascetism is connected with

every slave-holding society exist for fulfilling all

sere

these des:ires which are rejected by the Cynics. They prepare luxwious food,
11

wine, make clothes and fulfil their master's sexual needs. Diogenes would have li.ked
10 replace

luxUous

food with raw meat and vegetables, wine with water, clothes by

an old cloak and the concubine or prostitute with his own hand's use. Slaves seem 10
have

place

the cynic life. Their very existence contrasted to its system of values.

This becomes explicit in the 10th discourse in which a man who

runaway slave meets Diogenes near

Conth.

The philosopher seems

tes

to find his

surpsed

when

he learns that the other man is pursuing a fugitive slave. The latter is useless and even
dangerous so a really intelligent man should have been rather pleased to get
him. Diogenes seems to use the word "andrapoda" in a

metahcal

when he refers to competing athletes as being slaves (of

combined with his argument in the
contrast to Stoics had

10

serile

way

character).

of

9, 12
This

discourse enables us to deduce that Cynics in

contempt to express for slaves instead of sympathy.

c. ParalleIs between the concepts of sIavery and

freedom

the works of Epictetus and Dio Chrysostom.

We know very little of the life of Epictetus. He was bom at Hierapolis, a city
,

of Phrygia, but we do not know of what parents

.~

32

anything else of his farnily

-~

background. He was a slave of one of Nero's freedmen, Epaphroditus, before he was

manumitted himself. When the philosophers were bannedby the Emperor Domitia,
Epictetus retired to the Epirotic city of Nicopolis. The tradition makes him a
living in extreme poverty
was.

ad

nevertheless

consideng

ce,

himself happy, Stoic as he

Like Socrates or Diogenes, Epictetus did not produce written work.

philosophical doctrines were

Wtten

down by his student

ex-slave, he was not more sympathetic towards slaves

status. This is not

surpsing.

inscbed

ch

his

Aran.

tha

Though he was

the other Stoics of high

the same epoch (1st Century A.D.)

insctin

decorated tombstone the

His

ex-slave had

'uus

Kapreilius

Timotheus, freedman of Aulus, slave trader". If some ex-slaves became slave-traders

after their manumission, Epictetus' attitude towards slavery combined \Yith his status
as ex-slave cannot be severely

cticised.

Modem psychological attitudes

canot

be

applied to so different a epoch.

.

~.

compason

Dio Chrysostom

between his discourse

freedom

ad

fTeedom and the two discourses of

slavery revea1s the Stoic background of the latter's

philosophy. For Epictetus, the true slave is the

and instincts: "For how, says he, am

a slave?

ma

who cannot control his desires

father was free, my mother was

free. Besides, am a senator to and fend of Caesar and have myself may slaves. In
the fIIst place, most worthy sir, perhaps your father too was a slave of the same kind
and your mother, and your

gradfather and

all your ancestors successively. But even

if they were fTee, what is that to you? For what if they were of a generous and you of

a mea spit, they brave and you a coward, they sober ad you dissolute?"23. This
Stoic concept of slavery is

stking.

the literature of the classica1 epoch, ancestTy

was considered as the most important element for a person's status

course, this does not mean that in the 1st
the social tradition share the same
sophisticated talk

ad

society. Of

2nd Centuries A.D., the legislation and

ncies

with Stoic philosophy.

this

the meaning of freedom and slavery had nothing to do with the

33

everyday rea1ity of social life. Epictetus' concept of slavery defined as

\vho deliberately subjugated
love (especially
serile

never

themseles

sexualloe):

to others even through so

''Have you never been in love with

huma

people

a feeling as

ayone,

free condition? Why, what is that 10 being either a slave

commaded aything

slaes

either of a

free? Were you

by your mistress that you did not choose? Have you

never f1attered your slave? Have you never k:issed her feet? And yet if you were

~.

commaded 10

kiss Caesar's feet you would think it an outrage

tyrany.

you

neer

Hae

f,

gone

by night where you did not choose?

spent more than you chose?"24. Again

slaery

excess of
Hae

you

is considered as being a state of

enslaved
t

neer

ad a

dee

spit.

Epictetus like the other Stoics put

the same level actions which

from different reasons. For him kissing the feet of a slave girl is the same as

kissing the feet of Caesar, he simply evaluates human actions in terms of pleasure.
He seems not to understand that the former causes a sexual pleasure to the man who
performs it

ad

the latter does not do so. Both actions are for him condemned as the

different sides of the same coin: of

spitual

enslavement. Stoics did not seem to be

interested in facts like sensual pleasure. Everything that could make men behave like
"slaes"

(without controlling themselves) was rejected as a moral disease. Freedom is

defmed as a state of independence

a

ma

ad

self-determination: "What is it then that makes

free and independent? For neither

provinces

spit,

freedom of the
passages in

vaous

enslaement

to

gluttony

a consulship

commad

of

kingdoms mak:e him so, but something else must be found"25.

Dio Chrysostom adopted

been taken

ches

by

ay

identical pattern of thought. True freedom is the

men of free status

ca

have

enslaed

souls. There are frequent

discourses which echo the same moral restriction

mateal

captie,

ad

things especially food

not by pirates

sex. "For

spitual

assert that men have

other persons, but also by a courtesan

other desire. The term 'captive' then may well be used not only of

a person, but of a city too, provided that city

abadoning

34

the noble pursuits

ad

having neither eyes

to

ears for anything conducive to salvation, but yielcling instead

the clutches of dnk singing girls racing chariots, is made the e of

conquest and thrown into utter confusion, thereby and bereft of its senses. Yes, by
eeeced

Zeus, the man who has

taken by

ston

such a capture might wel1 be said to have been

and manacled to boot.

overowered and

confmed by chains

if when a man's body has been

guards, we consider that these clisagreeable

happenings constitute captivity and slavery and violent seizure, when the soul has
been taken captive and ruined, we should not dissimulate
lis

undeuate it" (32, 90).

passage is of some significance, Dio gives a new meaning, a new climension to

the words "captive" , "captivity", "slave", and "s1avery",

transferng

the humiliation

and pain which they pre-suppose from body to soul, from social status and physical
pain to

spitual

state and spitual decay.

Dio's ideas

the uselessness of social descent as protection against

enslavement is identical to Epictetus'.

hold office (senators

both of them

Epictetus, the Persian

ing

astocrats, even

spitual

persons who

Dio) can be of enslaved

spit

just as a humblest slave. "Therefore we have defined freedom as the knowledge of

what is

penissible

and what is forbidden, and slavery as the ignorance of what is

al10wable and what is

n

So even the Great

ing

who wears a very large crown

his head could be a slave and not be al10wed to do anything that he does. And

all of his acts will be unprofitable. But someone else who is regarded as a slave and
has not once but often been sold and if it should happen wears heavy fetters, could be
more free than the Great

ing"

kings, even gods, being

(14, 18).

the same discourse

20-24, Dio insists

a conclition of slavery and fmally he concludes that

there ought to be special badges whose function would be to reveal the distinction
between people of free and

serile

status.

Dio

the above passages, pushed the

meaning of the words "slavery" and "freedom" beyond limits. If a king "let alone the
,

greatest of al1" can be equalled to a bought slave (even

35

spitual

level) these

..

.~

words simply lose their usefulness

the level of reality and become

fons

of

abstract expression. In the 15th discourse which has the fon of a dialogue between a
slave and a citizen, in Athens, debating the meaning of feedom and slavery, the slave
.-),

,.

insists

an

estec

meaning of the two concepts, whereas the citizen follows the

path of 1aw, tradition, and the hard truth of real life. For him,

feedom

which is not

.,

mateal

backed by descent from free ancestors and all the

things which that pre

supposes is simply absurd. The slave avoids every reference 10 everyday reality and
uses two sources for his arguments against the practical ideas of the citizen, 1iterature
and mythology, and he presents a stoic ideal of freedom. "But perhaps at first the
word slave had been app1ied not to people whose bodies were bought by money but to

!!

the ones of

serile

nature who lacked true freedom and so have 10 admit that many of

who are called slaves are

fee

and many of the so-called free are slaves" (15, 29). In

~-

tJ

the following passages until the end (29, 32) he presents examples from the natural
kingdom 10 back

the concept that people are

fee

slaves, noble

ignob1e not

because of their descent from people of similar qualities but because of their personal

value, which has to be proved by their acts.

r.

~~

'What is striking is Epictetus' negative view

constituting the

feedman's

uncertain future depend

his personal

descbes

eeece

as

as an

ex-slave, but he seems 10 agree with Dio's desct of slavery as not so bad for the
slaves

the emancipation of slaves. We

cannot be sure if the pessimistic, though not far from real, facts which he

the

mateal1ee

(in his 10th discourse). At 1east the slave had someone 10

feed and look after him, his master; but the feedman with his head full of illusions

the equality and we1fare which his freedom would magically give him, soon discovers

that his position is worse than when he was a slave. ''He is at 1ast made free, and

presently, having nowhere 10 eat, he seeks whom he may flatter with whom he may
sup. He then either submits to the basest and most infamous prostitution and if he can
,

obtain adrnission 10 some great man's table, falls into slavery much worse than the

36

foner;

~-

if the creature, void of sense

ad ght

taste, happens to acquire

affluent

fortune, he dotes some girl, laments ad is unhappy, and wishes for slavery
again. "For what

han

did it do me? Another clothed me, another shod me, another

~
.!i__

f%i-i-

fed me, another took care of me when

retum that used to

',4-'

sere

was sick, it was but a few things by way of

him. But now, miserable wretch! What do

suffer being

a slave to many instead of to one?"26.

The underlying ideas in this passage are that:

..

a) Slavery provides slaves with the means to live

hostile world;
b) Freedmen are worse off than slaves because they lose
their meas of living and their newly acquired freedom has

real value;

c) Slaves and ex-slaves could not expect to be loved

love is a feeling for men of adult psychology whereas slaves were
psychologically children: "like the psychology of a child the psychology of a
slave was the result of the influences he had absorbed and the examples he had
been set; his soul had autonomy'27,
d) The system of patronage in the Roman world was alike
to slavery because it pre-supposed the same exploitative relationship between
unequals (master/slave, patron/client).

Though this could be considered as a mere desctn of reality, one cannot avoid
deducing that it suits perfectly the slave-owners' ideology, because
fOT

their condition, presenting freedom for them

image of the

serile

freedmen seems to contrast with the sympathetic

trust when they run away from their masters? Is

consoled slaves

a negative lighr. The negative

fugitive slaves' courage: "Why, how do slaves, how do fugitives?

Their plate?

desctn

what do they

to their estates? Their

nothing but themselves. "28 Perhaps this antiphasis

ca

of

serants?

be explained

by the following

intepretations: Epictetus

is not really interested

37

fugitive slaves as

such, he simply wants to use them as a symbo1 of men seeking freedom against all
odds. Runaways are sirnp1y transformed to abstract symbo1s, far away from the rea1
ones (this is a cornrnon practice of Stoics).

"

For both Epictetus and Dio Chrysostom slavery/freedom is true when it

resides in the

spit.

According to Epictetus: "What is it then that disturbs and

teaor into the multitude? The tyrant and his guards?

free cannot be disturbed

free.

out for pity; while he who sets the va1ue

will show you that

am master',

its own

ncies

will chain your 1eg', he who values

his own

you imagine it for your interest, chain it', 'What, do you

care',

ces

means. What is by nature

restrained by anything but itse1f.

disturb it. Thus, when the tyrant says to anyone

his 1eg

stkes

and choice says

care?',

',

do not

How should you? Jupiter has set me

What! Do you think he wou1d suffer his own son to be ens1aved?

are

master of my carcass"29. This is the basic Stoic doctne: God has set men free, so
other men can chain their bodies bnt ! their souls. And it is the sou1 that defines
man is free

slave (according to Stoicism).

38

jf

d. Dio Chrysostoffi,

Sen~a

and the ameliorat1on of

SIavery

Seneca was born at the end of the B.C. era (between 8 B.C. and 1 B.C.) and
died in 65 A.D. He was a member of the provincial elite - his
Roman

astocracy of

faly

belonged to the

Spain and he received a good education as was the custom for

the sons of good families. He was a philosopher, a dramatist and a politician. He was

"minister" of Nero after he had been his teacher.

Like the other Stoics, Seneca advocated a new attitude towards specific
categes

of human beings, like women and slaves, whose maltreatment was justified

in classical Greece as the inevitable consequence of the "natural"

infet.

But for

Stoics, every human being has a moral quality just because they have been begotten
by God. And their physical weakness cannot be considered as sign of moral
infet

because according to the Stoic

doctne

it is the soul which prevails

the body, which defmes if a human being is of free serile status.

Stoicism

introduced a different attitude towards those marginals, as part of Man's duty: "Seneca
pleaded a powerful case for the human treatment of slaves. He was not the flfst to
discuss in detail the proper relation of master and slave. He himself refers to the
standard topic de usu servorum that among the Stoics was included along with advice

the treatment of wives and children in their casuistical discussions of justice"30.

the 1st Century A.D., when Seneca lived and wrote, a new system of values had been
.~.
f

j.

established, the master/slave relationship had been transformed from the brutal
exploitation of classical slavery to a milder patriarchal relationship between unequals,
but without extreme harshness which was used in order to deny that slaves were
human beings.

39

According to

Seneca's thought

Miam .

Gffi:

"The

slavery is that there are

ncia

natural slaves, all men share a divine

Seritude,

reason and thus may claim the gods as ancestors.

philosophical dogma in

like all social ranks,

'nomina ex ambitione aut iniuria nata' is the work of fortune which 'aequo iure
genitos alium

donauit"31. So, the Stoic

doctne

based

this dogma of "all men

are children of God" regarded slaves as their fellow humans, but Seneca in some of
his works seems 10 go further, regarding slaves more as men who were \vorth of being
;.

'

fends

to their masters.

Of course, even

"natural slavery" had admitted that

feds

the

(Politics, 1254a).

humanitaan behaviour

of his moral essay

'

the creator of the concept of

a limited way a master and his slave could be

Seneca devoted a whole letter (the 47th) 10 this subject,

of the cultivated master towards his slaves, and also parts

Benefits" (Book

slave's capacity to acquire virtue not

feedom (14,15),

As1Otle,

).
l

Whereas

Chrysos1Om argues for the

in his two discourses

not

slavery and

but also in his 61st "Chryseis".

For both men, the source of freedom and nobility is

deed

from nature and

fom artificial concepts such as ancestry: "We all spring from the same source,

have the same

gi;

man is more noble than another, except in so far as the

nature of one man is more

Ught

and more capable of good actions. Those who

display ancestral busts in their halls and place in the entrance of their houses the
names of their family, arranged in a long row and entwined

the multiple

ramifications of a genealogical tree - are these not notable rather than noble? Heaven
is the one parent of us all, whether from the earliest origin each one arrives at his
present degree by an

illustous bscure

line of ances1Ors.

must not be duped

by those who in making a review of their ancestors, wherever they find an

name lacking, foist in the name of a god.

illustous

not despise any man even if he belongs

with those whose names are forgotten and have had too little favour for fortune,
whether your line before you holds freedmen

slaves

persons of foreign

extraction.... "

Benefits,

27, 3XXJX)32. Similar ideas are expressed in Dio's

40

:{
.. ,;

~~~.

15th discourse. Seneca is at pains in parts of the 3rd book of

'

Benefits" to prove

that slaves are capable of giving a benefit to their masters just as their wives and sons
are and not only of giving a half-hearted

serice

under external compulsion. So he

has to prove that slaves are human beings like their masters but due to fortune they
were reduced to slavery. Dio Chrysostom had dedicated a whole discourse, the 61st,
to prove that a slave girl whose character Homer's lliad is obscure, Chryseis, \vas a

t
.....

woman of high intelligence and morality. Though in the "lliad" she is not anything

~"

more than a silent person, Dio uses his

ch

imagination in order to create a totally

artificial female character, an example of the female Stoic idea.

the f1rst years of

her captivity, Chryseis was happy because she was the concubine of such a powerful
and handsome man as Agamemnon But later

when she discovered the negative

aspects of her 10ver's character, his bad behaviour towards his legal wife and the
latter's cruelty and jealousy and because she could anticipate that the war was going
to end with Achaeans as victors, she summoned her father and told him to rescue her
from a dreadful end. Her decision became fmner after Agamemnon's insolent

behaviour towards both her father and herself. His rude reference to Chryseis' hard
future as his

serant

and concubine

Argos made her understand how unstable and

ambiguous her status was. So she decided as the prudent woman she was, that it
would be better for her to live in

obscUty

as the spouse of one of her

compatots

who had been enslaved (as "serfs") back in her native city than as the mistress of a
cruel and immoral king. This little tale is unbelievable: Chryseis' character is a model
of a Stoic concept not a real one. There is

her feelings
mec

literary evidence to reveal anything of

thoughts. And it seems that a slave girl

even a free girl of the

epoch, when women's main duty was working at the 100m, could not

possibly have been capable of such complicated thought. But Dio simply uses her
character as a paradigmatic one in order to present both women and slaves as being
capable of high intelligence and morality. Seneca's examples of heroic slaves who
rescued the lives of their masters and mistresses in
,

'

Benefits"

m,

27,

fulfJl the same demands: to prove that a slave can be as virtuous as anyone
,

who is free but, and this is the most important thing, that is for his master's sake.

41

,
r

.'

~i

..

The Stoic view of humanitarianism

-....

the slaves' tTeatment by their masters is

debatable. No-one can argue that n Stoic thought there is pity towards slaves, a
philanthropic element alien in the classical Greek concept of slavery. Seneca

,~

friendly terms with his slaves.

Again, there is

insistence

concept of men's equality before nature: 'They are slaves,' people say.

human beings.' 'They are slaves.

are slaves.'

his

47th letter to his friend Lucilius argues that it is a sign of his cultivated character if a
master is

',

they are

feds,

',

the

they are

they share the same roof as ourselves.' 'They

humble friends.' 'They are slaves.' Strictly speak:ing,

they are our fellow slaves, if you once reflect that fortune has as much power over us
as over them" (Letter 47). Dio Chrysostom refers to a similar concept in his 14th

discourse (20-24) but without expressing philanthropic ideas as Seneca did. In his
47th letter the

Roma

philosopher

ctcsed

the

inhuma

behaviour of his

contemporaries towards their slaves. They oblige the poor creatures to stay

their

feet hungry when at the same time they swallow huge amounts of food. They even
forbade them to speak by punishing even accidental sounds lik:e a cough or a hiccup.
Others use their male slaves

negative, according to him, not

order to satisfy their sexual needs. This cruelty is

l

for slaves but for masters too. It destToyed the

master-slave relationship of the early Republican era, which is romanticised by

Seneca as one which depended

mutual trust and love. The master was like a father

to his slaves so the latter spoke while they

for not betraying him.

sered

him at table but

Seneca's reason for giving advice

under torture

a mild tTeatment of

slaves goes beyond humanitarianism. He had understood that cruelty does nothing to
the master's advantage: it is better for a master to have faithful slaves, "friends
household" as Seneca puts it,

ad

presered

his

he could not make them by using torture; no-one

tortures a person if he wants to become his friend.

could be better

other words, the status quo

by mild tTeatment of slaves which could eliminate such

dangers as slaves' revolts or the murder of masters by their slaves. Under the new
conditions of the Roman Empire with slaves being used against their masters in
eds

of political turmoil or ContTolling access to influential people, it was

,

necessary for the elite to revise its code of behaviour towards slaves. Seneca added

42

the philosophical reason to support his humanitarian vie\v: "Treat your nfers the
way :in which you would like to be treated by your own

suers.

And whenever it

strikes you how much power you have over your slaves, let it also strike you that your
own master has just as much power over you.

have not got a master,' you say. You

are young yet, there is always a chance that you will have one. Have you forgotten
the age at which Hecuba becarne a slave

Croesus

the mother of Darius,

Plato

Diogenes?,,33. The meaning of this passage is clear: we are all potential slaves

because fortune is blind and there is

safety for anyone :in this life, so it will be

better for men to be kind to slaves and other outcasts because they can be reduced to
their status by accident. Dio Chrysostom expresses humanitarianism towards the
sexually exploited enslaved women and children who were reduced to prostitution
his 7th discourse, but he seems to be more interested
morality than in the

preseration

the

of social

of slaves.

as members of the elite, they cannot but express sympathy for the slave

owners: "Seneca
relies

suffeg

descbes

often with sympathy the troubles of the slave-owner. He

lazy and unwilling labour, he is likely to be robbed, his slaves are expensive

to keep and likely

10

run away.

a lofty indifference

abolition is the remedy he

favours. The most fruitful of the arguments from prudence are those concemed with
the

secUty

of the master and of society. Over and over again, Seneca insists that

cruelty to slaves may lead not only to financialloss through their flight
brutal revenge
similar ideas

death but to

the form of accusation or murder.... "34 Dio Chrysostom expressed

the institution of slavery as more of a burden than a convenience

his 10th discourse but without mentioning the possibility of the master's murder by a
revengeful slave. His semi-fictional world of a by-gone era was not pre-occupied with
murderous slaves. This was a
Chrysostom, Seneca

refeed

charactestical

Roman anxiety. And like Dio

to slaves as merely pieces of property:

"

Seneca's

works also illuminate the other side of the picture: they saw how resistant social

43

attitudes proved to philosophical notions. As a means of conciliating his

'

ddles

by

starting from common assurnptions perhaps sometimes as an expression of

personal ambivalence, 5eneca reflects, except when the treatment of slaves is his

topic of discussion, ordinary social prejudice. Slaves count as a type of wealth along
with other possessions

a form of domestic animal expensive to keep. As men, they

represent the lowest category, whose insults are the most negligible of all, whose
serices

practical inventions and

on1y show how easy it is to leave l.ife and whose

crimes are expected to earn harsher punishments than free men suffer. Seneca's harsh
-

assertions about cminal slaves are surely to be connected with his frequent
references to the dangers of masters."35
other

Chstians

Finley's statement that Stoics as well as

rhetoc

though decent in intention used the

against excess and

brutality, directed at masters to preach obedience to slaves, seems to be

instance, 5t Paul in the "Letter to Philemon" expresses
fugitive slave Onesimos but nevertheless

Wtes

humanitaanism

ght3 6

For

towards the

to his master that he sends him back

pleading for the former's forgiveness: "For this reason, although Christ gives much

more freedom of speech to impose an obligation

love. Senior as

.~.

you,

am now, and now a captive for Jesus

concerning your child, whom

prefer to

Chst, ,

appe~

to

Paul, appeal to you

bore in my chains, Onesimos (Useful), whom yon

once found useless but who is now very useful to you and to me, and whom
sent back to you. Receive him as you would my own heart.
me so that he could

sere

YOUI

have

wanted to keep him with

me as your substitute in the chains of the Gospel. But did

not want to do anything without your knowledge, so that if you performed a good
deed, it should have been done freely and not under compulsion"37. G.
Croix's view is similar to Finley's: "From the Hellenistic
Roman thought
urunspired
war

onwards, Greek and

ches

a single theme. That the state of slavery - like poverty and

and peace - is the result of accident, of fortune rather than

nature, and that it is a matter of indifference, affecting externals

Lucretius

de 5te.

the subject of slavery, with hardly an exception, provides a set of

vaations

liberty,

ed

. .

(see e.g.

455-8), that the good and wise man is never 'really' a slave, even if that
,

happens to be his actual condition, but is 'really' free. That it is the bad man who is

44

!,
.:

really a slave because he is

~.

bondage to his

lusts - a wonderfully comforting set

of doctrines for slave-owners ( fancy that such austere philosophical notions are of
great resistance

the endurance of liberty,

and war)... "38 Stoics and

Chstians

ches

and peace than of slavery, poverty

accept it that a slave could have a free spirit but

free body. They were interested changing attitudes not the social order.

e. Plato, Aristotle, and Dio Chrysostom

slavery:

comparison between the doctrines of 'natural' slavery and Stoicism.

Plato's greater political works, the "Republic" and the "Laws" and

Astotle's

"Politics" are the main sources for a study of the development of the classical Greek
concept of slavery, so a comparison of their thought with Dio Chrysostom's ideas

slavery is necessary for an understanding of the direction of philosophical thought

the subject.

Plato was not interested in developing a specific concept of slavery:

the

"Republic" a reference to the existence of slaves can be found nowhere. This fact has
been interpreted by scholars who are at pains to find liberal and

humanitaan aspects

of his thought, as evidence of a utopian abolitionist view. But other harsh opinions
about slaves, which can easily be found scattered
seem absurd. Popper's

the "Republic" make this view

seems closer to reality. According to him, Plato feels

only contempt for the few Athenians who rejected slavery and was a great defender of
the institution. His only objection is the enslavement of Greeks by fellow Greeks, but
,

not under all circumstances, only after defeat

battle (469 a-d). Another proof of his

45

hostility towards a more humanitarian treatment of slaves is his bitter complaint that
in democratic regimes, no-one can figure

who is free and who is slave because

their way of dressing and behavioUT is similar ("Republic", Book

536).

According to him, one of the signs of the moral degradation which democracy causes

~.'..~

is that slaves of both sexes enjoy a degree of tolerance and behave as free men.

>;;

,..

:..

.~

;t,"
.i:.'"

/.~

..
e

'

Together with the distraction of a11 other hierarchical relationships of

fundamental unequality (between old and young, men and women) this makes clear

that the law and order of the state are in danger.

which the society of citizens depends for
.~

_.

~;
~

]',:~-

acquing

the

mateal

infers,

His

who

deseIe

to be under the

infet becomes

seIice

explicit

of their moral

SUers.

Book 4, 720 of the

means which are

necessary for their welfare. He takes for granted that slaves are, a

slaves' moral
.~

Plato, slavery is an institution

~",

morally

in

in his story of

the slave doctor who attends l his ill fel1ow-slaves and is incapable of being a real
doctor, a scientist, because his knowledge is based
theory. He does

empical

things and

even ask the consent of his patients and he gives

rescts

while being always in a hurry. The underlying idea of this passage is clear: Slaves are
people of limited mental ability. They are

capable of practical work not of a

creative theoretical one. In Book 6, 777-778 (in the "Laws") in the discussion among
the persons of the dialogue

the most suitable fOnn of slavery, the prevailing view

is that the helotage system (Plato like other ancient Greek authors did not distingish
between "serfdom" and chattel slavery. He considered both as
sameinstitution) was inadequate, but not for

humanitaan

because of the instability which it causes, because slaves

vaed

forms of the

reasons. 1t was inadequate

shang

the same

langage

can create unified teams of resistance which threaten to destroy the state of their
masters. 1t is striking that Dio Chrysostom expresses an idea of similar logic,
36th discourse, 38:

".is

his

is philosophers' theory which creates a good and benevolent

society of gods and men, which gives a share

law and citizenship not to everyone

46

,.

l~/
of the people but only to the ones who participate

reason and vilsdom and which ls

better ad fairer than the Laconlan law, in accordance wlthwhich lt was impossible
for Helots to become Spartiates, so they were constantly plotting against Sparta".
Both authors leaving aside humanitarianism are concerned wlth fmding the best way
of protecting the status quo.

Plato develops in the "Laws" a whole system of

punishments which for slaves are always severer

law. For example, in 868, the
ma

According to

citizens when they break the

punishment for a slave who killed a free

in self-defence ls death, \vhereas the murder of a slave by his master ls not

punishable - the master needs

.. ~.

rescbed

tha

to be

pUfied

in "Plato's law of slavery"

for the bloodshed he caused.

(.

York, 1939), Plato's law

slavery was much more cruel than contemporary Athenlan law. For lnstance, Plato
nowhere mentions the existence of
Plato's

ati-humanitarian

thought

asylum fOT maltreated slaves

his ideal state.

the proper treatment of slaves contrast wlth the

Stolc ideas of Dio Chrysostom who does not deny his own sympathetic feelings
towards slaves. For instance, he expresses sympathy for those unlucky slaves who had

'

to

sere

several masters, each of different age and temperament (66, 13).

Astotle's

dogma of "natural slavery has been developed in the f1TSt book of

the "Politics" (l252b, 1253b, 1254a, 1254b, 1255a, 1255b). At the end of 1252a, he
includes the pair master/slave together wlth the other baslc pair, male/female,

the

general pattern of relationships between antithetical and unequal elements which had
to be united because each of them cannot survlve in isolation. The necessity of this

association does not alter the fact that the one element which has been designed by
nature in order to use ful1y lts mental capacities has to be the dominant and the other
one which has been designed to perform, has to be obedient. According to
this unequaled is to the advantage of both of them.
among the barbarians the female

ad

1252b,

Astotle

Astotle,

argues that

the slave are of the same class and the reason ls

that due to the fact that all of them are slaves, only unlons am~ng a male slave and a

47

, .

female one can exist. Consequently

a barbaans are

considered as being slaves, with

Greeks as their proper masters.

There is a reference

1253b. These persons reject the

its artificiality as based

seem to have second thoughts

unnamed opponents of the institution of slavery

Astotelian

justification of the institution and insist

conventionallaw and violence. But

Astot1e

does

the subject. For him, the household is the first, the

most elementary cell of all the other more complex social units: the village and the
city. The slave is one of the most valuable pieces of the property of the householder,
though he has the unique quality of a soul.
"anmated"
Accordng

and

tes

to reconcile the antithetic mearungs of these two words.

Astotle

believes that slaves are the exception to the rule because in

antiquity the existing technology could

the slave as an

to common logic, a tool is something without a soul, a tool can never be

animated. But

labour. 1ts

Astotle charactees

mtieness

replace the necessity of hard human

permitted the thought of a non-slave

in the context of a u1opia. The masters will need

holdng

society to exist

slaves on1y if each of the

tools could perform its function automatically like the robots who had been made by
Daedalus,

Hephaestus'

tpods.

In 1254a he argues that the human life is activity

poesis (not production of things), this means that for free men on1y a life of

leisure is suitable; so the slave peforms the work

whch is

necessary for providng his

master with the things he needs for his welfare. The slave is considered as a part of a
whole and as such he belongs to his master absolutely, whereas the master does
belong

the slave. 50,

Astotle gives

another definition of slavery: slave by nature is

a man who though he is a human being does

else. And though he explains thathe will try to

slavery is just and if it is better for someone
argues that if someone will

examne

belong 10 himself but to someone

examne

if the concept of natural

become a slave

later

he

the pair of mastership and obedience he will find

that some people are biologically "designed" to rule and others

48

obey. In 1254b, he

analyses the pairs of unequal partners, in order to prove that a slave is

<.\"

the same

level with the other weakelements: the female, the beast and the body. Men who
cannot use their mental ability fully and can be useful

~.~

labour are slaves by nature. He even puts slaves

when they perform rnanua1

the same level as tamed anima1s.

Both of them do the same kind of work: they perform heavy and tiresome tasks in
favour of their masters who feed and protect them. The bodies of slaves are different
fom

the bodies of free men because they have to satisfy different needs: the slaves

have to do heavy rnanual work, the free man to participate in politics and warfare.
Aristotle has to adrnit that sometimes a slave can have the body of a free rnan and a
free rnan a slave's soul but he never says that a slave can have a free soul. This is
unthinkable. And after arguing that if it could be possible that some men could differ
from the others in the body as God's statues differ for men, then it would be just for
r

the latter to become slaves of the

foner,

he concludes that by justifying slavery by

nature: "it is obvious that nature has made the free rnen as such and the slaves as
slaves and it is just and to the advantage of their slaves to remain slaves" ("Politics",
1255a). Nevertheless, he allows himself to express some doubts
of his concept: he admits that the opponents of slavery are

the absolute truth

ght

some points.

There are two.ways of one becoming a slave: by nature and by law, because

according to the law, the defeated enemies become slaves of the victors.
some men very well educated in the law have objected that it is
has to rernain forever a slave because he was
continues, "the wise people cannot agree

overowered

horble

these,

if someone

by violence.

But he

a solution to this problern" (l255a). And

the main reason for this disagreement is that some of them believe that the military
victory pre-supposes higher virtue so it is just for the moral inferiors to be enslaved
it is obvious that military victory was highly esteemed in classical antiquity and it was
considered as one of the basic virtues of a citizen.

Astotle

does not seem to agree

with this. There is the danger that if the theory of the justification of the enslavement
of defeated enemies had to be taken at phase value, people of noble
the dreadful situation of being reduced to slavery.
barbaans

bih

will be in

50 a limit must be set: only

must be called slaves \vhen being captured because their nobles are such

49


~..
only

"

their barbarian

countes,

whereas Greek nobles

presere their

nobility both

their homeland and abroad (how this happens sttle does not explain).

After recapitulating, he continues his argument that masters should not go

beyond certain limits

their behaviour towards the slaves but they have to try

maintain a balance. The relationship between master and slave is based

benefit and not

hostility.

capable only of being trained

mutual

As for the training of slaves, he considers them as

"serice"

tasks, such as cook:ing, which are useful but

not honourable.

The classical Greek concept of slavery found its fullest expression

Astotle's work: 'esid's

free farrner may have walked the plough behind his white

oxen with pleasure, but attitudes changed by

slaves,

freemen were

the increase

refeed

Astotle's time.

Docile, easily managed

for such labour. While it is difficult to thin.k that

the number of slaves and appreciation of their usefulness for doing the

things that free rnen would otherwise have

do was not a factor

the everrnore

disdainful attitude ta.ken towards the \vork, it is possible that the association of
submission cowardice and all things base and lowly with these persons who
erf11ed

the work free men avoided was of equal if not of more importance. The

Greeks did not like to have

do things"39.

Dio Chrysostom's concept of slavery is different from the classical Greek one
as expressed

Astotle's

work, although there are some common elements. Dio

values labour high enough to contrast with the

astocratic

50

prejudice expressed by

Aristotle, Plato, and other classical authors against

His sympathy towards the free

is unquestionable and his humanitarianism which deved from the influence of

Stoicism do not coincide with the harsh ideas

,.

this subject as expressed

classica1

literature. In the 15th discoUIse, 25-31, the man who denied that he was a slave
expresses ideas which seem to contrast sharply with those expressed by

Astotle

the "Politics":

a) Men who are

servitude are not "really" slaves;

b) Capture under defeated war does not transfonn either

the captive

his descendants into slaves who belong to another as part of his

property.
The whole

stteia

system of natural slavery seems to have been rejected with

one exception. The prejudice against

Athenians be overpowered
taken to Thrace

if a Thracian

dUng

barbaans

warfare and be

has been preserved: "If one of the

cared

off to Persia

Persian who is not

free born but is even the son of a

institution. Hedoes

ce

admit that he is a free person" (15, 16-17). And

generally, Dio does not express objections to the existence of

po.nt

even if he's

Sicily as a chattel slave, we will not accept that he is really a slave.

a king is brought here, we shall

other Stoics did

ad

function of the

even propose a milder treatment of slaves, like Seneca

one way

another.

he looks at the subject from a. different

of view. In the 10th discourse Diogenes draws a picture of slavery which is

very negative for the slave-owner. 1t is an economic burden

ad

a moral danger.

Slaves are not productive as labourers and as domestics endanger the household
peace, making the wife neglectful
ad

ad

nagging towards her husband and the sons lazy

idle.

The contrast to
a

Astotle's

ideas

the subject is

stking.

For him slavery is

essential thing for the household and manual work deserves contempt. The
,

difference lies

the different

eds

in which the authors lived.

51

Astotle

wrote

when the city-state had started to dec1ine but it was still alive
whereas Dio Chrysostom who lived the 1st and

the 4th Century B.C.,

the fITst years of the 2nd Century

fon

A.D. had been used to a very clifferent kind of city, one which had preserved the
and the titles of the olden

g10us

times but not the essence of the 'asty" The works

of both of them are ideological products of the same social class, the Greek elite, but
in Dio's epoch it was being

trasformed

into a Graeco-Roman elite. New values had

been irnported by Rome and the Greek nob1es had to act as Rome's agents
preserve their ruling position. The poor citizens after the 10ss of their old
under the city-states had been reduced to

slaves of the past. They had to work hard

order to

ileges

economic position similar to that of the

order to survive. Consequently rare

evaluation of manual work had to be done.

Clysostom's

the most radical aspect of Dio

compared with that of

Astotle

concept of slavery if

is its new moral definition of slavery.

Astot1e

had

accepted that a free man could have a slavish soul but not that this made him a slave.
For Dio Chrysostom, the real slave is just this
soul (15, 29). In both of his two discourses
freedom of the
Astotle

is

spit

terbly

Astotelia

slavery and freedom, he insists

as the only true one. Bodies have

keen

free man with the slavish

significance, whereas

bodies as proof of someone's status,

metaphysical view. He is too interested

spite of his

Biology to let the body out of

consideration. Tt is the biologica1 facts that according to him give supremacy to both
males and free men. But for the Stoics, Bio10gy is not irnportant - it cannot influence
men's souls. In their thought the body has been reduced
agrees with Plato but not with

Astotle. Csdeg

body, Dio's thought differs fundamenta11y from

10

a very low position.

1ris

the soul as independent from the

Astotle's. He

defines slavery not as a

social institution which has to exist for fulfilling this or that purpose but as a state of
an individual's

spit

which cannot be

chaged

by extemal forces.

52

the 14th and 15th discourses he rejects almost all the classical definitions of
Astotelian

slavery and among them the

being, 14, 4, 13, 14). The slave

1.
f.

enslavement of

sers

ones (the slave as not autonomous human

the 15th discourse objects the justification of the

of war (if they are Greeks) and presents as his main

argument the re-establishment of the Messenians as people of free status after the
defeat of the Spartiates in the batt1e of Leuctra (371 B.C.) in 15, 27-28. The entire
Astotelian

dogma of "natuTal" slavery is not rejected but has been "refurbished".

According to

their property

there are "natura1 slaves" but these are the ignorant who neglect

treat theiI fellows unjustly,

most

seus

of all, have wicked souls.

Of course that does not mean that they have to be reduced to slavery. This is the basic
difference between

Astotle's

and

Chrysostom's thought

used it to justify socia1 relationships by making them

biologica1 grounds; \vhereas
everything

deves

slavery. The

deve

foner

from nature,

Chrysostom uses a pure metaphysical argument:

from God and one's soul.

essence their conceptions of slavery

are not radically different, fiIst because both of them divide people into free and
slaves

matter what they use as

ctea

and secondly because both of them come to

the same way by different paths: slaves exist for the master's welfare.

Astotle's

way

of justification of slavery seems to be cruel but it is more decent and more open,
whereas Dio Chrysostom admits that a slave has a soul which could be free but a
slave (though he could be

charactesed

as mora11y/philosophica11y free) had to

remain socially slave because according to the Stoics the body is insignificant, and
everyone has to do his best in whatever post fate has put him without trying to remove
hirnself avoid misfortunes.

Stoics did not like changes and radical

humanitaan behaviour

refons.

They could afford a kind of

but Astotle had done the same when he suggested that the

master/slave relationship is based mutual benefit and that masters should not
overcome certain limits when exercising their rule over their slaves.

J.

53

Do CONCLUSIONS.

a)

.~

Chrysostom's work is divided to three parts:

Descti

and sometimes analysis of contemporary

problems

his discourses

cities);

b) Fictitious dialogues between

hstocal

characters

even unnamed known people of the 14th Century B.C.;

c) Reconstruction of well-known myths or legends or

Ctical

essays

classical and pre-classicalliterature.

Consequently, it becomes clear that the picture of slavery which he had drawn
1

his

discourses has but little in common with contemporary slavery. The 10th discourse is
a dialogue between Diogenes and an unnamed man, so

4th Century B.C. slavery, even if we have to ad.mit that

his contemporary ideas

his

descti

aims to give

image of the

author can avoid projecting

of the past. The 14th and 15th discourses

cannot be pinned down chronologically, but it is obvious from the speakers'

comments (Sicilian expedition, battle at Leuctra
Messenians) that they are supposed to take place

hstoca

371 B.C., liberation of

the 4th Century B.C.

gives a

descti of contemporary slavery l the Euboean discourse and in some rare

passages scattered in
the

hista

vaous

other discourses. The

mateal

is

enough

allow

even a pale image of 1st Century A.D. slavery.

the sociological level

infonns us of well-known things: slaves are

acquired by warfare, piracy, purchase or by reproduction of one's slave live-stock.

Slaves can be emancipated by:
a) the will of their masters;
b) recruiting

the

any

moments of great

necessity;

54

c) purchase of their freedom by their savings;

d) whole nations

'serfs' can be emancipated, the

former by a bold leader, the latter after their masters' defeat.

Slaves are people who have been bought, have become part of their master's property
and can be tortured

ki11ed like animals. They are obliged to perform manuallabour;

the females and the young ones are sexually exploited and reduced to prostitution.
Almost nothing of all this cannot be found better descbed in other ancient sources.

the psychological level, Dio represents slaves as creatures similar to

ed

children: they are under other people's rule, but not for a limited
of free status - but for the rest of their lives.
parallel between childIen and slaves and

like children

the 15th discourse Dio draws a

the 66th

counent

slaves' punishment

a sirnilar way to punishing a little boy. Slaves if nasty can be sold abroad like

items of low quality

useless domestic animals (31, 109).

They are in a state

between child and domestic animal:

'

slave was usually called 'little one'

'boy' (pais, puer) even if he was an old

man"40. Dio accepted them as capable of having feelings: slave prostitutes suffer and
slave mothers may want to keep their babies. The slave's defence of female slave as
full of maternal instinct even for foundlings against the citizen's argument, is that
slavery and motherhood when combined mak:e life most unbearable, so that female
slaves prefer abortion

infanticide instead of keeping their offspring, does not seem

to be without foundation:

'

Greek tale tells of the distress of a slave mistress, who

trembles at the thought that her master lover might

l1

the child she is expecting by

him"41. Children could have been welcomed by the female slaves

when they had to give a child as part of their emancipation contract.

interested

psychology

general and

the psychology of slaves

55

such cases or

he is not

particular.

the

econollc

level, Dio's discourses cannot enlighten us

many 1OpiCS.

Slaves continued 10 exist as part of cit:izens' property (the andrapoda of civic

discourses) but they were probably

used in

agculture.

He refers

them as

domestics or symbols of status and luxury. This

contemporary sources seems

mateal

when combined with other

be justified, though there are signs of the use of slaves

in some other economic activities (crafts, fishing). The question of the serfdom
problem cannot be answered by studying Dio's discourses: except for two

hiS1cal

references 10 Helots (15, 28 and 36, 38), there are only two passages which can be
interpreted as refemng 10 'serfs', one
that Dio refers 10 serfs

15,23 and

31,113.

we cannot be sure

slaves because the verb "douleuein" has also a

metahcal

meaning. Finley's interpretation of the 15, 23 as proof of hereditary debt bondage is

ambiguous.

someone can take the passage literally as that free men sold

themselves 10 slavery: "Many adults sold themselves in order not 10 die of hunger.
Some ambit:ious men did the same with the hope of becoming the stewards of
noblemen of

imeal

treasurers. This

my view was the S10ry of the all powerful

and extremely wealthy Pallas, scion of a noble Arcadian family, who sold himself
Into slavery so that he might be taken

as steward by a woman of the

family and who wound up as minister of finance and eminence gn'se

Claudius"42.

the morallevel: "Nobody trusts slaves when they

make an agreement, for the reason that they are

one pay

the Emperor

a philosophical level the slave was used as a metaphor social or

polit:ical. The slave Is worthless

imeal

their masters. Far more should

heed 10 the agreements of such persons as

arn

descbg.

every

respect, human beIngs, because of their depravity, are farther removed from the state
of freedom" (74,9). Zeus Is the father of god and men, but not of slaves (4, 22-23).

But

is obvious that for Dio the word "slave" has another meaning: not of the

man who does not own himself but the one who is enslaved 10 his desires and
,

passIons. Dio uses the vocabulary of slavery but

metahcall,

56

even

the political

level: "Nobody would lik:e to be called despots not of free men but

een

of slaves... "

(1,22). "Nobody can really become king before he has been emancipated from his
slavish appetites and evil desires... " (4th, 75-76). "5 let him be a man insignificant

appearance,

serile,

unsleeping, never smiling, ever quarrelling and fighting with

someone, very much lik:e a pander, who in garb as well as in character is shameless
and niggardly, dressed in a coloured mantle, the finery of one of its harlots.
and loathsome spirit is this,
own fends and comrades,
in the garb of

ate

he

bngs

fou1

every possible insult and shame upon his

rather, his slaves and underlings, whether he finds them

citizens

in that of roya1ty" (4, 96-98).

' ou

know that

Romans are so ignorant and stupid as to choose that none of their subjects should be
independent and honourable, but would rather rule over slaves" (3, 111). "For who
among the Cannians has

eer proed

himself a noble man?

any benefaction upon them? Why, they are

Romans,

a state of abject

ed

slaery

account of their excessive folly and wickedness

slavery a double one" (31, 125). This last passage requires a

some

who has

eer cnfeed

not alone to the

haing

hstocal

made their

comrnent: ''At

between 70 and 60 B.C. The Cannians, who had been made

tbutary

to

Rhodes by 5ulla in punishment for their part in the massacre of Italians in Asia Minor
in 88

tbute

the orders of Mithdates, appealed to the Roman Senate to be allowed to pay

to Rome rather than to Rhodes. (See Cicero, Ad Ouintum Fratrem 1.1.11.33).

This passage in Dio leads us to infer that their petition was rejected and that they were
required to pay

tbute

to both Rhodes and Rome"43. 50 slavery as used by Dio could

also mean humiliating or economically harsh political dependence. "51aves" (= men

of

serile

character) are so useless that nobody who is

ever want to rule

"slae"

slave

5toic

bght

and intelligent could

them. The good king must not be a man of serile character, a

teninology.

The bad monarch, the

tyant,

is the equivalent of the

the political 1evel. In Dio's epoch this political dimension of

justified. Many Roman emperors could fit the

desctin.

57

slaery

was

As for the mi1der treatment of slaves advocated by the Stoics and this
transfonation

of the concept of 'natural' slavery from defining as slaves people with

chained bodies to others \vith chained

spits,

there is a

hstca1

exp1anation. 1t was

simp1y a necessary but secondary change due to the transformation of the old society
of the democratic city-states
ideological function to

perfon,

which slavery has a fundamental economic and

to the new oligarchic cities - subjects of Rome with

populations who did not any more need the

slae

as part of the necessary dichotomy

citizen-free/alien slave. They were not "citizens" any more, at least not in the way in
which their ancestors of the c1assical epoch were: "The concept of a
worked out as the concept of the citizen is

dee1oped,

comp1ete1y clear before the 6th Century B.C. Solon

slae

is on1y

which is to say that it is not

repatated the

Athenians who had

been sold into slavery for debt. The same gesture distinguished the Athenians who
cou1d

eer

slaes,

again be

foreigner. 1n the c1assical

fact of nature"44.

ut

from others. Henceforth the

ed

the

slae

slae

will always be a

is ubiquitous, his presence seems to be a

under Roman ru1e the Greek city-states were transformed fTom

independent political units to simp1e links in the chain of conquered states, depending
for their administration and welfare

Roman officials and the good will of their

Romanised elite. The picture of the unnamed Euboean city which Dio drew
discourse, with its pub1ic p1aces

transfoned

into waste1and

reflects the politica1 and economic decay of the Greek cities

Being a citizen ceased

be a

1ege.

like Dio Chrysostom, because it provided

their maintenance. So the image of
alue.

hae

Both

his 7th

1and for pasturage,

the 1st Century A.D.

Citizens cou1d not participate in political1ife

anymore. Poverty had reduced the civic mob to the 1eve1 of

Manual 1abour could not be he1d

slaes

slaes.

contempt by the contemporary moralists,

citizens with the necessary means for

versus citizen had 10st the great part of its

citizens and slaves had to work hard

occupations which wou1d

been considered degrading by, for instance, stotle. Under Roman influence,

58

manumission, as the Delphic and Calyrnnian

insctins

reveal, ceased to be a rare

phenomenon in Greece.

But this does not mean that the concept of slavery at the philosophical level
really changed. S10ic philosophers thought of slavery as a kind of moral degradation
fOT which the "slave" was responsible because he could
meaphysica1

desires, but this confusing

institution.

The S10ic emphasis

would not control his

view simply justified slavery as a social

the separation of the soul and body, with the

former considered essential and the latter as of less importance, helped the slave
owners 10 keep their slaves

their slaves' bodies

their service without wasting

their time thinking about the condition of their souls.

Chstian philosophers

This duty was left 10 the

of the 2nd Century onwards.

End Notes

1. G.W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists the Roman Empire

(Oxford, 1969),31.

2. ibid 31.

3. E.L. Bowie, 'The Greeks and their past in the 2nd

Sophistic',
.

4.

Studies

Ancient Society, ed by

Finley, (London and Boston, 1974),205.

Brunt, Sects of the social thought of Dio

59

Chrysostom and the Stoics', Proceedings

the

Cambridge Philological Society, 19 (1973), 19.

5. ibid 18.

6. ibid 10.

7.

Finley, uus Kapreilius Timotheus, slave

trader'

Aspects

Antiquity,

(London 1986),

162.

8. ibid 162-163.

9. Lysias,24.5.

10. Pliny, Natural History 24,8.19.

11.

Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves

(Cambdge

1980),156.

12. ibid 170.

13. ibid 146.

14. R. MacMullen, Changes

(Pinceton,

15. W.L.

the Roman Empire

1990),237.

Westemann, 'Between slavey and

American

istcal Revie\y,

freedom', The

L (1945), 218.

60

..

16.

-,

Finley, Economy and society of Ancient Greece

(London, 1981) 163-164.

17.

R. S. Broughton, 'Roman Asia',

surey

economic

of ancient Rome, ed by . Frank:, (Baltimore,

1938),690.

18. R.MacMullen, Changes

the Roman Empire

(Pnceto

1990),237.

19. D. R. Dudley,

history of Cynicism, (Hildesheim,

1967), 143.

20.

Finley, "Diogenes the Cynic", in Aspects of

Antiquity (London, 1968),92.

21.

Meiksins-Wood, Peasant-citizen and slave (London

- New York, 1988), 140-141.

22.

Brunt, 'Stoicism and the Principate' Papers of

tish

23. W.

school at Rome,

XLIII, (1975) 10.

D. Rouse (ed) Moral discouTses of Epictetus

(London, 1933),200.

24. ibid,201.

25. ibid,205.

26. ibid, 202.

61

27.

Veyne,

(Cambdge

history of vate life,

- Massachussetts - London England,

1987),62.

28. W.

D. Rouse (ed), Moral discourses of Epictetus,

(London, 1933),21.
)

j
29. ibid, 42.

30.

. . Gffin,

Seneca:

philosopher

politics

(Oxford, 1976),256.

31. ibid,257.

32. J. W. Basare, Seneca, Moral essays,

(London,

1958), 177-179.

33. R. Campbell, Seneca's Letters (London, 1975), 90.

34.

.. Gffin,

Seneca:

philosopher

politics

(Oxford, 1976),262-263.

35. ibid, 266-267.

36.

Finley, Ancient slavery and modem ideology

(London, 1980), 121.

37. Paul, Epistle to Philemon.

38. G.

. .

de Ste Croix, The class struggle

the

62

Ancient Greek worId (London, 1981),418.

39.

CuffeI, 'The cIassical Greek concept of slavery',

Journa1 of the History of Ideas,

XXV

(1966),

337.

40.

. Veyne,
(Cambdge

History of ate life,

l ,

- Massachussetts - London England,

1987),61.

41.

ibid, 52.

42.

ibid, 55.

43. J.W. Cohoon

m
44.

ad

L.H. Crosby, Dio Chrysostom,

(London - Cambdge - Massachussetts), 130.

Vidal-Naquet, The BIack Hunter (London, 1981),4.

F. SYNOPSIS

This dissertation has been divided into two sections: in the fust we have

ted

to evaluate Dio Chrysostom's discourses as a source for socia1 history whereas the
second is

attempt to discover the Stoic concept of sIavery and to

tace

the

evolution of the concept of slavery in Greek thought from the end of cIassical

63

antiquity to the fust and the flJst few years of the second centuries A.D. From our
research we have deduced
a) Dio Chrysostom's work is valuable as a source of
social history but not

the topic of slavery,

b) His concept of slavery is a mixture of Stoic ideas

(the true freedom of the spirit versus the one which is enslaved to sensuality)
and of classical ideas (e.g. the racial prejudice against barbarians; the
Astotelian cie

c)

that they

desere

to be enslaved remains intact),

contrast to his Stoic ideals and his continuous

reference to the slave as a creature with a

serile

soul, he does not hesitate to

mention slaves as "andrapoda", as items which sirnply belong to another man.

d) The fact that he avoids mentioning

agcultural

slaves combined with the available epigraphical

slavery as a declining (but not
were used mainly as domestic

disappeang)

serants

mateal

backs the theory of

institution. It seems that slaves

and perhaps in crafts

fishing,

e) Dio shared similar views with Seneca and Epictetus

the subject,

f) The transfonnation of the concept of slavery from

the classical harshness to a milder, metaphysical

doctne

was due to socio

political changes (the decline of the city-states) but it did not put in jeopardy
the advantages which the

irstitut.on

provided for the slave-owners.

64

F.
.

a.

BibHograIihY

Sources

Literary sources

Astotle,

Politics: J.

Sinclair (PC, 1962).

Dio Chrysostom, Discourses,

J. W. Cohoon &

L. Crosby (5 vols., Loeb, 1932 - 51).

Epictetus,

Moral discourses,

: .

Carter

(Everyman's Library, 1933).

Plato,

Republic.

Laws.

Moral essays,

Seneca,

J.W. Basare (Loeb, 3

vols., 1928-35).

Letters from a Stoic,

R. Campbell

(PC, 1975).

b.

Insctins

Delphi:

Fouilles de Delphes - 3, 3

(ed. G. Daux,

Pas

1943).

Foui11es de Delphes - 3, 6

(ed.
Calymna:

Valmin,

Pas

Calymnii,

1939).

Aao

della Scuola archaeologica di Atene,

22/3 (ed. Segre

.),

(1944-5).

65

Modem Authors.

..

Amold, Roman Stoicism,

R.H.

Baow,

(Cambdge,

1911).

Slavery in the Roman Empire, (London,

1928).
G.W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire,
(Oxford, 1969).
- (ed), Approaches to the second
sophistic, (pennsylvania, 1974).
E.L. Bowie, 'The Greeks and their past in the
second sophistic', Studies in Ancient
Society, (ed),

Finley

(Lndon

&

Boston, 1974), 166 - 209.

T.R.S. Broughton, 'Roman Asia' in

Economic

Survey of Ancient Rome, edited

by Tenney Frank, (Baltimore,
1938), 549-593.

..

Brunt,

Sects

of the Social thought of Dio

Chrysostom and the Stoics',

Proc.

Cambdge Phil.

Soc.,

19 (1973), 9-34.
- 'S toicism and the
of the

tish

Pncipate',

Papers

School of Rome, XLill,

(1975), 7-36.
G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, The class struggle in the
Ancient Greek world, (London, 1981).
V. Cuffel, "The Classical Greek concept of Slavery,
Joumal of the History of Ideas,

(1966),3,323-42.

66

D. Davies, The problem of slavery in westem

culture, (Oxford, 1966).
D.R. Dudley,

history of Cynicism, (Hildesheim,

1967).
L. Edelstein, The meaning of Stoicism,

(Cambdge,

Massachussetts, 1966).
.

Finley, Ancient Slavery and modem ideology,

(London, 1983).
- Aspects of Antiquity, (London, 1968).
- Economy and Society of Ancien t
Greece, (London, 1981).
- The Ancient Economy (London, 1973).

..

Griffin, Seneca:

philosopher in politics,

(Oxford, 1976).
F. and

Hazlitt, The wisdom of the Stoics:

Selections from Seneca, Epictetus and

Marcus Aurelius, (London, 1984).
G. Highet, 'Thehuntsman and the castaway', Greek.
Roman and Byzantine Studies, 14 (1973),
35-41.
.

Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves,

(Carnbdge,

1978).
C.P. Jones, The Roman world of Dio Chrysostom,
(Cambdge, Massachussetts

-London,

England, 1978).
R. MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire,
(Princeton, 1990).
.

'

Meiksins-Wood, Peasant - Citizen and Slave,

(London - New York, 1988).

G.R. Mollow, Plato's Law of Slavery, (New York,

67

1939).
.

Pohlenz, Freedom

Greek liEe and tllou gh t,

(Dordrecht - Holland, 1966).

.

Popper, The open society and its enemies,

(London, 1977).

Veyne,

history

private Iife,

(Cambridge, Massac11ussetts - London,

England, 1987).
.

Vidal-Naquet, The Black HUllter, (London, 1981).

Vogt,

Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man,

(Oxford, 1974).
\V.L. Westermann, 'Between SJavery and
The American Historical Review,

Freed',

L,

(1946),213-28.
- The SIave

Sstes

Greek and Roman

Antiquity (PhiJadeIPllia, 1955).

.

Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, (London,

1~88).
.

Yuge and Masaoki,

subordination

Fns

of contOI and

antiquity,

(Leiden - New York - UOBGHAIN,

UOLN, 1988).

68

Appendix

Passages

Dio

Chrysostom's work. refening

to

slavery.
1st(22 - 23):
,

,
m' , &.

4 th (22 - 23): , ,
, , '
w ,

4 th (47):
-
. ' ,
VO

4 th (60 - 61): << , '

. m

' V

4 th (64): ' ' ;

' ,

4th (75 - 76): << , ,

, , , OVO

4th (79 - 81): w, m

, ,

, ,

, ,
OVO , ,

, .

4 th (96 - 98): , , , ,
,
,
, ,

,
.

4th (99 - 100): , m

.

4th (l27): << -

, ,
VOO .

7 th (31 - 32):
, .
,

7 th (82 - 83): )
, ,
, ' .

"fUp

7 th (104): ,
, '
,
' ,

7 th (133 - 136):

~ ,

VOO ,

'

'

, ,
, ,

'

, ,

'

7 th (138): << ,
,

, , , '

, 9 .

7 th (143 - 145):
,

, ,

' )' '

, '

' ' '

;

7 th (148): << ' ,

9th (9 - 10): , ,
, VOO
, VO
.

9th (11 - 12): , , , ,

,

, ,

, .

1lth(29 - 30):
, ,

, ,

m ,

, , ...

13 th (35): << ,

31 st(34): '
, ' ,

31 st(51): << ,
' '
, ' , '
' .

31 st(111):
' ,

31st(113): , ,

31 st(125): ,,
.

32 nd (49): ' ,

OVO
.

32 nd (76): '
. , ,
.

32nd (87): ,
.

32nd (90): << ,

m

KOV' V '
,

33 Td (20):

' Kaq'

,
,

l.
.
, .

33 Td (39):

' ,

lCV .

33 Td (51):

-
.

36 th (38):

,
, ' OV,

, '
, .

38 th (15):

51 st(l):
, , .

' ,

, ,

; .

58 th (3): << ,
&: , .

64 th (19): << , ,
~o ; ,

65 th (7): << , ,
, ;

66 th (13):

'

, ; ,

,
;

66 th (3):

<<

_66 th (l6):
.

68 th (4): ' ,
, , , ...
74 th (9): .
.....
79th(l): ,
, ' ,
;