Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Slavery in Ancient Greece


A will be doing some creative translating of this if I ever finish my homework for my Korea job. Here's a sample of the original:

One did not expect much of slave children. The yearly attrition was reckoned at ten per cent, and one naturally wished to keep one's slaves as useful animals. One saw one's friend suffer hardships or perish without being much concerned; but one took one's slave to the doctor and nursed him, if he died, one lamented and regarded it as a loss.

We may ask what happened when a region became so impoverished that it could no longer afford to buy slaves, and especially when the number of free-born laborers dropped as they became more loath to work. Most likely the country soon turned into a waste.

Later on, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and Lydians usually did the baking because of their skill in it. On large estates a slave was made an overseer of the others, and from among the female slaves one became the stewardess who was carefully instructed and treated gently and discreetly. Aristotle supposed that one should respect and deal fairly with slaves entrusted with the more responsible jobs, while giving the ordinary ones plenty of good wholesome food. Larger households needed doorkeepers to check on things carried in and out. A slave no longer useful for other work might well have handled this.

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