Handbook of Ancient Slavery: Athenaeus

ath0108102012 Athenaeios I. LEBEN UND WERK. II. SKLAVEN UND SKLAVEREI IM WERK. III. TERMINOLOGIE I. LIFE AND WORK Athenaeus of Naucratis is known only from his Deipnosophists („Dinner-Sophists“ or „Learned Banqueters“), which dates to around 200 CE. The work is nominally an account of a long series of dinner parties held in Rome in the house of a wealthy Roman named Larensius. The guests are learned Greek expatriates, and to entertain themselves as they eat, they quote 1,000s of passages of Greek literature, many of which are preserved nowhere else. The source of this material is unclear. Since Athenaeus was from Egypt, he may have had access at some point to the Library of Alexandria. But the historical Larensius/Larensis – probably Athenaeus’ patron – is said to have owned an enormous personal library [1,3a], so Athenaeus may have read other texts there. In any case, there is no reason to assume that he knew everything he quotes at first hand, since he patently draws on Hellenistic scholarship throughout. II. SLAVES AND SLAVERY IN THE WORK Slaves figure frequently as incidental characters in the action of the Deipnosophists (serving food and the like), as well as in the texts it preserves in fragmentary form. But the only sustained discussion of the institution of slavery and associated vocabulary comes in Book 6, in response to a question by Ulpian (the symposiarch) at 6,228d, as to whether people in the past owned as many slaves as they do „today“. This question receives three responses: (1) a long series of observations by Democritus of Nicomedia (a philosopher) at 6,262b267e, which can be read as a highly theorized history of the development of slavery in Greece from earliest times down to the classical period, with particular attention to the difference between Dorian and Ionian models of the institution; (2) a shorter speech by Masurius (a jurist, poet and musician) at 6,271b-272d mostly concerned with the number of slaves held by individual masters and in individual cities in Greece during the classical period, which serves to set up (3) comments by Larensius (the host) at 6,272d-273d concentrating on slavery in the Roman world. The material collected in these speeches includes a number of comic fragments that describe a „Golden Age“ existence in which no slaves were necessary; prose material concerned with slave participation (or non-participation) in scattered local religious activities; the history of slavery in various regions of Greece, including Sparta (where helots are in question); and etymological discussion of regional terms for slaves. The Deipnosophists aspires to imitate a chaotic dinner-table conversation, with numerous voices competing with and interrupting one another even within sections of text nominally assigned to a single speaker. The transitions between the various categories of material in the speeches about slavery in Book 6 are accordingly often abrupt, and may represent several separate sets of notes combined in a rough-and-ready fashion. Beyond that, it is difficult to say anything significant about Athenaeus’ sources or working method, and analysis is best confined to the text as we have it. The speakers in the Deipnosophists offer few explicit judgments of their own, but by and large merely quote long series of passages torn from earlier authors and not originally intended for such purposes. Any attempt to understand the argument or arguments tacitly put forward in the text thus requires reconstructing the themes that bind the original collections of material together, the connections between those themes, and the logic behind the order in which the material is presented, with allowance for the fact that there is unlikely to be a single, simple thesis binding everything together. Democritus’ speech begins with the observation, supported by quotations from a pair of 4th-century comic poets [Antiph. fr.89; Epicr. fr.5], that domestic slaves exercise remarkable self-control when they calmly serve free people delicacies rather than snatching the food themselves [6,262b-c]. Such behaviour, Democritus maintains, is a product of training and habituation rather than of fear (sc. of punishment), the implication being that – in a wellmanaged house, at least – slavery is essentially consensual. What follows in this speech can be read as an attempt to explain how this might be possible, via a contrast between two contrasting types of slavery, one implicitly characterized as better and as typical of Dorian society, the other as worse and typical of Ionian society. Underlying the entire discussion is the notion that slavery has a history, and that there are accordingly local and regional variants of it, hence in part the reference throughout to terms for various categories of slaves in different places [esp. 6,263e-264a, 267b-d, 271c-272a] (see III. below). At 6,263b, Democritus introduces the main body of his speech by quoting Pherecrates fr.10, which alleges that „once upon a time“ there were no slaves in individual households, and that all domestic labour was done by the women of the family [cf. Cratin. fr.176, quoted at 6,267e, rounding out the argument]. This is followed a few lines later by a passage from Posidonius [FGrH 87 F 8 = fr.60 EDELSTEIN-KIDD] that describes what is presented as a natural, unproblematic form of slavery, in which individuals too stupid to care for themselves surrender their persons into the power of others, to serve them and to be supported by them in return. The subjection of the Mariandynoi (->Halbfreiheit) to the Heracleots is offered as an example of this phenomenon, and Democritus then segues into a scattered discussion – once again, as throughout, via serial citation of earlier authorities – of the Spartan helots (->Heloten / Helotie), Thessalian penestai (>Penesten) and Cretan klarotai (->Halbfreiheit; >Kreta) [6,263e-f, 264a-b]. The analysis is uncompelling (whole peoples cannot be reasonably thought of as intellectually deficient and thus as needing „protection“ of the sort discussed earlier, even if some individuals might), and the claim that the relationship between the Spartans and the helots was a matter of mutual advantage is particularly outrageous. But all the cities and people in question are Dorian, with the exception of the Aeolian Thessalians, and the point is clearly to treat this style of slavery as uncontroversial. There is accordingly no mention of revolts in this portion of Democritus’ speech, and seemingly no need for them („many of the penestai“ are said at 6,264b to be „wealthier than their own masters“). Instead, Democritus offers a number of anecdotes about the smoothly functioning relationship between slaves and free men in several local Doric rituals [6,262c (Cos); 6,262e-263a, esp. 263a (Rhodes); 6,263f (Cydonia)]. 6,264c marks a new stage in the argument, via a claim attributed to Timaeus [FGrH 566 F 11] to the effect that the Greeks did not traditionally use slaves purchased for money (¡rgurwnÂtai). The material that follows [to 6,267b] is all concerned with Ionians, and presents slavery – especially the use of „barbarian“ slaves bought with money – as far more problematic than the allegedly standard Dorian style of accepting the surrender of „deficient“ indigenous populations into benevolent bondage. Democritus follows the passage from Timaeus with a long quotation from Book 6 of Plato’s Laws [leg. 776b778a], which begins by calling helotage „a vexed and contentious issue“ (ple×sthn ¡por×an par©scoit‚ £n kaØ ˜rin), while conceding that Thessalian and Heracleot practices are by general consensus less controversial [6,264d-e], and refers later on to the occasional revolts of the Messenian helots [6,264f]. But Plato (->Platon) as presented here is a harsh and brutal master, and he has in fact been edited to make him appear as such, e.g. by eliminating from the text the observation that slaves can be as good as brothers or sons and have often rescued their masters and their houses [leg. 776d], and by similarly removing the assertion that it is proper to inflict as little violence on one’s slaves as possible and that one ought to treat them even better than one’s equals [leg. 777d]. In the Ionian/Athenian sphere, slaves are „the problem“ [6,264d, once again distorting what Plato wrote), and the same contrast appears in the next passage Democritus quotes, from Theopompus [FGrH 115 F 122], who is said to have claimed that the Chians were the first Greeks to purchase barbarian slaves – unlike the Spartans and Thessalians, who merely subjugated local populations [6,265b-c]. „I for my part“, says Democritus, momentarily speaking in his own voice, „believe that this was why the divine power felt resentment against the Chians; for later on they were drawn into a war on account of their slaves“ [6,265c]. Democritus then quotes a long passage from Nymphodorus of Syracuse [FGrH 572 F 4] about a slave-revolt on Chios and the „slave-king“ Drimacus (->Drimakos) who seized control of it [6,265b-266e]. Although the fighting on Chios eventually came to an end, hostility between masters and slaves never did, since the story ends with the observation that runaway slaves continue to bring first-fruit offerings of everything they steal to the hero-shrine established in Drimacus’ honour, while he appears to masters in their sleep to warn them when their slaves conspire against them [6,265d]. Nor is even this the end of the Chians’ story, since Democritus goes on to quote Nicolaus of Damascus [FGrH 90 F 95] and Posidonius [FGrH 87 F 38 = fr.51 EDELSTEIN-KIDD] for the fact that Mithradates later turned the Chians over in chains to their slaves, and then remarks once again in his own voice: „There can thus be little doubt that the divine power was angry at them for being the first people to rely on slaves who were bought“ [6,266f]. Democritus concludes by making two more points: that the Athenians allegedly passed a law allowing suits to be filed on behalf of slaves who were abused [6,266f-267a] – which amounts to an admission that master-slave relations became ugly enough, often enough to require public attention to the matter – and with a brief account of another Ionian slaverevolt, this time on Samos [6,267a-b]. Democritus draws no explicit conclusions from the material he quotes, and his remarks instead fade out into an extended discussion of comic utopias [6,267e-270a]. Nor is it clear how the contrast he draws between the „good“ Dorian and the „bad“ Ionian models of slavery responds to the point he made at 6,262b-c about the origins of servile selfcontrol. Perhaps the implication is simply that some men (like Larensius) manage to convert servitude into a situation slaves can be convinced to regard as relatively advantageous, by incorporating them into the household rather than making them bitter enemies. After Democritus ends his speech, Masurius briefly takes up the topic of slaves again, offering information about other forms of subjugation of local peoples reminiscent of Spartan control of the helots and Thessalian control of the penestai [6,271b-c]; discussing terms for freed Spartan helots and for other, non-Spartiate residents of Lacedaimon [6,271c-d, e-f]; and giving figures for the number of slaves supposedly owned by wealthy individuals (four men all said to have owned 1,000 or more) or in specific cities overall [6,272a-d]. The latter figures appear wildly exaggerated – 460,000 in Corinth, 400,000 in Athens in the time of Demetrius of Phalerum, and 470,000 on Aegina – but their primary purpose is to introduce the remarks by Larensius about Roman slavery that follow. Larensius begins by claiming that every Roman owns as many slaves as he can, some 20,000 or more – twenty times the maximum number cited for other people by Masurius. Nor are those slaves used for productive purposes, in contrast to how Nicias son of Niceratus of Athens leased out the men he owned to work as miners. Instead, the majority of Roman slaves are used for purposes of display when their masters go out [6,272d-e]. Ulpian’s question at 6,228d about the relative number of slaves in ancient and „modern“ times has thus been answered. But Larensius is not done speaking. He first offers summary accounts of a number of slave revolts, the first in Attica (recalling the dark Attic-Ionic portion of the account of Greek slavery in Democritus’ speech), the others in Sicily and Italy (suggesting that the same set of problems has taken root in Larensius’ own country, presumably for similar reasons) [6,272e-273a]. Larensius then points out that Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar embarked on major diplomatic and military expeditions accompanied by only a handful of slaves [7,273a-b], contrasting this with the behaviour of Smindyrides of Sybaris, who took 1,000 slaves with him to support his lavish lifestyle when he went to Sicyon to court the daughter of the tyrant Cleisthenes [6,273b-c]. Traditional Roman values, Larensius insists, include a disciplined simplicity, and the ostentatious private ownership of thousands of slaves is an ugly, corrupting practice misguidedly borrowed from Rome’s subjects [6,273d-f]. The Deipnosophists is not a closed, univocal text, making it dangerous to call this the argumentative conclusion of the discussion of slavery in Book 6. Larensius’ words are nonetheless Athenaeus’ final word on the subject. Slavery is presented in these speeches as a diverse and problematic institution, which had a beginning but shows no sign of coming to an end. Slaves need not be unhappy or rebellious, and masters need not be corrupted by keeping them. But both are real – and very dangerous – possibilities. III. TERMINOLOGY Athenaeus’ own favourite words for „slave“ are doìloV and oÏkŸthV. The first and second of the three speeches in Book 6, however, preserve numerous terms – the majority from Dorian communities or from Thessaly – for different types and classes of slaves. These terms (given here in the order in which they appear in the text) are defined as follows: - cruswnÂtoi: urban slaves on Crete [6,263e], - ¡mfami÷tai: rural slaves got from war on Crete [6,263-f] or private slaves on Crete [6,263f], - klar÷tai: slaves on Crete, because acquired by lot [6,263-f], - mnoÙai: public slaves on Crete [6,263f] (>Mnoiten), - perioÙkoi: the subject population on Crete [6,263f], - penŸstai: war-captives in Thessaly [6,264a], - qettalikŸtai: another term for penŸstai [6,264a], - menŸstai: the original form of penŸstai, because the individuals in question remained (katame×nanteV) in the country under Thessalian authority [6,264b], "latr×deV: another term for penŸstai [6,264b-c], - mn÷tai: indigenous slaves on Crete [6,267c] (>Mnoiten), - ¢zoi, qer©ponteV, ©kàlouqoi, di©konoi, æphrŸtai, špamàneV, l©treiV: all words for „slave“, with no further information supplied, except that ¢zoi is further glossed qer©ponteV [6,267b-c]," " ¡pofr©sh or" bol×nh: a female slave on Crete [6,267c], - s×ndrwn: a second-generation slave on Crete [6,267c], - ¡mf×poloV: a slave-woman who cares for her mistress [6,267c], - pràpoloV: a slave-woman who walks in front of her mistress [6,267c], - calk×dh: a serving-woman (qer©paina) in Sparta [6,267d], - —peun©ktai: Spartan slaves or helots put in the beds of dead men and eventually promoted to citizen-status [6,271c], - katwnakofàroi: the Sicyonian equivalent of — peun©ktai [6,271d], - prospel©tai: slaves in Sicyon [6,271e], - ©fŸtai, ¡dŸspotai, —ruktÂreV, desposionaìtai, neodamõdeiV: freed slaves in Sparta [6,271f], - šle©tai: another term for helots [6,272a]. Full text, epitome and bilingual editions: (1) KAIBEL, G. (Ed.): Athenaeus: Dipnosophistae. 3 vols. Stuttgart 188790. --- (2) PEPPINK, S. P. (Ed.): Athenaei Dipnosophistarum Epitome. 2 vols. Leiden 1937-39. --(3) OLSON, S. D. (Ed.): Athenaeus: The Learned Banqueters. 8 vols. Cambridge/Mass. – London 2006-12. (4) BONELLI, G.: La saga di Drimaco nel sesto libro di Ateneo: ipotesi interpretiva. In: QUCC 75 (1994) 135-142. --- (5) BRADLEY, K. R.: Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C. – 70 B.C. Bloomington – Indianapolis 1989, esp. 3-11, 38-41. --- (6) BRAUND, D., WILKINS, J. (Edd.). Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire. Exeter 2000. --- (7) CANFORA, L.: Posidonio nel VI libro di Ateneo. La schiavitù „degenerata“. In: Index 11 (1982) 43-56 (repr.: Id.: Una società premoderna: lavoro, morale, scrittura in Grecia. Bari 1989, 117-139). --- (8) FUKS, A.: Slave War and Slave Troubles in Chios in the Third Century B.C. In: Athenaeum 46 (1968) 102-111. --- (9) PARADISO, A.: Forme di dipendenza nel mondo greco. Ricerche sul VI libro di Ateneo. Bari 1991, 31-49, 114-122. --- (10) PARADISO, A.: Introduzione. In: Id. (Ed.): Ateneo. Schiavi e servi. Palermo 1991, 21-26. --- (11) WESTERMANN, W. L.: Athenaeus and the Slaves of Athens. In: Athenian Studies Presented to William Scott Ferguson. Cambridge – London 1940, 451-470 (repr.: M. I. Finley [Ed.]: Slavery in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge 1960, 73-92). S. Douglas Olson