Slavery In Thucydides And Herodotus

Many Scholars now use the term chattel slavery or also known as traditional slavery to refer to a type of slavery where a person belonged to another person. Slavery is a system that allows individuals to sell, buy, capture, and own other individuals as their own personal property. Slaves freedom to do what they wanted were taken from them, their control over their bodies were taken from them because they were considered a person’s “Property” to whoever owned them. They were forced to work and do as they are told or they would have to suffer severe and sometimes even fatal consequences and that impacted many types of relationships. ”Slavery is theft—theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne”(Kevin Bales, Understanding of Global Slavery). Slavery with all of its demeaning, oppressing of the black masses was a complicated force and a powerful presence when it came to numerous relationships. For example, masters and slaves, slaves and their families, masters wives and black women slaves, slaves and other slaves, and blacks and whites.

Slavery can be dated back to very early civilizations and were crucial in everyday activities, also to the economy. Some of these ancient civilizations include the India, Mesopotamian and Chinese and these had slaves work in their homes or their shops. Another early civilization who used slaves were the Egyptian who used the slaves to build their monuments, castles, palaces and statues. Hebrews also used slaves but were a little more moral on how they were identified. The Aztec, Inca and Mayan used slaves in many forms and most of these slaves were optained through war prisoners and were used in agriculture and warfare.

Slavery has been around for a very long time. However, it is not always how it seems or put out to be. Like the Barbarians, a Greek slave, for example. Their inability to speak Greek indicated their slave status because it kept them from talking back to their masters. This has lead the Greeks to consider otherness a characteristic of slaves. And in the 18th century, slave trade is just another trade for merchants and people involved, like the fact Europeans actually obtained African slaves by trading for them in exchange for goods; usually like guns or metal tools; and for those Africans, slaves were a form of property and a very valuable one.

Slavery (the ownership of another human as one’s own property) is one of the oldest traditions in human history. History shows that ancient Rome and Greece valued their wealth upon the number of slaves an individual owned. Their service was to provide slave labor for their owners. As time progressed, slavery began to evolve into something much different– especially in the North American colonies. A new nation was emerging, fueled by a drive for expansion and a growing economy. The United States exploited African Americans through racial slavery to fill the labor shortage and created a system that stripped them of their basic rights, dignity, and created social barriers to ensure their subservience to Southern society.

The right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: ‘I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like’ (Rousseau 3).

What is slavery and where does it stem from. The Webster’s dictionary definition of slavery means “the condition of a slave; the state of entire subjection of one person to the will of another”. The African slave trade started way back in the 1400’s from the west coast of Africa1stAfrica entered into a unique relationship with Europe that led to the devastation and depopulation of Africa, but contributed to the wealth and development of Europe. From then until the end of the 19th century, Europeans began to establish a trade for African captives. Why would people do such a thing what were they to gain from such wickedness? Timothy 6:10”For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

Athens took advantage of the other members states of the Delian League. The text says, “In terms of uniform training and discipline this system had its advantages, but the Athenians gained the experience in ware ware and the allies, growing ever weaker, were paying for it” (175). This shows that not only was Athens using resources owner by other member states, but they were using it all for themselves while the people they took from grew weaker. They used the Delian Alliance as an excuse to grow themselves at the expense of others.

Slavery is known to have existed as early as the 18th century B.C. during the Shang Dynasty of China. Slavery was widely practiced in many other countries, including, Korea, India, Greece, Mexico and Africa. (Britannica 288-89). When most people consider slavery, however, they think of Western slavery in North America because it is well documented and it was such a horrible institution. Even though there is no one definition of slavery, the people who study it (historians, anthropologists and sociologists) agree that certain characteristics are present in all forms of slavery. Slaves were property and objects, not subjects of the law. Slaves had few rights, always fewer than their owners. Slave

A common misconception that most people have about the word “slavery” is that it is bad or people tend to think about African slaves walking in chains and being beaten. History has shown and proven numerous account of slavery so how come when we think of slavery we seem to think of the stereotypical slavery (chattel slavery)? In fact, Classical Greece was the first society seen that had slave

The issue of slavery has been debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It is of undisputed awareness that the act of enslaving another man or women is to strip them of their civil and natural liberties. It is also of uncontested certainty that no man or women would will- ingly chose to be a slave. And although slavery and it’s accompanied hardships are often seen as no less than an ultimate evil, it is also an indisputable fact that humanity has enslaved its brethren since the dawn of mankind1. As rational beings, we must put aside our presumptions, precon- ceived notions, and emotionally biased opinions of slavery and ask ourselves; why? One would think that if enslavement was such an unspeakable evil, it would have no place in our civil soci- ety. Yet, slavery time and time again has appeared as a fundamental part of many of the worlds most powerfull civilizations and societies throughout history. This is because slavery is a power- full tool and a necessary evil. The Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, Egyptians, Ghana’s, Mali’s, Songhai’s, and Kanem-Bornu’s (the former four being powerfull African empires) all

Work, discipline and feeding are three words that would perfectly sum up the daily routine of slaves in ancient Greece. Slaves were the backbone to the greatness, strength and stability to the ancient Greeks, according to Aristotle. Being divided into many different city-states, Greece as a whole contained a variety of social structures, and therefore, a range of positions occupied by slaves. Slavery allowed the citizens of Athens and also Sparta to focus on the aspects of life they thought were important. Most slaves did not appear any different from the poorer Greek citizens, therefore making it much more difficult for historians to determine exactly how many slaves there were during these times. Ascertaining a true understanding of

The sheer volume of violence in the ancient world also tells the story of its inequality. If all was equal in the ancient world, then it would not have been as violent as it was. A government that takes care of the people it rules does not have to worry about them robbing and killing one another, and yet it continued to happen over and over again. In a society built on dominance and conquest, it is no wonder that slavery was a prevalent as it was. Though slaves were often treated as human beings and, in some cases, could even hold public office, slaves could still be subjected to abuse and unlivable conditions. Though slaves were often treated fairly and with dignity, they were still under the direct control of people who could do virtually anything they wanted to them. A servant could cheat on his wife and face a far more severe punishment than if the same crime was committed by an aristocrat (161-162). The ancient world was made up of winners and losers—the winners were the conquerors and the losers were the conquered. It seems as though slavery was unavoidable as it was the only real way to keep these two groups apart in terms of social stature. Slavery also reflects the perceived dominance that a more powerful civilization had over another. In civilizations so concerned with how powerful and dominant they were, slavery almost had to be instituted in order for ancient civilizations to keep both their values and empires intact. The only reason for some

Slavery is a bad thing because the victim would have no control over their life. The victim would have no freedom to do anything, and if the “master” wanted to hurt them there would be nothing they could do. The “master” would make them believe they need them, because they might make them think that no one would except them if they tried to go back to their old life, or they might tell them that no one would want them to come back because they are terrible at everything. These and more are ways to control the slavery victim.

We are humans and are all equal, using someone as a slave hurts humanity, more importantly, hurts the person who's serving as the slave. That person could potentially become someone important to the world, holding them in captivity could make us miss out on something special. It hurts the nations. These debates about slavery never gets old, insults are common. People have different views on them, and therefore hurts countries politically and create drama

Before a serious investigation of any aspect of Aristotle’s political theories is undertaken, we must take a moment to acknowledge that many of the institutions and doctrines he defends have been repudiated in modern political thought. In fact many such institutions are appalling and simply morally wrong. One such institution is slavery. Aristotle argues in the Politics that slavery is just. No argument is needed to conclude that Aristotle made a terrible ethical and moral error in defending slavery. Further we must accept that the argument of the abolition of slavery was available to him as his defense of slavery is in response to critics who claim slavery is unjust. What sparks intriguing debate is questioning why