Ancient Slavery

Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was
the woman fit to breastfeed, another the newborn fit to be breastfed. This
study examines the consequences of these standards on human lives. Mothers
and newborns who failed to measure up to the ideal were rejected, giving
added impetus to wet nursing, infant exposure and infanticide. These were
aspects of Mediterranean medicine, culture and religion long before Soranos
of Ephesos wrote his gynecological treatise. However, his instructions for
midwives made these ideals and standards explicit and authoritative.
Carried through by midwives, they altered the lives of women and sometimes
ended the lives of newborns. Together these standards contributed to a
recursive dynamic of the displacement of infants from birth mothers, infant
abandonment, and wet nursing that was favorable to class affirmation and to
the maintenance of the slave system of early imperial Rome.

Focusing on a digression included in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities concerning the practice of manumission in Rome during the reign of the king Servius Tullius, this contribution aims to clarify the meaning of the historian’s disapproval of the Roman elite’s tendency to free slaves in their will as an expression of social ostentation, which was increasing in the first decades of the Augustan Principate, and also that of his proposal to scrutinize ex-slaves with the same censorial review used for senators and equestrians. In this light, beyond any interpretation as a rhetorical exercise on the decline of moral habits, the passage can be read as it relates to the debate that flourished until limits governing testamentary manumission were introduced by the Lex Fufia (2 BCE). In particular, considering the Roman Antiquities’ time of composition (ca 7 BCE), we may suppose that Dionysius was offering advice on the subject to specific figures such as his protector, the jurist Aelius Tubero , as well as Octavian Augustus

Un breve inquadramento della schiavitù antica e il racconto di Tacito (Ann. XIV, 40 ss.) sull'assassinio di Lucio Pedanio Secondo, ex console, prefetto di Roma, uomo ricchissimo. Egli fu ucciso di notte, nella grande casa romana dove viveva, da un suo schiavo: da questo delitto scaturì l'applicazione di una durissima norma che aveva lo scopo di garantire la sicurezza padronale...

Περίληψη: Το άρθρο αυτό ασχολείται με τη θέση των δούλων στις πρώτες χριστιανικές κοινότητες και τις αντιλήψεις των πρώτων χριστιανών γύρω από τον θεσμό της δουλείας. Προσκομίζει μαρτυρίες που δείχνουν ότι μολονότι οι χριστιανοί δεν επέδειξαν ιδιαίτερο ζήλο στον προσηλυτισμό των δούλων και δεν υποστήριξαν τη χειραφέτησή τους, υπήρχαν αρκετοί δούλοι στις πρώτες χριστιανικές κοινότητες που αφοσιώθηκαν στη νέα τους θρησκεία, αποδεχόμενοι ακόμα και τον μαρτυρικό θάνατο σε περιόδους διωγμών.

Summery: This paper deals with the position of slaves within the early Christian communities and the views of the early Christians in respect to slavery as an institution. The testimonies produced suggest that although Christians did not give any priority to the conversion of slaves and did not promote their emancipation, there were several slave in the early Christian communities devoted to their new religion, that went as far as accepting martyrdom.

Christianity emerged within the Roman empire, during a time in which the worst forms of slavery were common. Unlike the Hebrews of ancient Israel, early Christians were living in a society over which they had virtually no influence, and in which the legal systems were totally beyond their control. Many people who became converted to Christianity would have already owned slaves, and would have inherited well established Roman cultural attitudes to slaves and slavery, which were anathema to the gospel and the teaching of Christ. How did early Christianity address the issue of slavery in such an environment?

Resumen: Los esclavos, como institución jurídica, estaban integrados en la sociedad del imperio romano. El presente artículo analiza su estatus jurídico, sus posibilidades de movilidad social y de integración política tanto por los mecanismos previstos por el Ius Gentium y el Ius Civile en la obra De Institutiones de Gayo, como a través de determinadas celebraciones del calendario religioso romano. También trata la integración y promoción social de los liberti a través del culto imperial.

Abstract: Slaves, as a juridical institution, were integrated in the roman empire society. This paper analizes their legal status, their social mobility and political integration possibilities through the proceedings of the Ius Gentium and the Ius Civile in Gaius' work De Institutiones, as well as some determined festivities of the roman religious calendar. It also examines the social integration and promotion of the liberti through the imperial cult.

Slavery may no longer exist as a legal institution, but we still find many forms of enslavement in contemporary societies. It is a troubling paradox, and one this book addresses by considering a period in which the definition of slavery and freedom proved considerably flexible. Between more familiar forms of slavery, those of antiquity and of the Americas, the institution as it was practiced and theorized in the Byzantine Mediterranean was of a different nature.

Looking at the Byzantine concept of slavery within the context of law, the labor market, medieval politics, and religion, Youval Rotman illustrates how these contexts both reshaped and sustained the slave market. By focusing on a period of great change, his historical analysis brings a new perspective to concepts of slavery and freedom. In this period, when Byzantium had to come to terms with the rising power of the Islamic state, and to fight numerous wars over territory and economic interests, Rotman traces a shift in the cultural perception of slaves as individuals: they began to be seen as human beings instead of private property. His book analyzes slavery as a historical process against the background of the political, social, and religious transformation of the Mediterranean world, and demonstrates the flexible and adaptable character of this institution.

Arguing against the use of the term slavery for any extreme form of social dependency, Rotman shows instead that slavery and freedom are unrelated concepts. His work offers a radical new understanding of the geopolitical and religious dynamics that have defined and redefined slavery and freedom, in the past and in our own time.

This article considers the relationship between interconnectivity and Greek slavery, in particular, the slave trade and the geographical sources of slaves in Greek city-states. Since there exists no extant treatment of the slave-trade from Greek antiquity,  most of the evidence is indirect and focuses primarily upon the Classical period. A variety of source material is examined, including Greek drama, art, historiography, and inscriptions. Of specific interest is the often problematic nature of the evidence for the slave trade and the ethnicity of slaves. Although it is clear that the Greeks traded in foreign slaves, how most slaves were acquired and from where are questions that continue to confound modern scholars. This article does not seek to provide a definitive answer to these questions, but aims to further the discussion through a consideration of why the Greeks preferred foreign slaves, how slaves were procured and from where, how we might determine the ethnicity of slaves through indirect evidence (such as names), and the presence of foreign slaves in Attica, where most of the source material originates.

A paucity of identifiable archaeological material makes it difficult to locate slavery in the archaeological record, but the figurines of slave characters in Roman comedy represent a rich, untapped resource. One character in particular, the ‘clever slave’ (servus callidus), with his devious schemes and sharp wit, captured the imagination of Roman society. This clever slave’s popularity is attested archaeologically, with thousands of charming figurines spanning different time periods and geographical areas of the Classical world. Much discussed in the field of classics, no previous work has been undertaken to examine this character from an archaeological perspective in terms of its societal significance. Slave statuettes have been unearthed in homes, sanctuaries and tombs- diverse contexts that hint at their multitudinous purposes. By examining a representative sample of the material evidence alongside comedic texts I provide an in-depth look at servus callidus figurines: their form and iconography, their archaeological contexts and their potential agency for the society that produced and purchased them.

The paper addresses the reception of the terminology of ‘penal servitude’ in the modern age. Penal slavery / servitude is connected to servus poenae, a technical term devised during the II century CE for those condemned for a capital crime, which carried loss of freedom and civic rights, but not necessarily immediate execution. The Romans created a new category of degradation for human beings, that paved the way for the introduction of novel forms of detention and exploitation of felons. There is a gap in scholarship regarding the reception of this ancient institution in the modern age. Instead of being lost in the oblivion of time, direct and indirect citations of and references to the concept and institution of penal servitude resurface in thinkers of the early modern age and the age of revolution who focus on capital punishment and its relations with sovereignty.

The Athenian legal procedure of basanos has puzzled and dismayed modern commentators in equal
measure. The repeated offers and demands of litigants in the surviving legal speeches to torture each
others’ slaves to elicit witness testimony strikes many scholars as not only gratuitously cruel, but as
bizarre. But in the context of Athens's slave society, the procedure may have made sense.

The primary objective of this study is the historical value of the comedies by Aristophanes. It discusses the aspects of slavery in terms of social status and also seeks to examine master and mistress-slave relationships, where possible. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on selective passages of these two plays, providing my translation where needed and an examination of slavish characters, either protagonists or not, and their existence in real-life Classical Athens of middle fifth and late fourth centuries BCE.

Informed by the global history of slavery, Kostas Vlassopoulos avoids traditional approaches to slavery as a static institution and instead explores the diverse strategies and various contexts in which it was employed. In doing so he offers a new historicist approach to the study of slave identity and the various networks and communities that slaves created or participated in.

Instead of seeing slaves merely as passive objects of exploitation and domination, his focus is on slave agency and the various ways in which they played an active role in the history of ancient societies. Vlassopoulos examines slavery not only as an economic and social phenomenon, but also in its political, religious and cultural ramifications. A comparative framework emerges as he examines Greek and Roman slaveries alongside other slaving systems in the Near East, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Esta monografía analiza el papel que jugaron las prácticas mágicas en la vida de los esclavos romanos, prestando especial atención a la manera en que la magia se usaba para resolver conflictos interpersonales. El planteamiento metodológico que se emplea en el análisis de los materiales parte de las teorías sociológicas sobre agencia. Asimismo, el concepto de magia que se emplea la considera como un subsistema de la religión a la que se recurre para resolver desgracias cotidianas. En este sentido, se plantea que la magia era un recurso cultural habitual al cual los esclavos tenían un acceso restringido y limitado según los contextos sociales en los que se empleara.
Cet ouvrage s'attache à comprendre le rôle et les usages de la magie au quotidien par les esclaves dans le monde romain antique. Le livre porte une attention particulière à l'usage de la magie dans les relations interpersonnelles. L'ouvrage s'appuie sur une lecture méthodologique des textes magiques qui tient compte des apports de diverses disciplines des sciences humaines dont la sociologie, l'anthropologie, les sciences des religions. .

In S. Hodkinson & D. Geary (eds), Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and the Modern Americas. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 244-27.

This paper attempts to track down the figure of the slave-as-consultant at ancient Greek oracular sanctuaries during the classical period. Although there is evidence from later periods for slaves consulting oracles, the ancient literature of the fifth and fourth centuries offers only sparse evidence for the presence of slaves as consultants at oracles, and, until recently, epigraphic evidence has revealed even less.

However, a series of question tablets from the oracle site at Dodona, in Epirus, northwest Greece, may significantly change this situation, transforming our understanding of the relationship between ancient Greek oracles and some experiences of slavery. These tablets date to the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, and appear to include questions related to particular issues of slavery. Not only is it likely that some were composed by slaveowners, but also, and more remarkably, it is possible that some were written by slaves themselves.This material indicates that we need to think again about the meaning and exercise of resistance among slaves, and reconsider some of our assumptions about ancient Greek attitudes to slavery. More specifically, it suggests that the oracles of Delphi and Dodona had distinctive approaches to the presence and consultation of slaves. This paper proposes that evidence for these different approaches can be traced in literary sources, and may have become part of the discourse differentiating oracular sanctuaries in the late Archaic period.

Due to the infamy of New World slavery, particularly the plantation slavery practiced in North America between the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, the terms 'slave' and 'slavery' invariably invoke images of precisely that form of servitude. Readers both Christian and non-Christian alike recoil from any passage of the Bible in which these words appear, assuming that any reference to 'slaves' or 'slavery' in the Bible necessarily refers to the New World 'chattel slavery' of the plantations. This article demonstrates that servitude as sanctioned by the Bible has little in common with actual slavery.

The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?

Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.

This book will:


Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.

Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.

Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”

In this presentation, I will focus upon three examples of internal dynamics of power and authority among Christ-follower associations in the Roman empire, with particular emphasis upon the Christ-followers in Corinth. My investigative process will follow the order of the key words in the title of this essay (ekklēsiai, non-misogynistic, manumission).
First, I will explore, in some fresh ways, the socio-religious power dynamics between Pauline-loyal and Jerusalem-loyal Christ-followers. A brief foray into the “denominational” group designations of the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Rome (hoi hagioi/“the holy ones,” Rom 1:7; ekklēsia/“assembly,” Rom 16:3-5a) illuminates potential parallels among the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Corinth, and vice versa. At least two sub-group identities are evident in Corinth: (1) hoi hagioi of Cephas, and (2) Paul’s ekklēsia of God (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1).
Second, I will interrogate existing assumptions of patriarchal power dynamics between males and females within Pauline ekklēsiai (esp. 1 Cor 14:33b-35: “women/wives must remain silent”). I will offer a new non-misogynistic interpretive paradigm for the meeting protocols of Paul’s ekklēsia associations that builds out from my above paradigm of “denominational” power dynamics not least among Cephas-loyal hoi hagioi and the Pauline-loyal ekklēsia.
Third, I will revisit the power dynamics of social stratification among Christ-follower slaves and their masters through the lens not least of both Greek (Delphic) and Jewish (Bosporan) manumission ethics. Greeks and Jews mandated continued paramonē (“remain with”) commitments to the freedpersons’s former owner (Greek) or to their former ethno-religious collective (Jewish synagogue). Paul, in analogous continuity, appears to allude to a paramonē clause, which scholarship to this point has not yet acknowledged (μενέτω παρὰ θεῷ; 1 Cor 7:24b).  One could thus loosely paraphrase Paul’s ekklēsia ethics (“my rule/nomos among the ekklēsiai”; 7:17) for his metaphorically manumitted douloi (“slaves”) of God as follows: “You are to remain obligated to God (not your former master, sin) in your ethnic (7:18) and social (7:21) station of life for as long as God, your new master, lives (7:24b).”
Paul’s love-based “rule/association nomos” (7:17) has application not only when dealing with social stratification (slaves/masters) but also with (competing) “denominational” allegiances (hoi hagioi versus ekklēsiai) and with (competing) male/female roles within the public and private life of Paul’s ekklēsia communities

ÖZET: Bu çalışmada, Sâsânî İmparatorluğu’nda kölelere dair hukukî düzenlemeler, M.S. VII. yüzyılın ilk yarısında hazırlanmış olan Mâtîkân ê Hazâr Dâtastân adlı hukuk külliyatı temelinde incelenecektir. Sâsânî Özel Hukuku alanında köle statüsünün nesep yoluyla intikali, iştirak halinde aile mülkiyetine tabi olan kölelerin durumu, köle üzerinde iştirak halinde mülkiyet tesisi, köle satımına dair hususlar, kölelerin istihkak dâvâsı konusunu teşkil etmeleri, köle tahsisi ve ariyeti, kölelerin rehnedilmesi, köle sahibinin borcunun köleye etkisi, kölelere tanınan zilyetlik ve sınırlı mülkiyet hakkı, dastkart adlı malikâneye bağlı köleler sorunu ile kölelerin azat edilmesi konuları incelenecek, ayrıca Ceza Hukuku, Usûl Hukuku ve Dinî Hukuka dair hükümler de değerlendirilecektir. Bu düzenlemeler, tarihsel bağlamında ele alınarak, Akdeniz havzasında M.S. III. yüzyıldan itibaren Geç Roma İmparatorluğu’ndaki Colonatus kurumuyla serfliğin tesis edilmesi ve bu sürecin İran’a muhtemel etkileri üzerinde durulacak, M.S. VII. yüzyılda Sâsânî Hukukunun Anadolu, Ortadoğu ve Mısır’daki kısa dönemli Sâsânî fütûhâtı neticesinde ne şekilde ihraç edildiği ve bu değişimin kölelik yönünden ne tür sonuçlar doğurduğu tartışılacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Sâsânî Hukuku, Dastkart, Geç Roma Colonatus Kurumu, Kölelik, Serflik.

ABSTRACT : In this study, legal regulations regarding the slaves in the Sāsānian Empire will be examined on the basis of Mâtîkân ê Hazâr Dâtastân, a legal corpus that was compiled in the first half of the 7th century A.D. In the field of Sāsānian private law, questions such as the transition of slaves’ status by lineage, the position of slaves that were subject to the joint-family property and joint-property, the issues relating the contracts for sale of slaves, the cases based on peremptory claims that were related to the slaves, the assignment of slaves as a result of a commodity contract, the impacts of the slave owner’s debts to slaves, the pledge of slaves, the possessory and limited property rights of slaves, the problem of the slaves that were bound to the manor (dastkart) and the manumission of the slaves will be examined. The matters concerning the criminal law, the procedural law and the ecclesiastical law will also be evaluated. These regulations will be addressed in the historical context by emphasizing the establishment of serfdom in the Mediterranean basin by the institution of Late Roman Colonate onwards the 3rd century A.D., and the probable impacts of this process in Iran. The way that the Sāsānian law was imported as a result of the Sāsānian conquests in Asia Minor, the Middle East and Egypt in the 7th century A.D. and its consequences with regards to slavery will be discussed.

Keywords : Sasanian Law, Dastkart, Late Roman Colonate, Slavery, Serfdom.

ABSZTRAKT : Ebben a tanulmányban a Sāsāniai Birodalomban a rabszolgákra vonatkozó jogi szabályozást vizsgáljuk a Mâtîkân ê Hazâr Dâtastân alapján, amely egy olyan jogi korpusz, amelyet az i. sz. 7. század első felében állítottak össze. A sāsāniai magánjog területén olyan kérdések, mint a rabszolgák státuszának származás szerinti átmenete, a közös családi vagyon és a közös tulajdon alá tartozó rabszolgák helyzete, a rabszolgák adásvételi szerződéseivel kapcsolatos kérdések, a rabszolgákkal kapcsolatos peres követeléseken alapuló ügyek, a rabszolgák áruvásárlási szerződésből eredő engedményezése, a rabszolgatartó rabszolgákkal szembeni tartozásainak hatásai, a rabszolgák zálogjogának, a rabszolgák birtokos és korlátozott tulajdonjogának, a birtokhoz (dastkart) kötött rabszolgák problémájának és a rabszolgák manumifikációjának vizsgálata. A büntetőjoggal, az eljárásjoggal és az egyházjoggal kapcsolatos kérdések is értékelésre kerülnek. Ezeket a szabályozásokat történelmi kontextusban tárgyaljuk, kiemelve a jobbágyságnak a Földközi-tenger medencéjében a késő római kolonátus intézménye által a Kr. u. 3. századtól kezdődően történő meghonosodását, valamint e folyamat valószínűsíthető iráni hatásait. Szó lesz arról, hogy a sāsāniai jog a Kr. u. 7. században a sāsāniai hódítások eredményeként Kis-Ázsiában, a Közel-Keleten és Egyiptomban importálódott, valamint annak a rabszolgasággal kapcsolatos következményeiről.

Kulcsszavak : szaszáni jog, Dastkart, késő római gyarmat, rabszolgaság, jobbágyság.

АБСТРАКТ: В данном исследовании правовые нормы, касающиеся рабов в Сасанской империи, рассматриваются на основе "Матыкан к Хазар Датастан" - свода законов, составленного в первой половине VII века н.э. В области сасанидского частного права рассматриваются такие вопросы, как переход статуса рабов по родословной, положение рабов, находившихся в совместной семейной и совместной собственности, вопросы, связанные с договорами купли-продажи рабов, дела, основанные на императивных исках, связанных с рабами, уступка рабов в результате товарного договора, последствия долгов рабовладельца перед рабами, залог рабов, вещные и ограниченные вещные права рабов, проблема рабов, привязанных к поместью (дасткарт), а также вопросы, связанные с отпущением рабов на волю. Также будут рассмотрены вопросы, касающиеся уголовного, процессуального и церковного права. Эти положения будут рассмотрены в историческом контексте с акцентом на установление крепостного права в Средиземноморском бассейне в результате учреждения позднеримского колоната начиная с III века н. э., а также на вероятные последствия этого процесса в Иране. Будет рассмотрен способ импорта сасанидского права в результате сасанидских завоеваний в Малой Азии, на Ближнем Востоке и в Египте в VII в. н. э. и его последствия в отношении рабства.

Ключевые слова: сасанидское право, дасткарт, позднеримская колония, рабство, крепостное право.

This project examines the epigraphic, archaeological and literary evidence for slavery in first century CE Palestine. Detailed knowledge of slavery practices in this period is critical for the understanding of historical and religious texts of the second temple period, as slavery in Palestine differed from other parts of the empire. When taken together, extant evidence shows that first century Palestinian slavery served to reinforce the political, military and religious status quo by providing autonomy from the broader subjugated population.

There are so many areas which need to be studied when it comes to the First and Second Centuries of the Common Era, and so much more to learn about that time in history. If you read this paper and still wonder about various parts of it, it may mean that you need to do some reading to get caught up to where some of us already are.

Many within academia, for instance, still do not realize that when they are talking about the Jews of the time, they need to know exactly which 'Jews' they need to identify according to time, place and sect. This is important to better know what was being said by those recording both the Jewish historic material (i.e., the Talmud; 'Flavius Josephus' was not an actual 'Jew', but a Roman of Jewish descent).

This paper was written from the larger overview of an actual war going on at the time, instead of the view of isolated or sporadic Jewish "revolts". For more information about it being an actual long-standing war, read my other papers that cover the issue. A lot of material that that is necessary in order to uncover the fact of a genuine all-out war between the Romans and Jews can be deduced from items in the works of Flavius Josephus, various Roman authors, the Talmud, and the work of scholars such as Sir Ronald Syme, Joseph Neusner, and Abelard Reuchlin.

But, of course, you would have to read be at a level of study-ability that would allow you to know just what it is that you are reading. It is preferred that you know how to read the ancient texts involved in the original languages, using primary source documents and/or materials. When it comes to Classical material, the Loeb Classical Library edition is highly recommended. What must be known to reveal the truth about this long all-out war is that it did not begin with a disagreement between the Romans and Jews; it began with a split between the Jewish sects.

This chapter provides an overview of key challenges to defining slavery cross-culturally, and includes discussion of the 1926 League of Nations definition, slave metaphors, Neo-abolitionism, modern slavery, and the critiques of the property definition by Patterson and Testart. The file is a preview of the chapter; please contact me if you want a copy of the whole chapter.

Existing studies of the ancient Greek slave trade lack detailed evidence for a key link in the supply chain. The geographical origins of non-Greek slaves are well known, as are the various destinations to which they were trafficked; as yet, however, little is known about their transport by sea. This article shows that a key testimonium for this phase of the trade has been lying unnoticed under historians' noses: Demosthenes 34.10, a passage that describes the shipwreck and drowning of numerous persons. These unfortunates have long been considered free persons because one of our manuscripts (followed by many modern textual editions) describes them as 'free bodies' (somata eleuthera). However, most manuscripts, including the most authoritative manuscript, S (cod. Parisinus , ninth-tenth century), simply read somata, 'bodies', a word that can mean 'slaves' in ancient Greek. Some editors have also rejected the number ('300') of these individuals in S, emending it to '30 ', due to disbelief that an ancient merchantman could carry so many souls aboard. This article argues that the readings in S should stand, and that this passage illustrates an episode where the shipment of numerous slaves went disastrously wrong.

This paper explores the functions of slavery in Mediterranean societies in order to address the question whether a concept of Mediterranean slavery existed.
Over three millennia slavery was an inextricable part of Mediterranean social and economic life. Its existence and expansion were conditioned by two main factors: the evolution of the Mediterranean political map, which determined the relations between Mediterranean civilizations, and the international economic map. Prosperity entailed large slave markets. But the value of a human being was in itself an engine for economic dynamics, and prosperity was also dependent on slavery. Slaves were not used exclusively in any economic sector. However, they were required, especially in the cities, for creating and maintaining a household as a hierarchical socio-economic enterprise. Many slaves advanced in their positions thanks to the opportunities that this framework offered. A few, especially in Muslim public sectors, rose high. This did not mean that they were less abused or suffered less from cruelty than slaves elsewhere. Just as we cannot categorize slaves in Mediterranean societies as a class according to their socio-economic position, we cannot categorize them according to the cruelty with which they were treated. Cruelty, abuse, rape and death were always prevalent, and although slaves did not suffer from them exclusively, their juridical status made them especially vulnerable and their subjugation especially extreme. Legislators tried to restrict cruelty towards slaves, but cultures found reasons to justify the inferiority of slaves, the existence of slavery and its perpetuation. This papers shows that slavery was not only a consequence of Mediterranean history, but also played a role in determining its course by its impact on relations between states, societies and cultures, and through a constant flow of human beings into and within the Mediterranean. The fact that most slaves were uprooted, transported and transplanted by force did not conflict with the fact that they were considered vital in most of Mediterranean societies in both the private and public sectors. On the contrary, it explains very clearly why they were trafficked by force. Slaves were considered vital because they were both human and property. And this two-sided seemingly self-contradicting definition proved to be extremely elastic and adaptable to changing reality.