Ancient Greeks :: essays research papers

HesiodWorks and Days, c. 750 BC st devicele of all, get a house, and a charwoman and an ox for the plough--a buckle down woman and not a wife, to follow the oxen as well--and make everything vigorous at home, so that you may not have to ask of another, and he refuse you, and so, because you are in lack, the season pass by and your trim come to nothing. StraboGeographia circa 550 BCEAnd the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth was so rich that it owned more than a thousand templesSlaves---prostitutes---whom both free men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was as well on account of these temple-prostitutes that the city was crowded with people and grew rich for instance, the mail captains freely squandered their money, and hence the proverb, "Not for every man is the trip to Corinth."AntiphonOn the Choreutes, c. 430 BCESo powerful is the compulsion of the law, that even if a man slays one who is his own chattel i.e., his slave and who has none to avenge him, his apprehension of the ordinances of god and of man causes him to purify himself and withhold himself from those places prescribed by law, in the hope that by so doing he leave best invalidate disaster.DemosthenesAgainst Timocrates. c. 350 BCEIf, gentlemen of the jury, you will turn over in your minds the question what is the difference in the midst of being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the biggest difference is that the body of a slave is made obligated for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man. AristotleThe Politics---On Slavery, c. 330 BCELet us first speak of professional person and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also seeking to chance upon some better theory of their relation than exists at present. Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is a part of the art of managing the household for no man can live well, or so live at all, unless he be p rovided with necessaries. And so, in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a of such instruments and the slave is himself an instrument which takes precedence of all other instruments. The cross is totally the master of the slave he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him.