The Occupations of Slaves
Rich Greeks everywhere regarded working for someone else for wages as disgraceful, but
their attitude did not correspond to the realities of life for many poor people, who had
to earn a living at any work they could find. Like free workers, chattel
slaves1 did all kinds of labor.
Household slaves2, often women, had the physically least dangerous existence. They cleaned,
cooked,
fetched water from public fountains3, helped the wife with the
weaving4,
watched the children5, accompanied the husband as he did the marketing, and performed other domestic
chores. Yet they could not refuse if their masters demanded sexual favors. Slaves who
worked in small manufacturing businesses, like those of
potters6 or
metalworkers7, and slaves working on farms often labored alongside their masters. Rich
landowners, however, might appoint a slave supervisor to oversee the work of their other
slaves in their fields while they remained in town. The worst conditions of life for
slaves obtained for those men leased out to work in the narrow, landslide-prone tunnels
of Greece's few silver and gold
mines8. The conditions of their painful and dangerous job were dark, confined, and
backbreaking. Owners could punish their slaves with impunity, even kill them without
fear of meaningful sanctions. (A master's
murder of a slave9 was regarded as at least improper and perhaps even illegal in
Athens of the classical period, but the penalty may have been no more than ritual
purification.) Beatings severe enough to cripple a working slave and executions of
able-bodied slaves were probably infrequent because destroying such property made no
economic sense for an owner.
