AChAEMENID ANATOLIA AND ThE SLAVE SUPPLY 327
reproductive equation. Contrast the situation in the United States, where a
combination of different crop types did not create such unfavourable condi-
tions for reproduction either in terms of sex ratios or work regime. Perhaps the
key variable accounting for the reproductive success of U.S. slave populations
was the ubiquity of the slave family as a social institution. It was this factor,
above all, that enabled the U.S. slave population to reproduce itself without
depending on external supply. These factors are applicable to antique slave
systems, mutatis mutandis.
If we look at Sparta’s helot population with such criteria in mind, it is notdifficult to account for its reproductive success. First, the work regime of the
helots was overwhelmingly directed toward traditional Mediterranean polyc-
ulture, which is conducive to balanced sex ratios in the workforce.^61 This form
of agriculture was not (unlike sugar production in the Caribbean) so physi-
cally demanding that it required a predominantly male workforce, nor did it
exact crippling mortality rates on the slaves. Secondly, our sources imply that
the helots normally dwelt in family groups, like the slaves of the U.S. South.^62
Thirdly, two rules imposed by the state plugged possible leaks to the helot
population: one banned sale outside Spartan territory; another banned private
manumission.^63 One should note the delicate balance that was required to
facilitate maximum chances of reproduction and to nullify the main sources
of numerical depreciation. The liberty of the helot owner was more restricted
than his Athenian counterpart since the state curtailed his rights to external
sale and manumission; and the agrarian basis of the helot economy could not
admit forms of economic activity less conducive to successful reproduction.
If the balance were upset, engagement in foreign trade would have become
necessary were the system to survive. A similar conjunction of agrarian slavery,
ubiquity of slave families, low levels of foreign trade and a restricted, milita-
rized citizen body is evident in the patchwork of slave systems found on Crete
during the same period, which attracted comparison to Sparta by Aristotle.^64
External Supply and the Attic Slave Economy
A glance at the occupational structure of Athenian slavery shows how far the
Athenians were emancipated from the rigid constraints that applied in Sparta
and Crete in terms of the deployment of slave labour. On the one hand, one
should not overemphasize alterity: a large number of Attica’s slaves laboured in
the countryside on tasks not so different from those undertaken by helots.^65
But other areas of the Attic economy were far less conducive to successful
reproduction patterns; we should in particular mention silver, a (literal) cash
crop that, like Caribbean sugar, must have had a ruinous impact on slave repro-
duction. A substantial slice of Attica’s slave workforce was engaged in mining,
somewhere in the range of 10,000–35,000 by the 340s.^66 The work regime will