forms of slavery 265
or illegal kidnapping. In all these cases, the slave is part of the society in which he is
born and in which he is enslaved. In contrast, enslavement of captives and prisoners
of war and the trade in human beings depend both on geopolitical and economic
aspects which relate the society in question to societies with which it is in contact. And
from the point of view of the enslaved persons, their enslavement marks a change of
environment and/or society.
When approaching the subject of Mediterranean slaveries, it is important to distin-
guish between the two types. It is the enslaved foreigners who reflect geopolitical,
economic and cultural cross-Mediterranean dynamics. We will also find in this type
the ways in which slavery in the Mediterranean is connected to non-Mediterranean
regions. In this respect, human merchandise, whether imported, exported, kidnapped,
or captured in military or private actions, is defined by a change in status of the
enslaved person, and causes a forced demographic movement. Human trafficking, be
it by war, piracy, kidnapping, debt-slavery, child exposure or self-selling, forced a sig-
nificant circulation of human beings, against their will, in the Mediterranean world.
On the other hand, slavery was an integral part of different social structures in
Mediterranean societies. It had functions beyond the economic, and must also be
explained as an element which had an impact on the social, political and cultural
aspects of Mediterranean life. This is what we can describe as the function of slavery
in the historical evolution of Mediterranean civilizations. Slavery could not have
played this role without having a versatile and adaptable character. This enabled the
development of several methods aimed at possessing and exploiting human beings.
A Greco–Roman MediterraneanThough forms of possession of human beings are attested for Mediterranean
civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as the Hittite kingdom, Pharaonic Egypt,
Minoan Crete, and ancient Israel, it is uncertain whether we can define them all as
slavery. This question is particularly pertinent for Pharaonic Egypt, where the form of
human possession outside of the public domain is debatable. Although Near Eastern
societies in the third and second millennia bce were in touch with one another
politically, economically and culturally, they developed their institutions for the own-
ership and subjugation of human beings independently as part of their respective
juridical systems. As far as we know, these institutions relied on the enslavement of
local inhabitants more than on that of foreigners. The transfer of war captives as well
as of conquered populations appears to have been a common phenomenon of demo-
graphic and political objectives. Though de facto un-free, these do not seem to be de
jure slaves, but were dependent on the rulers, and used for political objectives. In fact,
no one was “free” de facto, since freedom in its political sense, according to modern
definitions, did not exist.
Towards the middle of the first millennium bce, we have increasing evidence for
the movement of human beings as merchandise in the Mediterranean. Enslavement
appears both as a result of internal economic circumstances (that is, debt slavery), and
as a result of international politics (enslavement of war captives). During this period,
also, the eastern Mediterranean began to form a single geopolitical environment as a
result of the demographic and economic expansions of Greeks and Phoenicians, and
the Persian conquests. In this environment, slavery played a role as a means of interac-
tion and distinction. New definitions of societies as polities appeared and used the