318 DAVID M. LEWIS
of a native dynast but nominally subservient to Persia.^3 Other areas were noto-
rious for their unremitting resistance to the authority of the Great King, par-
ticularly the people of the Mysian hill country and the Pisidians in the south.^4
Any analysis of the processes leading to enslavement in Anatolia must take into
account the politically fractious and ethnically complex texture of the region.
That said, our Greek evidence does allow us to gain some idea of the more
important suppliers of slaves.^5 At the head of our list must be Phrygia, which
the fifth-century comic Hermippus (fr. 63 K-A) cited as a region particu-
larly noted for its slaves.^6 Epigraphic evidence, combined with literary allu-
sions, suggests that Carian slaves were common; nor should we forget that the
large numbers of ‘Syrian’ slaves mentioned in our sources may well be in part
Anatolian: Herodotus (5.49; 7.72) reminds us that in his day the term ‘Syrian’
could apply to Cappadocians and not merely to the inhabitants of the north-
ern Levant. Fewer references to areas such as Lydia and Paphlagonia suggest
that slaves from these regions, although hardly uncommon, were probably not
to be found in quite as large numbers.
If the relative importance of different regions of Anatolia as slave-suppliers
to the Aegean world is roughly clear, the various processes that generated
those slaves are comparatively opaque. Orlando Patterson lists eight basic
mechanisms which can account for entry into slavery: (1) capture in war-
fare, (2) kidnapping, (3) tribute and tax payment, (4) debt, (5) punishment
for crimes, (6) abandonment and sale of children, (7) self-enslavement and
(8) birth.^7 Several historians have argued that the key to explaining the der-
ivation of slaves from Anatolia lies in predatory military activity by Greeks;
sometimes full-scale warfare, but generally minor raids, in other words, points
(1) and (2) of Patterson’s typology. In an important essay on the sources of
slaves, Garlan sought to account for the enslavement of Anatolians by posit-
ing a ‘military superiority’ of Greeks over non-Greeks which gave impetus
to the movement of slaves towards Greece.^8 Unfortunately, Garlan’s explana-
tion is quite vaguely conceived: he seems to imply that Greeks were some-
how able to coercively acquire slaves from fairly helpless native communities,
but does not indicate in any detail how this might have been achieved (inter-
estingly, he explicitly rules out market forces from his explanation). A more
direct cause is posited by Rosivach:The actual enslaving was probably done through organised raids such
as those described later by Xenophon (Anab. 7.3.34-48 [Thrace]) and
in Menander’s Aspis (23–37 [Lycia]), with the captured Barbaroi being
re-sold through slave- dealers to Athenians and other end-owners else-
where in Greece. Natives caught in raids rather than prisoners of war
were, in the long run, the principal source of slaves from these regions
(sc. Anatolia).^9