FURTHER READING
H. D. Baker, “Degrees of Freedom: Slaver y in Mid-First Millennium
b.c. Mesopotamia,” World Archaeology 33 (2001): 18–26.
Keith R. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1994).
Daphne Nash Briggs, “Metals, Salt, and Slaves: Economic Links be-
tween Gaul and Italy from the Eighth to the Late Sixth Cen-
turies b.c.,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22, no. 3 (2003):
243–259.
Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia: From Nabopolas-
sar to Alexander the Great (626–331 b.c.), (DeKalb: Northern
Illinois University Press, 1984).
M. I. Finley, ed., Classical Slavery (London and Totowa, N.J.: Frank
Cass, 1987).
N.R.E. Fisher, Slavery in Classical Greece (London: Duckworth,
1993).
Yvon Ga rla n, Slavery in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988).
Paul E. Lovejoy, Th e Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slav-
ery in Africa (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1983).
R. Westbrook, “Slave and Master in Ancient Near Eastern Law,”
Chicago-Kent Law Review 70 (1995): 1631–1676.▶ social collapse and abandonment
introduction
Th roughout the world archaeologists discover the remains
of human settlements that were abandoned at some point in
ancient history. Th ese remains include homes, artifacts, mid-
dens (that is, trash piles), piles of shells, fi gurines, household
objects, tombs, and public buildings. Aft er studying their dis-
coveries, archaeologists and historians conclude that the peo-ple who lived there either abandoned the settlement or died.
Even great empires such as the Roman Empire at some point
collapsed. While the Romans themselves continued to exist
on the Italian peninsula, their empire around the Mediterra-
nean Sea shattered, and the civilizations they had conquered
gained their independence from Rome.
Social collapse and the abandonment occurred for vari-
ous reasons. A common cause was a catastrophic natural di-
saster, such as an earthquake, volcanic eruption, fl ood, fi re,
or tsunami (in coastal regions). Perhaps the most famous
example is the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 c.e., a vol-
cano whose ash and lava buried the Roman cities of Pompeii
and Herculaneum, entombing people almost literally in their
tracks. Natural disasters also include plagues, which oft en
took hold during times of warfare and social unrest. In re-
sponse, people from the surrounding countryside fl ed their
villages and hamlets to take refuge in nearby cities. Th e cities,
however, were not equipped to handle a large infl ux of peo-
ple. Hunger became commonplace, since rural people were
no longer producing food. Conditions oft en became crowded
and unsanitary so that disease was easily spread. A plague of
this nature killed a quarter of the population of ancient Ath-
ens, severely weakening the Greek empire.
Sometimes social collapse and abandonment was a
gradual process, oft en brought about by climatic change. As
a region became colder or warmer, rainfall amounts changed
dramatically, aff ecting the fl ora and fauna of the region.
Good examples are provided by parts of Egypt and Meso-
america, where lush, green areas turned into harsh desert
over relatively short periods of time, forcing people to move.
Even comparatively minor cooling or warming could play
havoc with agriculture, leading to crop failures that forced
people to abandon their settlements in search of new farm-is superior excellence of some kind, power seems to
imply virtue, and the dispute to be simply one about
justice (for it is due to one party identifying justice with
goodwill while the other identifi es it with the mere
rule of the stronger). If these views are thus set out
separately, the other views have no force or plausibility
against the view that the superior in virtue ought to
rule, or be master.
Others, clinging, as they think, simply to a principle of
justice (for law and custom are a sort of justice), assume
that slavery in accordance with the custom of war is
justifi ed by law, but at the same moment they deny this.
For what if the cause of the war be unjust? And again,
no one would ever say he is a slave who is unworthy tobe a slave. Were this the case, men of the highest rank
would be slaves and the children of slaves if they or
their parents chance to have been taken captive and
sold. Wherefore Hellenes do not like to call Hellenes
slaves, but confi ne the term to barbarians. Yet, in using
this language, they really mean the natural slave of
whom we spoke at fi rst; for it must be admitted that
some are slaves everywhere, others nowhere. Th e same
principle applies to nobility. Hellenes regard themselves
as noble everywhere, and not only in their own country,
but they deem the barbarians noble only when at home,
thereby implying that there are two sorts of nobility and
freedom, the one absolute, the other relative.From: Aristotle, Th e Politics of Aristotle,
trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York:
Colonial Press, 1900).(cont inues)998 slaves and slavery: further reading0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i998 998 10/10/07 2:30:42 PM