Page "Athenian democracy" Paragraph 68

* Slavery was more widespread at Athens than in other Greek cities.

Indeed the extensive use of imported non-Greeks (" barbarians ") as chattel slaves seems to have been an Athenian development.

This triggers the parodoxical question: Was democracy " based on " slavery?

It does seem clear that possession of slaves allowed even poorer Athenians — owning a few slaves was by no means equated with wealth — to devote more of their time to political life.

But whether democracy depended on this extra time is impossible to say.

The breadth of slave ownership also meant that the leisure of the rich ( the small minority who were actually free of the need to work ) rested less than it would have on the exploitation of their less well-off fellow citizens.

Working for wages was clearly regarded as subjection to the will of another, but at least debt servitude had been abolished at Athens ( under the reforms of Solon at the start of the 6th century BC ).

By allowing a new kind of equality among citizens this opened the way to democracy, which in turn called for a new means, chattel slavery, to at least partially equalise the availability of leisure between rich and poor.

In the absence of reliable statistics all these connections remain speculative.

However, as Cornelius Castoriadis pointed out, other societies also kept slaves but did not develop democracy.

Even with respect to slavery the new citizen law of 450 BC may have had effect: it is speculated that originally Athenian fathers had been able to register for citizenship offspring had with slave women ( Hansen 1987: 53 ).

This will have rested on an older, less categorical sense of what it meant to be a slave.