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Chapitre d'ouvrage Année : 2021

Renting slaves in classical Athens. Anatomy of a Legal Form

Résumé

This article focuses on the legal forms organizing slave labour, and more specifically on the leasing of slaves in classical Athens, whom the scale has been largely under-estimated by historians. The development of leasing slaves, that concerned crucial productive sectors (mining exploitation, prostitution, building work) is part of the evolutions of the economy of Attica in the Vth century, within slaves were for their owners no longer “a means of production from which profit could be acquired”, and “functioned as a source of rents rather than labour” (M. Weber). Slaves were profitable not only because of the fruits of their labour, but also as a source of active capital which, due to the actual act of leasing, produced income, and some individuals could earn a great fortune from it. Yet the most interesting point to observe concerns its legal framework. The recruitment of rented slaves primarily took place in a clearly defined location, the sanctuary of the Anakeion situated on the Northern slopes of the Acropolis, close to the archaic Theseion ; leasing slaves could probably also have been subjected to taxation ; there also may have existed a procedure to settle disputes connected to the hiring of slaves (the dikai andrapodôn). One may finally reconstitute the form taken by such leasing-contracts by referring a passage of Xenophon‟s Poroi. However, though this practice could offer actual spaces of autonomy to certain slaves, leasing was regarded not only as a division but also as a temporary transfer of the essential share of property rights (and liability they implied). From a legal point of view, one could not see the recognition, even embryonic, of responsibility attributed to slave, or even a distinction, as expressed by Roman jurists, between leasing slaves as commodities and leasing their labour. Moreover Athenian law did allow a citizen to file a case against a slave, but this accusation was only the preliminary phase of a process which ultimately targeted the master, the person fully responsible for the slave. The slave merely constitutes, within the procedure, the focus of allocating an action – and in that sense, he was an actor of the law without being a person – but his master was the only party held responsible

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halshs-03983299, version 1 (10-04-2024)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-03983299 , version 1

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Paulin Ismard. Renting slaves in classical Athens. Anatomy of a Legal Form. Werner Riess; Kaja Harter-Uibopuu. Symposion 2019. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Hamburg, 26.-28.August 2019), 28, Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp.419-435, 2021, Akten der Gesellschaft für griechische und hellenistische Rechtsgeschichte, 9783700190073. ⟨halshs-03983299⟩
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Dernière date de mise à jour le 28/04/2024
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