The institution of slavery was the basis of the economy of antiquity and antiquity. Forced labor has produced we alth for many hundreds of years. Egypt, the cities of Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome - slavery was an important part of all these civilizations. At the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was replaced by feudalism.
Education
Historically, the slave-owning state turned out to be the first type of state that was formed after the decomposition of the primitive communal system. The society broke up into classes, the rich and the poor appeared. Because of this contradiction, the institution of slavery arose. It was based on forced labor for the master and was the foundation of the then power.
The first slave-owning states arose at the turn of the fourth - third millennium BC. These include the Egyptian kingdom, Assyria, as well as the Sumerian cities in the Euphrates and Tigris valleys. In the second millennium BC, similar formations were formed in China and India. Finally, the first slave-owning states included the kingdom of the Hittites.
Types and forms
Modern historians divide the ancient slave states intoseveral types and forms. The first type includes oriental despotisms. Their important feature was the preservation of some features of the former primitive community. Patriarchal slavery remained primitive - a slave was allowed to have his own family and property. In later ancient states, this feature has already disappeared. In addition to private ownership of slaves, there was collective slave ownership, when slaves belonged to the state or temples.
Human labor was used mainly in agriculture. Oriental despotisms were formed in the river valleys, but even so they had to improve agriculture through the construction of complex irrigation systems. In this regard, the slaves worked in a team. The existence of the then agricultural communities is connected with this feature of the Eastern despotisms.
Later ancient slave-owning states formed the second type of such countries - Greco-Roman. It was distinguished by improved production and a complete rejection of primitive remnants. Forms of exploitation developed, the merciless suppression of the masses and violence against them reached its peak. Collective property was replaced by the private property of individual slave owners. Social inequality has become sharp, as well as the domination and lack of rights of opposing classes.
The Greco-Roman slave state existed according to the principle in which slaves were recognized as things and producers of material goods for their masters. They did not sell their labor, they themselves were sold to their masters. Antique documents and works of artclearly testify to this state of affairs. The slave-owning type of state assumed that the fate of a slave was equal in importance to the fate of animals or products.
People became slaves for various reasons. In ancient Rome, prisoners of war and civilians captured during campaigns were declared slaves. Also, a person lost his will if he could not pay off his debts with borrowers. This practice was especially widespread in India. Finally, the slave state could make a criminal a slave.
Slaves and semi-free
Exploiters and exploited were the basis of ancient society. But besides them, there were also third-party classes of semi-free and free citizens. In Babylon, China and India, these were artisans and communal peasants. In Athens, there was a class of meteks - strangers who settled in the country of the Hellenes. They also included freed slaves. The class of peregrines that existed in the Roman Empire was similar. So called free people without Roman citizenship. Another ambiguous class of Roman society was considered to be columns - peasants who were attached to leased plots and in many ways resembled the bonded peasants of the period of medieval feudalism.
Regardless of the form of the slave state, small landowners and artisans lived in constant danger of being ruined by usurers and big proprietors. Free workers were unprofitable for employers, as their labor remained too expensive forcompared to the labor of a slave. If the peasants broke away from the land, they sooner or later joined the ranks of the lumpen, especially the large ones in Athens and Rome.
The slave-owning state, by inertia, suppressed and infringed on their rights, along with the rights of full-fledged slaves. So, columns and peregrines did not fall under the full scope of Roman law. Peasants could be sold along with the plot to which they were attached. Not being slaves, they could not be considered free.
Functions
A complete description of the slave state cannot do without mentioning its external and internal functions. The activity of the authorities was determined by its social content, tasks, goals and desire to preserve the old order. The creation of all the necessary conditions for the use of the labor of slaves and ruined free people is the primary internal function that the slave-owning state performed. Countries with such a structure differed in the system of satisfying the interests of the ruling social class of the aristocracy, large landowners, etc.
This principle was especially evident in ancient Egypt. In the eastern kingdom, the authorities completely controlled the economy and organized public works, which involved significant masses of people. Such projects and "buildings of the century" were necessary for the construction of canals and other infrastructure that improved the economy operating in adverse natural conditions.
Like any other system of the state, the slave system could not exist without providing its ownsecurity. Therefore, the authorities in such ancient countries did everything to suppress the protests of slaves and other oppressed masses. This protection included the protection of private slave property. The need for it was obvious. For example, in Rome, uprisings of the lower strata occurred regularly, and the uprising of Spartacus in 74-71. BC e. and completely became legendary.
Tools of Suppression
The slave-owning type of state has always used such tools as the courts, the army and prisons to repress the discontented. In Sparta, the practice of periodic demonstrative massacres of people who were in state property was adopted. Such punitive acts were called cryptia. In Rome, if a slave killed his master, the authorities punished not only the murderer, but also all the slaves who lived with him under the same roof. Such traditions gave rise to mutual responsibility and collective responsibility.
The slave state, the feudal state and other states of the past also tried to influence the population through religion. Enslavement and lack of rights were proclaimed charitable orders. Many slaves did not know a free life at all, since they were owned by the master from birth, which means that they had difficulty imagining freedom. The pagan religions of antiquity, ideologically defending exploitation, helped the servants to strengthen their awareness of the normality of their position.
Besides internal functions, the exploitative power also had external functions. The development of the slave state meant regular wars with neighbors, the conquest and enslavement of new masses, the defense of their own possessions from external threats, and the creation of a system for the effective management of the occupied lands. It should be understood that these external functions were in close connection with the internal functions. They were reinforced and supplemented by each other.
Defending the established order
There was a wide state apparatus to perform internal and external functions. At an early stage in the evolution of the institutions of the slave system, this mechanism was characterized by underdevelopment and simplicity. Gradually it strengthened and grew. That is why the administrative machine of the Sumerian cities cannot be compared with the apparatus of the Roman Empire.
The armed formations were especially intensified. In addition, the judicial system expanded. The institutions overlapped each other. For example, in Athens in the V-V centuries. BC e. the management of the policy was carried out by the bule - the Council of Five Hundred. As the state system developed, elected officials were added to it, in charge of military affairs. They were hipparchs and strategists. Individuals - archopts - were also responsible for managerial functions. The court and departments connected with religious cults became independent. The formation of slave-owning states developed along approximately the same path - the complication of the administrative apparatus. Officials and the military may not have been directly associated with slavery, but their activities in one way or another protected the established political system and itsstability.
The class of people who ended up in the public service was formed only according to class considerations. Only the nobility could occupy the highest positions. Representatives of other social strata, at best, found themselves on the lower rungs of the state apparatus. For example, in Athens, detachments were formed from slaves that performed police functions.
Priests played an important role. Their status, as a rule, was enshrined in legislation, and their influence was significant in many ancient powers - Egypt, Babylon, Rome. They influenced the behavior and minds of the masses. Temple attendants deified power, planted a cult of personality of the next king. Their ideological work with the population significantly strengthened the structure of such a slave-owning state. The rights of the priests were extensive - they occupied a privileged position in society and enjoyed widespread respect, inspiring awe in others. Religious rituals and customs were considered sacred, which gave clergymen the inviolability of property and person.
Political system and laws
All ancient slave-owning states, including the first slave-owning states on the territory of Russia (Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast), consolidated the established order with the help of laws. They fixed the class character of the then society. Vivid examples of such laws are the Athenian laws of Solon and the Roman laws of Servius Thulius. They established property inequality as a norm and dividedsociety into strata. For example, in India such cells were called castes and varnas.
While the slave-owning states on the territory of our country did not leave behind their own legislative acts, historians around the world explore antiquity according to the Babylonian laws of Hammurabi or the "Book of Laws" of Ancient China. India has developed its own document of this type. In the II century BC. and there appeared the laws of Manu. They divided the slaves into seven categories: donated, bought, inherited, became slaves as a punishment, captured in war, slaves for maintenance and slaves born in the owner's house. What they had in common was that all these people were distinguished by complete lack of rights, and their fate completely depended on the mercy of the owner.
Similar orders were fixed in the laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, drawn up in the 18th century BC. e. This code said that if a slave refused to serve his master or contradicted him, he should have his ear cut off. Helping a slave escape was punishable by death (even free people).
No matter how unique the documents of Babylon, India or other ancient states, the laws of Rome are rightfully considered the most perfect laws. Under their influence, the codes of many other countries that belonged to Western culture were formed. Roman law, which became Byzantine, also influenced the slave-owning states in Russia, including Kievan Rus.
In the empire of the Romans, the institutions of inheritance, private property, pledge, loan, storage, purchase were developed to perfection.sales. The object in such legal relations could also be slaves, since they were considered only as goods or property. The source of these laws was Roman customs, which originated in ancient times, when there was neither an empire nor a kingdom, but only a primitive community. Based on the traditions of past generations, lawyers much later formed the legal system of the main state of antiquity.
It was believed that Roman laws were valid, as they were "decided and approved by the Roman people" (this concept did not include the plebs and the poor). These norms controlled slaveholding relations for several centuries. Important legal acts were edicts of magistrates, which were issued immediately after the next major official took office.
Exploitation of slaves
Slaves were used not only for agricultural work in the village, but also for the maintenance of the master's house. The slaves guarded the estates, maintained order in them, cooked in the kitchen, waited at the table, bought provisions. They could perform the duties of an escort, following their master on walks, work, hunting, and wherever business took him. Having acquired respect through his honesty and intelligence, the slave got the chance to become the educator of the owner's children. The most intimate servants conducted work affairs or were appointed overseers for new slaves.
Hard physical work was assigned to the slaves for the reason that the elites were busy protecting the state and its expansion in relation to its neighbors. Such orders were especially characteristic of aristocratic republics. In trading powers or in colonies where the sale of scarce resources flourished, the enslavers were busy making lucrative commercial deals. Consequently, agricultural work was delegated to slaves. Such a distribution of powers has developed, for example, in Corinth.
Athens, on the other hand, retained its patriarchal agricultural customs for quite some time. Even under Pericles, when this policy reached its political heyday, free citizens preferred to live in the countryside. Such habits persisted for quite a long time, even though the city was enriched by trade and decorated with unique works of art.
Slaves, owned by cities, carried out work on their improvement. Some of them were involved in law enforcement. For example, in Athens, a corps of thousands of Scythian shooters was kept, performing the functions of the police. Many slaves served in the army and navy. Some of them were sent to the service of the state by private owners. Such slaves became sailors, took care of the ships and equipment. In the army, slaves were mostly workers. They were made soldiers only in case of immediate danger to the state. In Greece, such situations developed during the Persian wars or at the end of the struggle against the advancing Romans.
Right of War
In Rome, the cadres of slaves were replenished mainly from outside. For this, the so-called right of war was in force in the republic, and then in the empire. Enemy captured,deprived of any civil rights. He turned out to be outside the law and ceased to be considered a person in the full sense of the word. The prisoner's marriage was terminated, his inheritance turned out to be open.
Many enslaved foreigners were put to death after celebrating a triumph. Slaves could be forced to take part in amusing battles for Roman soldiers, when two strangers had to kill each other in order to survive. After the capture of Sicily, decimation was used on it. Every tenth man was killed - thus the population of the captured island was reduced overnight by a tenth. Spain and Cisalpine Gaul at first regularly rebelled against Roman power. Thus, these provinces became the main suppliers of slaves for the Republic.
During his famous war in Gaul, Caesar auctioned off 53,000 new barbarian slaves at one time. Sources such as Appian and Plutarch mentioned even larger numbers in their writings. For any slave-owning state, the problem was not even the capture of slaves, but their retention. For example, the inhabitants of Sardinia and Spain became famous for their rebelliousness, which is why Roman aristocrats tried to sell men from these countries, and not keep them as their own servants. When the republic became an empire, and its interests covered the entire Mediterranean, the main regions of the suppliers of slaves instead of the western ones were the eastern countries, since the traditions of slavery were considered the norm there for many generations.
The end of slaverystates
The Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century AD. e. It was the last classical ancient state, uniting almost the entire ancient world around the Mediterranean Sea. A huge eastern fragment remained from it, which later became known as Byzantium. In the West, the so-called barbarian kingdoms were formed, which turned out to be the prototypes of European national countries.
All these states gradually moved into a new historical era - the Middle Ages. Feudal relations became their legal basis. They supplanted the institution of classical slavery. The dependence of the peasants on the we althier nobility remained, but it took on other forms that differed markedly from ancient slavery.
