If no Alexander, then no slavery?

[The_Persian_Cat]

Hello all,
So, the title is a bit of clickbait, but please bear with me. It is known that the ancient Greeks relied heavily on slavery. When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, he enslaved many, and slavery was imposed across the former Achaemenid Empire. However, the Achaemenid Empire itself was notable for its aversion to slavery. It's popularly believed that the Achaemenids didn't practice slavery at all -- and while I find that hard to believe, they did go out of their way to liberate nations in slavery (such as the Israelites), and their foot-soldiers, labourers, peasants, etc tended to work either for wages or for food rather than because they were owned by their masters. Their predecessors -- the Medians, Lydians, Babylonians, Egyptians, etc -- all certainly did have extensive slave-based economies, as did the Seleucids after them, and the Parthians and Sassanians after them.

So, to what extent were Alexander and the Seleucids responsible for re-normalising slavery in Persia? If Achaemenid hegemony persisted, could slavery have been phased out over time?

 

[Evil Crusader]

It's a bit of a myth (linking an AskHistorians out of convenience). That said, the development would be way different when a state takes on even more literal ownership of people.

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

It's a bit of a myth (linking an AskHistorians out of convenience). That said, the development would be way different when a state takes on even more literal ownership of people.

Fascinating, and thank you so much. "Slavery" in general is a pretty slippery term, and can cover a lot of different things across history. While I was sure that the Achaemenids certainly practiced some form of "slavery" (in the sense of "institutionalised unfree labour"). But it seemed (and still seems) reasonable to me that Persian "slavery" was different from Greek "slavery" (and there was a great variety of "slaveries" both across the Persian Empire, and between Greek city-states and societies).

Do you know anything about how Persian society/labour relations changed under Seleucid rule, though?

 

[sarahz]

Fascinating, and thank you so much. "Slavery" in general is a pretty slippery term, and can cover a lot of different things across history. While I was sure that the Achaemenids certainly practiced some form of "slavery" (in the sense of "institutionalised unfree labour"). But it seemed (and still seems) reasonable to me that Persian "slavery" was different from Greek "slavery" (and there was a great variety of "slaveries" both across the Persian Empire, and between Greek city-states and societies).

Do you know anything about how Persian society/labour relations changed under Seleucid rule, though?

Its pretty certain that Rome was not particularly influenced by Macedon's institutions or by Persia in terms of their approach to this issue.

 

[Gloss]

Fascinating, and thank you so much. "Slavery" in general is a pretty slippery term, and can cover a lot of different things across history. While I was sure that the Achaemenids certainly practiced some form of "slavery" (in the sense of "institutionalised unfree labour"). But it seemed (and still seems) reasonable to me that Persian "slavery" was different from Greek "slavery" (and there was a great variety of "slaveries" both across the Persian Empire, and between Greek city-states and societies).

Do you know anything about how Persian society/labour relations changed under Seleucid rule, though?

Going from "the Iranians had aversion to slavery" to "the Iranians had different types of slavery, maybe?" kinda just puts a big "No" to the question in the title.

 

[Evil Crusader]

Do you know anything about how Persian society/labour relations changed under Seleucid rule, though?

Generally speaking, the Hellenistic Kings tended to bring in their own ideas and they brought in a larger diffusion of state owned slaves.

 

[Gloss]

Generally speaking, the Hellenistic Kings tended to bring in their own ideas and they brought in a larger diffusion of state owned slaves.

"These show how at that time Iranian valued justice and welfare for their own people while most civilized nations at that time still had slavery and exploitation of human beings. "
This reads like a terribly biased article.

 

[Legofan4]

"These show how at that time Iranian valued justice and welfare for their own people while most civilized nations at that time still had slavery and exploitation of human beings. "
This reads like a terribly biased article.

It reads like it was written by an Iranian nationalist. But on the topic of slavery I figure that it existed in the empire before the conquests of Alexander and after and would continue to do so with all of the successor empires until the modern era.

 

[Hearkener]

Their predecessors -- the Medians, Lydians, Babylonians, Egyptians, etc -- all certainly did have extensive slave-based economies, as did the Seleucids after them, and the Parthians and Sassanians after them.

Modern Assyriologists and Egyptologists generally suppose that the economic and social importance of slavery is overstated by western Orientalism. These economies were not "slave-based", as say that of the American South prior to the Civil War. Egypt's economy was founded upon rural tenant farmers working relatively small plots of land, enabled by the high agricultural yields caused by the Nile river floods.

Slaves' main economic usage was in supplying skilled labor, especially technologies that were new in Egypt itself. There also wasn't much of a stratified enslaved cast, as in the US: Middle Egyptian does not even distinguish between slaves and peasants performing their government-mandated labor tax.

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Its pretty certain that Rome was not particularly influenced by Macedon's institutions or by Persia in terms of their approach to this issue.

Yes, I should clarify-- I'm speaking mainly about the Middle East/Persosphere. Rome is sort of outside of Persia's sphere of influence, and likewise Macedon's.