Of Greek Festivals and Slavery

People lining up for rations during a brutal Civil War blockade

All history being seen and understood in perspective, here is something to ponder as one enjoys the Souvlaki and Greek beer this weekend in Wilmington. Contrast this with a “Southern Festival” replete with Mint Juleps, BBQ (Eastern, of course), men dressed in Confederate grey and women as Belles – and the NAACP would be frantically calling for a march to stamp out intolerance, hate and oppression. Most strange.

Bernhard Thuersam

Of Greek Festivals and Slavery:

The very popular and annual Greek Festival is in Wilmington this weekend, featuring food, drink, song and dance of Greek culture. It is one of most well-attended local events of the year and raises funds for the Greek Orthodox Church, whose congregation sponsors the festival.

To date there have been no signs of protest of Greece’s past connection to slavery, nor have the Reverend’s Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton led attacks in the media regarding an extensive Greek slave culture of the past. The use of slaves in Greece was tightly interwoven in everyday life as Hesiod mentions household slaves who were sent to the fields at harvest time; by the fourth and fifth centuries Athenians commonly held two or three slaves each, Aristotle owned thirteen and Plato, six.

Slaves were assigned to do all household work such as cooking, baking, spinning and collecting water, as well as field work, and little is understood today about the sheer scale and degree to which Greek society was dependent upon slave labor. Author Charles Freeman states that “there is evidence from both Athens and the island of Chios (from where there is earliest mention of “barbarians” bought in bulk for money and evidence of slave plantations) links the institutionalization and extension of slavery with the coming of democracy.

Freeman continues: “One of the many ways in which a citizen could define his status as a freeman was by having the absolute power to compel others to labor for him. [Most Greek] slaves came from the places where there was the opportunity to capture them; the Black Sea area, in particular Thrace, was an early source and then, as the Greek cities of the Asian coastline recovered their independence after the Persian wars and began raiding inland, Caria (the southwest of modern Turkey). Some twenty thousand slaves were taken after the Athenian victory at the Eurymedon Rover in 468.”

It was also noted that violence against Greek slaves and their sexual abuse was common and “freely allowed,” and there existed the requirement that an Athenian slave was to be tortured prior to giving evidence in law. Hard labor conditions prevailed in Athenian silver mines where “slaves were hired out in large teams. This was the world of the slave labor camp and. To the extent that mining underpinned the prosperity of Athens, made it partly a slave economy.”

(Reference: The Greek Achievement, The Foundation of the Modern World, Charles Freeman, Penguin Books, 200, pp. 122-124)