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The Forum > General Discussion > Western Civilisation - the beginning

Western Civilisation - the beginning

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Dear Foxy,

Well that is certainly one take on it. I think we have the makings of a great discussion if you are up to it.

Try this for another take, the fruits of Greece were built on the large slave community which sustained them. Just as the tales of King Arthur come from an European elite where courtly idleness and largess enabled great works of art such as literature from Shakespeare and the King James bible and the music of the great composers, all on the backs of a largely indentured workforce living pretty miserable lives of servitude.

The Athenian reliance on the bondage of others was reknown.

“Modern estimations suggest that in Attica (Athens and its vicinity) from 450 to 320 BC, there were roughly 100,000 slaves. The total population of the region was around 250,000, which would give us a slave-to-free ratio of about 2:5.”
http://listverse.com/2016/09/29/10-fascinating-facts-about-slavery-in-ancient-greece/

The great Aristotle was pretty clear on his views regarding slaves;

“Aristotle wrote that some people were simply born to be slaves, while others were born to rule the slaves, a doctrine known as “natural slavery” (Politics 1, 1253b15–55b40). Slavery, Aristotle said, was a good thing for slaves, for without masters, slaves would not know how to live their lives. He also saw slaves as “animate tools”—pieces of property to be used, with no rights other than those granted by their masters.”

But the situation in Sparta was immeasurably more brutal. Their subjugation of the Helots is a case in point;

“The number of helots in relation to Spartan citizens varied throughout the history of the Spartan state; according to Herodotus, there were seven helots for each Spartan at the time of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.[3] Thus the need to keep helot population in check and preventing rebellion was one of the main concerns of the Spartans. Helots were ritually mistreated, humiliated and even slaughtered: every autumn the Spartans would declare war on the helots so they could be killed by a member of the Crypteia without fear of repercussion.”
Wikipedia

Cont..
Posted by SteeleRedux, Monday, 15 April 2019 8:37:44 PM
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Cont..

In Persia slavery was far less widespread;

“In general, mass slavery as a whole has never been practiced by Persians, and in many cases the situation and lives of semi-slaves (prisoners of war) were, in fact, better than those of the commoner.”

“On the whole, in the Achaemenid empire, there was only small number of slaves in relation to the number of free persons and moreover the word used to call a slave was utilized also to express general dependence.”

During the Sassanid period it was a crime to mistreat slaves; “The owner had to treat the slave humanely; violence toward the slave was forbidden. In particular beating a slave woman was a crime.”. Further “To free a slave (irrespective of his or her faith) was considered a good deed. Slaves had some rights including keeping gifts to them and at least three days of rest in the month."
Wikipedia

It was the Persains who freed the Jews captive in Babylon and because of their laws around freedom of religion allowed them the return to Jerusalem to build the second temple.

The Persian king Cyrus is a revered in Jewish religion and is the only gentile ever to be given the title Messiah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great

“Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered.[14] This became a very successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage and profit of its subjects.”

“Cyrus the Great is also well recognized for his achievements in human rights, politics, and military strategy, as well as his influence on both Eastern and Western civilizations.”

So dear Foxy, well may we all enjoy the 'fruits' of the Greek civilisation, but recognise they came off the backs of many thousands of brutalised slaves.

Know also when mhaze tries to paint this as “The victory of the Hellenes was about a victory of one freedom loving society over another freedom crushing society.” know quite clearly he is full of it.

P.S. Researching this has been great fun. Look forward to your response.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Monday, 15 April 2019 8:39:03 PM
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Steele,

Given that pretty much all societies lived off the backs of slaves, from the Pharaohs until at least the nineteenth century, what's your point ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 15 April 2019 8:42:24 PM
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Dear Loudmouth,

Given my point was pretty obvious I suspect you are asking this because you don't like the answer.

Well here it is again;

"when mhaze tries to paint this as “The victory of the Hellenes was about a victory of one freedom loving society over another freedom crushing society.” know quite clearly he is full of it.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 16 April 2019 12:56:53 AM
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The notion that there was little to no slavery in the Persian Empire is rather ignorant. SR does this quite often when he does his targeted (ie form the answer then look for the data) 30 minutes of 'research'. That there were slaves aplenty in the empire is easily demonstrated from contemporary texts (slave contracts, records from slave markets) as well as writings such as those of Herodotus who toured the empire and talks about slavery there.

But in a sense, the people of the entire empire existed at the whim of one man and were his slaves. This is in stark contrast to Hellas.

Prior to the first invasion, the peoples of Athens and Eretria were told, by the Persians, of their fate. The men would be executed. The women sold in the markets in Asia. The prettiest of the young girls would be placed in the various harems of the nobles in Susa. The prettiest young boys would be castrated and sold as eunuchs. No slavery! As the Battle of Marathon was unfolding, the peoples of Eritria were already headed back to Asia and their fate.

When Xerxes felt that his conscript soldiers needed extra encouragement to force the pass at Thermopylae, he had them whipped into battle. No slavery!

By contrast, when little Plataea sent its 1000 soldiers out to fight alongside Athens at Marathon, they did it freely, without constraint. They recognised that their freedom was dependent on Athen's freedom. Each of them was a freeman and was prepared to die for that freedom. 11 did. They are memorialised in a mound on the plain of Marathon.
Posted by mhaze, Tuesday, 16 April 2019 6:47:09 AM
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If someone wants to denigrate a society based on it not living up to present standards, they can surely do so. In some ways its a legitimate way to compare and contrast.

But its also a dead-end. It leads to utterly misunderstanding history and the significance of events and to false disparagement of past societies. For example, are we to dismiss the Whitlam government as undemocratic because a portion of what we now consider the electorate (18-21 year olds) were excluded from the vote?

That there were slaves in Hellas is true. There were slaves in every society in every part of the world at that, and at most, times. Athens, being the wealthiest of those states had the most slaves. Approximately 1/3 of the population were in some sort of servitude. A further 1/3 were non-citizen visiting merchants.

But this isn't the point. The point is that the civilisation being constructed was done by free citizens of those cities. The men on the plain of Marathon were fighting to maintain their freedom from suppression. The Thespians stayed at Thermopylae based on their own decisions, not those of some god-king.

At Athens, each man fought for his state, this family and his ancestral homes because he wanted to. The astonishing success of that system gave them confidence to breakout into other arenas. And as Foxy points out, they initiated a Golden Age of discovery, artistic development and innovation, unparalleled in human experience. It was pioneered in Athens and remained centred there for the next 500 years. (It is said that after Rome conquered Athens militarily, Athens conquered Rome culturally).

When Alexander conquered Asia, this Hellenistic revolution in thought spread as well, and ultimately fused with Judaism to produce Christianity.

The world change and Western thought and mores where invented in that 5th century BC Athens. The victories in the Persian Wars permitted that to happen. The societal confidence it gave the Athenians was the catalyst for it happening.
Posted by mhaze, Tuesday, 16 April 2019 7:08:57 AM
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