Piracy and Slave Trading in Action in Classical and Hellenistic Greece

Abstract

Most slaves in the Greek world were imported non-Greeks and their offspring. Yet little is known of the entry into slavery of individuals from the non-Greek periphery. Far more promising for studying entry into slavery is a less numerically significant process, piracy, where the capture and sale of individuals – mainly Greeks - is extensively documented. Piracy was both a form of labour in itself, and a means of acquiring labour. The aim of this article is to explore the pragmatic aspects of capture and sale, as well as the extent to which the practice of ransoming prisoners kept captives away from entering the slave supply, by studying the pirate crew’s work, the technology at its disposal, and the fate of its victims.