Atičke manumisije i ekonomska uloga ropstva

Abstract

Rad analizira seriju epigrafskih tekstova (IG II2 1553–1578, oko 335–320. pre n. e.) poznatih kao „atičke manumisije“ ili „Fijale natpisi“, i njihova upotrebljivost u istraživanju socioekonomske uloge ropstva u atini IV veka pre n. e. Uprkos nekim skorašnjim pokušajima da se objasne na drugi način, naučni konsenzus ostaje da su ovi natpisi odraz specifične atinske procedure oslobađanja robova. oni beleže imena oslobođenika, imena njihovih nekadašnjih gospodara, kao i listu srebrnih posuda (fijale, φιάλαι) plaćenih, najverovatnije, kao taksa za manumisiju, ali i profesije bivših robova. U prošlosti ovoj vrsti izvora nije uvek pristupano uz odgovarajući oprez. S obzirom na fragmentarno stanje čitave serije i nasumičan karakter lista, podaci koji nam one nude ne mogu se tek tako generalizovati i tretirati kao neosporan uzorak robovske populacije. Ipak, pokazaćemo da bi bila greška otići u drugu krajnost i proglasiti atičke manumisije nekorisnim izvorom za društvenu i privrednu istoriju, prosto zato što ne nude potpun i pouzdan cenzus robovskih profesija u Atini.

The Attic Manumissions or the “Phialai-Inscriptions” as they are otherwise known, are a large group of 4th century BC Athenian epigraphic fragments, thirty four in total, dating from ca. 335–320 BC. The fragments were discovered gradually, from the first half of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, mostly on and around Acropolis. Incomplete as they are in their present state, they nevertheless contain a long and valuable list of former slaves, coupled with their places of residence and the names of their former masters (a recent attempt to reinterpret these documents as a list of non-freedmen metics, assailed in court by the citizen tax-farmers was, in spite of some excellent points, altogether not very convincing and failed to gain general support). In more than one third of all cases (some 168 out of 421) the profession of former slaves is recorded, providing us with valuable insight into slave occupations and socio-economic aspect of slavery in Athens in the second half of the 4th BC. When the character of these fragments was first understood, in the late 19th century, the hopes were raised that we have a reasonably full and statistically usable list of Athenian slave-occupations, almost a kind of slave economic census. It took a long time for this hope to die, but by the middle of the 20th century, most scholars realized that these documents offer nothing of the sort. Even if we ignore the fragmentary nature of the sample, it is easy to show that it is not especially representative of the whole of slave occupations: agricultural slaves are poorly represented, as are domestic slaves and those employed in metallurgy and carpentry; important Athenian economic activities such as pottery manufacture, ship-building and mining are virtually absent. What we have here is an incomplete list of slaves engaged in more profitable professions (mostly but not exclusively various kinds of craftsmen and traders etc.) who were fortunate enough to obtain their freedom by purchase. In spite of these and other caveats, the Attic Manumissions remain an important source for the social and economic history of late Classical Athens. Even a brief analysis reveals the wealth and variety of slave occupations: far from being restricted to hard manual labor and domestic service (a claim often made in modern literature) slaves are engaged in many demanding and sophisticated crafts, including some we could lousily describe as “elite” (there are goldsmiths, ring-makers, a gem engraver, an incense seller, a doctor etc.). They are also prominent in spheres of commerce, transport and what we could broadly categorize as services (cooks, musicians, a nurse, a barber etc.). By far the most represented craft is wool-work (other kinds of textile production appear only sporadically), and it is completely dominated by women, with 52 wool-workers in total. The Phialai-Inscriptions also offer some insight into the structure of the population of Athenian metics. There was no separate freedmen status in Classical Athens; all freed slaves instantly became metics. These are usually considered settled foreigners, immigrants and descendants of immigrants that came to Athens, attracted by business opportunities. But is this equally true of the late 4th century Athens? How many of these “resident foreigners” were at the time actually former slaves or descendants of freed slaves? While the citizen population of Athens declined in the final third of the 5th century BC, due to such cataclysmic events as the Peloponnesian war, the great plague of 430–426 BC, and the Tyranny of the Thirty, the metic population proved to be surprisingly vital and able to regenerate itself. The number of metics seems to be the same in 330s and 320s as it was a century earlier. At least part of the explanation for this could be found in frequent manumissions of slaves. Considerable numbers of former slaves, now turned metics, were a potent source that could restore and maintain the population of resident aliens.