Was there ever any objection to slavery or war crimery in ancient times?

[DukeDayve]

I know there were slave revolts (like Spartacus) but of course slaves are going to be against slavery. I know local populations sometimes joined slave revolts but that wasn't because they wanted to help the slaves be free, it was usually just because the slaves were fighting against the same power that those local people hated.

And what about sacking cities? That had to have been horrific. I'll bet if the army sacking a city were wearing bodycams and the footage were available to us now it'd look a lot like the horrors the Nazis or ISIS committed when they had their day. I know a Roman general was sad when Carthage got sacked, but he wasn't sad for the people being massacred/enslaved, he was just sad that it might happen to HIS people in the future.

Did no Roman emperor/senator, or Athenian senator, or Cartheginian senator... ever suggest that some of the things they were doing were horrific and we wouldn't like it if it were happening to us or our loved ones? Did soldiers ever disregard their "bonus" of sacking a city and doing horrible things to the citizens because it would weigh heavy on their conscience... or was conscience just not a thing until someone invented it a few centuries ago?

 

[Ming]

The Achaemenids were anti slavery, at least.

There were obviously notions about non violence and not being an asshole to others in the ancient world but these tended to manifest themselves as religious impulses. There were plenty of such reformers. Jesus, Mazdak, Etc However their emphasis usually wasn't on behavior towards enemies in war.

Informally, traditional societies would have customary limits on how far to take violence, sometimes expressed religiously. Reciprocity and appropriate levels of response being big deals so ongoing conflicts didn't wipe out interconnected societies. People like the romans were more interested in plunder and slaves so they had less interest in preserving the status quo. The romans are interesting because as someone pointed out in another thread, senators often had an inventive to start wars for enrichment.

I don't think there was much of any formal rules on how to treat your enemies in war until Muhammad set down some limits. The Orthodox Church also apparently even considered slaying on the battlefield a sin but I don't know if that lead to any fewer slayings.

 

[DukeDayve]

The Achaemenids were anti slavery, at least.

There were obviously notions about non violence and not being an asshole to others in the ancient world but these tended to manifest themselves as religious impulses. There were plenty of such reformers. Jesus, Mazdak, Etc However their emphasis usually wasn't on behavior towards enemies in war.

Informally, traditional societies would have customary limits on how far to take violence, sometimes expressed religiously. Reciprocity and appropriate levels of response being big deals so ongoing conflicts didn't wipe out interconnected societies. People like the romans were more interested in plunder and slaves so they had less interest in preserving the status quo. The romans are interesting because as someone pointed out in another thread, senators often had an inventive to start wars for enrichment.

I don't think there was much of any formal rules on how to treat your enemies in war until Muhammad set down some limits. The Orthodox Church also apparently even considered slaying on the battlefield a sin but I don't know if that lead to any fewer slayings.

During the time of the Roman Empire though... there did seem to be some "good" emperors (aside from those 5 good emperors) who passed laws (or dictated laws, however they did it) saying that if you dump a sick slave at the temple and the slave recovers and becomes healthy, you can't go back and claim that slave... that slave is now free. Or laws that you cannot kill your slaves. Was there some semblance of a conscience there, or was it purely economical?

I mean... do you think any Roman citizens ever sat down to eat dinner and one of them said "I saw some slaves being beaten for working too slow, it was so sad, they should at least treat them like human beings". Did they have any notion whatsoever that they were inflicting misery on fellow human beings or was it a case of "Meh, I'd fight to the death before anybody took me or mine slaves, this is on you, coward".

And when I say Romans I just mean any ancient people... the Romans are just the most well known users of chronic mass slavery.

 

[Ming]

I may be misremembering or misrepresenting but I think one of the gracchi at least may have referred to to the perverse incentives that roman war and slavemaking had on roman society. I.e. Wars captured slaves and land and the rich used the slaves to work the land and exclude the free poor and this sapped the vigor and morals of the roman people.

Again though, the concern was for the the effect on the free romans and not really for the guys and gals under the lash.


Everybody knew slavery sucked but I can't really think of anybody who spoke up for foreign slaves except the Achaemenids. The Jewish holy book had explicit laws on how to treat slaves (I assume other religions had similar) and foreigners and even an extended chapter on how the whole nation was delivered from slavery in a foreign land but slavery wasn't proscribed or even condemned in Jewish thought iirc. This carried through to Christian and Islamic ideas where slavery is known unpleasant but morally could be either neutral or a weak positive in some situations.

 

[Henry IX]

There were many philosophers who either argued against slavery or for the ethical treatment of slaves. The Epicureans in particular refused to treat slaves and women (shocking!) any differently from anybody else. Many Romans treated their personal slaves well, to the point that provincials sometimes sold themselves into slavery if they had a valuable skill.

Agricultural and mining slaves, on the other hand, were managed in an industrial manner, by foremen and for absentee landlords. As such they were frequently treated badly.

So the picture, as best we can tell at this distance, is that some individuals opposed slavery and most people opposed treating slaves they know personally badly, but accepted the institution generally.

 

[demanvanwezel]

as for sacking cities, there were some general rules in play here which abviously differ throughout the ages

the thing is sieges are a miserable and costly affair for both attacker and defender and as such should be avoided at all cost

generally both parties tried to get to an agreement for surrender as soon as a siege started and if a city surrendered at and early point they'd generally be spared under certain conditions (like the capture or suicide of the enemy commander)
sometimes a tithe was put on the city to avoid it being torched
the leader of the garrison would sometimes even argue that his honor prevented him from surrendering inmediatly and that if he wasn't reinforced in say 60 days that he'll surrender

however if a city refused to surrender even if it was very clear that they weren't going to win then it was generally agreed upon that sacking it was allowed as a sort of collective punishment
the romans for example had a rule that from the moment the battering ram hit the walls then no offer of surrender was going to be accepted and the city would be sacked and slaughtered
most people were more lenient and when certain breakthroughs were achieved offers of surrender were given (like for example a breach in the walls), an example of this is the siege of rhodes by the ottomans where after the walls collapsed the knights surrendered under the conditions that the garrison were allowed to leave, the city wouldn't be sacked and the churches would remain sanctified

sometimes if a siege had been particularly gruesome to the besieging army then even if the commander had accepted a surrender which avoided a sack then the soldiers would take matters into their own hands and began sacking the city anyway out of revenge

 

[gagenater]

I know there were slave revolts (like Spartacus) but of course slaves are going to be against slavery. I know local populations sometimes joined slave revolts but that wasn't because they wanted to help the slaves be free, it was usually just because the slaves were fighting against the same power that those local people hated.

And what about sacking cities? That had to have been horrific. I'll bet if the army sacking a city were wearing bodycams and the footage were available to us now it'd look a lot like the horrors the Nazis or ISIS committed when they had their day. I know a Roman general was sad when Carthage got sacked, but he wasn't sad for the people being massacred/enslaved, he was just sad that it might happen to HIS people in the future.

Did no Roman emperor/senator, or Athenian senator, or Cartheginian senator... ever suggest that some of the things they were doing were horrific and we wouldn't like it if it were happening to us or our loved ones? Did soldiers ever disregard their "bonus" of sacking a city and doing horrible things to the citizens because it would weigh heavy on their conscience... or was conscience just not a thing until someone invented it a few centuries ago?

The day or era when slavery ceased to be a common everyday occurrence around the planet in nearly every society that has been studied historically was centuries in the future during the era of the Roman Republic and early empire. No serious ethical, religious, moral, or other concern really stirred anyone in that timeframe (Roman or otherwise) to 'question' slavery as a concept. It had been around literally since before writing was invented, and was expected to be around for all time to come. The very idea that there might be something wrong with the concept never really occurred. There were of course legal issues and restrictions about who could be enslaved, and under what circumstances, for how long, how you could treat a slive, etc. but nobody ever really questioned the concept. Indeed, as noted by some others here, slavery was sometimes voluntary, and there were other things that were much more strongly condemned even by those who weren't fans of it. In most of the societies where slavery wasn't widespread (ex. nomadic societies) there were economic and social organization reasons making it a suboptimal way to classify people in society.

The process of sacking a city didn't start to change until the late 19th century. Prior to that time period, the 'Roman rules' or some variation of them detailed by @demanvanwezel were the only rules, if there were any.

 

[John the John]

I know there were slave revolts (like Spartacus) but of course slaves are going to be against slavery. I know local populations sometimes joined slave revolts but that wasn't because they wanted to help the slaves be free, it was usually just because the slaves were fighting against the same power that those local people hated.

And what about sacking cities? That had to have been horrific. I'll bet if the army sacking a city were wearing bodycams and the footage were available to us now it'd look a lot like the horrors the Nazis or ISIS committed when they had their day. I know a Roman general was sad when Carthage got sacked, but he wasn't sad for the people being massacred/enslaved, he was just sad that it might happen to HIS people in the future.

Did no Roman emperor/senator, or Athenian senator, or Cartheginian senator... ever suggest that some of the things they were doing were horrific and we wouldn't like it if it were happening to us or our loved ones? Did soldiers ever disregard their "bonus" of sacking a city and doing horrible things to the citizens because it would weigh heavy on their conscience... or was conscience just not a thing until someone invented it a few centuries ago?

The mistake you are doing is that you are looking at history through modern morals. Today slavery is considered evil because of african slavery during colonialism and because we have become advanced enough for slavery to be useless for us. Back then it was simply considered normal.
We are in ancient times. People AREN'T equal. The whole idea that all people from all nations and all classes are equal was developed much later. Men and women, educated and uneducated, wealthy and rich, they aren't equal. The Gods have chosen how will the world look like and this is the balance. It may seem cruel to you but that's how it worked.

When it comes to sacking people were much more used to violence and death. It is simply matter of habit. If you see enough violence you will get used to it. Look at modern generations. They consider it cruel when you even kill an animal for food. If you lived with animals and saw them beeing killed regularly like people of the past, you would consider it normal too. It isn't a coincidence that Buddha himself was born in nobility and he never saw violence, poverty or death untill his adulthood. Then, when he stepped out of his perfect world and saw the reality he was shocked and horrified.

The evolution of understanding the theory of basic (or "natural") human rights and equality is very long and complicated. I am not going to write it here because I don't have time for it right now. This isn't the first time I have seen people ask this on this forum. I might make a separate thread where I would explain entire history and evolution of slavery (it will be simplified of course but I will leave sources for further reading) but now I have different things to do. Seriously this is very complex topic. Perhaps one of the most interesting ones in our history.

 

[DukeDayve]

The mistake you are doing is that you are looking at history through modern morals. Today slavery is considered evil because of african slavery during colonialism and because we have become advanced enough for slavery to be useless for us. Back then it was simply considered normal.
We are in ancient times. People AREN'T equal. The whole idea that all people from all nations and all classes are equal was developed much later. Men and women, educated and uneducated, wealthy and rich, they aren't equal. The Gods have chosen how will the world look like and this is the balance. It may seem cruel to you but that's how it worked.

When it comes to sacking people were much more used to violence and death. It is simply matter of habit. If you see enough violence you will get used to it. Look at modern generations. They consider it cruel when you even kill an animal for food. If you lived with animals and saw them beeing killed regularly like people of the past, you would consider it normal too. It isn't a coincidence that Buddha himself was born in nobility and he never saw violence, poverty or death untill his adulthood. Then, when he stepped out of his perfect world and saw the reality he was shocked and horrified.

The evolution of understanding the theory of basic (or "natural") human rights and equality is very long and complicated. I am not going to write it here because I don't have time for it right now. This isn't the first time I have seen people ask this on this forum. I might make a separate thread where I would explain entire history and evolution of slavery (it will be simplified of course but I will leave sources for further reading) but now I have different things to do. Seriously this is very complex topic. Perhaps one of the most interesting ones in our history.

Nah I never look at history with modern values attached (or I try not to as best I can). I'm just wondering if anybody ever felt a prang of empathy or guilt for slaves and stuff like that.

 

[yerm]

There were definitely rules or at least customs related to sacking in the ancient world, but nothing acceptable to them would seem close to moral now of course.

Probably the best known ancient-era rule regarding a sack is the kill them all and steal nothing command in the old testament (1 sam 15:3 if my googling is right) and there are others like this. In modern times this is of course considered atrocious behavior, but in the ancient world, a destroy but don't loot command is actually a way to stave off wars for profit.

In some cases we know that there were rules of war because people were reported to have broken them. Since the Assyrians were considered unreasonably brutal, we can assume there were standards and they crossed the line. In many cases most societies respected certain boundaries like don't kill unmarried women or girls, allow the dead to be buried, or don't torture those who surrender.

This all also varied by location. America (as far as we knowknow without any writing) were particularly brutal. Southeast asia and the pacific, outside the Chinese tributary sphere, possibly the worst. Many tribal societies had strict honor codes that made conquest more of a change in ownership and relatively quite light compared to a roman style sack of the same "barbarian" group.

 

[John the John]

Nah I never look at history with modern values attached (or I try not to as best I can). I'm just wondering if anybody ever felt a prang of empathy or guilt for slaves and stuff like that.

Well some people felt guilt... to some extent. If you read old testament in book of Sirach it says that you should be just to slaves because they are also human beings created by God. It doesn't say that slavery in itself is bad or that it shouldn't exist but it says that you should treat them wisely. And I think that's how far it went when it comes to morality of slavery. Slavery wasn't considered wrong but the way you could treat a slave could be wrong. I think that's how people looked at it back then. In some cultures there wasn't even a word for "slave". Same word was used for both servants and slaves.

In fact sometimes servants were treated worse than slaves because owner knew that he/she had the servant for a limited time. In essence, the servant was the equivalent of a rental, while the slave was actual property and needed to be taken care of. But when I write "sometimes", I really mean "sometimes". Many times neither servants nor slaves weren't treated well.

 

[John the John]

Alright, I found it. Here is what the book of Sirach says about slavery:

Chapter 7 (this text is either translated with the word slaves or servants, it matters what translation you use):
20Don't ill-treat servants who do their work well, or employees who do their best for you.21Show the same love to wise servants that you would show to yourself, and let them have their freedom.


Chapter 30:
29But don't be too severe with anyone, and never be unfair. 30If you have a slave, treat him as you would want to be treated; you bought him with your hard-earned money. 31Treat him as a brother; you need him as you need yourself. If you ill-treat him and he runs away, where are you going to look for him?

However this is also what it says:

24A donkey should be given its fodder and its burden, and it should be beaten. A slave should be given food and work, and should be disciplined. 25If you make your slave work, you can set your mind at ease. If you don't keep him busy, he will be looking for freedom. 26You can use harness and yoke to tame an animal, and a slave can be tortured in the stocks.27Keep him at work, and don't let him be idle; idleness can only teach him how to make trouble. 28Work is what he needs. If he won't obey you, put him in chains.

I think this very well says how people of those times looked at slaves.

 

[DarthJF]

Buddhism has always had negative view on slavery and Ashoka banned slave trade in Maurya Empire.

In China, Wang Mang attempted to ban slavery among his reforms when he usurped power from Han dynasty. Though that didn't last for long.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/emperor-wang-mang-chinas-first-socialist-2402977/

 

[John the John]

Buddhism has always had negative view on slavery

Well, yes and no. The Buddhist belief in karma and reincarnation has been used to justify slavery, reasoning that a person's enslavement must be a result of punishable actions in a previous life.

BUT the eight-fold path of Buddhist beliefs actually teaches explicitly against the trade in living beings.

Yes Ashoka banned slave trade but not slavery. People that already were slaves or people that were born as slaves stayed slaves. When you were born as a slave it was because of your previous life so it was considered as your own fault.

 

[Kovax]

Even the Assyrians used brutality against enemies with some selectivity and limitations. A city or local ruler wasn't normally subjected to slaughter and/or torture unless he or they had broken previous promises (there were exceptions). The punishment for opposing Assyria (or just having land that they wanted) was generally subjugation and steep tribute payments. The punishment for revolt or failure to pay the promised tribute was generally horrific, including slavery, torture, or death. This clearly varied over time, and depended to some degree on the individual Assyrian king, but the worst punishments were generally reserved for "oath breakers".

 

[Barsoom]

The day or era when slavery ceased to be a common everyday occurrence around the planet in nearly every society that has been studied historically was centuries in the future during the era of the Roman Republic and early empire. No serious ethical, religious, moral, or other concern really stirred anyone in that timeframe (Roman or otherwise) to 'question' slavery as a concept. It had been around literally since before writing was invented, and was expected to be around for all time to come. The very idea that there might be something wrong with the concept never really occurred. There were of course legal issues and restrictions about who could be enslaved, and under what circumstances, for how long, how you could treat a slive, etc. but nobody ever really questioned the concept. Indeed, as noted by some others here, slavery was sometimes voluntary, and there were other things that were much more strongly condemned even by those who weren't fans of it. In most of the societies where slavery wasn't widespread (ex. nomadic societies) there were economic and social organization reasons making it a suboptimal way to classify people in society.

The process of sacking a city didn't start to change until the late 19th century. Prior to that time period, the 'Roman rules' or some variation of them detailed by @demanvanwezel were the only rules, if there were any.

Jus in bello was developed from the 15th century onward.

The concept of slavery was already questioned among Christians during the Middle Ages. France banned slavery in 1315. The rule was that Christians could not keep other Christians enslaved. After the European conquest of the New World some clever people stopped converting their slaves. The clergy was unhappy with this, leading some of them to inquire into slavery itself. This was limited to small intellectual circles which became somewhat wider during the Enlightenment. The first organized antislavery movement began in the second half of the 18th century.

 

[John the John]

Jus in bello was developed from the 15th century onward.

The concept of slavery was already questioned among Christians during the Middle Ages. France banned slavery in 1315. The rule was that Christians could not keep other Christians enslaved. After the European conquest of the New World some clever people stopped converting their slaves. The clergy was unhappy with this, leading some of them to inquire into slavery itself. This was limited to small intellectual circles which became somewhat wider during the Enlightenment. The first organized antislavery movement began in the second half of the 18th century.

I thought we were talking about antiquity, before middle ages. That's what I thought he meant by "Was there ever any objection to slavery or war crimery in ancient times?".

 

[Eusebio]

The Trojan Women is a famous play written by Euripides as a stark condemnation of the Athenian destruction of Melos earlier that year during the Peloponnesian War, the brutality of which had outraged the Greek world and many within Athens itself.

So yes. While adherence to the ideal varied from place to place, it was generally the case that there were customary laws of war and it was expected that victorious armies wouldn't slaughter whole populations just because they could.

 

[Barsoom]

I thought we were talking about antiquity, before middle ages. That's what I thought he meant by "Was there ever any objection to slavery or war crimery in ancient times?".

There were already a couple of posts extending the timeline, the one I responded to talks about the 19th century. So my post is not a direct answer to OP's question but it is a clarification on those posts.

 

[Director]

Please be careful and cautious. Discussion of atrocities and war crimes is extremely close to violating forum guidelines even if it is abstract. Specifics are prohibited.
Not saying anyone here is over the line, just don't want us to receive a surprise visit from a concerned moderator, with associated collateral damage.