I am not very happy that most ancient people had no objections to slavery. Besides the Achaemenids which begs the question why did they had an objection to slavery? Was it an moral thing and religious thing or both and did and why it did not stayed later was it the greek influence that came over the area?
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The Achaemenid empire pre dates the rise of Greece as a unified thing, and in fact was ended by Alexander the Great. The Greeks had no taboo's against slavery, and happily employed lots of slaves before, during and after the Achaemenid era. It's general antipathy to slavery reflects it's founding traditions as a nomadic steppe people. Steppe nomads in general aren't big on the concept of slavery, because their societies travel to often, and don't rely on agriculture for their means of subsistence. Under those conditions slaves are a pain in the neck to keep (it's easy for them to escape) and of low value (there isn't a lot of work they can do with any productivity high enough to justify the effort required to keep them in servitude) However the Achaemenid empire was a totally different matter, as it was extremely federalized - the Persians themselves might not have seen much value in slavery, but they were perfectly happy to let their Egyptian, Hebrew, Assyrian, Babylonian, etc. subjects continue to practice slavery in whatever traditional ways they usually did. Moreover the Achaemenid restrictions on slavery within their 'core areas' (as opposed to federal areas of the empire where there were no restrictions at all) only applied to those with proper ancestry from one of the historic Persian tribes. Any peoples captured in war, or as a result of rebellion often were enslaved, or effectively enslaved by being required required to work for a set time period or pay a specific cash indemnity in lieu of immediate execution. Slavery, or similar conditions for a set time period were also used as a punishment for some legal infractions.
Its sad on how people had this view point. You all know how slaves also had slaves like the Ottoman jannisaries and the mamaluks. In ancient time where such things existing also. I am trying to understand the view point of people back then even better.
In a time where even "free" people had few rights and fewer guarantees, and life and death power over others by an elite upper class ("might makes right") was commonplace, if not the norm, slavery wasn't all that much worse than the alternatives for most people. As societies advanced and allowed for increased personal freedom for many, the issue of the ills of slavery became increasingly relevant. I suspect that religious considerations added momentum to the change, but the official religious doctrines on the matter ended up following popular morality, not leading it.
So morality improves with more resources and access to them you have. So rich an prosperous empire like the Han who did not had their entire prosperity based on slaves like the Romans had less slavery then other kingdoms and empires during the ancient time that where not so prosperous?
Slavery could actually be BETTER than freedom for many people in many societies. being 'free' meant being responsible for your own debts, your own actions, and for feeding yourself. If you can't handle the consequences of those things on your own, and for whatever reason your family can't help you out, your options in most ancient societies very quickly fell into one of 3 categories
- Exile (often leading to death via exposure, or being killed by foreigners
- Death
- Slavery
This is the error of assuming that the concept of morality is a fixed and standard thing which people or societies approach or regress from based on circumstances. It's not like that. Most ancient societies never even considered that there might be a 'moral' case to be made for or against slavery, because the concept that slavery might be inherently bad didn't yet exist.
Not sure what your Han vs. Roman example is intended to show - can you expand a little bit? Both societies used slaves on a large scale.
No guarantees, but freedom often seems to increase with prosperity, not so much of the lowest class, but of those in the middle. The rich are usually it their position because they or their predecessors had the drive, ambition, ability, or simply the ruthlessness to succeed, and some apparently considered the needs and human dignity of their slaves, while others clearly did not, or were never exposed to the worst conditions that other slaves were forced to work under. It's easier to ignore the worst abuses and suffering if it doesn't happen to your own slaves, and you personally never see it happen elsewhere. The poor couldn't afford to care when their own survival was in doubt, as long as they themselves weren't the slaves, and couldn't afford to own them anyway. The middle class is likely to be where the drive to abolish slavery would develop: wealthy enough to be able to afford to care, and not insulated from the conditions of the more severely abused slaves. My suspicion is that the moral impetus against slavery grew along with the middle class, and the wealthy were divided on the issue.
During Han dynasty the state tried to protect peasants from ending up as slaves under the rich landowners. In Confucian thinking peasants were the primary producing class who created the wealth in society. When Liu Bang established the Han dynasty he released agricultural slaves and people who had sold themselves to slavery, but over long term the state was unable to stop concentration of land ownership, so independent peasant farmer was more an ideal than reality. Private peasant farmers lacked the farm animals and resources to cultivate their plots as effectively as the rich landowners, so many ended up selling their lands and themselves when they hit hard times.
Han opposition to slavery was also more about who should and shouldn't be a slave, and economic in nature, than it was about any inherent opposition to slavery as an institutiion.
Han opposition to slavery was also more about who should and shouldn't be a slave, and economic in nature, than it was about any inherent opposition to slavery as an institutiion.
Really the Han used slavery on an massive scale? I was probably thinking of further dynasties. But really massive scale. Sorry for that claim.
So above the above ancient average civilizations not to prosperous not poor had less slaves?
Expanding a bit on these observations, it seems to me that people knew very well that the life of slaves was generally unhappy. In many societies (including in the Hebrew Bible) there was a moral obligation on family members to redeem their kin when they fell into slavery in some way. The Achaemenid restriction draws a kind of kinship circle around ethnic Persians, viewing them as a coherent group set apart from others in the empire. In the same way Christian writers later argued that Christians could keep slaves but not if they were also Christians.
I suspect being rich would make the people care Little about slavery. Italy during the Roman peek may have been twice as rich as average in terms of GDP and many of the Roman provinces may have been rich as well with the poorest provinces being maybe of average wealth in terms of World average GDP. So Rome during its peek was rich and had relative Peace which people maybe care more about than slavery whose conditions improved over time.
For many if not most people the Roman Empire was better than the alternatives even if it was terrible by modern standards, by ancient standards it would likely be what we consider to be a top tier nation to live in.
Alot of Romes wealth was based on trade if Im not wrong and far from everyone was a slave and not all slaves lived in terrible conditions some did have better living conditions than the average.
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Yes but where not the condition better then those of other slaves from other empire and kingdoms. And where they? Also was not the Roman's empire economy in large part slave based so their prosperity was because of the slaves?
What if their rich not because of slaves would that make them more moral towards them?
At one point in Rome it appears to have become a status symbol for the very rich to have a different slave for every purpose, so one slave was responsible for cleaning your sandals, another sewed on buttons, etc. Not a terrible life. Then at the opposite extreme there were those who got sent to the granite or marble quarries, where they typically went deaf and/or blind within a few months from the incessant hammering and flying stone chips, if they didn't die by then from the brutal working conditions and bad food. Pretty close to torture, followed by death. Of course, the rich mostly encountered only the former ones, not the unfortunate latter.
Huh you did put things in perspective why would you care for thing you do not see. I have an theory what if slavery was so widespread in the ancient world because the people who could change it where isolated because of lack of info about the slaves with an more terrible life? It was not my theory someone else said it here but I want to add the reason for that is because of the lack of good information distribution. Oral information can be dilluted an lot.
There was a general 'manumission' of slaves when the first Han emperor came to power, and it was initially policy to 'discourage' slavery in the future, but in practice it meant little, and slavery in Han China was as common as it was in earlier and later eras. Even the government policy wound up meaning very little, as corvee labor of various sorts wound up constructing much of the Great Wall (at least the parts that were worked on in the Han Era). If you want to be really cynical about it, you could say that the policy of forcing wealthy individuals to manumit their slaves was merely a pretext to force this labor force (the slaves) to be enslaved by the state for national building projects instead of private wealth production, since the Han government employed a variety of forced labor practices.
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Reasonably common until the Ming period (mid 13th century) after which it became mostly less and less legal. Slavery in china was outlawed in 1910.
So for me to understand better reasonably common means like every rich family had slaves and many of the middle rich family had? Also if slavery would have been outlowed in China well anywhere in the ancient times would slavery have died or would not be respected and people will continue as they do?
5% of the population is a good number, so probably every wealthy family had some, but not anyone else. Note that there were also a LOT of people (maybe 20% of the population?) who by modern terms might qualify is 'not free' but who didn't qualify as slaves either