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The Export of Slaves from Colchis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. C. Braund and
G. R Tsetskhladze
D. C. Braund
Affiliation:
University of Exeter Institute of Archaeology, AN SSR, MOSCOW
G. R Tsetskhladze
Affiliation:
University of Exeter Institute of Archaeology, AN SSR, MOSCOW
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Extract

Polybius in a familiar passage, lists goods moving past Byzantium between the Mediterranean. world and the Black Sea region; among these goods, slaves are accorded a prominent place:

…as regards necessities it is an unidsputed fact that the most plentiful supplies and best qualities of of cattle and slaves reach us from the countries lying round the Pontus, while among luxuries the same countries furnish us with an abundance of honey, wax and preserved fish; from the surplus of our countries they take olive-oil and every kind of wine. As for grain, there is give and-take – with them sometimes supplying us when we require it and sometimes importing it from us

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1989, pp. 114 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 The best discussion remains Finley, M. I., ‘The Black Sea and Danubian Regions and the Slave Trade in Antiquity’, Klio 40 (1962), 51–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar., most accessible as re-issued in his Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), pp. 167–75 and p. 273Google Scholar for bibliographical note. On the history of slavery in Transcaucasia in antiquity, see Melikishvili, G. A., K Islorii Drevnyey Gruzii (Tbilisi, 1959), esp. pp. 425–38Google Scholar.

2 Attempts are collected and usefully discussed in Harris, W. V., ‘Towards a study of the Roman slave trade’, in D'Arms, J. H. and Kopff, E. C. (edd.), The Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 36, 1980), pp. 117–40Google Scholar. See also Tchernia, A., ‘Italian wine in Gaul at the end of the Republic’, in Garnsey, P., Hopkins, K. and Whittaker, C. R. (edd.), Trade in the Ancient Economy (London, 1983), pp. 87–104Google Scholar.

3 See Isaac, B., The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest (Leiden. 1986), p. 145Google Scholar.

4 On Timotheus, see Finley, M. I., Aspects of Antiquity (London, 1968), ch. 13Google Scholar with Harris, art. cit. pp. 126–7 and 129ff. and Pleket, H. W., ‘Urban elites and business in the Greek parts of the Roman empire’, in Garnsey, P., Hopkins, K. and Whittaker, C. R. (edd.), Trade in the Ancient Economy (London, 1983), p. 139Google Scholar. On the slave trade as part of broader exchange, see, for example, , Cic.pro Quinct. 24Google Scholar with Bradley, K. R., ‘On the Roman slave supply and slavebreeding’, in Finley, M. I. (ed.), Classical Slavery (London, 1987), pp. 46–7Google Scholar. Castration seems to have been something of a speciality, see below n. 22.

5 Hdt. 2.104–5; Xen, . Cyneg. 2. 4Google Scholar; Strabo 11, p. 498.

6 See, most accessibly, Lordkipanidze, O. D., ‘The Greco-Roman world and ancient Georgia (Colchis and Iberia)’, in Modes de Contacts et Processus de Transformation dans les Sociétés Anciennes: Actes du Colloque de Cortone (1981) (Pisa–Rome, 1983), pp. 123–44Google Scholar. Note also his Das alte Kolchis und seine Beziehungen zur griechischen Welt vom 6. zum 4. Jh. v.Chr. (Xenia 14, Konstanz, 1985)Google Scholar. Extremely valuable on the economy of Colchis is Lordkipanidze, G., K Istorii Drevnyey Kolkhidy (Tbilisi, 1970), esp. pp. 84–9Google Scholar(on textiles) and pp. 52–4 (on wine-production). The fullest discussion of viticulture and wine-production in Colchis remains Bokhochadze, A. V., Mevenakheoba-Megvineoba Dzvel Sakarlveloshi Arkeologiuri Masalebis Mikhedvit (Tbilisi, 1963Google Scholar) (in Georgian with brief Russian summary).

7 Strabo 11, p. 498; Pliny, , N.H. 6. 15Google Scholar. The practice had changed little by the nineteenth century: see, for example, Spencer, E., Travels in Circassia, Krim-Tarlary etc. (3rd edn.. London, 1839), i. 306Google Scholar. On Dioscurias, see now Voronov, Yu. N., Dioskuriada–Sebastopolis–Tskhum (Moscow, 1980)Google Scholar.

8 Strabo 11, p. 506; cf. Procopius, , Wars 2. 15. 5Google Scholar(quoted below) and, much later, Evliya, , Narrative of Travels (Oriental Translation Fund, London, 1850), ii. 56Google Scholar, who himself took advantage of the highly profitable exchange of salt and the like for slaves. On unequal exchange as a characteristic of slave trading, see Alpers, E. A., Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London, 1975)Google Scholar. Halonetos: Pollux 7. 14 with Nikulitse, I. T., Severnve Frakivtsv v Vl–l vv.do n.e. (Kishinev, 1987), p. 188Google Scholar.

9 On slave-raiding as a social institution, see Evliya, , op. cit. p. 55Google Scholar: ‘[they]… steal each other's children and a man who does not steal and plunder is thought to be bad company, so that they give him not their children in marriage.’

10 Ovid, , Ex Ponto 4. 10. 25–30Google Scholar with Podossinov, A., Ovids Dichtung als Quelle für die Geschichte des Schwarzmeergebiets (Xenia 19. Konstanz, 1987)Google Scholar.

11 The classic study of piracy as a source of slavery in the Black Sea remains Blavatskiy, V. D., ‘Rabstvo i evo istochniki v antichnykh gosudarstvakh Severnovo Prichernomor'ya’, SA 20 (1954), 31–56Google Scholar.

12 , Plut.Per. 50Google Scholar; Diod. 20.25.

13 Strabo 11, p. 496 with Braund, D., ‘Client kings’, in Braund, D. (ed.), The Administration of the Roman Empire (241 BC AD 193) (Exeter Studies in History 18, Exeter, 1988), ch. 4Google Scholar.

14 See Speidel, M. P., ‘The Caucasus Frontier. Second-century garrisons at Apsarus, Petra and Phasis’, Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms III; 13. Internationaler Limeskongress, Aalen 1983 (Stuttgart, 1986), pp. 657–60Google Scholar with important new evidence from Pityus in Kiguradze, N. Sh., Lordkipanidze, G. A., Todua, T. T., ‘Kleyma XV legiona iz pitsundskovo gorodishcha’, VDI (1987), 2. 88–92Google Scholar.

15 See Garlan, Y., ‘War, piracy and slavery in the Greek world’, in Finley, M. I. (ed.), Classical Slavery (London, 1987), pp. 7–21Google Scholar.

16 See RE. viii (1913)Google Scholar, cols. 490–1 with Lordkipanidze, O. D., ‘K problemye grecheskoy kolonizatsii vostochnovo Prichernomor'ya (Kolkhidy)’, Problemy Greceheskoy Kolonizatsii Severnovo i Vostochnovo Prichernomor'ya; Materialy I. Vsyesoyuznovo Simpoziuma… Tskhaltubo, 1977 (Tbilisi, 1979), pp. 188–9Google Scholar. See also Lomouri, N., ‘O “Politii Phasistsev” Geraklida’, VDI (1988) 3. 123–34Google Scholar, with Gottschalk, H. B., Heraclides of Pontus (Oxford, 1980), p. 157Google Scholar.

17 Xenophon, , Symposium 4. 36Google Scholar, where it is stressed that the well-off might also indulge in it.

18 For a useful survey of responses to famine, see Dirks, R., ‘Social Responses during Severe Food Shortages and Famine’, Current Anthropology 21 (1980), 21–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Garnsey, P., Famine and Food-Supply in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Umari, Ibn Fadl Allah al, Masalik al absar (translated an d edited by Quatremère, P.), Notices el Extraits 13 (1838), 267Google Scholar.

20 Lydolph, P. E., Climates of the Soviet Union (World Survey of Climatology 7, Amsterdam, 1977), p. 196Google Scholar, which finds some ancient support in Airs, Waters, Places 15: ‘There are [sc. in Colchis] only slight changes of temperature from season to season. The winds are mostly moist, except one breeze peculiar to the country called kenkhron, which sometimes blows strong, violent and hot.’

21 Allen, W. E. D., A History of the Georgian People (London, 1932), pp. 282–3Google Scholar.

22 Procopius, , Wars 8Google Scholar. 3. 15ff. Castration increased a slave's value (Claudian, In Eutrop. 1. 48–9Google Scholar; cf. Amm. Marc. 16.7.5 and Hdt. 8.105 for a rationale); it seems to have been a fairly specialised business: see, with the passages cited, Verlinden, C., L'Esclavage dans I'Europe Médiévale (Ghent, 1977), ii. 130Google Scholar.

23 Hdt. 3. 97. 4.

24 Arrian, , Periplus of the Black Sea 9Google Scholar; cf. Bosworth, A. B., ‘Arrian and the Alani’, HSCPh 81 (1977), 217–55Google Scholar.

25 Arrian, , Periplus 9. 5Google Scholar.

26 , Plut.Pomp. 34. 5Google Scholar.

27 Hdt. 7. 70.

28 Garlan, , op. cit. p. 20Google Scholar; cf. in other colonial contexts, Alpers, op. cit.; Marchant, A., From Barter to Slavery (Gloucester, MA, 1942)Google Scholar; Inikori, J. E. (ed.), Forced Migration: the Impact of the Export Slave Trade on African Societies (London, 1982)Google Scholar.

29 Digest 21.1.31.21 (Ulpian); cf. 50. 15. 4. 5 (Ulpian) with Buckland, W. W., The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 58ff.Google Scholar; Finley, M. I., Aspects of Antiquity (2nd edn., London, 1977), p. 156Google Scholar supposes similar practice and legislation in classical Greece; cf. his Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), p. 171Google Scholar.

30 Varro, , LL 9. 93Google Scholar with Harris, art. cit. p. 136 n. 55.

31 , Cic.pro Plancio 62Google Scholar with Harris, art. cit. 129. Cf. Aristoph, . Knights 1030Google Scholar; Plulus 522; Plato, , Rep. 344bGoogle Scholar.

32 On the reputation of Colchians, see Airs, Waters, Places 15; Aristotle, , FHG 2, p. 180Google Scholar; Braund, D., ‘Herodotus, Slavery and the Physiognomy of the Colchians’, Symposium, Vani 1987 (Tbilisi, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

33 , Xen.Anab. 4. 8. 4–7Google Scholar. For a possible Macronian in Athens, see below n. 46.

34 Treggiari, S., Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford, 1969), p. 4Google Scholar, observes this ignorance and uncertainty: the origin of freedmen… ‘was often disputed even during their lifetime’.

35 Hdt. 2. 104–5 with n. 65 below.

36 Varro, , LL 8. 21Google Scholar. Strabo 7, p. 304 states that the Athenians tended to give their slaves names which recalled their ethnic origin or names popular among the peoples from which their slaves came. His discussion is more problematic than has often been allowed. He seems to imply that the Athenians were somehow unusual in this. Their stated practice seems to involve a notable concern for slave origin, but it does not fit the evidence as neatly as Strabo might suggest: see Masson, O., ‘Les noms des esclaves dans la Grece antique’, Actes du Colloque 1971 sur I'esclavage (Besancon, 1973), 9–23Google Scholar. Moreover, Strabo alludes to some uncertainty as to the derivation even of the name ‘Davus’.

37 Pausanias 5.21.10.

38 Strabo 11, p. 493; Migne, PG 159Google Scholar, col. 140 (wherein the Latin version is misleading). Protarchus, : SEG xxiii, no. 381Google Scholar.

39 Finley, M. I., Aspects of Antiquity (2nd edn., London, 1977), p. 165Google Scholar; cf. Atotas, , IG ii/iii2. 10051Google Scholar; Pallas, , Tac, . Ann. 12. 53Google Scholar.

40 Duckworth, G. E., The Nature of Roman Comedy (1952), pp. 253ff.Google Scholar; Chrys, Dio. Or. 15Google Scholar.

41 Polybius 4.39.11. Cf. Braund, D., ‘The Caucasian Frontier: myth, exploration and the dynamics of imperialism’, in Freeman, P. and Kennedy, D. (edd), The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East (British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, 1986), pp. 31–49Google Scholar.

42 Masson, , op. cit. (n. 36), p. 13Google Scholar; Robert, L., REG 52 (1939), 13Google Scholar, with his Noms indigénes dans I'Asie mineure gréco-romaine (Paris, 1963), pp. 535–40Google Scholar. Note also Weaver, P. R. C., ‘Cognomina ingenua: a note’, CQ 14 (1964), 311–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar with Treggiari, , op. cit. (n. 34), pp. 6ffGoogle Scholar. Older works, such as the otherwise useful Lambertz, M., Die griechischen Sklavennamen (Wien, 1907)Google Scholar, are less cautious. A salutary warning is Scythes, who was not a Scythian slave, but the tyrant first of Cos and then of Zancle at the beginning of the fifth century B.C.: Hdt. 6.23ff.; Aelian, , VH 8. 17Google Scholar; he had a Spartan namesake, , Xen.Hell. 3. 4. 20Google Scholar; , Plut.Ages. 16Google Scholar. Note also Kadeyev, V. I., ‘Ob etnicheskoy prinadlezhnosti nositelyey imeni skif v Khersonesye Tavricheskom’, SA (1974), 3. 56–63Google Scholar. Cf. the slave Karos, of Pontic birth: BGU iii. 937.9, with Straus, J. A., ‘Le pays d'origine des esclaves de l'Égypte romaine‘, Chronique d'Égypte 46 (1971), 363–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Of course, it was not uncommon for members of the elite in particular to give their offspring names which reflected their own affiliation with other states and which therefore resemble ethnics, e.g. Thuc. 1.20 (Pisistratus’ son, Thessalus), , Plut.Cimon 16Google Scholar(Cimon's son, Lacedaemonius), etc.

43 Finley, M. I., Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), p. 169Google Scholar; cf. Velkov, V., ‘Raby-Frakiytsy v antichnykh polisakh Gretsii VI–II vv.do n.e.’, VDI (1967), 4. 70–80Google Scholar.

44 ABV p. 110, no. 37; cf. Moore, M. B., Philippides, M. Z. P., von Bothmer, D., The Athenian Agora: XXIII (Princeton, 1986), p. 83 n. 92Google Scholar. It has been suggested that he was also a painter, but the suggestion is founded upon a misunderstanding of the name Oltos: Grakov, B. N., ‘Materialy po istorii Skifii v grecheskikh nadpisyakh Balkanskovo poluostrova i Maloy Azii’, VDI (1939), 3. 305 after CIG iv.8200Google Scholar; see ARV p. 60 no. 64.

45 See above, n. 6.

46 For judicious discussion, see Boardman, J., Athenian Black-Figure Vases (London, 1974), p. 12Google Scholar. At least as problematic is Macron, who worked as a painter at Athens early in the fifth century B.C. (ARV pp. 458ff.). He may have been a Macronian, as Xenophon's companion seems to have been (Anab. 4. 8. 4–7), but his name is common enough among Greeks: see Bechtel, F., Die hislorische Personennamen des Griechischen bis zur Kaiserzeit (Halle, 1917)Google Scholar, s.v. Makron, with Pape, W. and Benseler, G., Wörierbuch der griechischen Eigennamen (Braunschweig, 1884), p. 847Google Scholar.

47 Note also Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar, nos. 265 and 282 for a Kolkhidas.

48 Syll3. 580. Perhaps his family had some affiliation with Colchis: see above, n. 42, and below, n. 52.

49 See Tsetskhladze, G. R., ‘K voprosu ob etnicheskoy prinadlezhnosti nositelyey imeni kolkh v antichnom mirye’, Vestnik Kharkhovskovo Universiteta 21 (1988), p. 82Google Scholar.

50 CIRB (= KBN) nos. 230 an d 200 respectively: ‘kh’ and ‘k’ are there taken (as usual, and throughout the present article) to be largely interchangeable; so also by Zgusta, L., Die Personennamen der griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküsten (Prague, 1955), p. 392Google Scholar.

51 C1RB 1231 B.5 with Sherwin-White, S. M., Ancient Cos (Leiden, 1978), p. 360CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the difficulties of identifying the status of members of thiasoi. No less problematic is the name Kolkha, attested, quite possibly of a Greek woman, in a list of names from the island of Calymnus compiled early in the second century B.C.: Segre, M., ‘Tituli Calymnii’, ASAA n.s. 6–7 (1944–1945), no. 88 lines 57, 77, 92 and 95Google Scholar. Cf. MDAI(I) 13–14 (1963–4) p. 57, nos. 64–5.

52 IOSPE i2. 132; cf. Zgusta, loc. cit.; again, some family link with Colchis is not unlikely: see above, nn. 42 and 48.

53 See Lordkipanidze, G., op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 17ffGoogle Scholar.

54 Steph. Byz. s.v. Pantikapaion; cf. Braund, art. cit. (n. 41).

55 IG ii/iii2.9049 with Grakov, art. cit. (n. 44), p. 308 no. 110.

56 Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D. M., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1969), no. 79Google Scholar with the literature there cited; cf. Klyachko, N. B., ‘Stely Germokopidov kak istochnik svedeniy o rabakh V v.do n.e.’, VDI (1966), 3. 114–27Google Scholar. See now IG i3.421, line 44.

57 SGDI 2218.

58 Hopkins, K., Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 138–9Google Scholar stresses the inadequacy of statistical inferences from the inscriptions from Delphi, such as those made by Goldenberg, V. A., VDI (1953), 1. 200–9Google Scholar.

59 SGDI 1992 and 2163 respectively; contrast SEG xxiii, no. 381 (the slaves of Protarchus).

60 Lauffer, S., Die Bergwerkssklaven von Laureion (2nd edn., Wiesbaden, 1979), pp. 121–40, 279–81Google Scholar. Lauffer, , op. cit. p. 129Google Scholar thinks Kolianos (IG ii/iii2.2938) probably a non-Greek name. On Colchian Koli, see, for example, Hecataeus, FGrHist i, fr. 209, but the name may be explained otherwise; cf. RE xi (1922)Google Scholar, cols. 1073–8 for some other possibilities.

61 For example, Colchus, imperial slave and bath-attendant (CIL vi. 8742); Colchis, Sallustia (CIL vi. 8206)Google Scholar.

62 Alciphron, , Epp. 3. 61Google Scholar. See above on Aelian and Arrian.

63 Appian, , Mithr. 7Google Scholar; Memno n (= FGrHist 434) 231a–b. cf. Malitz, J., Die Historien des Poseidonios (Munich, 1983). pp. 357–9Google Scholar.

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65 Lloyd, A. B., Herodotus Book II, iii (Leiden, 1988), p. 20Google Scholar and, at length, Braund, art. cit. (n. 32) contra Armayor, O. K., ‘Did Herodotus Ever Go to the Black Sea?’, HSCPh 82 (1978), 45–62Google Scholar, an article which owes much to Fehling, D., Die Quellenangaben hex Herodot: Studien zur Erzahlkunst Herodots (Berlin-New York, 1971), pp. 15–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.