That is mostly true in the ancient world. As Lisa Henry
pointed out, Roman slaves were chattel. Meaning they were property, an item to
be owned, not quite human any more.
Things in Sparta were a bit different. Did I hear someone sigh
and mutter, "Of course"?
I did warn you, even the other Greeks thought the Spartans were
weird. But don't say it to their faces. The biggest badasses on the block can
be as weird as they want to be.
So Spartan slaves. They more or less were owned by the polis (city-state) of Sparta and were
comprised of the previous landowners. When the Dorian tribe that later became
known as the Spartans invaded Lacedaemonia, they enslaved the previous inhabitants.
This new class of slaves, called helots, was unprecedented
in the rest of the world. First they couldn't be bought or sold at the whim of
their "master" because they didn't really have a master. Helots
belonged collectively to the state not unlike mediaeval serfs.
Most were assigned to a plot of land (klēros). They were expected to give a set portion of the bounty of
their fields to the Spartiate (Spartan
citizen, i.e. adult male) the land was allotted to. Almost as if the land
provided everything the Spartan needed, including the wherewithal to tend
itself.
As long as their quotas were met, they were given an amazing
amount of leeway in their lives.
Secondly, Helots were allowed to marry as they chose and
raised their children with little to no fear they could be sold at any time, unlike
chattel slaves. Some of the agrarian helots found themselves performing more
traditional roles in Spartiate
households. But even there they were not subject to some of the harsher
realities of slavery.
But it wasn't all sunshine and roses.
One of the few things the Spartans worried about was a helot
revolt. Helots vastly outnumbered the dwindling Spartan population. So in an
effort to keep the helots subdued and "cut off the head of the
snake", every autumn, the ephors
declared war on the helots. This meant that a Spartan could kill any helot
without risk of bloodguilt/ritual pollution.
This usually translated into some of the more promising
young warriors in training being sent into the countryside with just a knife
and the clothing on their back. The youths (18-19 years old) known as kryptes were expected to use stealth to
steal what they needed to survive, spy on the helots and stalk their prey.
Any helot caught outside after dark was killed, as were any
helots who were respected enough to be considered possible leaders for a
revolt. The young men also targeted the best and the strongest as a way to show
off their training.
Through terrorization, some but not all revolts were kept in
check.
So the helots had in some ways the best life a slave
could hope for in the ancient world, but it came at an equally terrible price.
