The Riddle of Freedom

This chapter looks at the concept of freedom and its articulation in ancient Greek texts. It shows that in the Homeric period, the terminology of slavery and freedom was used only for personal status. In the centuries that followed, these terms were appropriated and applied metaphorically to a variety of asymmetrical power relationships. However, Greeks were able to maintain clear distinctions between slavery as a legal concept and slavery as a metaphor. The chapter concludes with critiques of the methods of M. I. Finley and R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, who do not make clear distinctions between law and metaphor when analysing this terminology, and whose methods have led to convoluted analyses of aspects of Greek slavery.