Search

3 results

Chapter 3 - Being a Slave
Sara Forsdyke, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Book:

Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greece

Published online:

08 June 2021

Print publication:

10 June 2021, pp 102-160
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

This chapter examines the experiences of slaves in various sectors of the economy, including agriculture, manufacturing, mining and domestic labor, as well as banking, commerce and the state bureaucracy.

4 - Labour Specialization in the Athenian Economy: Occupational Hazards
from Part II - Specialization and the Division of Labour in the Ancient City
- By David M. Lewis
Edited by Edmund Stewart, University of Nottingham, Edward Harris, University of Durham, David Lewis, University of Edinburgh
Book:

Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient Greece and Rome

Published online:

18 September 2020

Print publication:

03 September 2020, pp 129-174
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

This chapter aims to establish a lower limit to the possible extent of horizontal specialization in the economy of classical Athens; in other words, the minimum plausible number of specialized jobs to do with production, exchange, and services. This exercise shows that even with a mindset sceptical to the idea of specialization, there cannot realistically have been fewer than 162 specialized full-time occupations in classical Attica. This demonstrates the complexity and dynamism of the classical Athenian economy.

12 - The formation of states and transitions to modern economies:
- By Patrick Karl O’Brien
Edited by Larry Neal, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University, Massachusetts
Book:

The Cambridge History of Capitalism

Published online:

05 March 2014

Print publication:

23 January 2014, pp 357-402
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

This chapter explores whether capitalism existed in ancient Greek between circa 800 BCE and the Common Era. Reintegrating the economies of the past, those of Babylon or those of classical antiquity, into the debate on capitalism presents a series of advantages. It is sufficient to justify the place of ancient Greece in a world history of capitalism, both for the comparative evidence it provides for later and more elaborate economic developments. Although figures or evaluation will be constantly an object of debate, the reality of growth is beyond doubt, and this totally changes the picture of a stagnant society of the old paradigm. Archaeological evidence points not only to population growth but also to growth of per capita production and consumption. By massively increasing the aggregate input of labor, slavery was one of the basic factors of accelerated economic growth in the classical and Hellenistic world.