Slavery in ancient Greece in the context of "Thessaly"

During the Classical era and Hellenistic era of Classical Antiquity, many Hellenic city-states had adopted democratic forms of government, in which free (non-slave), native (non-foreigner) adult male citizens of the city took a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, such as declaring war, voting supplies, dispatching diplomatic missions and ratifying treaties. These activities were often handled by a form of direct democracy, based on a popular assembly. Others, of judicial and official nature, were often handled by large juries, drawn from the citizen body in a process known as sortition.

By far the most well-documented and studied example is the Athenian democracy in Athens. However, there are documented examples of at least fifty-two Greek city-states including Corinth, Megara, and Syracuse that also had democratic regimes during part of their history. According to Ober (2015), the proportion of Greek city-states with democratic regimes gradually increased from the mid 6th century BC to the end of the 4th century BC, when perhaps half of the one-thousand Greek city-states in existence at the time had democratic regimes.

Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

The fables were part of oral tradition and were not collected until about three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe. The process is continuous and new stories are still being added to the Aesop corpus, even when they are demonstrably more recent work and sometimes from known authors.

Demosioi or Demosii (Ancient Greek: δημόσιοι, singular Demosios) generally referred to a class of public slaves in the system of slavery in ancient Greece at Athens, who were bought and owned by the state itself. They may in some cases have been privately owned slaves leased to the state. Their legal status in the Athenian state was complicated.

Demosios was a word that meant "public" or "of the state", but when used in the plural generally referred to this social class of public slaves. However the word had other applications. Some priesthoods were referred to as demosioi, presumably not because they were slaves, but on account of some state relationship. The word could also be used -- as in the phrase demosioi aethloi -- to refer to the various athletic games sponsored by the state.

Seisachtheia (Greek: σεισάχθεια, from σείειν seiein, to shake, and ἄχθος achthos, burden, i.e. the relief of burdens) was a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BCE, by debt relief.

Andromache (Ancient Greek: Ἀνδρομάχη) is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides. It dramatises Andromache's life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, and her conflict with her master's new wife, Hermione. The date of its first performance is unknown. Some scholars place the date sometime between 428 and 425 BC. Müller places it between 420 and 417 BC. A Byzantine scholion to the play suggests that its first production was staged outside Athens, though modern scholarship regards this claim as dubious.

Epictetus (/ˌɛpɪkˈtiːtəs/, EH-pick-TEE-təss; Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκτητος, Epíktētos; c. 50 – c. 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, after which he spent the rest of his life in Nicopolis in northwestern Greece.

Epictetus studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus and after manumission, his formal emancipation from slavery, he began to teach philosophy. When philosophers were banished from Rome by Emperor Domitian toward the end of the first century, Epictetus founded a school of philosophy in Nicopolis. He taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, he held that individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion. They influenced many later thinkers, including Marcus Aurelius, Pascal, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rabelais, and Samuel Johnson.

In Greek mythology, Eumaeus (/juːˈmiːəs/; Ancient Greek: Εὔμαιος Eumaios meaning 'searching well') was Odysseus' doulos, swineherd, and friend. His father, Ctesius, son of Ormenus, was king of an island called Syra (present-day Syros in the Greek islands of the Cyclades).

The Temple of Poseidon at Tainaron was an Ancient Greek temple and sanctuary of the god Poseidon. It was situated at the tip of the Mani Peninsula, on the Peloponnese in southern Greece. It was dedicated to the god in the form of his cultic epithet "Poseidon Asphaleius", meaning "Poseidon of Safety". The official name of the god of the sanctuary as attested by literature and inscriptions is "Poseidon at Tainaron". Tainaron was a center for the recruitment of mercenaries and the sanctuary may have been considered an asylum for runaway Greek slaves.

The area was called "Tainaron" or "Tainarios" by the ancient Greeks; the proper modern name of the landform is Cape Matapan although variations of its ancient name are used frequently. The site is the southernmost extent of mainland Greece and the second-southernmost point in mainland Europe.