The slave state: education, forms, system

The Slavery Institute was the basis of the economy of antiquity and antiquity. Forced labor has produced benefits for many hundreds of years. Egypt, the cities of Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome - slavery was an important part of all these civilizations. At the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages, feudalism replaced him.

Education

Historically, the slave-owning state turned out to be the first kind of state formed after the disintegration of the primitive communal system. The society disintegrated into classes, the rich and the poor appeared. Because of this contradiction, the institution of slavery arose. It was based on servitude on the master and was the foundation of the then government.

The first slave states emerged at the turn of the fourth - third millennium BC. These include the Egyptian kingdom, Assyria, as well as the cities of the Sumerians in the Euphrates and Tigris valley. In the second millennium BC similar formations were formed in China and India. Finally, the first slave states included the kingdom of the Hittites.

Types and forms

Modern historians divide the ancient slave states into several types and forms. The first type is oriental despotism. Their important feature was the preservation of some features of the former primitive community. Patriarchal slavery remained primitive - a slave was allowed to have his family and property. In later antiquities, this feature has already disappeared. In addition to the private possession of slaves, there was collective slavery, when slaves belonged to the state or temples.

Human labor was used mainly in agriculture. Eastern despotism was formed in river valleys, but even so, they had to improve agriculture through the construction of complex irrigation systems. In this regard, the slaves worked in the team. With this feature of the eastern despotism, the existence of the then agricultural communities was connected.

Later ancient slave-owning states formed the second type of such countries - Greco-Roman. He was distinguished by improved production and complete abandonment of primitive remnants. The forms of exploitation have developed, the merciless suppression of the masses and the violence against them has reached its peak. The collective ownership was replaced by the private property of individual slaveholders. Social inequality has become sharp, as well as the rule and lawlessness of the opposite classes.

The Greco-Roman slave state existed according to the principle that slaves were recognized as things and producers of material goods for their masters. They did not sell their work, they themselves were sold to their masters. Antique documents and works of art vividly testify to this state of affairs. The slave-owning type of state assumed that the destiny of a slave in its significance is equal to the fate of animals or products.

People became slaves for various reasons. In ancient Rome slaves were declared prisoners of war and civilians captured during the campaigns. Also, a person lost his will if he could not pay off debtors on borrowers. This practice was especially widespread in India. Finally, the slave state could make the slave a criminal.

Slaves and semi-free

Operators and exploited were the basis of the ancient society. But apart from them, there were also external classes of semi-free and free citizens. In Babylon, China and India, such were artisans and peasant communes. In Athens, there was a class of metekis - the Hellenes who had settled in the country were strangers. Also they were considered slaves released to freedom. Similar was the class of Peregrins, which existed in the Roman Empire. So called free people without Roman citizenship. Another controversial class of Roman society was considered to be peasants - peasants who were attached to leased plots and in many ways resembled the enslaved peasants during the period of medieval feudalism.

Regardless of the form of the slave state, small landowners and artisans lived in constant danger of ruin by moneylenders and large owners. Free workers were unprofitable for employers, as their labor remained too expensive compared to the labor of a slave. If peasants broke away from the land, they sooner or later replenished the ranks of lumpens, especially those large in Athens and Rome.

The slave-owning state, by inertia, suppressed and infringed upon their rights together with the rights of full-fledged slaves. Thus, the colonies and the Peregrines did not fall under the full effect of Roman law. The peasants could sell together with the plot to which they were attached. Not being slaves, they could not be considered free.

Functions

A complete description of the slave state can not do without a reference to its external and internal functions. The activity of power was determined by its social content, tasks, goals and the desire to preserve the old order. Creation of all necessary conditions for the use of slave labor and ruined free people is the primary internal function performed by the slave state. Countries with such a device differed in the system of satisfying the interests of the ruling social class of the aristocracy, large landowners, etc.

This principle was particularly evident in ancient Egypt. In the eastern kingdom, the government completely controlled the economy and organized public works, in which significant people were involved. Similar projects and "construction projects of the century" were necessary for the construction of canals and other infrastructure that improved the economy that operated in unfavorable natural conditions.

Like any other system of the state, the slave system could not exist without ensuring its own security. Therefore, power in such ancient countries did everything to suppress the protest of slaves and other oppressed masses. This protection also included the protection of private slaveholding property. The need for it was obvious. For example, in Rome the uprisings of the lower strata occurred regularly, and the uprising of Spartacus in the 74-71's. BC. E. And at all it became legendary.

Suppression Tools

The slave-owning type of state has always used such tools as the courts, the army and prisons for repression against the disaffected. In Sparta, the practice of periodic demonstrative mass killings of people in public ownership was adopted. Such punitive acts were called cryptias. In Rome, if a slave killed his master, the authorities punished not only the murderer, but all slaves who lived with him under the same roof. Such traditions engendered a mutual responsibility and collective responsibility.

The slave state, the feudal state and other states of the past also tried to influence the population through religion. The enslavement and the lack of rights were proclaimed by God-pleasing orders. Many slaves did not know the free life at all, as they were in the possession of the gentleman from birth, and so they could hardly imagine freedom. The pagan religions of antiquity, ideologically defending exploitation, helped the servants to strengthen their awareness of the normality of their situation.

In addition to internal functions, the exploitative power had functions and external. The development of the slave state meant regular wars with neighbors, the conquest and enslavement of new masses, the defense of their possessions from external threats, the creation of a system for the effective management of the seized lands. It should be understood that these external functions were in close connection with internal functions. They were reinforced and complemented each other.

Protection of the established order

To perform internal and external functions, there was a broad state apparatus. At an early stage in the evolution of the institutions of the slave system, this mechanism was characterized by undeveloped and simple. Gradually, he grew stronger and grew. That is why the administrative machine of the Sumerian cities can not be compared with the apparatus of the Roman Empire.

The armed formations were especially strengthened. In addition, the judicial system was expanding. Institutes were superimposed on each other. For example, in Athens in the VV centuries. BC. E. The management of the policy was carried out by the Boulle - the Council of Five Hundred. With the development of the state system, elected officials were added to it, in charge of which were military affairs. They were the Hipparchus and the strategists. Individual functions were also responsible for management functions - arhpts. The court and the departments connected with religious cults became independent. The formation of slave states evolved roughly along the same path-the complication of the administrative apparatus. Officials and military might not be directly related to slavery, but their activities somehow protected the established political system and its stability.

The class of people caught in the civil service was formed only according to class considerations. Higher posts could only occupy the nobility. Representatives of other social strata at best were on the lower steps of the state apparatus. For example, in Athens, slaves were formed from slaves, performing police functions.

The priests played an important role. Their status, as a rule, was fixed in the legislation, and their influence was significant in many ancient powers - Egypt, Babylon, Rome. They influenced the behavior and minds of the masses. Servants of the churches deified the government, planted the personality cult of the next king. Their ideological work with the population greatly strengthened the structure of the state, such as the slave-owning state. The rights of the priests were extensive - they occupied a privileged position in society and enjoyed universal respect, instilling awe to those around them. Religious rituals and customs were considered sacred, which gave worshipers the inviolability of property and personality.

Political order and laws

All the ancient slave states, including the first slave-owning states on the territory of Russia (the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast), established the established order with the help of laws. They recorded the class character of the society of that time. Bright examples of such laws are the Athenian laws of Solon and the Roman laws of Servius Thulium. They established property inequality as a norm and divided society into strata. For example, in India such cells were called castes and varnas.

While the slaveholding states on the territory of our country have not left their own legislative acts, historians of the whole world are studying antiquity according to the Babylonian laws of Hammurabi or the "Book of Laws" of Ancient China. His document of this type has developed in India. In the II century BC. There appeared the laws of Manu. They divided the slaves into seven categories: those who were given, bought, inherited, become slaves as punishment, captured in the war, slaves for maintenance and slaves born in the owner's house. What they had in common was that all these people were completely disenfranchised, and their fate depended entirely on the mercy of the master.

Similar orders were fixed in the laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, compiled in the 18th century BC. E. In this vault it was said that if the slave refused to serve the master or contradicted him, he should have cut off his ear. Helping a slave in her escape was punished with death (this involved even free people).

Whatever the unique documents of Babylon, India or other ancient states, the most perfect laws are rightly considered to be the laws of Rome. Under their influence, the codes of many other countries belonging to Western culture were formed. Roman law, which became Byzantine, influenced the slave states in Russia, including Kievan Rus.

In the Empire of the Romans, the institutions of inheritance, private property, pledge, loan, storage, purchase and sale were developed to perfection. The object in such legal relationships could be slaves, as they were treated only as goods or property. The source of these laws were the Roman customs, originated in ancient times, when there was no empire or kingdom, and there was only a primitive community. Based on the traditions of past generations, lawyers much later and formed the legal system of the main state of antiquity.

It was believed that the Roman laws are valid, since they were "decreed and approved by the Roman people" (this concept did not include the plebs and the poor). These norms controlled slave-owning relations for several centuries. Important legal acts were the edicts of magistrates, which were issued immediately after assuming the office of another major official.

The exploitation of slaves

Slaves were used not only for agrarian work in the village, but also for servicing the master's house. The slaves guarded the estates, maintained order in them, cooked in the kitchen, served at the table, bought provisions. They could perform the duties of escorts, following their master on walks, work, hunting, and everywhere he was dealt with. Having acquired due respect for their honesty and intelligence, the slave received a chance to become the tutor of the owner's children. The most approximate servants conducted working affairs or were appointed by supervisors for new slaves.

Heavy physical work was entrusted to slaves for the reason that the elites were occupied with the protection of the state and its expansion towards its neighbors. Such orders proved to be especially characteristic of aristocratic republics. In the trading powers or in the colonies, where the sale of rare resources was flourishing, the enslavers were engaged in profitable commercial transactions. Consequently, agricultural work was delegated to slaves. Such a distribution of powers has developed, for example, in Corinth.

Athens, on the contrary, preserved their patriarchal agricultural customs for a long time. Even under Pericles, when this policy reached its political heyday, free citizens preferred to live in the countryside. Such habits persisted for a long time, even despite the enrichment of the city with trade and its adornment with unique works of art.

The slaves in the ownership of the cities carried out works on their improvement. Some of them were engaged in the protection of law and order. For example, in Athens contained a body of thousands of Scythian marksmen, performing the functions of the police. Many slaves served in the army and the navy. Some of them were sent to the service of the state by private owners. Such slaves became sailors, took care of ships and equipment. In the army, the slaves were mostly workers. Soldiers did them only with direct danger to the state. In Greece, such situations developed during the Persian wars or at the end of the struggle against the advancing Romans.

The Right of War

In Rome, slave shots were replenished mainly from outside. For this purpose, the so-called right of war operated in the republic, and then in the empire. The enemy, taken prisoner, was deprived of any civil rights. He was outlawed and ceased to be considered a person in the full sense of the word. The prisoner's marriage was dissolved, his inheritance turned out to be open.

Many of the enslaved foreigners were killed after the celebration of triumph. The slaves could be compelled to take part in the battles that were entertaining for the Roman soldiers, when two strangers had to kill each other in order to survive. After the capture of Sicily, decimation was applied on it. Every tenth man was killed - thus the population of the captured island overnight fell by a tenth. Spain and Cisalpine Gaul at first often rebelled against the Roman authorities. Thus, these provinces became the main suppliers of slaves for the republic.

During his famous war in Gaul, Caesar sold at auction 53 thousand new slaves from among the barbarians. Sources such as Appian and Plutarch mentioned in their works even larger figures. For any slave state, the problem was not even the capture of slaves, but their retention. For example, the inhabitants of Sardinia and Spain became famous for their disobedience, because of what men from these countries Roman aristocrats tried to sell, and not to keep as their own servants. When the republic became an empire, and its interests embraced the whole of the Mediterranean, eastern countries became the suppliers of slaves instead of western ones, because slavery traditions were considered the norm for many generations.

The End of the Slave-owning States

The Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century AD. E. It was the last classical antique state, uniting almost the entire ancient world around the Mediterranean Sea. From it remained a huge eastern fragment, which later became known as Byzantium. In the west formed the so-called barbarian kingdoms, which were the prototypes of European national countries.

All these states gradually moved into a new historical era - the Middle Ages. Their legal basis was feudal relations. They drove out the institution of classical slavery. The dependence of the peasants on the wealthier nobility was preserved, but it took other forms, which were markedly different from the ancient slavery.