ACTA ANTIQUA TOMUS 22 (A MTA KLASSZIKA-FILOLÓGIAI KÖZLEMÉNYEI, 1974)

1974 / 1-4. sz. - I. M. DIAKONOFF: Slaves, Helots and Serfs in Early Antiquity

SLAVES, HELOTS AND SERFS IN EARLY ANTIQUITY 53 Gelb calls them «slaves» and «serfs». The terms are conceived in the legal sense, i.e. «slaves» are people who are only objects but not subjects of rights (some legal survivals apart) and are the property of other persons or bodies, (e.g. the state). The definition of the term «serf» is more complicated. In English this term usually20 corresponds to what in Soviet scholarship is called a feudally dependent peasant. However, Gelb includes in his definition of the Ancient Oriental «serf» the feature of his being «bound to the soil» (glebae adscriptus). Thus, in our case Gelb does not oppose to the term «slave» just any feudally dependent peasant, but specifically the «villein», or «bondman» (Leibeigener) and this has to be kept in mind when he uses the term «serf». In order to understand the following, one must bear in mind that the terms «slaves» and «serfs» have in the terminology of the historico-materialistic school a double sense. One is legal only, and coincides with the usage of the western schools of historians, namely, in this sense hv the word «slave» is understood a person who is an object but not a subject of rights, and is the property of another person or body. By a serf (glebae adscriptus) is understood according to Gelb's definition (which we also will use below) a person deprived of the right of free movement by being bound to the soil, who is in a relation of personal dependence upon his lord and master and is obliged to hand over to him a certain part of the produce. It is clear that in this definition the «slave» and the «serf» are not really opposed,21 since one can imagine the features of the «slave» and the «serf» to be united in one and the same person. It is actually possible that a person who is an object but notasubject of rights, is at the same time bound to the soil, or that a person is the property of another person (this being only one of the possible types of personal dependence), but is obliged to give to his lord not the whole of the produce (from which his lord would then give him his ration) but only part of it, retaining the remaining part in lieu of his ration. At the same time, the terms «slave» and (less frequently) «serf» are also used by historians of the historico-materialistic school in another sense. The historians of this school, approaching the question not from the legal but from the economic point of view, are of the opinion that most characteristic of the ancient societies is the exploitation of direct producers of material wealth devoid of all property in means of production and exploited by extra-economic means, and that equally characteristic of the medieval societies is the exploitation by the same means of the direct producers of material wealth not devoid of all property in means of production. 20 Cf. e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1072, s.v. 21 Although in the «Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State» F. ENGELS calls the helots serfs, he remarks that they were not household slaves, not that they were not slaves in general. In fact, there is no contradiction here. See K. MARX and F. ENGELS: Works of, 1st Ruse, ed., vol. 20, p. 06 and letters of ENGELS to MARX of December 1882.

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