Andrew Schulz

So a regular free Athenian male...

would wake up and would tell his slaves, and maybe the word slave didn't actually exist.

It's a different, it's a Greek word.

But essentially, you just had your workmen, but they were obligated by the very institution itself to work for you, right?

And maybe they can be punished or killed if they didn't, or they tried to escape.

But, but they would work for you.

They tend your, to your, to your fields.

They would harvest your crops like on the outside of the city walls, or they may take care of like official business that your family has been involved in.

Your job was to go up to the Acropolis and participate in politics.

And that was, that was literally your job was to be a politician and to be actively involved in the way that the city itself is being run and give your opinion and give your thoughts and go to war when the time came.

So you would need to buy your own armor.

You need to have it smithed out.

You need to make your own swords and shields and everything.

And so you were obligated.

I don't believe that the slaves were ever obligated to actually bear arms and go to war.

You were a political man.

It was your job to be invested in what was actually good for the city itself and then defend the city.

Yeah, absolutely.

That gets a little bit more complicated.

We only catch glimpses of that from primary sources.