Slavery in ancient Greece

The helots (; , heílotes) were a subjugated group that constituted a majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories ruled by Sparta in Ancient Greece. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact characteristics, such as whether they constituted an Ancient Greek tribe, a social class, or both. For example, Critias described helots as "slaves to the utmost", whereas according to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and slaves". Tied to the land, they primarily worked in agriculture as a majority and economically supported the Spartan citizens.

History of slavery in ancient Greece

ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides

thumb|Letter where one can read that the slave Geraldo will be free with the condition of working for another 6 years (Brazil). Arquivo Público do Estado de São Paulo|Arquivo Público do Estado de São Paulo|APESP Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing slaves by their owners. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that the most widely used term is gratuitous manumission, "the conferment of freedom on the enslaved by enslavers before the end of the slave system".

The penestai or penestae (Greek: oἱ πενέσται, hoi penéstai) were a class of unfree labourers in Thessaly, Ancient Greece. These labourers were tied to the land they inhabited, comparable in status with the Spartan helots.

Seisachtheia (, 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.

The neodamodes (, neodamōdeis) were helots freed after passing a time of service as hoplites in the Spartan army.

attempted coup in ancient Sparta

5th/4th-century BC Corinthian madam

slave who worked, and often lived, in the house of the slave-owner