Hesiod: Works and Days, c. 750 BC. First of all, get yourself a house, a wife and an ox for the plow, a slave and not a wife, to follow the oxen also, and prepare everything at home, so that you do not have to do it. ask another, and he refuses you, and so, because you are in want, the season passes and your work comes to nothing. Strabo: Geography around 550 BCE And the temple of Aphrodite [in Corinth] was so rich that it had more than a thousand temples, slaves, prostitutes, which free men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And it is also because of these temple prostitutes that the city fills with people and becomes rich; for example, the captains of the ships freely squandered their money, hence the proverb: "The trip to Corinth is not for everyone." » Antiphon: On the Choreutes, c. 430 BC The compulsion of the law is so powerful that even if a man kills one who is his own property [i.e. his slave] and who has no one to avenge him, his fear of ordinances of God and man leads him to purify himself. himself and refrain from places prescribed by law, in the hope that by doing so he will best avoid disaster. Demosthenes: Against Timocrates. c. 350 BCE If you, gentlemen of the jury, consider the question of what is the difference between being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the greatest difference is that the body of a slave is made responsible for All. his misdeeds, while corporal punishment is the last punishment to inflict on a free man. Aristotle: Politics --- Of slavery, c. 330 BC Let us first speak of master and slave, turning to the needs of practical life and also seeking to arrive at a better theory of their relationship than that which now exists. Property is part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is part of the art of managing the household; for no man can live well, or even live at all, if he does not have the necessaries. Thus, in the organization of the family, a slave is a living possession, and the property of such instruments; and the slave is himself an instrument which takes precedence over all other instruments. The master is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only his master's slave, but belongs entirely to him.