2. WOMEN AND SIAVES

It is for practical convenience, not ideology, that these two elements are here grouped together. Because of the source material, there is a very large overlap between our knowledge of women and of slaves in Aitolia. That source material is very largely in the inscriptions recording manumissions. Of the 192 Aitolian women known by name, I 02 were slaves; of the rest 26 are known from their grave stelai, and only nine others are known by name from sources which are not manumissions. Further every single slave known by name is only known because of their manumission; none are recorded as acting as slaves in any other source. It is thus very difficult to disentangle these women and slaves, and to treat them as separate groups would necessitate considerable repetition.

Manumissions

From about 200 BC it became the practice in to record the man• umissions of slaves in inscriptions at temples, as part of the process whereby slaves were freed by the device of transferring their ownership to the god, who then freed them. Earlier methods of recording these manumissions included proclaiming the deed at the theatre, a somewhat disruptive method, not altogether popular with either audiences or players. In the Aitolian area there is evidence of this process at Oiniadai, where the names of owners and slaves are carved into some of the seats. 1 The process moved to the temples from about 200 and the large number of inscriptions of the free• ing which survive mean that it is well known and relatively straightfor• ward.2 The information contained in these inscriptions has been used often enough, for it provides clear data on the financial arrangements for free• ing the slaves and so of slave values, and on slave origins, amongst other things. Here, by concentrating on those manumissions concerning Aitolians, some local points of information may be discovered. The great majority of the inscriptions have been found at the temple at , not surprisingly, but considerable numbers also survive from the

1 For Oiniadai see Powell, 'Oeniadae'; a brief general survey 1s m H. Raedle, 'Freilassung von Sklaven in Theater', Revue International des Droits de l'Antiquite 18, 1971, 361-364. 1 For a recent discussion of the Delphian evidence see D. Mulliez, 'Les Actes d'affanchissement delphiques', Cahiers Glatz III, 1992, 3 I -44; Y. Garlan, Slavery in , trans J. Lloyd, Ithaca, N.Y., 1988, 73-84, R. J. Roscoe in K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Sl(Jl)es, Cambridge 1978, 133-171. All these, of course, treat of the whole records of manumissions; I am concerned here with the limited group involved with Aitolians. 36 PART ONE - STUDIES temples at Naupaktos and Bouttos, from the temple of Syrian Aphrodite at Phistyon and from that of Artemis Laphria at Kalydon. There are also occasional examples at various other places. 'Survival', of course, really means discovery and publication; there will be many more still buried, either still in the ground or hidden in museum storerooms. For the pre• sent, however, over 230 of these inscriptions concerning Aitolians are known, 138 of them from Delphi, 71 from Naupaktos and Bouttos, 18 from Phistyon, and the rest in ones and twos from Thermos, Arsinoe, Kalydon, Physkeis, Stratos, and Phaistinos. The origins of the people who participated in the manumission process is, in all the cases except those from the great temple at Delphi, and to a degree also at Phistyon, overwhelmingly local, though at Delphi the catch• ment area is wider, encompassing, in effect, all Greece. There is also some overlap, with Naupaktians going to Delphi, and a Thermian going to Phistyon. The choice of the temple was thus clearly a voluntary act, and not necessarily a function of citizenship; and it follows that a slave freed outside the owner's home city was accepted as free there as well. It is never• theless a fact that only Delphi could bring people from a considerable distance; it seems that normally the temple of choice would be that which was the closest. Kalydon, for example has only Kalydonians; Naupaktos, either at the Sarapeion at Naupaktos or the Asklepaion at Bouttos, attracted people from the city and from Bouttos overwhelmingly. But Phistyon is different. It is perhaps worth noting that there is only one of these inscnptlons found at Thermos, despite considerable excavation there, and despite good publication of the epigraphic product. The fact that one Thermian actu• ally recorded the manumission of his slave at Phistyon may indicate that the federal sanctuary at Thermos was not very friendly towards the idea of manumissions, or, more likely, it was a matter of choice. The temple at Phistyon, being one of Syrian Aphrodite (that is, Atargatis) was new, since this version of Aphrodite did not penetrate the Greek world until well after Alexander's conquests. It may have been that the priesthood publicised their services in the matter of manumissions; it may be that Aphrodite was seen as a particularly suitable recipient of a slave for the purpose of granting freedom. It is noticeable that, even though more male than female slaves are known of, the manumissions at Phistyon are overwhelmingly of women• ten compared with four men. The proportion is reversed at Naupaktos-29 men freed compared with sixteen women-whereas at the Delphi temple the numbers (of Aitolians only) are not wholly at variance: seventy women and 55 men. at Delphi was no doubt seen as the greater sanctuary, and it attracted man• umissions from a wide area, particularly from the smaller settlements with• out major shrines of their own, but also very obviously from the neighbouring city of Amphissa. Indeed manumissions at Delphi are recorded for no less than thirty different places in Aitolia, by contrast with only one at Naupaktos; Phistyon, again by contrast with Naupaktos and the other Aitolian sanctu• aries, shows manumissions from at least eight different places apart from