Most of the slaves in ancient Egypt came from prisoners of war, right?

As far as the source of slaves is concerned, it can be divided into three types: buying and selling slaves, temple slaves and debt slaves.

The so-called slave trade is mainly caused by war. After the army destroyed villages and cities, residents also became slaves, and businessmen took the opportunity to sell and profit from it. At that time, Syrian and Palestinian residents were important sources of the Egyptian slave market. In 260 BC, Ptolemy II issued a decree forbidding the residents of the conquered areas to be sold as slaves, but there were still many traders who secretly traded illegally and made huge profits.

When the Greeks first arrived in Egypt, the proportion of slaves bought and sold was relatively high, mainly distributed in the areas where the Greeks lived. In fact, before this, there were Greek businessmen who bought prisoners of war slaves to handle housework or serve as business assistants. A century after Alexander entered Egypt, with a large number of Greeks entering Egypt, the sale of prisoners of war slaves was once active, which led to the obvious prosperity of slavery in Greek residential areas.

Most of the slaves bought were domestic slaves, in addition to chefs, masseurs, janitors, harpists, coaches, business agents and so on. The Greeks and Romans initially regarded them as slaves, which can be seen from the names they gave slaves: they called slaves similar to "children" or "boys" instead of treating them as inferior or improper people. The daily life of slaves is described in Diocletian's pastoral poems, Herondas' comedies and Zhi Nuo's record of managing Apollo Ninos' real estate in the capital.

It is worth mentioning that there is a slave named "Onisi Moss" in Zhi Nuo's file. He is the business agent of his master. But this word has the same meaning as "chrestos", which was pronounced the same as "chrestos" (meaning "anointed" and "savior") at that time. It happened that Jesus was martyred on the cross (often used to punish slaves in ancient times), so some ancient writers thought that Jesus was also a slave.

Slave trade appeared in various handicraft workshops, but the number was very small. Even in the Greek residential areas in the third century BC, the number of slaves did not exceed 10% of the local population. However, there is an important law in Rome, which stipulates that slaves of Roman citizens will naturally obtain Roman citizenship after being released, and this privilege is difficult for citizens of other allied cities to obtain.

The rule of Ptolemy dynasty marked the beginning of Hellenism. After the third century BC, with the implementation of Ptolemy II's decree and the suspension of large-scale Greek immigration, the activities of buying and selling slaves gradually became silent. Due to the Ptolemy government's high-pressure tax policy, more and more Egyptian freemen were forced to take refuge in temples and become temple slaves or debt slaves of the state. During the Greek conquest of Egypt, the temple maintained a strong economic power with its special status, thus providing political asylum and economic tax exemption privileges for people who came to take refuge. But they asked people to pay the asylum fee, and they also asked people to sign contracts, claiming to voluntarily provide various services for the temple, that is, to be slaves of the temple.

Temple slave owners mainly engaged in agriculture and various handicrafts in temples; Debt slaves mainly serve the government for all kinds of labor, and sometimes they also engage in agricultural labor. Because of the fuzziness of the subject, we can't know the exact number and proportion of temple slaves and debt slaves, and we don't know their legal status, let alone the information about agricultural slaves in the big manor, but one thing is certain: more and more Egyptian freemen have become slaves.

Nevertheless, the living conditions of slaves during this period were not tragic. During the Ptolemy dynasty, many of the hardest and lowest-paid jobs were undertaken by farmers, not slaves. According to Zhi Nuo's literature, Zhi Nuo himself, his family and several prominent slaves were given white bread to eat, while ordinary craftsmen could only eat black bread. The nobles and slaves in the court will get more promotion opportunities than the small workshop owners, and their living conditions will be relatively better. Female slaves in knitting workshops can also sell their own products.

During this period, the status of slaves was very vague. Debt slaves only lost their personal freedom during their service to the country, but they were not lifelong slaves. The contract signed by temple slaves does not strictly stipulate that their children should also be slaves, and all kinds of slaves can be free through redemption and adoption. Slaves can be redeemed and have the opportunity to leave their masters, but slaves can't choose to escape. Escaped slaves will become the goal of the whole society, and there is no way out, which can be said to be a dead end. Slaves are also called "inescapable slaves".

In order to help people identify runaway slaves, the master will put iron rings on them as a sign. There will also be short inscriptions on the iron ring, which are nothing more than "arrest me", "I am a fugitive" and "take me back to my master", as well as the name and address of the master. Witnesses or captors will be paid by their owners. A slave with special skills is his master's great wealth, which is worth looking for all over the country and even using the official government's funding. Bonuses are the best way to encourage people to help their masters catch runaway slaves. Generally speaking, catching a slave can get a bonus equivalent to a craftsman's ten months. Therefore, once slaves embark on the road of pursuing freedom and light, they will become the object of social search. Before the arrival of the Greeks, the number of slaves in Egypt was very small, mainly engaged in some chores, which were not widely used in industrial and handicraft production. These workers are mainly workers recruited by the state. The vague status of slaves between "man" and "thing" in Hellenistic period shows that Ptolemy dynasty not only did not weaken the original economic system of Egypt, but was assimilated by local civilization. The history of the conqueror is also the history of the conquered. The Ptolemaic dynasty was "Hellenistic" from top to bottom, but it also inevitably accepted "Egyptization" from bottom to top.