the paradoxical link between the Greeks’ independent streak and their ownership of slaves. The word for freedom, eleutheria, means the opposite of the word for slavery. It meant collective freedom from rule by another people, such as the Persians, but it also meant individual liberty. Even the poorest citizens of Greek states possessed precious rights as free men, eleutheroi, which they would lose if enslaved. Moreover, the fear of slavery was an ever-present reality for everybody in antiquity;
