From apeleutheroi to exeleutheroi in classical Athens

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the difference between apeleutheroi and exeleutheroi, both freedmen for whom laws were enacted in classical Athens, according to Demosthenes. It seems that the former were freedmen with obligations, whereas the latter were «wholly free», the distinction between the two being the existence of a «debt owed by them for the cost of their manumission» to be paid in cash and/or to be worked off. In classical Athens, the transition from one status to the other seems to have been routinely effectuated through a judicial procedure known as the dike apostasiou. This procedure was probably linked to the Kynosarges, the gymnasium and sanctuary of Herakles. At the end of the 5th century BC, the end of the ‘path’ to complete freedom would have been the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios in the agora (built by exeleutheroi between 430 and 420 BC), whereas in the following century, at the time of Lycurgus, it appears to have been the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis, as evidenced by the phialai exeleutherikai.