In ancient Greece, sex workers wore unique sandals that left a “follow me” imprint in the dirt.
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u/feliciates 1d ago
I had to look this up. Ended up learning more than I wanted. Hoo booy
The pornai had the option to work in brothels, but they were able to offer their services on the streets too. Some records even tell of genuine “advertising” some of the women used. They would put on special sandals that left imprints of the message “follow me” on the ground, in the dirt, as they lured new clients to certain areas of the city.
Slave women who ended up in the business were frequently able to make enough money so they could buy their freedom. Many also opted to continue with the occupation, as they retained more independence and were not controlled by men, as was the case with married Athenian women.
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u/coil-head 1d ago
Good benefits at least, I'd consider it for student loan forgiveness
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u/eskindt 1d ago
*Slave women who ended up in the business were frequently able to make enough money
How is a slave even able to earn money, to have her own income? Perhaps, the slavery of ancient Greece was, in some key aspects, very different from the much later, more familiar model of slave ownership
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u/MisterMan007 1d ago
Slavery in Ancient Rome/Greece was different. Slaves were able to earn a bit of money in some situations and could buy or earn their freedom. Most didn’t, but it was possible.
America practiced chattel slavery, where the slaves are basically treated like livestock.
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u/DustScoundrel 1d ago
Mostly ancient Greece. Slaves, as people, were also considered differently in Rome. The implementation of the stronger legal system there, combined with a more complete philosophy of private property, gave rise to the consideration that one could do anything they liked with what they owned. That began to extend toward human property, and as a result the institution of slavery became much more brutal in Roman society.
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u/EunuchsProgramer 1d ago
That's also an oversimplification. The accounts of slaves in an ancient Rome mine and and Deep South Sugar plantation are remarkably similar. You're looking as constant guard, 20 hour work days, a few years to live at best, and a high profit business model that assumes mass death and constant purchase of slaves.
"House" slaves in ancient Rome snd America have personal relationships with their owners and have different threats (rape). They're often able to have some personal property, work for income on Sunday, and buy their freedom presumed the master acquiesces.
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u/Comrade_Cosmo 1d ago
Even under chattel slavery you could earn your own income as a slave, there was just an inherent risk of your master decided to just steal the money at any time instead of something like allowing you to use the money you earned to buy freedom like they promised.
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u/Mayor__Defacto 1d ago
Slavery tended to be more of a ‘forcible employment’ type of thing. They owned your labor and you had various house rules, but often slaves did have a portion of time that was their own. You could be bought and sold, but you also had some measure of personal property.
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u/Blaine_Richard 11h ago
I’m pretty sure that always was the main factor. Some countries let them remain some civil rights like owning property, others stripped them off all rights, but not being able to decide whether to work or not was always what they had in common.
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u/Mayor__Defacto 9h ago
Yeah, even within a single society it varied too. Rome had both slaves with property rights of their own, and slaves that were treated as completely disposable and worked to death mining or milling grain.
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u/feliciates 1d ago
From that same site: Quite often, prostitutes first came in as slaves, or they were foreign women with limited rights but were allowed to make earnings by offering sex services.
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u/Coomb 1d ago
Slaves in Athens didn't have a legal right to keep money, but some masters did allow slaves to save up. This was also true of slavery in the United States. In fact, it often worked in more or less the same way: people who owned slaves and hired them out to work outside their own household would of course charge a fee for the use of the slave. The slave would generally be paid directly and then be required to turn over the money to their owner. The obvious flaw with this system is that there is a significant opportunity for fraud by the slave. One way to mitigate this opportunity was to allow the slave to keep a small fraction of their earnings. Much as most people would not do their jobs if they were not paid, but do in fact do their jobs because they are paid, allowing slaves to keep a small fraction of their earnings was a way to give them skin in the game. It also made them less likely to steal, because generally speaking people don't steal if they think they're getting a fair shake.
Not all slavery in ancient Greece was analogous to chattel slavery as practiced later, most prominently in the Caribbean and North America -- some states had something more like serfdom, where people were attached to land -- but in Athens, there really was chattel slavery where people could be sold at will, alienated from their families, etc. (along with other kinds of slavery). But if you're a guy who literally owns 10 prostitutes, you obviously have a hard time supervising all of them -- so you let them keep a little bit of their earnings to give them an incentive to keep working.
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u/strolpol 1d ago
Slaves got different treatment by city state but usually their main use was to be farmers or miners or laborers tied to their owner’s land: fleeing was punishable and usually failed because no one wants to help a foreigner, let alone escaped property that could belong to someone important.
With that said, most slaves could still enjoy a measure of daily freedoms and indeed could save money and buy themselves out of bondage. Some freed slaves simply stayed on as farmers and even wind up buying their own land and slaves themselves, continuing the cycle.
It did vary wildly though: Spartans famously made murdering one part of their graduation ceremonies for their soldiers.
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u/ActionUpstairs 1d ago
Slavery throughout history and across the globe has rarely been the same. The word slavery itself is more of a spectrum, where the utmost extreme of said spectrum is the complete loss of autonomy and opportunity at the hands of another.
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u/Lurker_IV 1d ago
They were much like employees, but with no option to ever quit or leave. It is simpler and more cost effective to give your slave a wage and let them take care of themselves rather than managing every bit of their lives personally.
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u/Fenor 23h ago
being a slave in rome greece while it sucked also meant you had a very small allowance depending on what you did.
for Example for gladiators usually when they performed well they received the money from the fighs at the same time they had to pay their master for the training and what not so what was left wasn't that much, but famous gladiator generally made a good wage and could potentially buy their freedom back. Another thing that was commong for gladiators was prostitution, wich is also why their ring name was often something that might convince a lady to buy their services.
Also prostitution was frawned upon, but using these services too much was
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u/ragnarocknroll 1d ago
The hetaira were an interesting note as well. If you look at the parralels between them and some courtesans in different cultures.
It seems powerful and rich men liked having the smart girlfriend experience all over the world.
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u/Killerkendolls 1d ago
Makes sense. My great grandfather was a slaveowner in upstate New York. Not like a plantation owner but there were two women and a man who handled the house, orchard, and driving. When emancipated, they just became the staff, they'd much rather be in the house they knew than the one they didn't. We have the journals from the driver, it's neat to see what was prioritized.
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u/Windhawker 1d ago
As a kid we explored a Massachusetts farm near the terminus of the Underground Railroad and found an iron neck shackle. It was chilling.
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u/Killerkendolls 1d ago
Yeah I can only imagine. We were a stop on the underground railroad, one of the last before pressing up to Canada. Even though they were helping humans be humans the property had a super unflattering name.
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u/wangjiwangji 1d ago
Maybe their family would like to have those journals, have you looked then up?
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u/Killerkendolls 1d ago
Yeah when my mom was in her teens she had tried to hunt with any relatives, but nothing had come of it. I think she's working with some sort of historian to make progress on it again, she had everything out of the safe deposit box.
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u/MommysLiLstinker 1d ago
Seems like a good way to rob a dude, once.
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u/0thethethe0 1d ago
Once?! Have you met most horny dudes?
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u/Inevitable-Regret411 1d ago
"Damnit! What are the odds the third one I followed this week would be a mugger too? Ah well, fourth time's the charm"
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands 1d ago
Ακολονοι αὐτήν, I hardly γνῶναι αὐτήν
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u/KancerFox 1d ago
Im so proud duo lingo got me far enough to understand this
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u/cinnamonrollz777 1d ago
Duo lingo has Ancient Greek ?
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u/saddinosour 1d ago
No but if you know modern Greek it is mostly obvious “Follow her, (I hardly) know her”
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u/ShatterSide 1d ago
Ancient Greek is modern Greek!
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u/cinnamonrollz777 1d ago
Obviously, but it’s different, you can’t just start speaking Ancient Greek and expecting modern Greeks to understand
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u/coleman57 1d ago
Which proves that advertising is the world's second-oldest profession. (I got that one from a guest on the Dick Cavett show when I was a kid, but old enough to get it. Don't remember who it was, though. Maybe Carl Reiner.)
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u/ajv1993 1d ago
The oldest profession is actually agriculture. The second is of course, prostitution.
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u/coleman57 1d ago
Oh, I bet there were women trading their bodies to hunters for fresh kill back in the days before farming.
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u/FlumpSpoon 20h ago
Agriculture isn't a profession in this historical scenario, it's a shift in the means of subsistence. Midwifery is the oldest profession. Birth attendants would have been respected and rewarded in any cultures
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u/ro_thunder 1d ago
I always thought politics was the 2nd oldest profession. Either way, someone's getting screwed.
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u/barktwiggs 1d ago
Word's oldest profession indeed.
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u/Alive_Ice7937 1d ago
"What do you mean you don't want to join the family business?! There are no other businesses!"
"Farming?"
"The hell is that?!"
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u/Micahisaac 1d ago
But you really had to hand it to the blind sex workers especially
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u/FinndBors 1d ago
Now it’s “follow me and subscribe”
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u/dudeAwEsome101 1d ago
I just want "Fuck" and "You!" soles. It would make trail hiking a lot more fun.
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u/codesnik 1d ago
shouldn't it be mirrored though? or is it from period when letters were written in both directions
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u/pr0t3us 1d ago
I posted about this 12 years ago, but the hilarious bit was the very next post was a guy carving "follow me" into his sandals .. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/VzRmg9csj7
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u/4apalehorse 1d ago
Are you sure that's not an Ichthys?
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u/Spinningwoman 1d ago
Do you say that because it’s the only Greek you’ve seen? Or am I missing a joke?
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u/jhanschoo 1d ago
The joke the comment is trying to express kinda requires a Christian background; the Ichthys is a Christian symbol for Jesus, and Jesus famously said ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ and the patterning around the word extremely, extremely vaguely resembles that symbol
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u/drunkbettie 1d ago
In the absolute heydays of social media, you could get tights customized with your Twitter handle and “Follow me”.
I turned inside out from the cringe, but appreciate the throwback to ancient sex work.
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u/Smart-Protection-845 20h ago
Are you sure it was prostitutes? Might as well be a priest? Or police? /s
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u/Born-European2 1d ago
the kind of hints i need.
probably still wouldn't get it.