How would slaves have addressed their masters in Ancient Greece?
score:18
"A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language" By Egbert J. Bakker
The only context in which titles can have been at all common in Greek society is addresses from slaves to their masters and mistresses.
In literary representations of such addresses δέσποτα “master” and δέσποινα "mistress" frequently occur, but they are by no means the rule, and in Menander address by name is more common
Free men and women who were not a slave's own master or mistress did not receive titles or any other type of respectful address from slaves, merely names or of respectful address from slaves, merely names or γύναι (woman?) as appropriate.
Upvote:1
Just a quick clarification question re: erus/ere/era:
Note that "ere" is the vocative form, so that is the form that would normally be used (the Greek equivalent is the same).
I've had no formal training in either Latin or Greek, but I'm looking to learn how to use this form of address from a slave toward a slave master as well as his wife. Normally, my Greek slave character would be saying it to her master or mistress (the wife), but I also have Roman slaves that would be addressing the same master and mistress.
A couple of questions that came to mind:
- Would "era" be used to address both a master and a mistress? Or would the gender require a spelling change?
- And would a Praenomen (first name) be used with this term (i.e. "Yes, Ere Lucretia.")? Or would it be a nomen?
- (Note: the time period for this book is 71 BC.)
Upvote:3
First of all, your assumption that slaves in Rome addressed their master as "domine" is not true. The language used in the household was completely different than the "silver" Latin you read in Cicero or Seneca. Vernacular Latin had large amounts of Greek slang in it and the lower in the class the person, the more slangy it got.
Words like kurios and dominus are literary words that would be not normally be used in everyday speech by a slave. The normal word in both Latin and Greek was the Greek slang Heros, which means "boss". For example, in the play "The Two Menaechmuses", Messenio, the slave, says:
edepol, ere, ne tibi suppetias temperi adveni modo!
which means:
Holy cow, boss, I saved you just in the nick of time!
If you read "Latin Forms of Address: From Plautus to Apuleius" by Eleanor Dickey it confirms my answer: slaves almost always call their master/mistress erus/era to their face. Note that "ere" is the vocative form, so that is the form that would normally be used (the Greek equivalent is the same). You will sometimes find the word in Latin dictionaries under "herus". Don't be fooled by some of these dictionaries into thinking this is an "official" Latin word, it's actually very colloquial Greek.
Upvote:15
ἀνάξε (pronounced ah-NAHX-eh) is the vocative, if I've handled the accent right.
I vaguely suspect it might be ἄναξε (AH-nax-eh) - my greek is rusty.
Example (Odyssey 24.251):
οὐ μὲν ἀεργίης γε ἄναξ ἕνεκ᾽ οὔ σε κομίζει,
"It is not on account of your idleness your master does not take care of you"
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