The Language of Slavery in Greek Literature

Abstract

Slavery was woven into the culture of ancient Greece. Greek literature reflects this reality but is distorted by the author’s perspective—a free (often elite) male. Though people were enslaved throughout antiquity, we rarely hear their voices and can be misled about their experiences by the surviving work that favours the enslaver and characterizes the enslaved in relationship to them. This MRP examines the considerations that can be taken in translating Greek literature, focusing on the conflicting demands of reflecting accurately the author’s voice and perspective and humanizing the enslaved to a fuller extent. I analyze the practice of translation and the definitions and terminology of Greek slavery to inform a series of case studies comparing and critiquing several translations of Homer’s Odyssey, Euripides’s Andromache, and Chariton’s Callirhoe. I conclude each case study with an alternative translation of my own to demonstrate a more humanizing approach to translation.