Krijgsgevangenschap

(1) Yvon Garlan, “Ancient culture and society  – War in the ancient world: a social history”, Chatto & Windus 1976; “The priceof ransom varied accoring to th esocial condition of those involved, the political situation in general, and the state of th slave market. / Teh very fact thet tye wer captives usually made it imporsible for prisoners to pay for their liberty. Someone else therfore had to assure the responsibility, in archaic societies ofthen the kinsmen. A law of Gortyn in Crete of about 460 B imosed an obligation on Gortynians to buy back members of thier hetairia who were put up for sale by the enemy. Later the sate itself, withthat heigtened sense of colective solidarity which inspried it in early times, sometimes intervened directly [as in Rome, durig the second Punic war]. Alternativley, a semi-public organ for mutua aid, like the chruch in the ate Emprie, performed this function. Between allied or freindly peoples the subject was, on occasion incorporated in a treat. For instance, in about 260 BC such a treaty was dwan up bttween Miletus and the Cretan cities of Cnossus, Gortyn and Phaestus. And at all times, men urned to those who felt a ocation, more or less alruistic, for the role of benefactor [euergetes]. Increasingly however, withthe decline of family solidarity, of mutual help between citizens and of the spirit of ‘euergetism’, it bacme necesar to depend up the nonbenevolent intervention of individuals /

(2) Passim: In theory, a man whose rights and personakity had been in suspension while he was in captivityshould have automatically recoverd his old status th moment he set foot onhis ative sild. The Romans spoke of teh right of postliminuim which restored to the ‘living dead’ his former condition, his possessions andhis family. [not until the time of Constantine as a woman who hwas unable to prove thedeath of her husband in captivity prohibited from remarying.] But in fact thngs did not always work out this way, either because the repratrated man had frist to prove he had en honourable captured, and then retuned to his country, or, as was more ofthen the case, bceause he had First to repay the ransom advanced in his name by an intermediary. In such cases the ancients took considerably parins to safeguard the interersts of both parties. Bt in Greece an in the Roman Empirere form th end of th second century to the Froman Empierse fom th end of th second century to the foruth a ‘man brought back from teh enemy’ belonged to his ’benefacotor’ as a slave,until the ransom was epaid. The Gortyn code expressly stipulated that a free man ransomed from a foreigner ‘will be at th disposal of th man who bought him the extinction of this obligaion was sanctioned by a form of manmission. This type of slave was, however, of a very particular kind: he engaged his ervices without abndoning either his personaity or his patriony. Le lost his independence, not hs liberty.

(3) Pasim: At other times, under the roman Republic and at the beginning of the Emprie, it even seems that ransom was juristicaly assimilated intothe law of debt, not of sale. Thse varied measures rested on the twofold desire to respect the native liberty of a citizien onhis own territory and, in termsof the international situation, to encourage the practive ce of bying back prisonersof war. The guarantees geven to the buyer were increased or diminished accoring to the gravity of the problems which such a course presented.On the hwole, the fate of prisoners was erhaps ameloratd. But we shold be mistaken is we saw this tend as evidence of hmnitarian feelings at work or of a growing respect for human personality.Esentialy, the motivation was social or political, reflecting the interests of the community rahter than of the individueal. Hence, when it was in their interest – for example in the conquestof Gaul by Caesar- the romans easliy reverted to the most primitive ways of treating prisoners, untoubled by any scruples.”