The first known major slave society was that of Athens. In the early Archaic period the elite worked its estates with the labour of fellow citizens in bondage (often for debt). After the lawgiver Solon abolished citizen slavery about 594 bce, wealthy Athenians came to rely on enslaved peoples from outside Attica. The prolonged wars with the Persians and other peoples provided many slaves, but the majority of slaves were acquired through regular trade with non-Greek peoples around the Aegean. At the time of Classical Athens (the 5th through the 3rd century bce) slaves constituted about a third of the ...(100 of 16450 words)