Battle of Leuktra 371 BC

[PMBardunias]

I'll stay well out of the main thread, but I'll note that the methods used to control large slave populations in the modern New World were hardly subtle.

To illustrate what I mean, think of a slave owner in the southern US. He would beat his slaves- torture, rape, and famously, cut off half a foot, but he is unlikelt to kill one. This is because the slave is owned as property and has a dollar value attached to him- better to sell him off even for a small sum. If the government sent out agents to kill your slaves, thus rob you of your property, they would face a revolt of slave-owners.

A serf on the otherhand is not worth money as an individual, he comes with the land purchased. As such he is a value-added to the land, but if you only need 50 serfs to run the farm and you have 55, then you lose no money in killing 5 to cow the rest, because those five cannot be sold individually. In general serfdom is preferable to slavery because you have much more control of your own body and family- your children don't get sold off. But, having no individual value to the lord, as long as there are enough of you, you may be killed out of hand with no loss to him.