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a youth being trained for the medieval rank of knight and in the personal service of a knight

The history of slavery in India is complicated by the presence of factors which relate to the definition, ideological and religious perceptions, difficulties in obtaining and interpreting written sources, and perceptions of political impact of interpretations of written sources.[1] If current scholarly interpretations of various literary sources are accepted, then slavery as forced appropriation of labour, skill or sexual gratification appears to have existed in various forms from the pre-500 BCE period, though never as a legitimate and generally acceptable widespread practice. Historical consensus points to an intensification of slavery under India's Islamic period.[2][3][4][5][6] For instance, K. S. Lal discussed in his work "Muslim Slave System in Medieval India" the import of African slaves to India by Muslims through the Middle East, a trade never undertaken by India's indigenous religions due to limited contact with Africa. Often, claims about slavery in India, and the sources they are based on, need to be analyzed with special attention to context. Some modern scholars appear to treat most claims of slavery by Persian or Arabic chroniclers as propaganda or exaggeration for military and political glorification, whereas similar arguments are not applied to the textual claims of the epics, the Smriti, or other pre-Islamic Indian texts (Levi admits the possibility of exaggeration on the part of Muslim chroniclers but accepts Basham's claims based on Mahabharata without such doubts.[1]) Susan Bayly of Cambridge University noted in her work "Caste, Society and Politics" that India was never a monolithic caste society [7] with noted shifting and fluidity of the caste structures in some parts of India, and its non-existence in others. Irfan Habib notes in his study of the agrarian system of Mughal India, that in many parts of the country, caste barriers were fluid, and the working classes formed a type of vast labour pool, from which specializations were formed as and when needed without consideration of caste.

, “Make love not war,” and then -- down at the bottom -- “Screw it, just make money.”

A Florida woman wrote to tell me that, before reading it, she’d always been annoyed at the poor for what she saw as their self-inflicted obesity.

. I started with my own extended family, which includes plenty of people without jobs or health insurance, and moved on to trying to track down a couple of the people I had met while working on Nickel and Dimed

  Slavery, or involuntary subjection to another or others, existed in every ancient civilization, such as Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, parts of the Roman Empire, and so on. People were enslaved for various reasons, including slave raiding, sale of insolvent debtors and capture in war; slaves commonly were recognized as property, assets that could be bought and sold. In the Chinese empire (c. 211 BCE - 1912 CE), slavery existed throughout all dynasties, although numerous aspects of slavery did not remain the same. The word "slave" itself changed many times, nubi () in the Han period, yinke () in Jin, booi aha () under Manchu rule, and so on. The function and position of slaves in Chinese economy shifted several times as well.             This paper will briefly describe the initiation of slavery before Imperial China, and proceed to analyze several aspects about slavery in each dynasty of the Chinese Empire; I will discuss the changing definition of a slave, how slaves became slaves, abolition of slavery and ways to gain freedom, and the degree of dependence or power slaves held in society. The paper is organized in chronological order, but details of slavery in several dynasties existing before Ming and Qing can be scarce due to the lack of attention slaves received prior to Manchu rule.

Sparta thought that attacking the productive land of Attica, it would pressurize Athens to come forward to start the battle in a formal manner. Athens's army was definitely inferior to Sparta and allies. But this attack did not have much effect of Athens's because; their food supply mainly came from Egypt and Crimea.

To say that we owe a lot to the ancient Greeks is nothing new. Everywhere we look, we see echoes of that world in our own: democracy, philosophy, art, architecture, science, sport, to name but a few.

Our very sense of the ‘Classical’ from the Renaissance onwards, has been based on the ‘fact’ that ancient Greek temples and buildings were made out of marble and stood shining off-white in the sunlight. But ever since the first modern travellers visited Greece in the 17th century, we have discovered evidence that this is, in fact, completely wrong. Greek temples were painted bright blue, red, green: our very definition of the opposite of Classical!

By the seventh century AD, for example, the term 'democracy' had a ‘mob-rule’ feel about it, which made ancient Athens a very unpopular model for any society, right through until the until the late 18th century. In the English Civil War, for instance, Cromwell was encouraged to follow the example of the ancient Spartans, not the Athenians.

Having set the background and gained a glimpse of just how thorny the subject could be it seems easiest to change tack and take the loosest of definitions. Listing some of the many things for which Ancient Rome might justly be remembered for....in no particular order: Advanced roads and road networks Milestones The standard width of our modern roads and tunnels is based on that of ancient Rome (there was a standard width for cart wheels, essentially based on the need of placing two horses side by side). The worn ruts in the roads made it virtually impossible to use any other measure. Triumphal arches Aqueducts (actually they learned much about structures from the Estruscans, but developed it to perfection) Bronze valves and water pumps. Huge numbers of instruments and tools for engineering, construction and measurement. The Romans were, after all, excellent engineers. For example you could purchase your access to water supply for set hours of the day or set quantities of water, which were dutifully metered and billed, pretty much as you would today, albeit with slighty different technology!. Medical and Surgical tools (mainly thanks to the Greeks actually but hugely developed as a consequence of the needs generated by Gladiatorial games and continuous war campaigns) Cesareans - sounds like Caesar doesn't it? Cesareans were often used to save the baby if the mother died during childbirth. Fast curing cement - hugely important discovery which allowed cement to cure and harden in short times and even under water. The ancient Romans realised that adding pozzolanic earth from volcanic regions (Eg Pozzuoli near Naples) to traditional mortar allowed a water proof and extremely solid mix. This could be used to waterproof the interior of aqueduct tunnels or extend the potentials of Roman architecture with impo