Concept of Freedom on the Pylos Tablets

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  • ピュロス文書に現われた自由の観念
  • ピュロス ブンショ ニ アラワレタ ジユウ ノ カンネン

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Abstract

Freedom in the abstract sense of the word might be defined as the condition of being able to choose and to carry out purposes of life. The real content of this concept contains freedoms of various kinds from the human relations of various kinds. We must, therefore, observe it concretely in relation to the given society as a whole. In the ancient Greek society the word eleutheria represented the independence of the autonomous citizen-body of each polis, and freedom from slavery, from debt, and from tyranny and the Persian rule. Of the Mycenaean period we find some of the Linear B tablets on which the words relating to freedom —eleuthera, eleutheron, eleutherose— were written in particular meaning. They always represent exemption from paying a certain amount of tribute (do-so-mo). It is the king who excused payment: and those who were exempted are smiths, shipbuilders, huntsmen, planters, and etc. of several villages which were obliged to contribute flax. We find a different expression of the obviously same meaning on some tablets of Ma- and Na- series. With collapse of the tribute-systems of the Mycenaean monarchies, the concept of freedom as exemption from tribute seems to have disappeared.

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