You judge something from 2k+ years in the past with our current set of values.
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This is not a case of someone casting contemporary normative values on an ancient culture in judgement. The parent made a correct positive claim; ancient cultures, including Athens, typically had vastly more inequality than is present today.
It doesn't matter whether or not inequality had a different flavor of cultural sophistication or acceptance attached to it at the time. It remains that the culture is not a good example of equality.
> It remains that the culture is not a good example of equality.
If you take context into account, inequalities in Athens were actually pretty decent compared to other places.
For one citizens were equals (~10% of the population, males only). Women, again for that time, could enjoy a relative freedom and had a place in society. Slaves were quite notoriously well treated in Athenian households, more like mandatory work than inhumane treatment, and a comparatively high proportion would eventually 'earn' their own freedom in Athens. In the wider picture, don't forget that slavery was that age's "industrial" drive, you could not end slavery and have the means to defend the city.
If you look at Athens within its own space and time, it really was a prime example of philosophical and societal enlightenment. It would, as you know, go on as a political model to influence the Roman Republic institutions (sadly a pale copy in practice) and later on the Empire's culture, down to our modern days quest for democracy passing by Revolutions. Judging "humanity" is relative, it can only be done relevantly to a context —that of the deed, and the idea.
> In the wider picture, don't forget that slavery was that age's "industrial" drive, you could not end slavery and have the means to defend the city.
I have a suspicion that much of our moral advancement as a species is essentially a function of our technological advancement. We're not more humane because we have better and more strongly held ideals, but because we're allowed by technology the space to practice them.
Our current set of values: wearing a five dollar T shirt and cheap sneakers ... made by slaves in a sweatshop somewhere.
I think slavery has always been wrong, even when it was accepted by society.
There's many things that are widely accepted today, that will be considered wrong in the future. Two examples would be eating meat and circumcision.
As I said above, don't forget that slavery was that age's "industrial" drive, you could not end slavery and have the means to defend the city. It was a life or death situation, and no society at the time found a way to sustain military might without slavery as an economical asset. I take that as a sign that it was no easy change of paradigm.
Later on, machines allowed one man to put out the work effort of several, and things progressively changed, but it took centuries, for hard reasons that I observe are, historically, more economic than philosophical. You could argue that domination or independence should not have been the end goal in civilizations history and I could agree, but then we're not talking about human beings anymore and it all becomes an abstract thought experiment rather irrelevant to our world.
This is an interesting point- but I wonder, do you know of any significant civilizations that tried to end slavery around the same time period?