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Slavery was practiced in ancient Greece, where most slaves appear to have been war captives. Debt bondage, similar to the Near East and elsewhere could lead to a form of slavery, but this could be a temporary status and one could buy or earn their freedom, which was also true in the ancient Near East. Sparta may have had one of the largest slave systems. While it is hard to say what was legend and what was truth, the so-called Helots were a class of slaves that may have derived from a conquered city (Helos). Subsequent slaves were then called Helots. Sparta's slaves seem to all belong to the state and were essentially a class, where the Helots formed their own families and kin groups. In Athens, slavery was often at a private level and slaves were owned by individual households. Slave revolts began to become a problem as slaves began to outnumber their masters. In effect, by allowing slaves to have their families and also perpetuating the bondage of slavery for individuals inevitably led to populations of slaves increasing.<ref>For more on slavery in Greece, see: Wiedemann, T. (1994). Greek and Roman slavery (Reprinted). London: Routledge.</ref>

Slavery also developed as a form of punishment for individuals who defaulted on debt. As societies became monetized by the 3rd millennium BCE, slavery became a way in which individuals were punished for falling into debt. The issue of debt increasingly became a problem as individuals had to borrow to rent land and property to conduct agriculture. If a bad harvest occurred, then debt was a likely result. In effect, slavery not only reflect the social inequality that had developed to a pronounced level by the 3rd millennium BCE, but it reflects that society had developed a system that punished those who failed to maintain that system even if was not their fault they had gone into debt. People were also born into slavery, as children of slaves.