At the beginning of the Achaemenid period, the institution of slavery was still poorly developed in Iran. In Media a custom existed whereby a poor man could place himself at the disposal of a rich person if the latter agreed to feed him. The position of such a man was similar to that of a slave. However, he could at any time leave his master if he was poorly fed (see I. M. D’yakonov [Diakonoff], Istoriya Midii, Moscow and Leningrad, 1956, pp. 334-35). By the time their own state had emerged (the first half of the 6th cent. b.c.), the Persians knew only of such primitive slavery, and slave labor was not yet economically significant.
