The paper seeks to analyse some peculiar features in the manner in which the both rounds of Cretan grants of asylia to Teos (late 3rd and ca middle 2nd century BC) are formulated, by replacing them in their socio-economic as well as geographical context. In fact, the use or the absence of expression τὰ σώματα καὶ χρήματα in the safeguard clause may refl ect a structural evolution of the slavery occurring on the island in the middle Hellenistic period, it means the transition from traditional and dominant serfdom to chattel slavery