Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/146

 130 SLAVERY flattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves." These deplorable results were, of course, not universally produced ; there were admirable exceptions both amongst masters and amongst slaves instances of benevolent pro- tection on the one side and of unselfish devotion on the other, which did honour to human nature ; but the evil effects without doubt greatly preponderated. We proceed to a closer study of the institution of slavery as it existed in the Greek and Roman societies respectively. GREECE. We find it already fully established in the Homeric period. Heroic The prisoners taken in war are retained as slaves, or sold (.77., xxiv. times 752) or held at ransom (7Z., vi. 427) by the captor. Sometimes the men of a conquered town or district are slain and the women carried off (Od., ix. 40). Not unfrequently free persons were kidnapped by pirates and sold in other regions, like Eumseus in the Odyssey. The slave might thus be by birth of equal rank with his master, who knew that the same fate might befall himself or some of the mem- bers of his family. The institution does not present itself in a very harsh form in Homer, especially if we consider (as Grote suggests) that " all classes were much on a level in taste, sentiment, and instruction." The male slaves were employed in the tillage of the land and the tending of cattle, and the females in domestic work and household manufactures. The principal slaves often enjoyed the confidence of their masters and had important duties entrusted to them ; and, after lengthened and meritorious service, were put in possession of a house and property of their own (Od., xiv. 64). Crete's idea that the women slaves were in a more pitiable con- dition than the males does not seem justified, except perhaps in the case of the aletrides, who turned the household mills which ground the flour consumed in the family, and who were sometimes overworked by unfeeling masters (Od., xx. 110-119). Part of the agricultural work was sometimes done by poor hired freemen (thetes), who are spoken of as a wretched class (Od., xi. 490), and were perhaps employed almost exclusively by the smaller land- holders. Having no powerful protector to whom they could look up, and depending on casual jobs, they were probably in a less desirable position than the average slave. Homer conceives the lot of the latter as a bitter one (Od., viii. 528; 11., xix. 302); but it must be remembered that the element of change from a former elevated position usually enters into his descriptions. He marks in a celebrated couplet his sense of the moral deterioration com- monly wrought by the condition of slavery (Od., xvii. 322). Historic It is, however, in historic Greece, where we have ample docu- period. mentary information, that it is most important to study the system of slavery, and especially at Athens, where the principal work of Greek civilization found its accomplishment. The case of Sparta, in some respects peculiar, must be separately considered. The sources of slavery in Greece were : 1. Birth, the condition being hereditary. This was not an abundant source, women slaves being less numerous than men, and wise masters making the union of the sexes rather a reward of good service than a matter of specu- lation (Xen., CEcon., ix. 5). It was in general cheaper to buy a slave than to rear one to the age of labour. 2. Sale of children by their free parents, which was tolerated, except in Attica, or their exposure, which was permitted, except at Thebes. The conse- quence of the latter was sometimes to subject them to a servitude worse than death, as is seen in the plays of Plautus and Terence, which, as is well known, depict Greek, not Roman, manners. Freemen, through indigence, sometimes sold themselves, and at Athens, up to the time of Solon, an insolvent debtor became the slave of his creditor. 3. Capture in war. Not only Asiatics and Thracians thus became slaves, but in the many wars between Grecian states, continental or colonial, Greeks were reduced to slavery by men of their own race. Thus Spartans were slaves at Tegea, and Gelon sold out of their country the commonalty of Hyblsean Megara. At Platsea, at Scione, in Melos, the men were massacred or deported, the women enslaved. Athenians were sold at Samos, and in Sicily after the failure of the expedition. In the struggle of parties at Corcyra, each faction, when triumphant, con- demned the other to massacre or slavery. Callicratidas pronounced against the enslavement of Greeks by Greeks, but violated his own principle, to which, however, Epaminondas and Pelopidas appear to have been faithful. Philip sold his Olynthian captives, and, after Thebes was taken by Alexander, 30,000 women and children are said to have been sold. 4. Piracy and kidnapping. The descents of pirates on the coasts were a perpetual source of danger ; the pirate was a gainer either by the sale or by the redemption of his captives. If ransomed, the victim became by Athenian law the slave of his redeemer till he paid in money or labour the price which had been given for him. Kidnappers (andrapodistee) carried off children even in cities, and reared them as slaves. Whether from hostile forays or from piracy, any Greek was exposed to the risk of enslavement ; it was a sword of Damocles suspended over all heads. 5. Commerce. Besides the sale of slaves which took place as a result of the capture of cities or other military operations, there was a systematic slave trade. Syria, Pontus, Lydia, Galatia, and above all Thrace were sources of supply. Egypt and Ethiopia also furnished a certain number, and Italy a few. Of foreigners, the Asiatics bore the greatest value, as most amenable to com- mand, and most versed in the arts of luxurious refinement. But Greeks were highest of all in esteem, and they were much sought for foreign sale. Greece proper and Ionia supplied the petty Eastern princes with courtesans and female musicians and dancers. Athens was an important slave-market, and the state profited by a tax on the sales ; but the principal marts were those of Cyprus, Samos, Ephesus, and especially Chios. The slaves were employed either in domestic service as house- Employ- hold managers, attendants, or personal escorts or in work of other ments of kinds, agricultural or urban. In early Attica, and even down to slaves, the time of Pericles, the landowners lived in the country. The Peloponnesian War introduced a change ; and after that time the proprietors resided at Athens, and the cultivation was in the hands of slaves. In manufactures and commerce, also, servile gradually displaced free labour. Speculators either directly employed slaves as artisans or commercial and banking agents, or hired them out, sometimes for work in mines or factories, sometimes for service in private houses, as cooks, flute-players, &c. , or for viler uses. There were also public slaves ; of these some belonged to temples, to which they were presented as offerings, amongst them being the courtesans who acted as Merodules at Corinth and at Eryx in Sicily ; others were appropriated to the service of the magistrates or to public works ; there were at Athens 1200 Scythian archers for the police of the city; slaves served, too, in the fleets, and were employed in the armies, commonly as workmen, and exceptionally as soldiers. The number of slaves in Greece, or even at Athens, can scarcely Number, be determined with any tolerable approach to certainty. It is stated by Athena;us (vi. 20), on the authority of Ctesicles, that the census of Demetrius Phalereus gave for Athens 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metics (resident foreigners), and 400,000 slaves. It is also stated by the same author that Corinth had possessed 460,000 slaves and ./Egina 470,000. Hume, in his Essay "On the Popu- lousness of Ancient Nations," maintained that the assertion of Athenaeus respecting Athens is quite incredible, that the number of Athenian slaves " is at least augmented by a whole cipher, and ought not to be regarded as more than 40,000." Boeckh and Letronne have since made the question the subject of fresh studies. The former has fixed the number of Attic slaves at about 365,000, the latter at 100,000 or 120,000. M. Wallon has revised the labours of these scholars, and adduced further considerations of his own. 1 He estimates the number of slaves employed in all Attica in domestic service at 40,000; in agriculture at 35,000; in the mines at 10,000 ; in manufactures and commerce at 90,000. To these must be added, for old people and children under twelve years of age, 6000 and 20,000 respectively, and also the public slaves, of whom, as we have said, 1200 were Scythian archers. He thus arrives at the conclusion that the servile population of Attica was comprised between the limits of 188,000 and 203,000 souls, the free population being about 67,000, and the metics amount- ing to 40,000. The slaves thus bore to the free native population the ratio of 3 to 1. The numbers given by Athenseus for Corinth and yEgina, though accepted by Boeckh, appear to be excessive, and are rejected by Clinton and by M. Wallon ; the true numbers were no doubt large, but we have no means of determining them even approximately. Next after these cities in the magnitude of their slave population came, on the mainland, Megara, and, amongst the insular states, Chios and Rhodes. Miletus, Phocsea, Tarentum, Sybaris, and Gyrene also had numerous bodies of slaves. The condition of slaves at Athens was not in general a wretched Condi- one. Demosthenes (In Mid., p. 530) says that, if the barbarians tion. from whom the slaves were bought were informed of the mild treat- ment they received, they would entertain a great esteem for the Athenians. Plautus in more than one place thinks it necessary to explain to the spectators of his plays that slaves at Athens enjoyed such privileges, and even licence, as must be surprising to a Roman audience. The slave was introduced with certain, customary rites into his position in the family ; he was in practice, though not by law, permitted to accumulate a private fund of his own ; his marriage was also recognized by custom; though in general excluded from sacred ceremonies and public sacrifices, slaves were admissible to religious associations of a private kind ; there were some popular festivals in which they were allowed to participate ; they had even special ones for themselves both at Athens and in other Greek centres. Their remains were deposited in the family tomb of their master, who sometimes erected monuments in testi- mony of his affection and regret. They often lived on terms of intimacy either with the head of the house or its younger members ; but it is to be feared that too often this intimacy was founded, not 1 Dr W. Richter (Die Sklaverei im Griechischen Altertnmc, 1886) maintains the correctness of the statement in Athensaus.