Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/114

 98 HISTORY OF GREECE. eye. 1 They bid other slaves subordinate to them, and appear to have been well-treated : the deep and unshaken attachment of Eumaeus the swineherd and Philcetius the neatherd to the family and affairs of the absent Odysseus, is among the most interesting points in the ancient epic. Slavery was a calamity, which in that period of insecurity might befall any one : the chief who conducted a freebooting expedition, if he succeeded, brought back with him a numerous troop of slaves, as many as he could seize, 2 if he failed, became very likely a slave himself: so that the slave was often by birth of equal dignity with his master : Eu- maeus was himself the son of a chief, conveyed away when a child by his nurse, and sold by Phoenician kidnappers to Laertes. A slave of this character, if he conducted himself well, might often expect to be enfranchised by his master and placed in an independent holding. 3 On the whole, the slavery of legendary Greece does not pre- eent itself as existing under a peculiarly harsh form, especially if we consider that all the classes of society were then very much upon a level in point of taste, sentiment, and instruction. 4 In the absence of legal security or an effective social sanction, it is probable that the condition of a slave under an average master, may have been as good as that of the free Thete. The class of slaves whose lot appears to have been the most pitiable were the 1 Odysseus and other chiefs of Ithaka had oxen, sheep, mules, etc., on the continent and in Peloponnesus, under the care of herdsmen (Odyss. iv. 636; xiv. 100). Leukanor, king of Bosporus, asks the Scythian Arsakomas Hocra 6e ftoaKijfuiTa, f/ ir6aa? ufia^af lx Et fi TavTa -yup v/^elf ^ovrelre ; (Lucian, Tox- aris, c. 45.) The enumeration of the property of Odysseus would have placed the f3ooK^ftaTa in the front line. i.; 397; xxiii. 357 ; particularly xvii. 441 ). ' Odyss. xiv. 64; xv. 412 ; see also xix. 78 : Euryklcia was also of dig nificd birth (i. 429). The questions put by Olysseus to Eumoms, to which the speech above referred to is an answer, indicate the proximate causes of lavery : " Was the city of your father sacked 1 or were you seized by pirates when alone with your sheep and oxen?" (Odyss. xv. 385.) Eumaeus had purchased a slave for himself (Odyss. xiv. 448). 4 Tacitus, Mor. Germ. 21. "Dominum ac servum nullia educations deliciis dignoscas : inter cadem pecora, in eadem humo, degunt,' etc. (Juve- nal, Sut. xiv. 167.)
 * A/iual c Arjiaffaro (Iliad, xviii. 28 : compare also Odyss.