Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/116

 1^0 HISTORY OF GREECE. manners : Rebecca, Rachel, and the daughters of Jetliro, in the early Mosaic narrative, as well as the wife of the native Macedo- nian chief (with whom the Temenid Perdiccas, ancestor of Philip and Alexander, first took service on retiring from Argos), baking ner own cakes on the hearth, 1 exhibit a pai'allel in this respect to the Homeric pictures. We obtain no particulars respecting either the common freemen generally, or the particular class of them called Thetes. These latter, engaged for special jobs, or at the harvest and other busy seasons of field labor, seem to have given their labor in exchange for board and clothing : they are mentioned in the same line with the slaves, 2 and were (as has been just observed) probably on the whole little better off. The condition of a poor freeman in those days, without a lot of land of his own, going about from one tem- porary job to another, and having no powerful family and no social authority to look up to for protection, must have been suf- ficiently miserable. When Eumseus indulged his expectation of being manumitted by his masters, he thought at the same time rtiat they would give him a wife, a house, and a lot of land near to themselves ; 3 without which collateral advantages, simple manumission might perhaps have been no improvement in his condition. To be Thete in the service of a very poor farmer is selected by Achilles as the maximum of human hardship : such a person could not give to his Thete the same ample food, and good shoes and clothing, as the wealthy chief Eurymachus, while he would exact more severe labor. 4 It was probably among such smaller occupants, who could not advance the price necessary to purchase slaves, and were glad to save the cost of keep when they did not need service, that the Thetes found employment : though we may conclude that the brave and strong amongst these poor freemen found it preferable to accompany some freebooting chief and to live by the plunder acquired. 5 The exact Hesiod 1 Herodot. viii. 137. * Odyss. iv. 643. 3 Odyss. xiv. 64. 4 Compare Odyss. xi. 490, with xviii. 358. Klytaemnestra, in the Ago- nemndn of ^Eschylus, preaches a something similar doctrine to Kassandra, how much kinder the upxaionhovToi Jecnrora?' were towards their slaves, than masters who had risen by unexpected prosperity (Agamemn. 1042). ii'vvaTuTuruv, e/><?ouc roti vferepov avruv tveica, nal roif uir&tviffi Tporj( i
 * Thucydid. i. 5, irpuirovro irpb? %T/GTeiav, rjyovftevm. fivfipuv ov rw