The Slaves.
39. Slavery an Integral Part of Greek Life.—An Athenian lady cares for
everything in her house,—for the food supplies, for the clothing, yet
probably her greatest task is to manage the heterogeneous multitude of
slaves which swarm in every wealthy or even well-to-do mansion.[*]
[*] The Athenians never had the absurd armies of house slaves which
characterized Imperial Rome; still the numbers of their domestic
servants were, from a modern standpoint, extremely large.
Slaves are everywhere: not merely are they the domestic servants, but
they are the hands in the factories, they run innumerable little shops,
they unload the ships, they work the mines, they cultivate the farms.
Possibly there are more able-bodied male slaves in Attica than male
free men, although this point is very uncertain. Their number is the
harder to reckon because they are not required to wear any distinctive
dress, and you cannot tell at a glance whether a man is a mere piece of
property, or a poor but very proud and important member of the
“Sovereign Demos [People] of Athens.”
No prominent Greek thinker seems to contest the righteousness and
desirability of slavery. It is one of the usual, nay, inevitable,
things pertaining to a civilized state. Aristotle the philosopher puts
the current view of the case very clearly. “The lower sort of mankind
are _by nature_ slaves, and it is better for all inferiors that they
should be under the rule of a master. The use made of slaves and of
tame animals is not very different; for both by their bodies minister
to the needs of life.” The intelligent, enlightened, progressive
Athenians are naturally the “masters”; the stupid, ignorant, sluggish
minded Barbarians are the “inferiors.” Is it not a plain decree of
Heaven that the Athenians are made to rule, the Barbarians to serve?—No
one thinks the subject worth serious argument.
Of course the slave cannot be treated quite as one would treat an ox.
Aristotle takes pains to point out the desirability of holding out to
your “chattel” the hope of freedom, if only to make him work better;
and the great philosopher in his last testament gives freedom to five
of his thirteen slaves. Then again it is recognized as clearly against
public sentiment to hold fellow Greeks in bondage. It is indeed done.
Whole towns get taken in war, and those of the inhabitants who are not
slaughtered are sold into slavery.[*] Again, exposed children, whose
parents have repudiated them, get into the hands of speculators, who
raise them “for market.” There is also a good deal of kidnapping in
the less civilized parts of Greece like Ætolia. Still the proportion
of genuinely _Greek_ slaves is small. The great majority of them are
“Barbarians,” men born beyond the pale of Hellenic civilization.
[*] For example, the survivors, after the capture of Melos, in the
Peloponesian War.
40. The Slave Trade in Greece.—There are two great sources of slave
supply: the Asia Minor region (Lydia and Phrygia, with Syria in the
background), and the Black Sea region, especially the northern shores,
known as Scythia. It is known to innumerable heartless “traders” that
human flesh commands a very high price in Athens or other Greek cities.
Every little war or raid that vexes those barbarous countries so
incessantly is followed by the sale of the unhappy captives to
speculators who ship them on, stage by stage, to Athens. Perhaps there
is no war; the supply is kept up then by deliberately kidnapping on a
large scale, or by piracy.[*] In any case the arrival of a chain gang
of fettered wretches at the Peiræus is an everyday sight. Some of
these creatures are submissive and tame (perhaps they understand some
craft or trade); these can be sold at once for a high price. Others
are still doltish and stubborn. They are good for only the rudest kind
of labor, unless they are kept and trained at heavy expense. These
brutish creatures are frequently sold off to the mines, to be worked to
death by the contractors as promptly and brutally as one wears out a
machine; or else they become public galley slaves, when their fate is
practically the same. But we need not follow such horrors.
[*] A small but fairly constant supply of slaves would come from the
seizure of the persons and families of bankrupt debtors, whose
creditors, especially in the Orient, might sell them into bondage.
The remainder are likely to be purchased either for use upon the farm,
the factory, or in the home. There is a regular “circle” at or near
the Agora for traffic in them. They are often sold at auction. The
price of course varies with the good looks, age,[*] or dexterity of the
article, or the abundance of supply. “Slaves will be high” in a year
when there has been little warfare and raiding in Asia Minor. “Some
slaves,” says Xenophon, “are well worth two minæ [$36.00 (1914) or
$640.80 (2000)] and others barely half a mina [$9.00 (1914) or $160.20
(2000)]; some sell up to five minæ [$90.00 (1914) or $1,602.00 (2000)]
and even for ten [$180.00 (1914) or $3,204.00 (2000)]. Nicias, the son
of Nicaretus, is said to have given a talent [over $1,000.00 (1914) or
$17,800.00 (2000)] for an overseer in the mines.”[+] The father of
Demosthenes owned a considerable factory. He had thirty-two sword
cutters worth about five minæ each, and twenty couch-makers (evidently
less skilled) worth together 40 minæ [about $720.00 (1914) or
$12,816.00 (2000)]. A girl who is handsome and a clever flute player,
who will be readily hired for supper parties, may well command a very
high price indeed, say even 30 minæ [about $540.00 (1914) or $9,612.00
(2000)].
[*] There was probably next to no market for old women; old men in
broken health would also be worthless. Boys and maids that were the
right age for teaching a profitable trade would fetch the most.
[+] Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, ii. 5, § 2.
41. The Treatment of Slaves in Athens.—Once purchased, what is the
condition of the average slave? If he is put in a factory, he probably
has to work long hours on meager rations. He is lodged in a kind of
kennel; his only respite is on the great religious holidays. He cannot
contract valid marriage or enjoy any of the normal conditions of family
life. Still his evil state is partially tempered by the fact that he
has to work in constant association with free workmen, and he seems to
be treated with a moderate amount of consideration and good
camaraderie. On the whole he will have much less to complain of (if he
is honest and industrious) than his successors in Imperial Rome.
In the household, conditions are on the whole better. Every Athenian
citizen tries to have at least _one_ slave, who, we must grant, may be
a starving drudge of all work. The average gentleman perhaps counts
ten to twenty as sufficient for his needs. We know of households of
fifty. There must usually be a steward, a butler in charge of the
storeroom or cellar, a marketing slave, a porter, a baker, a cook,[*] a
nurse, perhaps several lady’s maids, the indispensable attendant for
the master’s walks (a graceful, well-favored boy, if possible), the
pedagogue for the children, and in really rich families, a groom, and a
mule boy. It is the business of the mistress to see that all these
creatures are kept busy and reasonably contented. If a slave is
reconciled to his lot, honest, cheerful, industrious, his condition is
not miserable. Athenian slaves are allowed a surprising amount of
liberty, so most visitors to the city complain. A slave may be flogged
most cruelly, but he cannot be put to death at the mere whim of his
master. He cannot enter the gymnasium, or the public assembly; but he
can visit the temples. As a humble member of the family he has a small
part usually in the family sacrifices. But in any case he is subject
to one grievous hardship: when his testimony is required in court he
must be “put to the question” by torture. On the other hand, if his
master has wronged him intolerably, he can take sanctuary at the Temple
of Theseus, and claim the privilege of being sold to some new owner. A
slave, too, has still another grievance which may be no less galling
because it is sentimental. His name (given him arbitrarily perhaps by
his master) is of a peculiar category, which at once brands him as a
bondsman: Geta, Manes, Dromon, Sosias, Xanthias, Pyrrhias,—such names
would be repudiated as an insult by a citizen.
[*] Who, however, could not be trusted to cook a formal dinner. For
such purpose an expert must be hired.
42. Cruel and Kind Masters.—Slavery in Athens, as everywhere else, is
largely dependent upon the character of the master; and most Athenian
masters would not regard crude brutality as consistent with that love
of elegance, harmony, and genteel deliberation which characterizes a
well-born citizen. There do not lack masters who have the whip
continually in their hands, who add to the raw stripes fetters and
branding, and who make their slaves unceasingly miserable; but such
masters are the exception, and public opinion does not praise them.
Between the best Athenians and their slaves there is a genial, friendly
relation, and the master will put up with a good deal of real
impertinence, knowing that behind this forwardness there is an honest
zeal for his interests.
Nevertheless the slave system of Athens is not commendable. It puts a
stigma upon the glory of honest manual labor. It instills domineering,
despotic habits into the owners, cringing subservience into the owned.
Even if a slave becomes freed, he does not become an Athenian citizen;
he is only a “metic,” a resident foreigner, and his old master, or some
other Athenian, must be his patron and representative in every kind of
legal business. It is a notorious fact that the _mere state_ of
slavery robs the victim of his self-respect and manhood. Nevertheless
nobody dreams of abolishing slavery as an institution, and the
Athenians, comparing themselves with other communities, pride
themselves on the extreme humanity of their slave system.
43. The “City Slaves” of Athens.—A large number of nominal “slaves” in
Athens differ from any of the creatures we have described. The
community, no less than an individual, can own slaves just as it can
own warships and temples. Athens owns “city slaves” (_Demosioi_) of
several varieties. The clerks in the treasury office, and the checking
officers at the public assemblies are slaves; so too are the less
reputable public executioners and torturers; in the city mint there is
another corps of slave workers, busy coining “Athena’s owls”—the silver
drachmas and four-drachma pieces. But chiefest of all, _the city owns
its public police force_. The “Scythians” they are called from their
usual land of origin, or the “bowmen,” from their special weapon, which
incidentally makes a convenient cudgel in a street brawl. There are
1200 of them, always at the disposal of the city magistrates. They
patrol the town at night, arrest evil-doers, sustain law and order in
the Agora, and especially enforce decorum, if the public assemblies or
the jury courts become tumultuous. They have a special cantonment on
the hill of Areopagus near the Acropolis. “Slaves” they are of course
in name, and under a kind of military discipline; but they are highly
privileged slaves. The security of the city may depend upon their
loyal zeal. In times of war they are auxiliaries. Life in this police
force cannot therefore be burdensome, and their position is envied by
all the factory workers and the house servants.