THE SLAVE-DEALER.
The entertainment which the consul provided for his guests was of the
simplest and most frugal kind, in curious contrast with the costly plate
on which it was served. His cook knew his tastes, which were those of
the Sabine farming folk from whom he came, and catered for him
accordingly; but the furnishing of the table was naturally that of the
place where he was quartered, the official residence of the chief
magistrate of Corinth, and this was filled with the finest specimens of
the city's famous ware.[65]
The repast ended, the quæstor, who had been one of the guests, explained
to Polybius what Mummius had instructed him to do. "The consul," he
said, "has commissioned me to use forty talents of silver[66] in
redeeming slaves. You are to draw up a list, and as the sale begins the
day after to-morrow, you should lose no time in doing so. As to the
price, he has instructed the official agent to value the persons
selected, so they will not be actually put up for sale. More than this
the consul did not feel he could do. 'If I were to interfere with the
prices,' he said, 'I should be making a very dangerous precedent. It
must all be done on strict business principles.' A more scrupulously
honourable man than Lucius Mummius does not live, though it must be
allowed that he does not know much about art. However, you will have
fairly easy terms, I don't doubt."
"I am greatly obliged to you," said Polybius. "And now there is another
thing in which you can help me. My young friend here and I have been
talking the matter over, and we are agreed in wanting to do something
more in the same direction. He has been actually under the spear,[67]
and I, though I have never gone through that experience, know something
of the bitterness of being at another man's bidding. Well, fate has
dealt kindly with both of us, and we both want to show our gratitude.
Between us we can raise another forty talents, and we want to use it in
the same way. Our idea is this. The money that comes from Diæus' estate
should, we think, be used on the public account. Our own we should
employ as our private feelings may suggest. In the list that I shall
draw up for the official agent I shall put the names of men whose
official standing, or services to their country, or any other public
reason, seem to call for their selection. In regard to our own money, we
shall consider private friendship or acquaintance. Now, can you help us
in laying this out to the best advantage?"
The quæstor reflected. "You must not go," he said after a pause, "to the
agent. I feel quite sure that the consul would not like it. I do not see
that you can do anything better, or, indeed, anything else than approach
one of the slave-dealers. The way of these sales, I may say of all
sales, is pretty much the same everywhere. There is a regular gang which
has it all its own way. The members of it don't bid against each other,
except where they have a commission to purchase this or that lot. But
when an outsider tries to get anything for himself, they agree to run
him up to a most extravagant price. Yes, you must get one of the dealers
to take a friendly interest in you."
"And whom do you recommend?" asked Polybius.
"That is not so easy to say," replied the quæstor. "They are not a nice
lot, as I dare say you know. Most of them would sell their own fathers
and mothers. It is not an improving occupation. But, on the whole, I
should recommend Judas the Jew. He has principles; very queer principles
they are, but still they are something. Yes, Judas is your man. One of
my orderlies shall bring him to you early to-morrow."
Early the next day, accordingly, Judas presented himself, showing a
curious contrast, with his slight, wiry figure and keen intelligent
face, to the stoutly-built, stolid-looking soldier who accompanied him.
"Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" he began. "There will be some
bargains to be picked up, I dare say. But the really good things always
fetch their price. There is never a glut of them."
Polybius had drawn up a list, which he proceeded to hand to the Jew. He
had put down the names, and, as far as he knew or could guess them, the
ages of the persons whom he wished to purchase. The Jew's eyes opened
wider and wider as he read it.
"But what," he asked, his astonishment overcoming for the moment his
usual somewhat servile civility, "what do you want with all these old
men and women? They can't all be your fathers and mothers, and uncles
and aunts. Excuse me, gentlemen," he added, recovering himself, "but
this is not the sort of commission I am in the habit of getting from my
customers."
Polybius explained, to the best of his power, his own and his friend's
motives. As the Jew listened a gentler expression came into his face.
"By the God of my fathers," he exclaimed when the historian had
finished, "I have never come across such a thing in my life! I don't
mean that I haven't known of sons buying back fathers and mothers and
that sort of thing, but this is quite outside my experience. Well," he
went on with a smile, "you will at all events find that your fancy won't
cost you very dear. How much do you propose to spend?"
Polybius named the sum. "But of course," he added, "we must consider
your commission. What will that be on this amount?"
Judas meditated a while. "By Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," he broke out
after a time, "I won't take a drachma. I have been about the world in
this line of business for thirty years, and I have never seen anything
like it. I should not have supposed it possible," he muttered to himself
in his own language, "that these Gentile dogs should have thought of
such a thing. Well, I must not shame Father Abraham by behaving worse
than they do. No, gentlemen," he went on, "I shall not charge anything
for commission. This is a quite uncommon piece of business, and you must
let me please myself by managing it in my own way. Well, you can get a
whole ship-load of the old people for this money. Some of the young men
will be more expensive. But the really costly articles are the young
women, and I don't see one on your list. Depend upon it, you shall have
your money's worth. There are some of the meanest scoundrels in the
world in Corinth at this moment, but they know better than to bid
against Judas."
When sundry details of business had been disposed of, the old Jew grew
very communicative about his occupation. He had been a slave himself,
carried away by some Syrian marauders in his childhood from a village of
Galilee. Bought by a soldier, a captain in the army of the third
Antiochus, he had regained his liberty in the rout which followed the
victory of Magnesia. After this had come a period of service in the
patriot armies raised by the Maccabee brothers. In this he gained some
distinction, but he found himself destitute when a severe wound received
at the battle of Elaim compelled him to give up the profession of arms.
He had no relative in the world; his native place had absolutely
perished. A countryman offered him a clerk's place. When he found that
his new employer was a dealer in slaves he felt a strange thrill of
pleasure. He was to make his living out of the miseries of these heathen
who had marred his own life. To his own people he never ceased to be
tender and generous. To the rest of the world he seemed to be absolutely
callous and heartless. On this occasion he related to his hearers
experiences so horrible that their blood ran cold at hearing them. His
comments on these were often curiously cynical. "What a piece of folly
it was that Flamininus committed at Chelys!" he remarked when some
chance had brought the conversation round to that subject. Cleanor
listened, we may be sure, with all his ears, when he caught the name.
"In a fit of stupid passion he threw away at least fifty talents of good
money. Imagine the absolute idiotcy of a man who kills some scores of
able-bodied men when he might have sold them! What did he do it for? For
revenge? Didn't he know that nine out of ten would far sooner have been
killed than made slaves of? Why, I always have to watch any spirited
young fellow for the first month or so lest he should slip out of my
hands. After that they seem to lose heart, and can't even pluck up
spirit enough to stab themselves. Of course the order to kill is never
really carried out. The soldiers have a knack of stunning those whom
they seem to kill. I have had some pretty cargoes of corpses who came to
life again when they were safely out of the way. You give a soldier a
hundred sesterces,[68] and you get a stout young fellow whom you can
sell for five thousand."
Polybius and Cleanor had the satisfaction of seeing their efforts
crowned with even more success than they could have expected. The public
agent had taken a very liberal view of his duties, and the Jew dealer
had carried out his part of the business with great success. Nearly
seven hundred of the oldest and most helpless victims of the siege were
restored to freedom. It was but a small fraction of the miserable whole,
but it was something to have done. None of the rescued captives knew the
names of their benefactors, though somehow the secret leaked out
afterwards, but the friends felt that their pains had been well bestowed
and well rewarded when they stood by and marked, unmarked themselves,
the happiness which they had been able to secure to their unfortunate
compatriots.
If in this respect Polybius went, and was content to go, without the
praises of his countrymen, there was another matter in the conduct of
which he deservedly won almost universal applause. Some miserable
sycophants--and sycophants were only too common among the Greeks of the
time--proposed to Mummius that the statues of Philopoemen should be
thrown down. He had been always, they alleged, an energetic opponent of
Rome, and it was a contradiction that monuments erected in his honour
should be permitted to stand now that Rome had finally triumphed. The
consul, who, to tell the truth, had but the slightest acquaintance with
even recent history, was at first impressed by the argument. This
Philopoemen had been the chief of the Achæan League, and it was the
Achæan League that had defended, or tried to defend, Corinth against
him.
Polybius, who, of course, knew what was meditated, begged to be allowed
to defend the departed patriot, and Mummius consented to hear him. A
kind of impromptu court was constituted. The consul and his quæstor,
with the legates or generals of division, formed the bench of judges.
Polybius, who spoke with a depth of personal feeling that touched the
hearts of all who heard him, delivered a most eloquent and convincing
apology for the venerable man whom he had once been privileged to call
his friend. He allowed that Philopoemen had struggled for the
independence of Greece as long as that independence was possible. What
honest Greek, he asked, could have done less? But he had always been an
honourable enemy, and as soon as he saw that the true interests of his
country demanded it he had always been a loyal ally. The judges gave an
unanimous verdict in his favour.
"He was an honest man," said the consul with emphasis. "His statue shall
remain standing here and everywhere, whatever may be thrown down, and as
honest men are not too common, it shall be set up in every city of
Greece."
It was now time for the friends to part. Polybius had received a
commission from Rome to arrange the affairs of the other cities of the
Peloponnese, and he would gladly have taken his young friend with him in
the capacity of secretary. But Cleanor felt irresistibly called, and by
more motives than one, to Italy. There awaited him there an honourable
and lucrative employment, which would be all the more welcome because it
was wholly remote from the scenes, so full of painful associations,
through which he had passed during the last two years of his life. This,
as my readers will remember, was the translation of the famous treatise
on Agriculture. And he never forgot for a moment that Italy now
contained the two beings who were dearest to him in the world. Corinth,
which the savage decree of the Senate had doomed to the flames, both
were anxious to leave without delay. They parted on the deck of the
_Ino_, the ship which carried Polybius to Sicyon, the first city which
he was to visit in his official capacity, and which was to take Cleanor
further westward to Rome. "Farewell!" said Polybius. "I shall be busy
with my history when these affairs are settled. Remember that you have
promised to criticise it. I shall not like to give it to the world till
it has had your approval."
FOOTNOTES:
65: This was made of an alloy known as _Corinthian brass_ or
_bronze_, and said to have been composed of gold, silver, and
copper. In later times it was believed to have been first made,
and that by accident, at this very taking of Corinth, when gold,
silver, and other metals were found to have been melted by the
violent conflagration and to have run together; but it had been
known long before.
66: About £9000.
67: It was the Roman custom, and Polybius naturally uses Roman
terms on this occasion, to set up a spear when an auction was
going on.
68: Something less than £1.