Fourthly, no insurrection of the slaves, nor suspicion of insurrection, are ever mentioned by historians, except one commotion of the miners.
Fifthly, the Athenians’ treatment of their slaves is said by Xenophon, and Demosthenes, and Plautus to have been extremely gentle and indulgent, which could never have been the case had the disproportion been twenty to one. The disproportion is not so great in any of our colonies, and yet we are obliged to exercise a very rigorous military government over the negroes.
Sixthly, no man is ever esteemed rich for possessing what may be reckoned an equal distribution of property {p149} in any country, or even triple or quadruple that wealth. Thus, every person in England is computed by some to spend sixpence a day; yet is he estimated but poor who has five times that sum. Now, Timarchus is said by Æschines to have been left in easy circumstances, but he was master only of ten slaves employed in manufactures. Lysias and his brother, two strangers, were proscribed by the Thirty for their great riches, though they had but sixty apiece. Demosthenes was left very rich by his father, yet he had no more than fifty-two slaves. His workhouse, of twenty cabinet-makers, is said to have been a very considerable manufactory.
Seventhly, during the Decelian War, as the Greek historians call it, 20,000 slaves deserted and brought the Athenians to great distress, as we learn from Thucydides. This could not have happened had they been only the twentieth part. The best slaves would not desert.
Eighthly, Xenophon proposes a scheme for entertaining by the public 10,000 slaves. “And that so great a number may possibly be supported any one will be convinced,” says he, “who considers the numbers we possessed before the Decelian War”—a way of speaking altogether incompatible with the larger number of Athenæus.
Ninthly, the whole census of the state of Athens was less than 6000 talents; and though numbers in ancient manuscripts be often suspected by critics, yet this is unexceptionable, both because Demosthenes, who gives it, gives also the detail, which checks him, and because Polybius assigns the same number and reasons upon it. Now, the most vulgar slave could yield by his labour an obolus a day, over and above his maintenance, as we learn from Xenophon, who says that Nicias’s overseer paid his master so much for slaves, whom he employed in digging of mines. If you will take the pains to estimate an obolus a day and the slaves at 400,000, computing only at four years’ purchase, you will find the sum above 12,000 talents, even though allowance be made for the great number of holidays in Athens. Besides, many of the slaves would have a much {p150} greater value from their art. The lowest that Demosthenes estimates any of his father’s slaves is two minas a head; and upon this supposition it is a little difficult, I confess, to reconcile even the number of 40,000 slaves with the census of 6000 talents.
Tenthly, Chios is said by Thucydides to contain more slaves than any Greek city except Sparta. Sparta then had more than Athens, in proportion to the number of citizens. The Spartans were 9000 in the town, 30,000 in the country. The male slaves, therefore, of full age, must have been more than 780,000; the whole more than 3,120,000—a number impossible to be maintained in a narrow barren country such as Laconia, which had no trade. Had the Helotes been so very numerous, the murder of 2000 mentioned by Thucydides would have irritated them without weakening them.
Besides, we are to consider that the number assigned by Athenæus,[79] whatever it is, comprehends all the inhabitants of Attica as well as those of Athens. The Athenians affected much a country life, as we learn from Thucydides, and when they were all chased into town by the invasion of their territory during the Peloponnesian War, the city was not able to contain them, and they were obliged to lie in the porticoes, temples, and even streets, for want of lodging.
The same remark is to be extended to all the other Greek cities, and when the number of the citizens is assigned we must always understand it of the inhabitants of the neighbouring country as well as of the city. Yet, even with this allowance, it must be confessed that Greece was a populous country and exceeded what we could imagine of so narrow a territory, naturally not very fertile, and which drew no supplies of corn from other places; {p151} for, excepting Athens, which traded to Pontus for that commodity, the other cities seem to have subsisted chiefly from their neighbouring territory.[80]
Rhodes is well known to have been a city of extensive commerce and of great fame and splendour, yet it contained only 6000 citizens able to bear arms when it was besieged by Demetrius.