[208] Plato, Legg. vi. p. 773 C-D.
Compare the Politikus, pp. 310-311, where the necessity is insisted on of coupling in marriage two persons of opposite dispositions — τὸ ἀνδρεῖον ἦθος with τὸ κόσμιον ἦθος. There is a natural inclination (Plato says) for the ἀνδρεῖοι to intermarry with each other, and for the κόσμιοι to do the like: but the lawgiver must contend against this. If this be permitted, each of the breeds will degenerate through excess of its own peculiarity.
[209] Plato, Legg. vi. p. 775.
[210] Plato, Legg. vi. p. 776 A.
Laws about slavery. Slaves to be well fed, and never treated with cruelty or insolence. The master must not converse with them.
Plato now enters upon his laws respecting property; and first of all upon the most critical variety of property; that in human beings, or slavery. This he declares to be a subject full of difficulty. There is much difference of opinion on the subject. Some speak of slaves as deserving trust and good treatment, in proof of which various anecdotes of exemplary fidelity on their part are cited: others again regard them as incorrigibly debased, fit for nothing better than the whip and spur, like cattle. Then moreover the modified form of slavery, such as that of the Helots in Laconia, and the Penestæ in Thessaly, has been found full of danger and embarrassment, though the Spartans themselves are well satisfied with it.[211] (It will be recollected that the Helots and Penestæ were not slaves bought and imported from abroad, as the slaves in Attica were, but conquered Hellenic communities who had been degraded from freedom into slavery, and from the condition of independent proprietorship into that of tributary tenants or serfs; but with the right to remain permanently on their lands, without ever being sold for exportation.) This form of slavery (where the slaves are of the same race and language, with reciprocal bonds of sympathy towards each other) Plato denounces as especially dangerous. Care must be taken that there shall be among the slaves as little fellowship of language and feelings as possible; but they must be well fed: moreover everything like cruelty and insolence in dealing with them must be avoided, even more carefully than in dealing with freemen. This he prescribes partly for the protection of the slave himself, but still more for the interest of the master: whose intrinsic virtue, or want of virtue, will be best tested by his behaviour as a master. The slaves must be punished judicially, when they deserve it. But the master must never exhort or admonish them, as he would address himself to a freeman: he must never say a word to them, except to give an order: above all, he must abstain from all banter and joking, either with male or female slaves.[212] Many foolish masters indulge in such behaviour, which emboldens the slaves to give themselves airs, and renders the task of governing them almost impracticable.[213]
[211] Plato, Legg. vi. p. 777. He alludes also to the enslavement of the indigenous population called the Mariandyni, by the Grecian colonists of Herakleia on the southern coast of the Euxine; and to the disturbances and disorders which had occurred through movements of the slaves in Southern Italy. Probably this last may be connected with that revolt whereby the Bruttians became enfranchised; but we can make out nothing definite from Plato’s language.
[212] Plato, Legg. vi. p. 777 D-E. κολάζειν γε μὴν ἐν δίκη δούλους ἀεὶ, καὶ μὴ νουθετοῦντας ὡς ἐλευθέρους θρύπτεσθαι ποιεῖν. Τὴν δὲ οἰκετοῦ πρόσρησιν χρὴ σχεδὸν ἐπίταξιν πᾶσαν γίγνεσθαι, μὴ προσπαίζοντας μηδαμῇ μηδαμῶς οἰκεταῖς, μήτ’ οὖν θηλείαις μήτ’ ἄῤῥεσιν.
[213] Aristotle (Polit. vii. p. 1330, a. 27; Œconom. i. p. 1344, b. 18) agrees with Plato as to the danger of having slaves who speak the same language and are of the same tribes, with common lineage and sympathies. He disapproves of anything which tends to impart spirit and independence to the slave’s character; and he takes occasion from hence to deduce some objections against various arrangements of the Platonic Republic (Politic. ii. p. 1264, a. 35). These are precautions — πρὸς τὸ μηδὲν νεωτερίζειν. But Aristotle dissents from Plato on another point — where Plato enjoins that the master shall not exhort or admonish his slave, but shall address to him no word except the word of command (Aristot. Politic. i. p. 1260, b. 5). Aristotle says that there is a certain special and inferior kind of ἀρετὴ which the slave can possess and ought to possess; that this ought to be communicated to him by the admonition and exhortation of the master; and that the master ought to admonish his slaves even more than he admonishes his children. The slave requires a certain ἠθικὴν ἀρετήν, so that he may not be hindered from his duty by ἀκολασία or δειλία: but it is an ἀρετὴ μικρά: the courage required for the slave is ὑπηρετική, that for the master ἀρχική (ib. p. 1260, a. 22-35). This measure of virtue the master must impart to the slave by exhortation, over and above the orders which he gives as to the performance of work. It would appear, however, that in Aristotle’s time there were various persons who denied that there was any ἀρετὴ belonging to a slave — παρὰ τὰς ὀργανικὰς καὶ διακονικάς (p. 1259, b. 23). Upon this last theory is founded the injunction of Plato which Aristotle here controverts.
What Aristotle says about slaves in the fifth chapter of the first book of his Œconomica, is superior to what he says in the Politica, and superior to anything which we read in the Platonic Treatise De Legibus.