Most of the goods are as yet unpacked; these workmen, however, have already filled large woollen sacks with them, and one of them is in the act of tying his up, while another is carrying his away. The weighing and packing are conducted under the superintendence of king Arcesilas, who is seated close by, holding in his left hand his sceptre, and with his right apparently giving directions to a workman standing before him. His costume is very extraordinary. The panther under the prince’s seat, a lizard, a stork (or crane), a monkey, and several pigeons, give life to the picture, and partly indicate the place where the scene is laid. Below the main picture, where we must suppose the cellar for the stores to be, workmen are piling up finished packets, under the direction of a man in a cloak.
Occupations connected with money were largely developed in antiquity. The merchants who dealt with such business—the bankers and money-changers—were called by the Greeks “table-merchants” (τραπεζῖται), from the table at which they originally carried on their occupations. Their duties were of a double nature; besides the actual business of changing, they undertook the investment of capital and the transaction of money business. When the increased coinage of money and the augmentation of trade and travel brought large sums into the hands of individuals, those who had not invested their possessions in wares or property or slaves, naturally desired to profit by it in some other way, and thus the loan business was gradually developed, in which capitalists lent money to those who required it for any mercantile undertaking, in return for a security and interest. In the bond executed in the presence of witnesses, the amount of the capital, the interest agreed upon, as well as the time for which the loan was arranged, had to be entered. For greater safety, a third person usually became security for the debtor, or else some possession was mortgaged, the value of which corresponded to the sum lent. They distinguished between pledges in movable objects, such as cattle, furniture, slaves, etc.; and mortgages given partly on movable objects, such as factory slaves, and partly on immovable property. Mortgages of this kind were very common in seafaring business. The merchant who borrowed money from a rich citizen in order to carry on a particular business with it, pledged his ship or the goods with which he dealt, or perhaps both, to his creditor in a formal contract. They endeavoured to obtain as much security as possible by very exact arrangements concerning the object of the journey, the nature of the goods, etc.; moreover, the interest in business of this kind was very high, because the creditor ran the risk of losing his bargain entirely, or in part, by storms, or pirates, or other misfortunes. Mortgages were also given on property in land, and the creditor’s right of ownership was inscribed on stone tablets set up on the property in question, with the name of the creditor and the amount of the debt. In some places the State itself conducted books for mortgages, in which all the property was entered, together with the amount of the mortgages upon it. Here, as in other loans, interest was high, and this was due to the insecurity of trade and the very incomplete development of agricultural conditions. There were no laws against usury; from ten to twenty per cent., or higher if it was for risk at sea, was common, but there were even cases where thirty-six or forty-eight per cent. were taken. Of course, in these circumstances complaints of extortion were made.
The arrangement of this money business was chiefly in the hands of the bankers. Their original and chief occupation was the changing of money—the various kinds of coinage which became current through foreign trade; and here they got their profit from the rate of exchange. They also lent money, both small sums and capital for trade and other business undertakings, and this was their share in these monetary transactions. Rich people often invested their money with these bankers, who paid them interest and gave them security or pledges; they then themselves lent the money to men of business, and on account of the risk naturally demanded higher interest than they paid. But even when money was lent direct by a capitalist to a merchant, the mediation of a banker was often resorted to in concluding the contract; for these men were well known to the public on account of their extensive business, and possessed considerable business knowledge. As a rule, though some were known as usurers, and trickery and bankruptcy occasionally occurred, they enjoyed so much confidence that they were gladly engaged as witnesses in business contracts, and requested to take charge of the documents. Money also was deposited with them, for which no particular use appeared at the moment, and which would not be safe if kept at home; of course, if this capital lay idle the banker could pay no interest, but often demanded a sum for taking charge of the deposit. Some of them left their money in the hands of money-changers to increase the business capital, and the extent to which this was done is proved by the fact that the banker Pasion, at the time of Demosthenes, in a business capital of 50 talents (£11,700), had 11 talents (£2,593) lent by private persons.
CHAPTER XV.
SLAVERY.
Slaves in Ancient Greece—Captives Taken in War—The Slave Trade—The Price of Slaves—Native Serfs—The Helots—The Penestae and the Clarotae—The Status of the Slave—Protection against Ill-treatment—The Slave’s Duties—Modes of Liberation.
All the social and economic conditions of antiquity are based on the institution of slavery, and without it would have been impossible; in fact, slavery is so closely interwoven with the whole life of antiquity that even the political development of the ancient nations and their achievements in the domain of art and industry would be inexplicable without the existence of a large slave population. So great was the importance of slavery in antiquity that any account of Greek life would be incomplete, which did not give some slight sketch of these peculiar conditions.
The institution of slavery in Greece is very ancient; it is impossible to trace its origin, and we find it even in the very earliest times regarded as a necessity of nature, a point of view which even the following ages and the most enlightened philosophers adopted. In later times voices were heard from time to time protesting against the necessity of the institution, showing some slight conception of the idea of human rights, but these were only isolated opinions. From the very earliest times the right of the strongest had established the custom that captives taken in war, if not killed or ransomed, became the slaves of the conquerors, or were sold into slavery by them. This custom, which was universal in the Homeric age, continued to exist in the historic period also, so that not only was it adopted in contests between Hellenes and barbarians, but even in the numerous feuds between Hellenes and Hellenes they often condemned their own countrymen to the hard lot of slavery; in later times, however, it was only in cases of special animosity that they resorted to this expedient; as a rule, they exchanged or ransomed captive Greeks. Besides the wars, piracy, originally regarded as by no means dishonourable, supplied the slave markets; and though in later times endeavours were made to set a limit to it, yet the trade in human beings never ceased, since the need for slaves was considerable, not only in Greece, but still more in Oriental countries.
In the historic period the slaves in Greece were for the most part barbarians, chiefly from the districts north of the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor. The Greek dealers supplied themselves from the great slave markets held in the towns on the Black Sea and on the Asiatic coast of the Archipelago, not only by the barbarians themselves, but even by Greeks, in particular the Chians, who carried on a considerable slave trade. These slaves were then put up for sale at home; at Athens there were special markets held for this purpose on the first of every month; the slaves were arranged on platforms, so that the buyers might examine them on all sides, for they sought chiefly to obtain physical perfection and strength of limb for hard work, and therefore, if the purchasers desired it, the slaves had to be undressed. Of course, those slaves who were bought merely for the sake of their bodily strength were least valuable; a higher price was given for those who had any special skill or were suited for posts of confidence, and considerable prices were also given for pretty female slaves or handsome boys. Consequently, there was great variety of price; at the time of Xenophon the price for a common male slave, who was only suited for rough work, was half a mina (about £2), else the ordinary average was two minae (about £8); for slaves who possessed any technical skill or higher education the price rose from five to ten minae (£20-£40), and even in exceptional cases amounted to one talent (£240).
A large portion of the slave population consisted of those who were born in slavery; that is, the children of slaves or of a free father and slave mother, who as a rule also became slaves, unless the owner disposed otherwise. We have no means of knowing whether the number of these slave children born in the houses in Greece was large or small. At Rome they formed a large proportion of the slave population, but the circumstances in Italy differed greatly from those in Greece, and the Roman landowners took as much thought for the increase of their slaves as of their cattle. Besides these two classes of slave population, those who were taken in war or by piracy and those who were born slaves, there was also a third, though not important, class. In early times even free men might become slaves by legal methods; for instance foreign residents, if they neglected their legal obligations, and even Greeks, if they were insolvent, might be sold to slavery by their creditors, a severe measure which was forbidden by Solon’s legislation at Athens, but still prevailed in other Greek states. Children, when exposed, became the property of those who found and educated them, and in this manner many of the hetaerae and flute girls had become the property of their owners.
Finally, we know that in some countries the Hellenic population originally resident there were subdued by foreign tribes, and became the slaves of their conquerors, and their position differed in but few respects from that of the barbarian slaves purchased in the markets. Such native serfs were the Helots at Sparta, the Penestae in Thessaly, the Clarotae in Crete, etc. We have most information about the position and treatment of the Helots; but here we must receive the statements of writers with great caution, since they undoubtedly exaggerated a good deal in their accounts of the cruelty with which the Spartans treated the Helots. Still, it is certain that in many respects their lot was a sad one. The constant fear of general insurrection on the part of the Helots entertained by the Spartans, whose own numbers were far fewer, and the terrible severity with which they punished, not only real insurrection, but even merely suspected revolution, prove to us that the statements concerning the cruel treatment of the Helots are not absolutely without foundation. But, as a rule, they did not perform menial slave offices in the houses of the free citizens, but cultivated their lands, and as they were only obliged to hand over a certain part of the profit to the owners, they were able to keep the remainder for themselves, and sometimes to accumulate fortunes and even to purchase their freedom. Nor do we hear of cases in which individual Spartans treated the Helots who were subordinate to them with especial severity—most of the cases of cruelty towards Helots are those in which State reasons seemed to require such proceedings, and were aimed, not at individuals, but at the whole mass of slaves. This was due to a curious arrangement by which the Helots were not, like other slaves, private property of the Individual citizens, but State property and assigned to a particular piece of land, and along with it to the owner for the time being, without enabling him to maintain right of ownership over them. We must not therefore regard the Helots in the same light as ordinary slaves; they were rather public serfs, and on this account they were better off than those who belonged to individual owners. There seems no doubt that besides the Helots there were also private slaves at Sparta, who rendered personal services in the households.