The discredit, however, of subsisting on slave labour was to a certain extent shared by all the states of Greece, even by Athens. They appear to have supposed that no slaves, no body politic.[[5]] But in the treatment of those unfortunate men there was as much variation as from the differences of national character might have been inferred. The Athenians in this respect, as in most others, being the antipodes of the Spartans, and falling into the error, if such a thing can be conceived, of extreme humanity and indulgence.
It is no doubt possible by kindness to obliterate many of the ugly features of slavery, so that between the vassal and his lord strong mutual affection may spring up.[[6]] We hear, accordingly, of slaves whose love for their masters exceeded the love of brothers, or of children;[[7]] they have toiled, fought, died, for them; nay they have sometimes surpassed them in courage, and taught them, in situations of imminent danger, how to die, as in the case of that military attendant, who, when taken prisoner with his master, and seeing him resolved on death, yet hesitating about the means, dashed his brains out against the wall to show him how it might be done. Another example is recorded of a slave who put on the disguise of his lord, that he might be slain in his stead. But what then? Do these examples prove that in servitude there is anything ennobling? On the contrary, the only inference to be drawn from them is, that in these cases great and worthy souls had been dealt with unjustly by fortune. However, since none but the incorrigibly base can now be found to advocate this worst of all human vices, I may spare my arguments, and proceed at once to trace the history of slavery in Greece.
In very remote ages mankind, according to tradition, dispensed with the labours of domestic slaves,[[8]] whose place was supplied by the women of the family,[[9]] who rose before day to grind corn for the household; and as they usually sang while thus engaged, the whole village on such occasions would seem alive with music. As in the East, also, they were accustomed to draw water from the wells, or seek it at a distance at the fountains, as I have already, in speaking of the Hellenic women, observed. But as soon as men began to give quarter in war, and became possessed of prisoners, the idea of employing them, and rendering their labours subservient to their maintenance naturally suggested itself. At the outset, therefore, as a very distinguished historian[[10]] has remarked, servitude sprung from feelings of humanity; for when it was found that advantages could be derived from captured enemies they were no longer butchered in the field. Hence, from the verb signifying “to be subdued,” they were denominated Dmöes;[[11]] for “of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”[[12]] Of these constant mention is made in Homer. Thus Telemachos speaks of the Dmöes whom his father had left in his charge; and Agamemnon detained in his tent a number of Lesbian women taken captive in war. In the same condition was Briseïs: and to this fate Hector fears Andromache may be reserved after his death.[[13]]
Possibly the practice was borrowed from the East, where the mention of slaves occurs in the remotest ages. Thus too in later times, Atossa, queen of Persia, is represented to have urged Darius into the Grecian war, that she might possess Athenian, Spartan, Argive, and Corinthian slaves.[[14]] And the Pythoness foretelling the destruction of Miletus, exclaims:
“And of a numerous long-haired race thy wives shall wash the feet.”[[15]]
The practice was when a number of prisoners had been taken, to make a division of them among the chiefs, generally by lot, and then to sell them for slaves.[[16]] This Achilles boasts he had frequently done, and old Priam fears will be the destiny of his own sons, as it had been of Lycaon whom the Thessalian hero had seized[[17]] in his garden. To the same purpose is the lament of Hecuba,[[18]] who accuses him of having reduced many of her sons to slavery. Examples occur in antiquity of whole cities and states being at once subjected to servitude: thus the inhabitants of Judea were a first and a second time carried away captive to Babylon, where their masters, not perhaps from mockery, required of them to sing for their entertainment some of their national songs, to which, as we learn from the prophet, they replied: “How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?” The citizens likewise of Miletos, after the unsuccessful revolt of Aristagoras, were transported into Persia, as were those also of Eretria and Carystos in Eubœa.[[19]] Like the Israelites, these Greeks long preserved in captivity their national manners and language, though surrounded by strangers and urged by every inducement to assimilate themselves to their conquerors. A similar fate overtook the inhabitants of Thebes, who were sold into slavery by Alexander, as were those of Mycene by the Argives, and the Corinthians by Mummius.[[20]]
But the supply produced by war seldom equalled the demand; and in consequence a race of kidnappers sprung up, who, partly merchants and partly pirates, roamed about the shores of the Mediterranean, as similar miscreants do now about the slave-coasts, picking up solitary and unprotected individuals. Sometimes their boldness rose to the wives or daughters of the chiefs; as in the case of Paris, who robbed the house, and carried away the wife of Menelaus; and of those Phœnicians who having landed at Argos and held, during several days, a fair on the beach, ended by stealing the king’s daughter.[[21]] Mitford’s supposition that both Io and her companions may have been allured on board,[[22]] is founded on the apologetical narrative of the pirates themselves. The practice of kidnapping certainly prevailed widely. Thus Eumæos was, by the Phœnicians, sold to Laertes, and a similar fate awaited the woman whom the Taphian pirates stole away at the same time.[[23]] Odysseus himself relates how a Phœnician rogue plotted against his liberty when he was sailing with him towards Libya, and that the Thesprotians had meditated a like design.[[24]] To enumerate no other instances, Laomedon menaces Apollo and Poseidon with servitude, observing that he will have them bound and shipped to some distant island for sale.[[25]]
Neither war, however, nor piracy sufficed at length to furnish that vast multitude of slaves, which the growing luxury of the times induced the Greeks to consider necessary. Commerce by degrees conducted them to Caria and other parts of Asia Minor, particularly the southern coasts of the Black Sea, those great nurseries of slaves from that time until now.[[26]] The first Greeks who engaged in this traffic, which even by the Pagans was supposed to be attended by a curse, are said to have been the Chians, and we shall presently see how ill it prospered with them. They purchased their slaves from the barbarians, among whom the Lydians, the Phrygians, and the natives of Pontos, with many others were accustomed, like the modern Circassians, to carry on a trade in their own people.[[27]] We find mention made in the Anabasis of a Macronian, who having been a slave at Athens and obtaining his liberty, afterwards became a soldier and served the Ten Thousand as an interpreter at a critical moment during their passage through his native country.[[28]]
Before proceeding, however, with the history of the slave-trade, it may be proper to describe the power possessed by masters over their domestics during the heroic ages. Every man appears to have been then a king in his own house, and to have exercised his authority most regally. Thus we find the young Telemachos taking pleasure in the idea that he shall be king over his slaves;[[29]] and Andromache, with a mother’s fondness, fears lest her son should become the drudge of an unfeeling lord.[[30]] Power generally, when unchecked by law, is fierce and inhuman, and over their household, gentlemen, in those ages, exercised the greatest and most awful power, that of life and death, as they afterwards did at Rome.[[31]] This is illustrated by an example in the Odyssey, where the hero being, while in disguise, insulted grossly by Melanthios, threatens the slave that he will incite Telemachos to cut him in pieces. Afterwards, when he has recovered his authority, the terrible menace is remembered and fulfilled. The culprit is seized and mutilated with savage barbarity, his members, torn from the body, are thrown to the dogs, and even the poet, upon the whole so humane, does not seem to consider the punishment too great for the offence.[[32]] It has even been supposed that this kind of mutilation was a punishment peculiar to slaves; for Laomedon, while menacing the gods in the manner above described, adds, that he will cut off their ears.[[33]] When supposed to deserve death they were executed ignominiously by hanging, as in the case of the domestics of Odysseus, whose offences, though grave, would scarcely in any free country be visited with capital punishment.[[34]] This was regarded as an impure end. To die honourably was to perish by the sword.[[35]]
The practice of manumission already in the heroic ages prevailed.[[36]] Odysseus promises their freedom to his herdsman and swineherd if by their aid he should slaughter the suitors; and, according to Plutarch, Telemachos actually bestowed on Eumæos and his companions both their liberty and the rights of citizenship, and from them, he adds, the celebrated families of the Koliades and Bukoli were descended.[[37]]