Nor does the illustrious race appear to be yet extinct, Professor Koliades[[38]] claiming to be a lineal descendant from Eumæos, which may very well be since he must be descended from somebody; and there is no reason why a descendant of Eumæos should not be a professor.
In addition to the slaves there were likewise free labourers who worked for hire, and were called Thetes.[[39]] These sometimes seem to have been placed on the extremities of estates, as the guardians of boundaries, a post which Eurymachos offers with good wages to Odysseus.[[40]] And it is the condition of one of these hinds that Achilles prefers in Hades to the empire of the shades.[[41]] The gods also in their sojourn upon earth sometimes submitted to the hardships of this condition. Thus Phœbos Apollo kept the flocks of Admetos, king of Thessaly,[[42]] and the belief in this humble condition of the gods on earth is objected by Lucian and Dionysius of Halicarnassus,[[43]] as blameworthy to the Greeks. Herodotus, too, relates that the three sons of Temenos—Gavanes, Aëropos, and Perdiccas—fled from Argos into Illyria and thence into Upper Macedonia to the city of Lebæa, where they served the king for hire, the first tending the royal stud, the second the cattle, and the third the sheep and goats.[[44]]
From the history of Minos, which, whether true or fabulous, still illustrates the manners of the times, we learn, that the tribute exacted by a victorious enemy sometimes consisted of slaves. Thus the Cretan king, having made a successful descent on the Attic coast, was propitiated (as by our own ancestors were the Danes and other Northern savages) by an annual offering of fourteen youths and virgins, who, being conveyed to Crete, were there said to be destroyed by a monster born of Pasiphaë, daughter of the sun.[[45]] Theseus, the great hero of the Ionic race, delivered his country from this obnoxious tax, and on his return to Athens was received by the people with unbounded gratitude; sacrifices and processions were instituted in his honour, and the memory of his noble achievement was religiously preserved as long as paganism endured.[[46]]
And in some such ways as the above, slaves, in early times, must have been procured; for, as Timæos of Taormina[[47]] remarks, the Greeks of those ages obtained none in the regular course of traffic. He further adds, that Aristotle was generally accused of having misunderstood the usages of the Locrians, among whom, as among the Phocians,[[48]] it was not of old the custom to possess slaves, whether male or female. The practice, however, prevailed in later times; and the wife of that Philomelos who took Delphi is said to have been the first who was attended by two servile handmaids.[[49]] But when men commence evil courses, they seldom know where to stop. Mnason, a Phocian, and friend of Aristotle,[[50]] ambitious of rivalling Nicias, the son of Niceratos, purchased for his own service a thousand slaves, for which he was accused by his countrymen of lavishing upon them what would have supported an equal number of free persons.[[51]] In that country, therefore, it is clear there existed a class of labourers like the Thetes described by Homer, who were ready to work for hire.[[52]] In their domestic economy the simplicity of their manners enabled the Phocians and Locrians to dispense with the services of slaves, it being the custom among them, as among the rustics of Eubœa, whom we have described above, for the younger members of the family to wait on the elder.[[53]]
The Chians, as I have already observed, are said to have been the first Grecian people who engaged in a regular slave-trade.[[54]] For, although the Thessalians and Spartans possessed, at a period much anterior, their Penestæ and their Helots, they obtained them by different means: the latter, by reducing to subjection the ancient Achæan inhabitants of Peloponnesos;[[55]] the former, by their conquests over the Magnesians, Perrhæbians, and Bœotians of Arnè. But the Chians possessed only such barbarian slaves as they had purchased with money, in which they more nearly resembled the slave-holding nations of modern times.[[56]] Other circumstances, likewise, in the history of slavery among the Chians,[[57]] strongly suggest the parallel, and deserve to be studied with more care than appears to have been bestowed upon them. We have here, perhaps, the first type of the Maroon wars, though on a smaller scale, and marked by fewer outbreaks of atrocity. It is not, indeed, stated that the females were flogged, though throughout Greece the males were so corrected; but, whatever the nature of the severities practised on them may have been,[[58]] the yoke of bondage was found too galling to be borne,[[59]] and whole gangs took refuge in the mountains. Fortunately for them, the interior of the island abounded in fastnesses, and was, in those days, covered with forest.
Here, therefore, the fugitives, erecting themselves dwellings, or taking possession of caverns among almost inaccessible cliffs, successfully defended themselves, subsisting on the plunder of their former owners. Shortly before the time of the writer, to whom we are indebted for these details, a bondsman, named Drimacos, made his escape from the city and reached the mountains, where, by valour and conduct, he soon placed himself at the head of the servile insurgents over whom he ruled like a king.[[60]] The Chians led several expeditions against him in vain. He defeated them in the field with great slaughter; but, at length, to spare the useless effusion of human blood, invited them to a conference, wherein he observed, that the slaves, being encouraged in their revolt by an oracle, would never lay down their arms or submit to the drudgery of servitude. Nevertheless, the war might be terminated. “For, if my advice,” said he, “be followed, and we be suffered to enjoy tranquillity, numerous advantages will thence accrue to the state.”
There being little prospect of a satisfactory settlement of the matter by arms, the Chians consented to enter into a truce as with a public enemy. Humbled by their losses and defeats, Drimacos found them submissive to reason. He, therefore, provided himself with weights, measures, and a signet,[[61]] and exhibiting them to his former masters, said, “When, in future, our necessities require that I should supply myself from your stores, it shall always be by these weights and measures, and having possessed myself of the necessary quantity of provisions, I shall be careful to leave your warehouses sealed with this signet. With respect to such of your slaves as may fly and offer themselves to me, I will institute a rigid examination into their story, and if, upon inquiry, they appear to have had just grounds for complaint, I will protect them—if not, they shall be sent back to their proprietors.”
To these conditions the magistrates readily acceded, upon which the slaves who still remained with their masters grew more obedient, and seldom took to flight, dreading the decision of Drimacos.[[62]] Over his own followers he exercised a despotic authority. They, in fact, stood far more in fear of him than when in bondage of their lords, and performed his bidding without question or murmur, as soldiers obey their commander. For he was severe in the punishment of the unruly, and permitted no man to plunder or lay waste the country, or commit any act of injustice,—in short, to do anything without his order. The public festivals he was careful to observe, going round and collecting from the proprietors of the land, who bestowed upon him voluntarily both wine and the finest victims; but if, on these occasions, he discovered that a plot was hatching, or any ambush laid for him, he would take speedy vengeance.
So far the affairs of the Chians and their revolted bondsmen proceeded smoothly. But things continued not always on this footing. Observing old age to be creeping upon Drimacos, and rendered wanton apparently by prosperity, the government issued a proclamation, offering a great reward to any one who should capture him, or bring them his head.[[63]] The old general, discerning, perhaps, signals of treachery, or convinced that, at last, it must come to that, took aside a young man whom he loved, and said, “I have ever regarded you with a stronger affection than any other man, and to me you have been, instead of a son, a brother, and every other tie. But now, the days of my life are at an end, nor would I have them prolonged. With you, however, it is not so. Youth and the bloom of youth are yours. What then is to be done? You must prove yourself to possess valour and greatness of soul; and since the state offers riches and freedom to whomsoever shall slay me and bear them my head, let the reward be yours. Strike it off, and be happy!”
At first the youth rejected the proposal, but ultimately Drimacos prevailed. The old man fell, and his friend on presenting his head received the sum which had been offered by the state, together with his freedom, and thereupon after burying his benefactor’s remains, he sailed away to his own country. Now, however, the Chians underwent the just punishment of their treachery. No longer guided by the wisdom and authority of Drimacos, the fugitive slaves returned to their original habits of plunder and devastation; whereupon, remembering the moderation of the dead, they erected an Heroön upon his grave, and denominated him the propitious hero. The insurgents, too, holding his memory in no less veneration, continued for ages to offer up the first-fruits of their spoil at his tomb. He was, in fact, honoured with a kind of apotheosis, and canonized among the gods of the island; for it was believed that his shade often appeared to men in dreams for the purpose of revealing some servile conspiracy while yet in the bud: and they to whom he vouchsafed these warning visits, more grateful than when he yet lived, never failed to proceed to his chapel, and offer sacrifice to his manes.[[64]]