In another department of iniquity the Chians would appear to have been engaged about the period of Xerxes’ expedition into Greece; I mean the making of eunuchs for the Eastern market. Panionios, a miscreant engaged in this traffic, who had mutilated and sold into slavery a young man named Hermotimos, at length expiated his offence against human nature by being himself, together with his four sons, subjected to the same operation.[[65]] His countrymen, also, in process of time, were, in like manner, compelled to drain the bitter cup of servitude. For, as we find recorded by Nicolaos the Peripatetic, and Posidonios the Stoic, having been subjugated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, they were delivered up to their own slaves to be carried away captive into Colchis, which Athenæus, a man not overburdened with religion, considers the just punishment of their wickedness in having been the first who introduced the slave-trade into Greece, when they might have been better served by freemen for hire. From this ancient villany of the Chians is supposed to have arisen the proverb—“the Chian has bought himself a master,” which Eupolis introduced into his drama called the “Friends.”[[66]]
The servile war which took place among the Samians, had a more fortunate issue, though but few particulars respecting it have come down to us. It was related, however, by Malacos, in his annals of the Siphnians, that Ephesos was first founded by a number of Samian slaves, who having retired to a mountain on the island to the number of a thousand, inflicted numerous evils on their former tyrants. These in the sixth year of the war, having consulted the oracle, came to an understanding with their slaves, who being permitted to depart in safety from the island, sailed away, and became the founders of the city and people of Ephesos.[[67]]
In Attica, the institution of slavery,[[68]] though attended, as it everywhere must be, by innumerable evils, nevertheless exhibited itself under the mildest form which it anywhere assumed in the ancient world.[[69]] With their characteristic attention to the interests of humanity, the Athenians enacted a law, in virtue of which slaves could indict their masters for assault and battery. Hyperides, accordingly, observed in his oration against Mantitheos, “our laws making no distinction in this respect between freemen and slaves, grant to all alike the privilege of bringing an action against those who insult or injure them.”[[70]] To the same effect spoke Lycurgus[[71]] in his first oration against Lycophron; but Demosthenes has preserved the law which empowered any Athenian, not labouring under legal disability, to denounce to the Thesmothetæ the person who offered violence to man, woman, or boy, whether slave or free. The action was tried before the court of Heliæa, and numerous were the examples of men who had suffered death for crimes committed against bondsmen. Not, therefore, without reason did the orator eulogise the humane spirit of the law, or dwell upon the beneficial effects which a knowledge of its existence must produce among those barbarous nations who furnished Greece with servile labourers.[[72]] Another privilege enjoyed by the slave class in Attica was that of purchasing their own freedom, as often as, by the careful management of the peculium secured them by law, they were enabled to offer to their owners an equivalent for their services.[[73]]
Still, even in Attica, the yoke of bondage was a heavy yoke, the law itself, in other matters, drawing distinctions between freemen and slaves doubly galling because palpably unnecessary. Legally, for example, they were not allowed to wear long hair,[[74]] or a garment with two sleeves,[[75]] to drink wine, save at the festival of Pithœgia on the first day of the month Anthesterion; to anoint themselves as in the gymnasia, to be present at the procession in honour of the Eumenides, or in the case of females to enter the temple of Demeter during the celebration of the Thesmophoria.[[76]] A similar spirit pervaded the servile code in other parts of Greece. Thus, in the island of Cos they were prohibited from joining in the sacrifices to Hera, and from tasting the victims. They were, likewise, forbidden to be present when offerings were presented to the Manes of Phorbas. But from the very words of the law which authorised the temple wardens to exclude them on these occasions, it is clear that on all others they might freely enter.[[77]] At Athens, with the exceptions above mentioned, every temple in the city appears to have been open to them. Occasionally, moreover, certain of their number were selected to accompany their masters to consult the oracle at Delphi, when even they were permitted, like free citizens, to wear crowns upon their heads, which, for the time conferred upon them exemption from blows or stripes.[[78]] Among their more serious grievances, was their liability to personal chastisement, which, besides being inflicted as our punishment of the treadmill, or whipping,[[79]] at the carts’-tail, by an order of the magistrates,[[80]] was too much left to the discretion of their owners, whose mercies in many cases would be none of the most tender. In time of war, however, this planter’s luxury could not be enjoyed,[[81]] since the flogged slaves might go over to the enemy, as sometimes happened.[[82]] They are said, besides, to have worked the mines in fetters; probably, however, only in consequence of the revolt described by Posidonios, in which they slew the overseers of the mines, and taking possession of the acropolis of Sunium,[[83]] laid waste for a considerable time the whole of the adjacent districts. This took place simultaneously with the second insurrection of the slaves in Sicily (there was, perhaps, an understanding between them) in the quelling of which nearly a million of their number were destroyed.[[84]] Other grievances they endured, which will be noticed as we proceed; but in addition to those that actually existed, a learned modern writer has imagined another, which, in his opinion, reduces their condition beneath that of the Helots. “Nearly all the ties of family were broken,” he says, “among the slaves of Athens;” and further explaining himself in a note remarks, that the marriage of slaves was there an uncommon event.[[85]] We find, however, from contemporary writers, that except in cases of incorrigible perverseness, slaves were, on the contrary, encouraged to marry, it being supposed they would thus become more attached to their masters.[[86]] The same bold and ingenious writer endeavours to give a reason for what has been quoted above, by saying, “it was cheaper to purchase than to bring up slaves.” This was not the opinion of the ancients, “we,” say they, “prefer and put more trust in slaves born and brought up in the house, than in such as are purchased.”[[87]]
It has been observed that, from the most grievous insults and contumely, slaves were protected by the laws; but if, in spite of legal protection, their masters found means to render their lives a burden, the state provided them with an asylum in the temples of Theseus and the Eumenides.[[88]] Having there taken sanctuary, their oppressors could not force them thence without incurring the guilt of sacrilege.[[89]] Thus, in a fragment of Aristophanes’ Seasons we find a slave deliberating whether he should not take refuge in the Theseion, and there remain till he could procure his transfer to a new master;[[90]] for any one who conducted himself too harshly towards his slaves was by law compelled to sell them.[[91]] Nay and not only so, but the slave could institute an action against his lord called αἰκιάς δίκη, or against any other citizen who had behaved unjustly or injuriously towards him. But the right of sanctuary was no doubt limited, and only extended from the time of the slave’s flight to the next New Moon, when a periodical slave-auction appears to have been held.[[92]]
On this occasion the slaves were stationed, as I have seen them in the bazaars of modern Egypt, in a circle in the market-place, and the one whose turn it was to be sold mounted a table, which seems to have been of stone, where he exhibited himself and was knocked down to the best bidder. Sometimes when the articles were lively they made great sport for the company, as in the case of Diogenes who bawled aloud “whoever among you wants a master, let him buy me.”[[93]]
To the friskiness whether natural or assumed which the young barbarians often exhibited on this occasion, Menander alludes in the following fragment of his Ephesian:[[94]]
I scorn by the gods to be breechesless found,
And for sale tripping briskly the vile circles round.
Slaves of little or no value were contemptuously called “salt-bought,” from a custom prevalent among the inland Thracians, of bartering their captives for salt;[[95]] whence it may be inferred, that domestics from that part of the world were considered inferior.