Respecting the price of slaves an important passage occurs in the Memorabilia, where Socrates, conversing with Antisthenes, on the subject of friendship, inquires whether friends were to be valued at so much per head, like slaves, some of whom he says were not worth a demimina, while others would fetch two, five, or even ten minæ,[[96]] that is, the price varied from forty shillings to forty pounds. Nay it is even said that Nicias, son of Niceratos, bought an overseer for his silver mines at the price of a talent, or two hundred and forty-one pounds sterling.[[97]] This passage is in substance quoted by Boeckh,[[98]] who observes that, exclusively of the fluctuations caused by the variations in the supply and the demand, the market-price of slaves was affected by their age, health, strength, beauty, natural abilities, mechanical ingenuity, and moral qualities. The meanest and cheapest class were those who worked in the mills,[[99]] where mere bodily strength was required, and therefore by setting Samson at this labour the Philistines intimated their extreme contempt for his blind energy. A very low value was set upon such slaves as worked in the mines, about 150 drachmas in the age of Demosthenes.[[100]] Ordinary house-slaves, whether male or female, might be valued at about the same price. Demosthenes, in fact, considered two minæ and a half a large sum for a person of this class. Of the sword-cutlers possessed by the orator’s father some were valued at six minæ, others at five, while the lowest were worth above three. Chair-makers sold for about two minæ.
In his discussion on this point, Boeckh[[101]] charges Demosthenes with intentional falsehood, because, in his oration against Aphobos, he reckons fourteen sword-cutlers at forty minæ, something less than three minæ a-piece. But among those possessed by his father at his death some were reckoned at only three minæ. His guardians made use of them for ten years, that is, till they were grown old, by which time the best would have deteriorated, and the others become of no value.[[102]] This being the case, I do not see upon what ground Boeckh bases his accusation. The wages of slaves, when let out by their masters on hire, varied greatly, as did also the profit derived from them. A miner was supposed to yield his master an obolos per day, a leather-worker two oboli, and a foreman or overseer three. Expert manufacturers of fine goods, such as head-nets, stuffs of Amorgos, and variegated fabrics like our flowered muslins, must have produced their owners much greater returns.[[103]]
Slaves, at Athens, were divided into two classes, private and public. The latter, who were the property of the state, performed several kinds of service supposed to be unworthy of freemen: they were, for example, employed as vergers, messengers, apparitors, scribes, clerks of public works,[[104]] and inferior servants of the gods. Most of the temples of Greece possessed, in fact, a great number of slaves or serfs, who cultivated the sacred domains, exercised various humbler offices of religion, and were, in short, ready on all occasions to execute the orders of the priests.[[105]] At Corinth, where the worship of Aphrodite chiefly prevailed, these slaves consisted almost exclusively of women,[[106]] who having, on certain occasions, burnt frankincense, and offered up public prayers to the goddess, were sumptuously feasted within the precincts of her fane.
Among the Athenians, the slaves of the republic, generally captives taken in war, received a careful education, and were sometimes entrusted with important duties. Out of their number were selected the secretaries,[[107]] who, in time of war, accompanied the generals and treasurers of the army, and made exact minutes of their expenditure, in order that, when on their return these officers should come to render an account of their proceedings, their books might be compared with those of the secretaries. In cases of difficulty, moreover, these unfortunate individuals were subjected to torture, in order to obtain that kind of evidence which the ancients deemed most satisfactory.[[108]]
The servile vocabulary was necessarily abundant: διάκονος,[[109]] a servant in general; ὑπηρέτης,[[110]] a personal attendant or valet; ἀργυρώ-νητης,[[111]] a slave bought with money; ὤνιος, the same; οἰκότριψ,[[112]] οἰκοτραφὴς, a male slave born in the house. The name given to the female slave in the same condition was σηκὶς, or οἰκογενὴς.[[113]] The housekeeper, likewise a slave, received the appellation of ταμεία[[114]] from her office. A lady’s maid they called παιδίσκη,[[115]] though it be doubtful, according to Pollux, whether the orator Lysias, who uses the word, does so with reference to the girl’s youth or condition.[[116]] A slave born of slaves in the house is called οἰκοτριβαίος.[[117]] Chrysippos makes a distinction between οἰκέτης[[118]] and δοῦλος,[[119]] but without much foundation. Clitarchus enumerates various names by which slaves were known in Greece: ἄζοι, θεραπόντες,[[120]] ἀκόλουθοι,[[121]] πάλμονες, and λάτρεις. Rural slaves were called ἐρκίται. Hermon, in his Cretan Glossaries, observes, that slaves, born of free parents (εὐγένεις), were, in the island of Crete, called μνῶται. Seleucus informs us, that ἄζοι signifies servants male and female.[[122]] The latter were also denominated ἀποφράσαι and βολίζαι. A male slave, born of a slave, was termed σινδρὼν; a female attendant on a lady, ἀμφίπολος; a slave-girl who walked before her mistress, πρόπολος. Female slaves were, at Lacedæmon, called χαλκίδες. The term οἰκέτης was applied to any person employed about a house, whether slave or free.
A very pleasant and significant custom prevailed when a slave newly purchased was first brought into the house. They placed him before the hearth, where his future master, mistress, and fellow-servants, poured baskets of ripe fruit, dates, figs, filberts, walnuts, and so on, upon his head, to intimate that he was come into the abode of plenty.[[123]] The occasion was converted by his fellow-slaves into a holiday and a feast; for custom appropriated to them whatever was thus cast upon the new-comer, and as there were sweetmeats among the rest, they had wherewith to make merry.[[124]]
Their food was commonly, as might be expected, inferior to that of their masters. Thus the dates grown in Greece, which ripened but imperfectly, were appropriated to their use; and for their drink they had a small thin wine called Lora,[[125]] by the Romans made of the husks of grapes, laid, after they had been pressed, to soak in water,[[126]] and then squeezed again, like our Bunnel, in the perry country.[[127]] That they generally ate barley-bread in Attica was no peculiar hardship,[[128]] since the citizens themselves frequently did the same. We find, moreover, that to give a relish to their coarse meal, plain broth, and salt fish,[[129]] they were indulged with pickled gherkins. In the early ages of the commonwealth they imitated the frugal manner of their lords, so that no slave who valued his reputation would be seen to enter a tavern; but in later times they naturally shared largely in the general depravity of morals, and placed their summum bonum in eating and drinking. Their whole creed, on this point, has been summed up in a few words by the poet Sotion.[[130]] “Wherefore,” exclaims a slave, “dole forth these absurdities, these ravings of sophists, prating up and down the Lyceum, the Academy, and the gates of the Odeion? In all these there is nothing of value. Let us drink, let us drink deeply, O Sicon, Sicon![[131]] Let us rejoice, whilst it is yet permitted us to delight our souls. Enjoy thyself, O Manes! Nothing is sweeter than the belly, which alone is to thee as thy father and thy mother. Virtues, embassies, generalships, are vain pomps, resembling the plaudits of a dream. Heaven, at the fated hour, will deliver thee to the cold grasp of death, and thou wilt bear with thee nothing but what thou hast drunk and eaten! All else is dust, like Pericles, Codros, and Cimon.”
The employment of household slaves necessarily varied according to the rank and condition of their lords. In the dwellings of the wealthy and luxurious they were accustomed to fan their masters and mistresses, and to drive away the flies with branches of myrtle, instead of which, in the East, they make use of flappers of palm-leaves. Among the Roman ladies it was customary to retain a female attendant for the sole purpose of looking after the Melitensian lap-dogs[[132]] of their mistresses, in which they were less ambitious than that dame in Lucian, who kept a philosopher for this purpose.[[133]] Female cup-bearers filled the place of our saucy footmen.[[134]] Ladies’ maids were likewise slaves. They were initiated in all the arts of the toilette; and it is told of Julia, whose hair turned prematurely grey, that her ornatrix was sometimes surprised plucking out the white hairs by the entrance of her father.[[135]] The offices of these ornamenters is thus described by Manilius:
Illis cura sui vultus frontisque decoræ
Semper erit, tortosque in plexum ponere crineis,