Potter thus—
“It is my wish,
Though born a slave, among the generous slaves
To be accounted, bearing a free mind,
If not the name; for better this I deem,
Than two bad things, to harbour a base mind,
And hear from those around the name of slave.”
We deem this translation defective, because it makes no distinction between the ideas conveyed by the words λάτρις and δουλος. True, at this late day, the passage is somewhat obscure. But the speaker was not a slave: he says he was born a λάτρις—a character far less elevated than the δοῦλος, yet a freeman, but possessing a greater servility of mind than even the doulos, and his condition often far more abject. The slave possessed the protection of his master; but the latris, with all the destitution and degradation incident to the lowest conditions of the freeman, often coveted the happier condition of the doulos. The idea conveyed by this messenger is literally this: “Although born a latris, I had rather be considered among the home-born slaves, not having the name of freedom, than to have merely the name; for I consider this a good choice between the two evils—the being supposed to have the base mind of the latris, and the being truly called a slave by those near us.” The substance is, he had rather be a doulos than a latris.
That he was not a slave is evident from what follows in the 797th line, where Menelaus calls him emphatically his prospolon, merely an attendant.
1630.——ἀλλὰ δεσποτῶν κρατήσεις, δοῦλος ὤν;