[P] Kappa, the letter K. This is an abbreviation of the word Klemma, theft. Slaves were usually branded on the forehead (or on the ears or hands.) The mark seems to have been stamped on the shoulder only by special favor, when the offence was trivial.
“A slave!” cried Aristeides, “and branded!”
At first he was almost stupefied; then he moved away from Lycon’s side and sat down on a log a short distance off.
“Now I understand everything,” he thought, “his fear of undressing in the gymnasium—his unknown origin—his large hands—his ignorance of the poets—and his absence during the great festivals.... So he is a fugitive slave, and has been punished for theft. Before his flight he probably robbed his master and of no inconsiderable sum. He was entered in the citizens’ list by bribery, and now the thievish, branded slave lives in Athens as a free citizen, and enjoys himself on his defrauded master’s money.”
Aristeides rose to go to the city magistrates, but ere he left the shed he started and listened.
Lycon was laughing in his sleep.
There was something so joyous and light-hearted in his laughter that Aristeides involuntarily paused.
“Look!” murmured Lycon, stretching out his arm as though pointing, “now fat Dryas is jumping!—The leather bottle is bursting—he’ll fall—plump! there he lies on his stomach in the water.”
And Lycon laughed again.
“No!” said Aristeides, “a man who laughs in his sleep like a child is not wicked.... Who knows whether freedom has not made him a different and a better man? Certainly nothing dishonorable is known about him, and he is universally respected.... Perhaps his master has made up his loss long ago. Perhaps he has himself repaid the stolen money; he has slaves who work for him. Besides, how does the matter concern me?”