and in Medea:
χρηστοῖσι δούλοις ξυμφορὰ τὰ δεσποτῶν
κακῶς πίτνοντα, καὶ φρενῶν ἀνθάπτεται.[[38]]
Hecuba, bewailing her fate, foresees that she who had once been Queen of Troy will be forced to become the nurse of children.[[39]]
In Athens
But it was not only captives and slaves who nursed children. In the fourth century we find at Athens free women performing the office of nurse. Euxitelos in pleading against Eubolides answers the reproach they attach to his mother of having been a nurse. He says that his father had gone to the war, leaving his mother with two small children to support. Hence she was obliged to take Cleinias to nurse: αὐτὴ δ’ οὖ σ’ ἐν ἀπορίαις, ἠναγκάσθη τὸν Κλεινίαν τὸν τοῦ Κλειδίκου τιτθεῦσαι.[[40]] He admits that it is a mean employment, but affirms that he can give the names of free-born women, who, like his mother, were compelled by stress of poverty to become nurses: καὶ γὰρ νῦν ἀστὰς γυναῖκας πολλὰς εὑρήσετε τιτθευούσας.[[41]]
In another Oration of Demosthenes, In Evergum, there is an instance of an old and poor nurse living with the man she had nursed as a child. The father of this person, in recompense for her care, had given her her freedom: καὶ μετ’ αὐτῆς τίτθή τις ἐμοὶ γενομένη πρεσβυτέρα, ἄνθρωπος εὔνους καὶ πιστή, καὶ ἀφειμένη ἐλευθέρα ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐμοῦ.[[42]] She married and on the death of her husband returned to her nursling, who received her all the more willingly inasmuch as he was about to leave home and was pleased to have such a sure companion for his wife. When Euvergus and his accomplices break into the house, they find the old woman seated at table with the mistress and children. The nurse, trying to conceal a vase in her dress, is seen by the robbers who fall upon her and beat her until she gives it up. Some days afterwards she dies from injuries received, but not before having been cared for by a doctor summoned especially for her.
No instance is given by Plato or Aristotle of the manumission of a nurse. The former, on the contrary, speaks of the δούλεια ἤθη τροφῶν.[[43]]
The nurse of New Comedy is usually a slave; still she sometimes receives her freedom, as in the case of Moschio’s nurse in the Samia of Menander:
τοῦ δὲ Μοσχίωνος ἦν