Chapter VII: Slaves (2)
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]
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Footnote 107:
Vid. Stock. ad Dem. Olynth. B. § 7. Ulp. ad loc. Harpocrat. v.
δημόσιος. Vales. ad Maussac. p. 374.
Footnote 108:
Lycurg. cont. Leocrat. § 9. Antiph. de Cæd. Herod. § 6. On the extreme
uncertainty of evidence extracted by the torture, see Sir John
Fortescue, de Laud. Leg. Angl. c. 22.
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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.
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Footnote 109:
Etym. Mag. 268. 25.
Footnote 110:
Etym. Mag. 780. 40, sqq.
Footnote 111:
Etym. Mag. 285. 6. Suid. v. ἀργυρώνη. t. i. p. 416. a.
Footnote 112:
Suid. v. οἰκότριψ. t. ii. p. 278. b. Etym. Mag. 598. 15. Ammonius is
more explicit:—οἰκότριψ καὶ οἰκέτης διαφέρει. Οἰκότριψ μὲν γὰρ, ὁ ἐν
τῇ οἰκίᾳ διατρεφόμενος, ὃν ἡμεῖς θρεπτὸν καλοῦμεν· οἰκέτης δὲ, ὁ
δοῦλος ὁ ὠνητός· παρὰ δὲ Σόλωνι ἐν τοῖς ἄξοσιν οἰκεὺς κέκληται ὁ
οἰκότριψ. De Adfin. Vocab. Differ. p. 101, seq. See, also, Valckenaër,
Animadvers. c. iii. p. 172, sqq. Thom. Magist. v. οἰκότριψ. p. 645.
The estimation in which they were held may be learned from
Photius:—οἰκότριβες, οἱ ἐκ δούλων δοῦλοι, οἱ καὶ οἰκογενεῖς λέγονται·
νομίθοντο δὲ τὸ παλαιὸν ἀτιμότεροι τῶν οἰκετὼν, ὅτι οἱ μὲν ἐκ δούλων,
οἱ δὲ ἐξ ἐλευθέρων ἐγένοντο, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἀεὶ δοῦλοι, οἱ δὲ ὕστεροι.
Footnote 113:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 768. Etym. Mag. 590. 14. Suid. v. οἰκογενὴς. t.
ii. p. 278. a.
Footnote 114:
Cf. Etym. Mag. 745. 13, sqq.
Footnote 115:
Suid. v. παιδίσκη. t. ii. p. 472. a.
Footnote 116:
Poll. iii. 76. Annot. t. iv. p. 562, seq. There was over the female
slaves of the household an inspector, called σκοπὸς. Etym. Mag. 718.
51.
Footnote 117:
Cf. Meurs. Cret. p. 192.
Footnote 118:
Οἰκέται οὐ μόνον οἱ δοῦλοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ, γυνὴ καὶ
τέκνα. Ἡρόδοτος ἐν τῇ ὀγδόῃ· ἢν κομίσας τοὺς οἰκέτας οἰκέῃ ἐκείνη·
ὥστε ὑποδεξάμενον τοὺς λόγους τὸν Πανιώνιον, κομίσαι τὰ τέκνα καὶ τὴν
γυναῖκα. Thom. Magist. p. 644. Suid. v. οἰκέται. t. ii. p. 276. b.
Footnote 119:
Etym. Mag. 284. 49.
Footnote 120:
Etym. Mag. 446. 41.
Footnote 121:
Dem. cont. Mid. § 44.
Footnote 122:
Athen. vi. 93.
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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]
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Footnote 123:
Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 768, with the commentators. Pollux, iii. 77.
Footnote 124:
Cf. Vales. ad Harpocrat. p. 298.
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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.”
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Footnote 125:
Varro, De Re Rust. i. 54. Colum. xii. 40. Cato. 25.
Footnote 126:
See Dioscorid. v. 13.
Footnote 127:
A drink precisely similar, and manufactured in the same manner, is
known in the wine districts of France under the name of _piquette_.
Commonly, also, it is there appropriated to the use of the domestics.
Among the ancient Egyptians the poor, and, _à fortiori_, it may be
conjectured, the slaves were condemned to rely upon beer for the
delights of intoxication. Athen. i. 61.
Footnote 128:
Nevertheless, Trygæos considers it a misfortune to be confined to this
kind of food, since he wishes that the armourers, who desire that
their trade may flourish, might fall into the hands of robbers, and be
dieted on barley-bread:—ληφθεὶς ὑπὸ ληστῶν ἐθίοι κριθὰς μόνας. Pac.
Aristoph. 448. Küst. Vid. Schol. 447. But this was to wish them long
life and sharp senses, since the longevity and keen sight of the
Chaldæans, which enabled them, I suppose, to look into futurity, are
chiefly attributed to their bannocks of barley-meal. Luc. Macrob. § 5.
Cf. Poll. ii. 353. Thucyd. iii. 49. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816. We find,
from the same scholiast, (Eq. 488.) that barley-dough was designated
by a particular term, φύραμα. Cf. Athen. ix. 67.
Footnote 129:
Luc. Quomod. Hist. Sit conscrib. § 20, where the sophist ridicules a
slave who, having inherited his master’s property, neglected the
dainties set before him, such as poultry, pork, and game, and fell to
on the articles of his former diet. Similar traits were exhibited by
the French servants, who made great fortunes during the Mississippi
scheme. For example, a footman who had enriched himself and purchased
a carriage, instead of entering got up behind it. Lord John Russell.
Hist. of Europe, t. ii. p. 217.
Footnote 130:
Athen. viii. 15. Servile names were usually brief, as Mida, Phryx, &c.
Schol. Arist. Vesp. 433. Cf. Strab. l. vii. t. i. p. 467. a. Casaub.
Footnote 131:
Euripides describes in a few verses the two very different views taken
of servitude by the freeman and the slave:
Orest. Δοῦλος ὢν φοβεῖ τὸν Ἄιδην
ὅς σ’ ἀπαλλάξ εκ κακῶν.
Phryx. Πᾶρ’ ἀνὴρ κἂν δοῦλος
ἦι τις ἥδεται τὸ φῶς ὁρῶν.
Orest. 1537, sqq.
The observation of the Phrygian is just; for God, who tempers the wind
to the shorn lamb, mitigates also the misery of the slave, and enables
him to look upon the light with something like joy.
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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,
Aut nodis revocare, et rursus vertice denso
Fingere et appositis caput emutare capillis.[136]
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Footnote 132:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 190. In illustration of the fondness of certain
persons for animals, it is related, that there was an old lady in
Egypt who habitually slept with a crocodile. Plut. Solert. Anim. § 23.
Footnote 133:
De Merced. Conduct. § 34.
Footnote 134:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 190. Athen. i. 20.
Footnote 135:
Macrob. Saturn. ii. 5.
Footnote 136:
Manil. v. p. 117. v. 28. ed. Scalig.
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In these arts they were regularly taught under masters, and there would likewise appear to have been a set of men who earned their subsistence by initiating slaves in household labours. An example is mentioned at Syracuse of a person[137] who probably had an establishment of his own, where he instructed slaves in the whole round of their domestic duties, such as bread-making, cooking, washing, and so on. In the baker’s business Anaxarchos, an Eudaimonist philosopher, one of the fitting companions of Alexander the Great,[138] introduced an improvement by which modern times may profit,—to preserve his bread pure from the touch, and even from the breath of the slaves who made it, he caused them to knead the dough with gloves on their hands, and to wear a respirator of some gauze-like substance over the mouth.[139] Other individuals, who grudged their domestics a taste of their delicacies, obliged them, while employed at the kneading-trough, to wear a broad collar, like a wheel, which prevented them from bringing their hands to their mouths.[140] This odious practice, however, could not have been general, as it is clear, from an expression in Aristophanes[141] and his scholiast, that slaves employed in making bread used to amuse themselves by eating the dough. This seems to be one of the principal causes of disgust to the rogues in the piece employed in preparing the delicacies with which Trygæos feeds the beetle whereon he is about to mount to the court of Zeus.
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Footnote 137:
Arist. Polit. i. 2. Cf. Dem. adv. Leochar. § 20.
Footnote 138:
Diog. Laert. ix. 10. 60.
Footnote 139:
This Anaxarchos, upon whom complaisant antiquity bestowed the name of
philosopher, was in reality nothing but a libertine courtier, whose
manners and tastes are thus described by Clearchos of Soli: Τῶν
Εὐδαιμονικῶν καλουμένον Ἀναξάρχω διὰ τὴν τῶν χορηγησάντων ἄγνοιαν
περιπεσούσης ἐξουσίας, γυμνὴ μὲν ᾠνοχόει παιδίσκη πρόσηβος, ἡ
προκριθεῖσα διαφέρειν ὥρᾳ τῶν ἄλλων· ἀνασύρουσα πρὸς ἀλήθειαν τὴν τῶν
οὕτως αὐτῇ χρωμένων ἀκρασίαν· ὁ δὲ σιτοποιὸς χειρίδας ἔχων, καὶ περὶ
τῷ στόματι κημὸν, ἔτριβέ τὸ σταῖς, ἵνα μηδὲ ἱδρὼς ἐπιῤῥέῃ, μήτε τοῖς
φυράμασιν ὁ τρίβων ἐμπνέοι. Athen. xii. 70.
Footnote 140:
Poll. vii. 20. x. 112. Suid. v. παυσικάπη. t. ii. p. 467. b. This and
similar practices are noticed by M. Grégoire. “Les anciens mettoient
aux esclaves, (v. Fabretti Inscrip. Antiq. Explic. p. 522,) comme on
met aux chiens, des colliers ou cercles de fer, sur lesquels étoient
gravés les noms, profession et demeure du propriétaire, avec
invitation de les ramener à leurs maîtres en cas de fuite. Dans le
Supplément aux Antiquités Grecques et Romaines de Poleni, on peut lire
diverses inscriptions de ce genre.(Utriusque Thesauri Antiquitatem,
etc., nova supplementa, ab J. Poleno, t. iv. p. 1247.)Les colons
avoient enchéri sur les anciens en inventions, pour torturer leur
semblables: telle est, par example, l’énorme triangle de fer au cou
des nègres, pour les empêcher de fuir. Cependant, la coutume de
museler les esclaves, de leur cadenasser la bouche afin qu’ils ne
puissent se désaltérer en suçant une canne à sucre, n’est qu’une
imitation de l’antiquité, car Suidas et Pollux nous apprennent qu’on
leur mettoit au cou une machine, nommé _pausicape_, en forme de roue,
qui les empêchoit de porter la main à la bouche et de manger de la
farine lorsqu’on les occupoit à tourner la meule.” De la Domesticité
chez les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, p. 6. Cf. Pignor. de Servis, p.
15, seq.
Footnote 141:
Pac. 12. seq.
Ιδού,
Ἑνὸς μὲν, ὦνδρες, ἀπολελῦσθαί μοι δοκῶ.
Οὐδεις γὰρ ἂν φαίη με μάττοντ᾽ ἐσθίειν.
Upon which the Scholiast remarks: εἰώθασι γὰρ ἅμα τῳ μάρτειν, ἐσθίειν.
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In the city of Abdera, as we find from an anecdote of Stratonicos,[142] every private citizen kept a slave who served him in the capacity of herald, and announced by sound of trumpet the appearance of the new moon, and the festival by which it was followed. A _bon mot_ worth repeating is ascribed to this travelling wit. Being one day in the cemetery of Teicheios, a town of the Milesian territory,[143] inhabited by a mixed population from all the neighbouring countries, and seeing on every tomb the name of some foreigner, “Come,” said he to his slave, “let us depart from this place. Nobody dies here but strangers.”
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Footnote 142:
Athen. viii. 41.
Footnote 143:
Athen. viii. 43.
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One of the most steady and faithful of the domestics was usually selected to be the porter.[144] Occasionally, moreover, in the establishments of opulent and ostentatious persons, as Callias for example, eunuchs, imported from Asia, were employed as door-keepers.[145]
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Footnote 144:
Mention is also made of female porters. Dem. in Ev. et Mnes. § 10.
Footnote 145:
The scene in which Callias’s eunuch-porter is introduced to us is
painted in Plato’s liveliest manner. This ancient Bababalouk exhibits
all the crabbedness of the keeper of an oriental harem; and as we
listen to him bawling at Socrates through the door, we appear to be
transported to the establishment of the Emir Fakreddin. Δοκεῖ οὖν μοι,
ὁ θυρωρός, εὐνοῦχός τις, κατήκουεν ἡμῶν· κινδυνεύει δὲ διὰ τὸ πλῆθος
τῶν σοφιστῶν ἄχθεσθαι γοῦν ἐκρούσαμεν τὴν θύραν, ἀνοίξας καὶ ἰδων
ἡμᾶς, Ἔα, ἔφη, σοφισταί τινες· οὐ σχολὴ αὐτῷ. Καὶ ἁμα ἀμφοῖν τοῖν
χεροῖν τὴν θύραν πάνυ προθύμως ὡς οἷός τ᾽ ἦν ἐπήραξε. Καὶ ἡμεῖς πάλιν
ἐκρούομεν. καὶ ὃς ἐγκεκλῃμένης τῆς θύρας ἀποκρινόμενος εἶπεν, Ὦ
ἄνθρωποι, ἔφη, οὐκ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι οὐ σχολὴ αὐτῷ; Ἀλλ᾽ ὠγαθέ, ἔφην ἐγώ,
οὔτε παρὰ Καλλίαν ‘ἀλλ᾽ ὠγαθέ,’ ἥκομεν οὔτε σοφισταί ἐσμεν, ἀλλὰ
θάῤῥει· Πρωταγόραν γάρ τι δεόμενοι ἰδεῖν ἢλθομεν. εἰσάγγειλον οὖν.
Μόγις οὖν ποτὲ ἡμῖν ἄνθρωπος ἀνέωξε τὴν θύραν. Protag. t. i. p. 159,
seq.
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The directions, as Mitford justly observes, which Penelope’s housekeeper gives to the menial servants for the business of the day, might still serve in the East without variation: “Go quickly,” she said, “some of you sweep the house, and sprinkle it, and let the crimson carpets be spread upon the seats; let all the tables be well rubbed with sponges, and wash carefully the bowls and cups. Some of you go immediately to the fountain for water.”[146]
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Footnote 146:
Odyss. υ. 149. Hist. of Greece, i. 186. Cf. Athen. iii. 73.
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Besides working at the mill, and fetching water, both somewhat laborious employments, we find that female slaves were sometimes engaged in offices still more unfeminine; that is, in woodcutting upon the mountains, where the impudent old fellow, in Aristophanes, takes advantage of Thratta.[147] Events of this kind, however, could only happen among the peasant girls. In the city both mistresses and maids were too domestic to meet with adventures in forest or on mountains. Towards the decline of the commonwealth, it became a mark of wealth and consequence to be served by black domestics, both male and female, as was also the fashion among the Romans and the Egyptian Greeks. Thus Cleopatra[148] had negro boys for torch-bearers; and the shallow exclusive, in Cicero,[149] is anxious to make it known that he has an African valet. Juvenal, in his sarcastic style, alludes to this practice.[150]
Tibi pocula cursor
Gætulus dabit aut nigri manus ossea Mauri.
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Footnote 147:
Acharn. 272. The principle on which names were bestowed upon slaves is
thus explained by Helladius: οἱ κωμικοὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας τὸ μὲν πλέον ἀπὸ
τοῦ γένους κάλουν οἷον Σύρον καρίωνα Μίδαν Γέταν καὶ τὰ ὅμοια, ἐκαλουν
δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐξ ἐπιθέτων, ὡς ἀπὸ τοῦ χρώματος μὲν Πυῤῥιαν καὶ Ξανθίαν ἀπὸ
τοῦ τρόπου δὲ Παρμένωνα καὶ Πιστὸν καὶ Δρόμωνα. ἐκάλουν δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς
ἡμέρας ἐν ᾗ ὠνήσαντο τὸν οἰκέτην, ἐξ οὗ καὶ τοὺς Νουμηνίας ὠνόμαζον.
Chrestomath. ap. Phot. Bib. 532. b. 36, seq. See also the note of
Meursius. p. 57.
Footnote 148:
Athen. iv. 29.
Footnote 149:
Rhetoric. ad Heren.
Footnote 150:
Sat. v. 52, seq.
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The Athenian ladies, like our Indian dames, affected as a foil, perhaps, to be attended by waiting-maids rendered “by Phœbus’ amorous pinches black.”[151]
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Footnote 151:
Theoph. Char. p. 58, et ad Casaub. loc. p. 329, seq.
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Travellers among the higher Alps are almost invariably attended by Swiss guides who, laden with their employer’s baggage, climb before them up the rocks, and are less fatigued at the close of the day’s journey than the rich pedestrians who carry nothing beyond their own weight. This is an exact image of the style of travelling in antiquity. It was then common even for opulent men, to “make their own legs their compasses,” as Scriblerus phrases it; but, not to load their own delicate shoulders with a knapsack, they were attended, like Bacchos in the Frogs, by a steady slave, who carried the baggage, mounted on a porter’s knot upon his shoulders. To employ more than one valet in this service was esteemed a mark of luxurious habits; and therefore Æschines reproaches Demosthenes that, during his embassy, he was attended by two domestics with each a carpet-bag.[152] Both by Theophrastus and Xenophon this attendant is called an _Acoluthos_, or follower, because it was his duty to walk behind his master; but this name in general signified a youthful valet, kept in personal attendance on the great.[153] The simplicity of republican manners at Athens condemned the habit of maintaining many of those elegant youths, which, moreover was prohibited by law.[154]
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Footnote 152:
Συνηκολούθουν δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἄνθρωποι δύο στρωματόδεσμα φέροντες, ἐν δὲ τῷ
ἑτέρῳ τούτων, ὁς αὐτος ἔφη, τάλαντον ἐνῆν ἀργυρίου. De Fals. Legat.
31.
Footnote 153:
Demosth. cont. Mid. § 44.
Footnote 154:
Οὐκ ἐξῆν παρὰ τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἀργὸν τρέφειν οἰκέτην διόπερ οἱ μὲν
αὐλοποιοὺς, οἱ δὲ μαχαιροποιοὺς εἷχον τοὺς δούλους. Μειδίας δὲ τοὺς
τοσούτους ἀργοὺς περιάγων, τοὺς τυράννους μιμεῖται, δορυφορούμενος ὑπὸ
τῶν οἰκετῶν. Ulp. in Demosth. cont. Mid. § 44. Orat. Att. t. x. p.
225. Here we see the reason why Demosthenes inveighed against Meidias
on account of the number of his followers.
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From the severity of manners, however, one evil arose—the single slave was sometimes condemned by vanity to carry the burden of two; and as their grumblings were proportioned to their hardship, their case was soon taken up by the comic poets, not, I fear, so much for the sake of humanity, as because it often furnished them with a good joke or two. By degrees, as no writers dwell so constantly on a fruitful topic or so frankly imitate each other, it became the fashion of the stage to introduce a miserable devil into every comedy, whose misfortunes, like those of the clown in our pantomimes, usually kept the theatre in a roar. The practice, however, had already grown stale in the time of Aristophanes, who both ridiculed and followed it; for while his sneers at the grumbling valet are repeated usque ad nauseam, much of the humour and interest of the Frogs arise out of the tricks and adventures of a melancholy wag of this description as Casaubon[155] long ago observed.
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Footnote 155:
Ad. Theoph. Char. p. 248.
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When men have usurped an undue dominion over their fellows, they seldom know where to stop. The Syrians themselves, enslaved politically, and often sold into servitude abroad, affected when rich a peculiarly luxurious manner: female attendants waited on their ladies, who, when mounting their carriages, required them to crawl on all-fours that they might make a foot-stool of their backs.[156]
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Footnote 156:
Montaigne, Essais, iv. 224. Athen. iii. 72. Plut. De Adulat. et Amic.
§ 3.
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The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 3 (of 3)Chapter VII: Slaves (2)
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