But wherever theocratic organizations established themselves slavery in the ordinary sense did not become a vital element in the social system. The members of the lowest class were not in a state of individual subjection: the entire caste to which they belonged was collectively subject. It is in the communities in which the military order obtained an ascendency over the sacerdotal, and which were directly organized for war, that slavery (as the word is commonly understood) had its really natural and appropriate place. And, as war performed an indispensable function in human history, our just horror for some aspects of slavery must not prevent us from recognizing that institution as a necessary step in social progress. It is not merely that in its first establishment slavery was an immense advance by substituting for the immolation of captives, often accompanied by cannibalism, their permanent occupation in labour for the benefit of the victor. This advantage, recalled by an old though erroneous overspread the land, and the national appellation of the Slaves has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification of glory to that of servitude” (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lv. ). The historian alludes to the derivation of the national name from slava, glory. See Skeat’s Etym. Dict., s.v.; see also Slavs. ] etymology, is generally acknowledged. But it is not so well understood that slavery discharged important offices in the later social evolution—first, by enabling military action to prevail with the degree of intensity and continuity requisite for the system of incorporation by conquest which was its final destination; and, secondly, by forcing the captives, who with their descendants came to form the majority of the population in the conquering community, to an industrial life, in spite of the antipathy to regular and sustained labour which is deeply rooted in human nature, especially in the earlier stages of the social movement, when insouciance is so common a trait, and irresponsibility is hailed as a welcome relief. With respect to the latter consideration, it is enough to say that nowhere has productive industry developed itself in the form of voluntary effort; in every country of which we have any knowledge it was imposed by the strong upon the weak, and was wrought into the habits of the people only by the stern discipline of constraint. From the former point of view the freeman, then essentially a warrior, and the slave were mutual auxiliaries, simultaneously exercising different and complementary functions —each necessary to the maintenance and furthering the activity of the other, and thus co-operating, without competition or conflict, towards a common public end. In modern slavery, on the other hand, where the occupations of both parties were industrial, the existence of a servile class, instead of rendering the citizens disposable for social service in a different field, only guaranteed for some of them the possibility of self-indulgent ease, whilst it imposed on others the necessity of indigent idleness.

It was in the Roman state that military action—in Greece often purposeless and, except in the resistance to Persia, on the whole fruitless—worked out the social mission which formed its true justification. Hence at Rome slavery also most properly found its place, so long as that mission was in progress of accomplishment. As soon as the march of conquest had reached its natural limit, slavery began to be modified; and when the empire was divided into the several states which had grown up under it, and the system of defence characteristic of the Middle Ages was substituted for the aggressive system of antiquity, slavery gradually disappeared, and was replaced by serfdom, which again, with the rise of modern industrial life, gave way to personal freedom.

We have so far dealt with the political results of ancient slavery, and have found it to have been in certain respects not only useful but indispensable. When we consider its moral effects, whilst endeavouring to the utmost to avoid exaggeration, we must yet pronounce its influence to have been profoundly detrimental. In its action on the slave it marred in a great measure the happy effects of habitual industry by preventing the development of the sense of human dignity which lies at the foundation of morals, whilst the culture of his ideas and sentiments was in most cases entirely neglected, and the spontaneous education arising from the normal family relations was too often altogether denied him. On the morality of the masters— whether personal, domestic, or social—the effects of the institution were disastrous. The habit of absolute rule, always dangerous to our nature, was peculiarly corrupting when it penetrated every department of daily life, and when no external interference checked individual caprice in its action on the feelings and fortunes of inferiors. It tended to destroy the power of self-command, and exposed the master to the baneful influences of flattery. As regards domestic morality, the system offered constant facilities for libertinism, and tended to subvert domestic peace by compromising the just dignity and ruining the happiness of the wife. The sons of the family were familiarized with vice, and the general tone of feeling of the younger generation was lowered by their intimate association with a despised and degraded class. On social morality, properly so called, the habits of cruelty, or at least of harshness, engendered by the relation, had a powerful reaction. Hume observes on “the little humanity commonly observed in persons accustomed from their infancy to exercise so great authority over their fellow-creatures and to trample upon human nature. . . . Nor,” he adds, “can a more probable reason be assigned for the severe, I might say, barbarous manners of ancient times than the practice of domestic slavery, by which every man of rank was rendered a petty tyrant, and educated amidst theflattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves.” These deplorable results were, of course, not universally produced; there were admirable exceptions both amongst masters and amongst slaves—instances of benevolent protection on the one side and of unselfish devotion on the other, which did honour to human nature; but the evil effects without doubt greatly preponderated.

We proceed to a closer study of the institution of slavery as it existed in the Greek and Roman societies respectively.

We find it already fully established in the Homeric period. The prisoners taken in war are retained as slaves, or sold (Il ., xxiv. 752) or held at ransom (Il ., vi. 427) by the captor. Sometimes the men of a conquered town or district are slain and the women carried off (Od., ix. 40). Not unfrequently free persons were kidnapped by pirates and sold in other regions, like Eumaeus in the Odyssey. The slave might thus be by birth of equal rank with his master, who knew that the same fate might befall himself or some of the members of his family. The institution does not present itself in a very harsh form in Homer, especially if we consider (as Grote suggests) that “all classes were much on a level in taste, sentiment, and instruction.” The male slaves were employed in the tillage of the land and the tending of cattle, and the females in domestic work and household manufactures. The principal slaves often enjoyed the confidence of their masters and had important duties entrusted to them; and, after lengthened and meritorious service, were put in possession of a house and property of their own {Od., xiv. 64). Grote’s idea that the women slaves were in a more pitiable condition than the males does not seem justified, except perhaps in the case of the aletrides, who turned the household mills which ground the flour consumed in the family, and who were sometimes overworked by unfeeling masters (Od., xx. 110-119). Part of the agricultural work was sometimes done by poor hired freemen (thetes), who are spoken of as a wretched class (Od., xi. 490), and were perhaps employed almost exclusively by the smaller landholders. Having no powerful protector to whom they could look up, and depending on casual jobs, they were probably in a less desirable position than the average slave. Homer conceives the lot of the latter as a bitter one (Od., viii. 528; 77., xix. 302); but it must be remembered that the element of change from a former elevated position usually enters into his descriptions. He marks in a celebrated couplet his sense of the moral deterioration commonly wrought by the condition of slavery (Od., xvii. 322).

It is, however, in historic Greece, where we have ample documentary information, that it is most important to study the system of slavery,—and especially at Athens, where the principal work of Greek civilization found its accomplishment. The case of Sparta, in some respects peculiar, must be separately considered.

The sources of slavery in Greece were :—1. Birth, the condition being hereditary. This was not an abundant source, women slaves being less numerous than men, and wise masters making the union of the sexes rather a reward of good service than a matter of speculation (Xen., (Econ., ix. 5). It was in general cheaper to buy a slave than to rear one to the age of labour. 2. Sale of children by their free parents, which was tolerated, except in Attica, or their exposure, which was permitted, except at Thebes. The consequence of the latter was sometimes to subject them to a servitude worse than death, as is seen in the plays of Plautus and Terence, which, as is well known, depict Greek, not Roman, manners. Freemen, through indigence, sometimes sold themselves, and at Athens, up to the time of Solon, an insolvent debtor became the slave of his creditor. 3. Capture in war. Not only Asiatics and Thracians thus became slaves, but in the many wars between Grecian states, continental or colonial, Greeks were reduced to slavery by men of their own race. Thus Spartans were slaves at Tegea, and Gelon sold out of their country the commonalty of Hybaean Megara. At Plataea, at Scione, in Melos, the men were massacred or deported, the women enslaved. Athenians were sold at Samos, and in Sicily after the failure of the expedition. In the struggle of parties at Corcyra, each faction, when triumphant, condemned the other to massacre or slavery. Callicratidas pronounced against the enslavement of Greeks by Greeks, but violated his own principle, to which, however, Epaminondas and Pelopidas appear to have been faithful. Philip sold his Olynthian captives, and, after Thebes was taken by Alexander, 30,000 women and children are said to have been sold. 4. Piracy and kidnapping. The descents of pirates on the coasts were a perpetual source of danger; the pirate was a gainer either by the sale or by the redemption of his captives. If ransomed, the victim became by Athenian law the slave of his redeemer till he paid in money or labour the price which had been given for him. Kidnappers (andrapodistae) carried off children even in cities, and reared them as slaves. Whether from hostile forays or from piracy, any Greek was exposed to the risk of enslavement; it was a sword of Damocles suspended over all heads. 5. Commerce. Besides the sale of slaves which took place as a result of the capture of cities or other military operations, there was a systematic slave trade. Syria, Pontus, Lydia, Galatia, and above all Thrace were sources of supply. Egypt and Ethiopia also furnished a certain number, and Italy a few. Of foreigners, the Asiatics bore the greatest value, as most amenable to command, and most versed in the arts of luxurious refinement. But Greeks were highest of all in esteem, and they were much sought for foreign sale. Greece proper and Ionia supplied the petty Eastern princes with courtesans and female musicians and dancers. Athens was an important slave-market, and the state profited by a tax on the sales; but the principal marts were those of Cyprus, Samos, Ephesus, and especially Chios.

The slaves were employed either in domestic service—as household managers, attendants, or personal escorts—or in work of other kinds, agricultural or urban. In early Attica, and even down to the time of Pericles, the landowners lived in the country. The Peloponnesian War introduced a change; and after that time the proprietors resided at Athens, and the cultivation was in the hands of slaves. In manufactures and commerce, also, servile gradually displaced free labour. Speculators either directly employed slaves as artisans or commercial and banking agents, or hired them out, sometimes for work in mines or factories, sometimes for service in private houses, as cooks, flute-players, &c., or for viler uses. There were also public slaves; of these some belonged to temples, to which they were presented as offerings, amongst them being the courtesans who acted as hierodules at Corinth and at Eryx in Sicily; others were appropriated to the service of the magistrates or to public works; there were at Athens 1200 Scythian archers for the police of the city; slaves served, too, in the fleets, and were employed in the armies,—commonly as workmen, and exceptionally as soldiers.

The number of slaves in Greece, or even at Athens, can scarcely be determined with any tolerable approach to certainty. It is stated by Athenaeus (vi. 20), on the authority of Ctesicles, that the census of Demetrius Phalereus gave for Athens 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metics (resident foreigners), and 400,000 slaves. It is also stated by the same author that Corinth had possessed 460,000 slaves and Aegina 470,000. Hume, in his Essay “On the Populousness of Ancient Nations,” maintained that the assertion of Athenaeus respecting Athens is quite incredible,—that the number of Athenian slaves “is at least augmented by a whole cipher, and ought not to be regarded as more than 40,000.” Boeckh and Letronne have since made the question the subject of fresh studies. The former has fixed the number of Attic slaves at about 365,000, the latter at 100,000 or 120,000. M. Wallon has revised the labours of these scholars, and adduced further considerations of his own. He estimates the number of slaves employed in all Attica in domestic service at 40,000; in agriculture at 35,000; in the mines at 10,000; in manufactures and commerce at 90,000. To these must be added, for old people and children under twelve years of age, 6000 and 20,000 respectively, and also the public slaves, of whom, as we have said, 1200 were Scythian archers. He thus arrives at the conclusion that the servile population of Attica was comprised between the limits of 188,000 and 203,000 souls, the free population being about 67,000, and the metics amounting to 40,000. The slaves thus bore to the free native population the ratio of 3 to 1. The numbers given by Athenaeus for Corinth and Aegina, though accepted by Boeckh, appear to be excessive, and are rejected by Clinton and by M. Wallon; the true numbers were no doubt large, but we have no means of determining them even approximately. Next after these cities in the magnitude of their slave population came, on the mainland, Megara, and, amongst the insular states, Chios and Rhodes. Miletus, Phocaea, Tarentum, Sybaris, and Cyrene also had numerous bodies of slaves.

The condition of slaves at Athens was not in general a wretched one. Demosthenes (In Mid., p. 530) says that, if the barbarians from whom the slaves were bought were informed of the mild treatment they received, they would entertain a great esteem for the Athenians. Plautus in more than one place thinks it necessary to explain to the spectators of his plays that slaves at Athens enjoyed such privileges, and even licence, as must be surprising to a Roman audience. The slave was introduced with certain customary rites into his position in the family; he was in practice, though not by law, permitted to accumulate a private fund of his own; his marriage was also recognized by custom; though in general excluded from sacred ceremonies and public sacrifices, slaves were admissible to religious associations of a private kind; there were some popular festivals in which they were allowed to participate; they had even special ones for themselves both at Athens and in other Greek centres. Their remains were deposited in the family tomb of their master, who sometimes erected monuments in testimony of his affection and regret. They often lived on terms of intimacy either with the head of the house or its younger members; but it is to be feared that too often this intimacy was founded, noton mutual respect, as in the heroic example of Ulysses and Eumaeus, but on insolent self-assertion on the one side and a spirit of unworthy compliance on the other, the latter having its raison d’être in degrading services rendered by the slave. Aristophanes and Plautus show us how often resort was had to the discipline of the lash even in the case of domestic slaves. Those employed in workshops, whose overseers were themselves most commonly of servile status, had probably a harder lot than domestics; and the agricultural labourers were not unfrequently chained, and treated much in the same way as beasts of burden. The displeasure of the master sometimes dismissed his domestics to the more oppressive labours of the mill or the mine. A refuge from cruel treatment was afforded by the temples and altars of the gods and by the sacred groves. Nor did Athenian law leave the slave without protection. He had, as Demosthenes boasts, an action for outrage like a freeman, and his death at the hand of a stranger was avenged like that of a citizen (Eurip., Hec., 288), whilst, if caused by his master’s violence, it had to be atoned for by exile and a religious expiation. Even when the slave had killed his master, the relatives of the house could not themselves inflict punishment; they were obliged to hand him over to the magistrate to be dealt with by legal process. The slave who had just grounds of complaint against his master could demand to be sold; when he alleged his right to liberty, the law granted him a defender and the sanctuaries offered him an asylum till judgment should be given. Securities were taken against the revolt of slaves by not associating those of the same nationality and language; they were sometimes fettered to prevent flight, and, after a first attempt at escape, branded to facilitate their recovery. There were treaties between states for the extradition of fugitives, and contracts of mutual assurance between individuals against their loss by flight. Their inclination to take advantage of opportunities for this purpose is shown by the number that escaped from Athens to join the Spartans when occupying Decelea. There were formidable revolts at the mines of Laurium, and more than once in Chios. The evidence of slaves—women as well as men—was often, with the consent of their masters, taken by torture; and that method is generally commended by the orators as a sure means of arriving at the truth, though sometimes, when it suits their immediate object, they take a different tone. The several forms of the “question” are enumerated in the Frogs of Aristophanes. If the slave was mutilated or seriously injured in the process, compensation was made, not to him, but to his master by the person who had demanded the use of torture.

The slave could purchase his liberty with his peculium by agreement with his master. He could be liberated by will, or, during his master’s life, by proclamation in the theatre, the law courts, or other public places, or by having his name inscribed in the public registers, or, in the later age of Greece, by sale or donation to certain temples—an act which did not make the slave a hierodule but a freeman. Conditions were sometimes attached to emancipation, as of remaining for life or a definite time with the former master, or another person named by him, or of...