ANCIENT GREECE AND SLAVES ZABOROWSKI. 605 



represented only two-fifths of its inhabitants, while in the fifth cen- 

 tury, as we have said, they were more than three-fifths. The citizens 

 were already overwhelmed m the midst of a mixed population, in 

 great majority foreign-born. If any great effort for liberty had been 

 made, it would have been of a weak and enfeebled character in that 

 indifferent mass. But it need not have been great, for the citizens 

 could not oppose it m person, weakened as they were through the 

 love of idle pleasures, taught to do almost nothing by the masters of 

 their consciences, the philosophers. 



The decrees of the emancipation and burial inscriptions give a 

 good record of the enormous proportion of foreigners among the 

 slaves. Among these decrees there are a few Greek slaves, only 

 24 out of a list of 124. These, moreover, were Greeks whom, for many 

 reasons, the masters wished to make free the first. (Guiraud, p. 104.) 



On that list of 124 manumissions there were 22 Syrians, 21 Thra- 

 cians, 8 Galatians, 6 Italians, 4 Armenians, 4 Sarmatians, 4 Illyrians, 

 3 Cappadocians, 2 Phrygians, 2 Lydians, 2 Mysians, 2 Pontians, 2 

 Phenicians, 2 Jews, 2 Egyptians, 2 Arabs, 1 Paphlagonian, 1 Bithry- 

 ian, 1 Cyprian, and 1 Bastarnian. Just one Bastarnian! coming from 

 eastern Carpathus. It is difficult to imagine a mixture more varie- 

 gated with individuals of all Provinces. 



Ethiopia, like Illyria and Italy, furnished slaves to Greece. Among 

 these there were many Thracians, Lydians, Phrygrians, Carians, 

 Syrians, some Scythians, Get£e, and Colchians. 



An Attic inscription of 415 B. C. gives us a fau' idea of the minimum 

 price at which they acquired all these barbarians, even in the fifth 

 century. A Carian was sold for 115 drachmas ($15); a Syrian, 301 

 drachmas (S42); three Thracian women from 135 to 222 drachmas 

 ($18.75 to $31) . You could buy a slave, under age, for less than that, 

 153 or 180 drachmas ($21 to $29). A slave that knew a trade sold at 

 a much higher price, an ordinary currier bemg valued at 10 mmes or 

 from $135 to $155. 



All these peoples of such diverse origm became incorporated into 

 the nation through emancipation. The masters had every mterest 

 in encouraging the slave to seek his freedom; this was a stmiulant. 

 The employer who rented a slave made himself a participant in the 

 earnmgs to his own great profit. All money given to the slave pro- 

 duced to the master double the amount. When by labor and econ- 

 omy the slave saved a sum of money, the master would regard with 

 double contentment the formation of that small savhig, for it was to 

 him, in fact, that it would some day return. After havuig already 

 profited on his own account from a regular and productive employ- 

 ment, he would shatter to "his profit the money box of the slave in 

 sellmg hhn his freedom." (Francotte, II, p. 74.) 



