606 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



We know somewhat concerning redemption prices. Out of 227 

 redemptions, for 162 the price ranged between 300 and 500 drachmas 

 (S41 to $69); 5 reached 1,000 drachmas ($139); 2 were 1,300; 1 was 

 1,800; 2 were 2,000 drachmas ($278); 312 ransoms for women cost 

 from 300 to 500 drachmas. These prices are much higher than the 

 cost of original purchase. 



This pecuniary profit was not the only one, for the master also im- 

 posed life service in return for freedom, the surrender of one or more 

 of his children, or he was even required to learn a trade to carry on 

 for his former master's account. When the master freed a man to 

 practice a profession, the former had the advantage in not being liable 

 for the engagements of his freedom who might himself lose in the ruin 

 of others, without detriment to the interests of his former master. 

 When the savings of a slave were not great enough, the master could 

 sell him under the condition that he should be free, but would serve 

 his new master during his life. 



This was not always bad for the freedman to whom liberty was 

 thus guaranteed. Some masters would give up their slaves to a god, 

 in order that this god might become surety for the exercise of his 

 freedom. 



The manumissions gathered at Delphi lead to the belief that the 

 women (473 against 277 men) benefited much oftener by the generos- 

 ity of their masters. This is certain evidence, which we might pass 

 by, that many slaves were raised to the rank of concubines or even 

 wives. The slave women, especially, were only things in the hands 

 of their masters. 



We find some manumissions of sons and daughters of slaves, chil- 

 dren, where their masters, in freeing them, became their legal guardian. 

 (Guiraud, p. 108.) They show clearly by this that the children were 

 related to them. There were some who adopted the cliildren of their 

 slaves. These were natural children. Regularly then, through the 

 ordinary act of manumission, and irregularly, also, through those 

 relations which were not acknowledged, like those between slaves and 

 Greek women, all the surrounding barbarian nations mingled their 

 blood with the blood of the Grecian people. There were some cases 

 where slaves attained to the rank of citizens. A slave informer might 

 become a citizen. And some cities, after certain depredations, were 

 restocked with men and reestablished then* finances by conferring 

 citizenship on all the slaves on agreement to pay a certain sum. And 

 this point of view, especially the regular incorporation of foreigners 

 in the nation, is a condition of the slaves that I can not pass by, 

 though it is scarcely proper to speak of it, except with discretion. 



The Greeks bought slaves for domestic service (the richest had for 

 their lesser needs, up to 50), for work in the mines, in building opera- 



