More slaves 55 



in corners of Greece. And we may add that nothing stimulated the 

 enterprises of Greek adventurers in the East, and led up to the con- 

 quests of Alexander, more effectually than the experiences of the Ten 

 Thousand. 



Among these experiences was of course the capture of booty, more 

 particularly 1 in the form of marketable prisoners. So many of these 

 were sometimes in hand that they were a drag on the march: in a 

 moment of peril 2 they had to be abandoned. Even so, a considerable 

 sum had been raised by sales 3 and was shared out at Cerasus. The 

 Greek cities on the Pontic seaboard would all no doubt be resorts of 

 slave-dealers. One of the Ten Thousand himself, formerly a slave 4 at 

 Athens, recognized as kinsmen by their speech the people of a moun- 

 tain tribe in Armenia. In Thrace too we hear of the chieftain Seuthes, 

 when short of cash, offering 5 to make a payment partly in slaves. Nor 

 was selling into slavery a fae reserved for barbarians alone. Greeks 6 

 had been treated thus in the great war lately ended ; and now the 

 Spartan harmost, anxious to clear the remainder of the Ten Thousand' 

 out of Byzantium safely, made them an offer of facilities for a raid in 

 Thrace: any that stayed behind in the town were to be sold as slaves. 

 And more than 400 were accordingly sold. It seems reasonable to infer 

 that at this time the slave-markets were as busy as ever, perhaps more 

 so than had been the case during the great war. It may be going too far 

 to say that in some parts of Greece people were now trying to restore 

 a broken prosperity by industrial exploitation of slave-labour, while 

 from other parts soldiers of fortune and kidnappers went forth to en- 

 large the supply of slaves. But that there is some truth in such a state- 

 ment I do not doubt. It was evidently no easy matter for persons of 

 small means to live in any sort of comfort at Athens. We hear of 

 Socrates 8 discussing with a friend the embarrassments of a genteel 

 household. The late civil disorders have driven a number of this man's 

 sisters cousins and aunts to take refuge in his house. In the present 

 state of things neither land nor house property are bringing in any- 

 thing, and nobody will lend. How is he to maintain a party of 14 free 

 persons in all? Socrates points to the case of a neighbour who provides 

 for a still larger household without difficulty. Questions elicit the fact 

 that this household consists of slave-artisans trained to useful trades. 

 The distressed party have been brought up as ladies, to do nothing. 

 Socrates suggests that they had better work for bread than starve. 



1 Anab I 2 27, v 6 13, vn 3 48, 8 12-19. 2 Anab iv i 12, 13. 



3 Anab v 3 4. 



4 Anab iv 8 4. It does not appear that the man rejoined his native tribe. 



5 Anab VII 7 53. 



6 See the protest of Callicratidas, Hellen I 6 14, with Breitenbach's note. 



7 Anab VII i 36, i 6, 3 3. 8 Memorab II 7. 



