Metics. Slaves. Manumission 97 



population. He does not even 1 like Plato propose to fix a limit to 

 the permissible term of metic residence. Apparently he would let 

 the resident alien make his fortune in Utopia and go on living there 

 as a non-citizen of means. But he would not allow him to hold real 

 property within the state, as Xenophon or some other 2 writer had 

 suggested. That the services of aliens other than slaves were required 

 for the wellbeing of the state, is an important admission. For it 

 surely implies that there were departments of trade and industry in 

 which slave-labour alone was felt to be untrustworthy, while the model 

 citizens of a model state could not properly be so employed. The 

 power of personal interest 8 in promoting efficiency and avoiding waste 

 is an elementary fact not forgotten by Aristotle. Now the slave, 

 having no personal interest involved beyond escaping punishment, is 

 apt to be a shirker and a waster. The science of the master (Sea-noTi/cr))*, 

 we are told, is the science of* using slaves ; that is, of getting out of 

 them what can be got. It is a science of no great scope or dignity. 

 Hence busy masters employ overseers. He suggests that some 

 stimulus to exertion may be found in the prospect of manumission 5 

 for good service. This occurs again in the Economics, but the question 

 of what is to become of the worn-out rustic slave is not answered by 

 him 6 any more than it is by Plato. My belief is that, so far as farm 

 staffs are concerned, he has chiefly if not wholly in view cases 7 of stewards 

 overseers etc. These would be in positions of some trust, perhaps 

 occasionally filled by freemen, and to create in them some feeling of 

 personal interest would be well worth the master's while. Domestic 

 slavery was on a very different footing, but it too was often a worry 8 

 to masters. Here manumission played an obvious and important 

 part, and perhaps still more in the clerical staffs of establishments 

 for banking and other businesses. These phenomena of Athenian 

 life were interesting and suggestive. Yet Aristotle is even more 

 reticent 9 than Plato (and with less reason) on the subject of manu- 

 mission : which is matter for regret. 



The model state then will contain plenty of free aliens, serving 

 the state with their talents and labour, an urban non-landholding 

 element. They set the model citizens free for the duties of politics 

 and war. Whether they will be bound to service in the army or the 



1 Aristotle, like most of the philosophers at Athens, was a metic. See Bernays' Phokion 

 note 8, in which the notable passage Pol VII 2 3-7 is discussed. 



2 The author of Revenues (irbpoi). 3 Pol II 3 4, 5 8. 4 Pol I 7. 



5 Polvn ro 14, Econ i 5 5. 



6 But perhaps to some extent by the author of Econ I 6 9. 



7 See Econ I 5 i, 2, 6 5. Pol n 3 4, 5 4. 



9 He only once (ill 5 2) in the Politics mentions dire\eij6epoi, and once in the Rhetoric 

 (ni 8 i). 



H. A. 7 



