

Music. Manumission 123 



reputation for virtue throughout Greece, as a kindly hospitable and 

 religious folk. But the Cynaethans outdid all Greeks in cruelty and 

 lawlessness. This is to be traced to their neglect of the time-honoured 

 Arcadian tradition, the general practice of vocal and instrumental music. 

 This practice was deliberately adopted as a refining agency, to relieve 

 and temper the roughness and harshness incidental to men living toil- 

 some lives in an inclement climate. Such was the design of the old 

 Arcadians, on consideration of the circumstances, one point in which 

 was that their people generally worked in person (rrfv e/cdvrayv avrovp- 

 yiav). On this I need only remark that he is referring to the past, but 

 may or may not include the Arcadians of his own day: and repeat what 

 I have said before, that to be avrovpyo? does not exclude employ- 

 ment of slaves as well. That there was still more personal labour in 

 rural Arcadia than in many other parts of Greece, is probable. But 

 that is all. 



That the slavery-question was a matter of some interest in Greece 

 may be inferred from the pains taken by Polybius 1 to refute an asser- 

 tion of Timaeus, that to acquire slaves was not a Greek custom. The 

 context is lost, and we cannot tell whether it was a general assertion 

 or not. If general, it was no doubt nonsense. A more effective piece 

 of evidence is the report 2 of Megasthenes, who visited India'early in 

 the third century. He told his Greek readers that in India slavery was 

 unknown. The contrast to Greece was of course the interesting point. 

 It is also affirmed 8 that in this period manumissions became more 

 common, as a result of the economic decline of Greece combined with 

 the moral evolution to be traced in the philosophic schools. Calderini, 

 from whom I take this, is the leading authority on Greek manumission. 

 And, so far as the records are concerned, the number of inscribed 

 'acts' recovered from the important centre of Delphi 4 confirms the 

 assertion. From 201 to 140 BC these documents are exceptionally 

 numerous. But the not unfrequent stipulation found in them, that the 

 freed man or woman shall remain in attendance 6 on his or her late 

 owner for the owner's life or for some fixed period, or shall continue 

 to practise a trade (or even learn a trade) on the profits of which the 

 late owner or his heirs shall have a claim, suggest strongly that these 

 manumissions were the rewards of domestic service or technical skill. 

 I do not believe that they have any connexion with rustic 6 slavery. 



1 In a fragment cited by Athenaeus p 272 a, cf 264 c. In Hultsch's text Polyb xn 6. 



2 Cited by Diodorus II 39, and by Arrian Indica 10 8, 9. 



3 Calderini la manomissione etc chapter V. 



4 See table in Collitz Dialectinschriften II pp 635-42. 



5 irapa/Aova, Trapa/Jitveiv. 



6 In 432 acts of manumission given in Wescher and Foucart Inscriptions de Delphes 

 1863, I could not find one case of a rustic slave. 



