Untitled - African American History

SLAVERY IN GREECE. Ixvii
very much, according to their qualities, and the object
for which they were purchased. Artisans were some-
times very valuable. They never, however, reached
those exorbitant rates which were afterwards paid for
them at Borne. They were generally stripped naked
when sold. 1
As we have seen, the negro was a favorite among
slaves. The opposite color, " white," does not seem to
have enjoyed the same favoritism. According to Plutarch,
in his Life of Agesilaus, when that king made an
expedition into Persia, he ordered his commissaries, one
day, to strip and sell the prisoners. Their clothes sold
freely, "but," says the historian, "as to the prisoners
themselves, their skins being soft and white, by reason
of their having lived so much within doors, the specta-
would be of no
tors only laughed at them, thinking they
service as slaves." Eunuchs were common among the
slaves in Greece. 2
In the later days of Greece, it denoted poverty to be
seen without an attendant. The number of these varied
according to rank and wealth, but never was so great as
at Rome. In Greece, slaves were looked to as a source
as min-
of income and revenue ; but in Rome, merely
istering to their pride and luxury. No individual in
Greece ever swelled out the number of his slaves to the
enormous limit common at Rome. But the most of the
Grecian slaves were artisans, or skilled in some way to
be profitable to the master. 3 Hence there were no
learned slaves, as at Rome; nor slaves kept for mere
pleasure, as actors, dancers, musicians. When attend-
1 Smith's Diet. " Servus" (Greek) ; Xen. Mem. ii, 5, g 2 ; Becker's
Charieles, as above. See Wallon, torn, i, 197, et seq.
8 Herod, viii, 105.
3 See Becker's Charieles, as above ;
Smith's Diet. " Servus j" Arist. De
Repub. ii, 3, iii, 4 ; Aristoph. Eccl. 593 j Xen. Mem. i, T, 2 5 Plato, Leg.
v, 742, vii, 806. When Phocion's wife had only one female slave to attend
her, it was the subject of remark at the theatre. Plutarch's Phocion.