Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

SERVUS.

338

SERVUS.

barians. The chief supply seems to have
come from the Greek colonies in Asia Minor,
which had abundant opportunities of obtain-
ing them from their own neighbourhood and
the interior of Asia. A considerable number
of slaves also came from Thrace, where
the parents frequently sold their children.-—
At Athens, as well as in other states, there
was a regular slave-market, called the
ku'kAo?, because the slaves stood round in
a circle. They were also sometimes sold by
auction, and were then placed on a stone,
as is now done when slaves are sold in the
United States of North America : the same
was also the practice in Rome, whence the
phrase homo de lapide cmtus. [Auctio.] At
Athens the number of slaves was far greater
than the free population. Even the poorest
citizen had a slave for the care of his house-
hold, and in every moderate establishment
many were employed for all possible occupa-
tions, as bakers, cooks, tailors, &c-—Slaves
either worked on their masters' account or
their own (in the latter case they paid their
masters a certain sum a day) ; or they were
let out by their master on hire, either for the
mines or any other kind of labour, or as hired
servants for wages. The rowers on board
the ships were usually slaves, who either
belonged to the state or to private persons,
who let them out to the state on payment of
a certain sum. It appears that a consider-
able number of persons kept large gangs of
slaves merely for the purpose of letting out,
and found this a profitable mode of investing
their capital. Great numbers were required
for the mines, and in most cases the mine-
lessees would be obliged to hire some, as they
would not have sufficient capital to purchase
as many as they wanted. The rights of pos-
session with regard to slaves differed in no
respect from any other property ; they could
be given or taken as pledges. The condition,
however, of Greek slaves was upon the whole
better than that of Roman ones, with the
exception perhaps of Sparta, where, accord-
ing to Plutarch, it is the best place in the
world to be a freeman, and the worst to be a
slave. At Athens especially the slaves seem
to have been allowed a degree of liberty and
indulgence which was never granted to them
at Rome. The life and person of a slave at
Athens were also protected by the law : a
person who struck or maltreated a slave was
liable to an action ; a slave too could not be
put to death without legal sentence. He
could even take shelter from the cruelty of
his master in the temple of Theseus, and
there claim the privilege of being sold by
him. The person of a slave was, of course,
not considered so sacred as that of a free-

man : his offences were punished with cor-
poral chastisement, which was the last mode
of punishment inflicted on a freeman ; he
was not believed upon his oath, but his evi-
dence in courts of justice was always taken
with torture. Notwithstanding the generally
mild treatment of slaves in Greece, their
insurrection was not unfrequent: but these
insurrections in Attica were usually confined
to the mining slaves, who were treated with
more severity than the others. Slaves were
sometimes manumitted at Athens, though not
so frequently as at Rome. Those who were
manumitted (aTreAeuSepot) did not become
citizens, as they might at Rome, but passed
into the condition of metoici. They were
obliged to honour their former master
as their patron (7rpooTar>)5), and to fulfil
certain duties towards him, the neglect of
which rendered them liable to the <5t/crj an-oara-
aiov, by which they might again be sold into
slavery. Respecting the public slaves at
Athens, see Df.mosii. It appears that there
was a tax upon slaves at Athens, which was
probably three oboli a year for each slave.—
(2) Roman. The Romans viewed liberty as
the natural state, and slavery as a condition
which was contrary to the natural state. The
mutual relation of slave and master among the
Romans was expressed by the terms Scrvus and
Dominus ; and the power and interest which
the dominus had over and in the slave was ex-
pressed by Dominium. Slaves existed at Rome
in the earliest times of which we have any
record ; but they do not appear to have been
numerous under the kings and in the earliest
ages of the republic. The different trades
and the mechanical arts were chiefly carried
on by the clients of the patricians, and the
small farms in the country were cultivated
for the most part by the labours of the
proprietor and of his own family. But as
the territories of the Roman state were ex-
tended, the patricians obtained possession
of large estates out of the ager publicus,
since it was the practice of the Romans to
deprive a conquered people of part of their
land. These estates probably required a
larger number of hands for their cultivation
than could readily be obtained among the
free population, and since the freemen were
constantly liable to be called away from their
work to serve in the armies, the lands began
to be cultivated almost entirely by slave
labour. Through war and commerce slaves
could easily be obtained, and at a cheap rate,
and theii number soon became so great, that
the poorer class of freemen was thrown
almost entirely out of employment. This
state of things was one of the chief argu-
ments used by Licinius and the Gracchi for