Polybius, Grote, O. Muller, Beckh, Curtius, Clinton, Finlay, etc.
At the foot of the Julian Alps, above the head of the Adriatic, the branch of the Aryas which peopled Greece separated from their brethren who wandered into Italy. Keeping to the coast of Adria, the seceders reached the mountainous gorges1 of Epirus and the plains of Thessaly. From the southern slopes of the Cambunian mountains and of Olympus, they, in course of time, spread over Greece and Peloponnesus. Such at least are the results of the most recent researches concerning the pioneers whose labors3 prepared that region for the part it afterward4 played in history. They cleared the forests, drained the marshes5, cut canals to let out the stagnant6 waters in mountain-basins so common in Greece; they regulated the currents of rivers and streams, made the soil arable7, and the region fit for man and for further culture. These primitive8 cultivators of the valleys of Greece, and builders of the Cyclopean structures, called themselves, or were called by others, Pelasgi (that is, those issuing from black soil, etc.), and are regarded as the earliest occupants of Hellenic soil. They were the first settlers, and most probably offshoots of the same original stem whose successive branches mingled9 with[Pg 98] the Pelasgi, or crowded them out and took their place in history as Achives, Hellenes, and Ionians—the last being considered been ancient as well as by modern writers as having been the autochthones of Attica and of other neighboring regions. To these Pelasgi and other primitive occupants, to their laborious10 pursuits and occupations, to their simple social structure, as well as to the essentially11 primitive social life of the Greeks, Herodotus refers—asserting that at the outset slavery was unknown in Greece, and especially in Attica.
The Pelasgian epoch13 was succeeded by what is commonly called the legendary14 or heroic age. In this Homeric epoch free yeomen or agriculturists own and till the soil; all the handicrafts and professions are free. Carpenters, smiths, leather-dressers, etc., were all freemen, and so also were the bards15 and "the leeches16" (a highly esteemed17 class in primitive Greece). But wealth already began to accumulate, and the farms of the more fortunate were tilled by poor hired freemen called Thetes.
The geographical18 conformation of Greece furnished, as it still does, a natural incitement19 to war and piracy20. Both formed prominent characteristics of the heroic times. Ph?nician vessels21 visited the shores, and Ph?nician settlements and factories were built at various points. These traffickers, perhaps, taught the Greeks that the feeble may be profitably enslaved by the strong, or at any rate they were the customers of the Greek pirate.
[Pg 99]
The general Greek word for slave explains the origin of slavery. Dmoos and dmoe, slave, go back to dmao or damao, to subdue22, to subjugate23, and so bear witness of war and violence either between individuals, or between clans24, tribes, and districts, and then of incursions into distant lands. Slavery became an object of luxury, but not of social and economical necessity. It was confined to the dwelling25 of the chiefs and the sovereign; but did not invade the whole community. Leaders of freebooting expeditions seized every kind of booty, taking as many prisoners as they could on sea and on land. If the expedition or foray failed, the chief and his followers27 became, in their turn, prisoners and slaves. The prisoners were employed for domestic use within the precincts of the dwelling, as servants, shepherds, etc., or were sold or exchanged for others. The Ph?nicians sold Asiatics or Libyans to Greeks and to Pontian barbarians28, and received in exchange the prey29 made by Greeks in Greece or in Pontus. The Ph?nicians occasionally kidnapped women and boys and sold them to Asiatics, Africans, and Celt-Iberians. Then, as everywhere throughout remotest and classical antiquity30, many of the enslaved had previously31 belonged to the higher and even the highest conditions in their respective tribes, nations, or communities. So Eum?us, the swineherd of Ulysses immortalized by Homer, was the son of a chief of some island or district, who, having been kidnapped by Ph?nicians, was sold to Laertes.[Pg 100] In medi?val times, likewise, the prisoner taken on the battle-field and kept for ransom32, if not for service, often was superior in birth and station to his keeper. No such social classifications, however, are intrinsic or normal, but only conditional33, relative, and conventional, even when inherited. Logically they have the same signification and value in a well-graduated society, with its castles, palaces, charters and other privileges, as on plantations35 or among roving nomads36 and savage37 tribes. And thus, among the Southern slaves, descending38 from prisoners of war or from kidnapped Africans, there may be several of a purer aristocratic lineage than many of their drivers, even if the latter were F.F.V.
Enfranchisement39, manumission, and ransom were largely practised in legendary Greece. The children of freemen by slave-women were free, and equal to those of legitimate40 birth. Most of the wars and expeditions during the heroic or Achivian piratical epoch, were made for the sake of kidnapping men and women, to sell or to exchange with the Ph?nicians for various luxuries. Such was the general origin of slavery at the time when history throws its first rays on the Grecian world.
Many defend slavery on the plea that it softened41 and softens43 the results of wars and inroads; that prisoners, once slaughtered44, are preserved for the sake of being sold into slavery. But already, during the so-called heroic age of Greece, wars and forays were made for the express purpose of getting captives[Pg 101] or for kidnapping. The robber or pirate was always sure to find a buyer for his booty, otherwise he would have had no inducement to act. And thus slavery, instead of softening46 war, was its very source. The Greeks of the heroic age were incited47 to make inroads and depredations48 by the facility and security they had of profitably disposing of their captives by selling them into slavery. The bloody49 drama played, many, many centuries ago, in Peloponnesus and Greece, on the Ionian and Egean seas, and among the islands of the Archipelago, is repeated to-day on both sides of the Atlantic—on African and on American shores and islands. The tribes in Africa war with each other, destroy and burn towns and villages, expressly and exclusively because they find customers for slaves among Christians51, and among self-styled civilized52, humanized white men. Thus much for the assertion that American slavery contributes to soften42 the fate of prisoners of war in Africa, and humanizes the savages53. It bestializes them, together with their piratical purchasers and their Southern patrons. The analogy holds good here, at a distance of many thousand years and many thousand miles, among different social conditions, in a different civilization, and in the higher moral development of the white man.
New invasions successively rolled over the valleys of Hellas; they changed considerably54 the social condition of the populations, expelling or subduing55 many of the former occupants and yeomen. From the north, from Thessaly, poured Hellenes, Heraclides, and Do[Pg 102]rians, west and south, principally into the Peloponnesus. Henceforth the whole Greek family was represented in history by two cardinal56 social, political, and intellectual currents, through the so-called Doric and Ionic races.
In Thessaly, serfdom—but not chattelhood—seems to have been anciently established. New-comers subdued59 the earlier tillers of the soil. The subdued became villeins, bondsmen, adscripti gleb?. Such dependent cultivators were the Thessalian Penest?, who paid over to the landowners a certain proportion of the produce of the soil; furnished those retainers by which the families of the chiefs, or the more powerful, were surrounded, and served in war as their followers. But they could not be sold out of the country; they had a permanent tenure60 in the soil, and enjoyed family and village relations. Perhaps more than twenty centuries afterward, this was also the condition of the rustics61 all over western and medi?val Europe, and in some parts this condition even lasted down to our century—everywhere similar events generating emphatically analogous63 results and conditions. The holdings of the Thessalian Penest? were protected by the state, whose subjects they were, and not chattels64 of the individual proprietors65. The Thessalian and Doric invaders66 and conquerors67 imposed a similar yoke68 wherever they were victorious69 and finally settled. The last Doric and Heraclidic invasion, which culminated70 in the institutions and history of Sparta, subdued the former occupants[Pg 103] of Peloponnesus, some of whom were likewise of Doric origin. Of such origin, in considerable proportion, were the renowned71 Helots. So, also, in course of time, the descendants of the companions of Achilles became, in the north, serfs under certain conditions of a more liberal nature; while others, descending from the companions of Agamemnon and Menelaus, became Sparta's Helots.
The condition of the Helots, in many respects, was similar to that of the Penest? of Thessaly. They could not be sold beyond the borders of the state, not even by the state itself, which apportioned72 them to citizens, reserving to itself the power of emancipation73. They lived in the same villages which were once their own property, before conquest transformed the free yeomen or peasants into bondsmen. The state employed the Helots in the construction of public works. Their fate, however terrible it may have been, was altogether within the law, whereas other domestic slaves in Greece, just like those in the Southern States, depended upon the arbitrary will of individuals. The Spartan74 law had various provisions for the emancipation of the Helots. They served in the army and fought the great battles of the Lacedemonians. Will the South intrust their chattels with arms and drill them into military companies?
Sparta was the seat of an oligarchy75, which owned the greater part of the lands of Laconia, and kept in dependency the other autochthonous tribes, which in some way or other escaped the fate of the Helots.[Pg 104] Such were the Periokes, enjoying certain political and full civil rights. But, in the course of events, the oligarchy tried to violate those rights, and the Periokes joined Epaminondas against Sparta, facilitating its subjugation76, just as, centuries afterward, they joined Flaminius and the Romans against their Spartan masters. In Lacedemonia, as in Attica, there existed small landholders, called gamori or geomori, and others called autougroi—rustics possessing petty patches of land, or farming small parcels owned by large proprietors. Just so in the South the large plantations are surrounded by poor whites, by "sand-hillers," etc., some of them owning small patches, generally of poorer soil; others altogether homeless and landless. Subsequently these geomori, etc.—poor, free populations and their homesteads—were almost wholly engulfed77 by large plantations and domestic slavery. This was the work of time, as in her great days scarcely any chattel58 was known in Sparta.
The landed oligarchy of our Southern plantations is in more than one respect analogous with that of Sparta. The city of Sparta itself was rather an agglomeration78 of spacious79 country habitations than resembling other great cities.
When the Dorians made Sparta the centre of their power, the lands of Laconia were divided into ten thousand equal lots for the ten thousand Spartan citizens. Undoubtedly80 the homesteads, cleared and owned by the first settlers and colonists81 in the South, were more equally divided than they are now; and the[Pg 105] increase in the extent of plantations on the one hand, and the decrease of the respectability of the poorer settlers and their transformation82 into "poor oppressed white men,"[12] on the other, were both effected by domestic slavery. At the time of Lycurgus—about four hundred years after the division—the above number of oligarchs was reduced to nine thousand; at the time of Herodotus—about four hundred years after Lycurgus—to eight thousand; and thus a reduction of one-tenth took place during each period of from three hundred to four hundred years. This was the time of the world-renowned Spartan poverty and virtue83. But wars, conquests, etc., changed the character of the Spartans84; luxury and wealth crept in, and with them came large estates and domestic slaves, the latter chiefly consisting of Greek prisoners of war. At the beginning of the first Peloponnesian war, Sparta may have had two hundred and twenty thousand Helots, and there were comparatively few domestic slaves in that number. The Peloponnesian war made the Spartans leaders of Greece, but filled Sparta with prisoners from other Greek states, and introduced wealth: from that war begins the decline of the Spartan spirit. The Helots and the impoverished85 poor whites successively became chattels. Sparta could only muster86 seven hundred citizens against Epaminondas at Leuctra. During the period between Herodotus and Aristotle the number of citizens was reduced to little above one thousand. At the Macedonian conquest,[Pg 106] Sparta averaged fourteen chattels for every three freemen. One hundred years after Aristotle, under King Agis, about two hundred oligarchs constituting the body politic57, the citizens of Sparta owned nearly all the lands of Laconia, and worked them by chattels.
This numerical reduction of citizens and deterioration87 of their historic character principally affected88 the military standing89 of Sparta. Causes so obvious as not to require explanation prevent at present a similar diminution90 of the number of Southern oligarchs, notwithstanding the existing numerical disproportion between them and the non-slaveholding whites, whose political freedom, to a rational appreciation91, is rather nominal92 than real. The disease is the same—its workings alone are different. The sword was the soul of Spartan institutions: the pure and elevated conception of the American social structure rests not on physical but on intellectual and moral force; but its deterioration is visible in the new conception of slavery inaugurated and sustained by the militant93 oligarchs. The process of moral and intellectual decomposition94 in the South would be still more rapid but for the various influences from the Free States, which, like refreshing95 breezes, fan its fainting energies.
The sword, it is true, may have decimated whole Spartan communities; but such losses were supplied from the class of the Periokes and other freemen, and even sometimes from the Helots. Domestic slavery devoured96 the small estates, degraded the freemen, and[Pg 107] dried up the sources of political renovation97. Five thousand Spartans fought at Plate?, which gives a total population of about forty thousand. The number of Helots owned by them at that time amounted to one hundred and seventy-five thousand. Subsequently, after the Peloponnesian and Macedonian wars, these Helots were transformed into chattels, and the degenerate98 Spartans attempted to transform the Periokes into Helots, but made them simply deadly enemies. Almost in proportion as the Spartan oligarchs increased in wealth and possessions, not only did the number of Helots and slaves increase, but military ardor99 decreased. At Leuctra, Sparta hired her cavalry100; and soon after, Sparta, rich in Helots and chattels but poor in citizens, was forced passively to witness the curtailing101 of her frontiers by Philip of Macedon.
The Helots often revolted; and frequent conspiracies102 were discovered and subdued in terrible slaughter45, when the oligarchs believed themselves again safe. The old laws of most of the American colonies, north and south, contain repeated regulations, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, concerning conspiracies, revolts, and tumults103 perpetrated by negroes; and this, too, several generations before the birth of active abolitionism. For not to abolitionism but to the love of liberty inborn104 in human nature—in the Spartan Helot as in the colored chattel of the Southern oligarch—are to be attributed the conspiracies continually fermenting105 among Southern slaves. At times the Spartans were obliged to ask[Pg 108] succor106 from the Athenians and other allies against their revolted Helots. To-day the union is fully107 able to suppress servile revolts, but in some future time the South may vainly look in all quarters of the horizon for active allies. It may find some well-wishers among its interested northern sympathizers, but the chattels will have the sympathy of the civilized Christian50 and heathen world, besides finding allies among the free colored populations of the Antilles. Under England's fatherly and humane108 direction, these colored populations are being initiated109 into genuine Christian civilization, and make comparatively great strides and progress in material and political culture, in orderly life, in self-government, in the employment of the free press, and in debating their interests in legislative110 assemblies and cabinet councils. Ever since the establishment of American slavery on a social and religious basis, the mass of the white population in the South, and, above all, the great heroes, apostles, and combatants of the new political creed111, are returning to barbarism—willingly and deliberately112 renouncing113 all genuine mental and moral culture. And thus the two extremes may meet in some future emergency—the colored inhabitant of the Antilles as a superior civilized being, will face the barbarized white oppressor in the South.
The Spartan Helot increased with a fecundity114 fearful for the oligarchs, who resorted to the horrible kryptea, or slaughter of unarmed Helots all over Laconia at a time appointed specially12 and secretly by[Pg 109] the ephors. This was the last resort to avert115 the danger, and more than once was it used during the brilliant epoch of Sparta.
In the South the chattels likewise increase very rapidly, but not rapidly enough to satisfy the breeders, planters, and slave-traders. All things considered, the colored enslaved population increases in a proportion by far more rapid than the white. After 1783 the blacks were estimated at between five and six hundred thousand: the census116 of 1860 will find them full four millions: and no wonder. Trafficking slave-breeders, as well as planters, organize breeding as systematically117 as cattle-raisers attend to their stock. In Virginia this is the principal pursuit, and the chief source of income from domestic husbandry. The breeders have small enclosures to gently exercise the young human stock like the breeders of valuable horses. In some States, principally in the cotton region, the colored chattels outnumber the whites; in others the respective numbers are nearly equal. About one hundred and fifty years ago, South Carolina, through the voice of her law-makers, referring to the increase in chattels, declared it an "afflicting118 providence119 of God that the white persons do not proportionably multiply." Nowadays South Carolina finds the affliction a blessing120. Though her colored population already outnumbers the white, she is first in assaulting humanity by reopening the slave-trade.
Cotton is a plant indigenous121 to the old world—to Asia and Africa. Its culture by free labor2 may soon[Pg 110] become very profitable in other regions of the globe. Sooner or later this will end the exclusive American monopoly of its production, and then the dead weight of chattelhood will press fearfully on the oligarchs in economical as in social ways, even if the chattels remain quiet: this is, however, impossible to suppose, on account of their continually increasing numbers. Already slaves are tortured, murdered, burnt and slaughtered at the first danger, even though it be imaginary. Now this is done individually, and, even according to Southern notions, illegally. When the profits from slave-labor shall dwindle122, and the danger from great masses of chattels shall increase, self-preservation and fatality123 will force the slaveocracy into attempting to re-enact the Spartan krypteia: the cattle-breeder easily transforming himself into the butcher. Even now many of them are on the way to bringing this about, by exposing their old and unproductive field hands to perish from want and misery124.
In the course of about four centuries, both during and after the Peloponnesian war, the Spartan oligarchy was enriched more and more by the spoils of victorious wars, and by the importation of slaves as war prisoners from other Greek and from barbarous nations. Then the difference between the rich and poor was more striking, and the eternal process of oppressing the poor, seizing upon their property, or buying them out, was busily and cheerfully pursued. Then Laconia was held by comparatively few Spartan slaveholders—but there were no more heroes of[Pg 111] Thermopyl?. Citizens and freemen were a scarcity125 during the Augustan period; but slaves, the property of a few wealthy owners, actually covered Lacedemonia and Sparta. Domestic slavery undermined and destroyed the Spartan nation in precisely126 the same manner as it did others before and since. The enslaved Helots and Greeks, and many of the descendants of the enslavers, became, in their turn, slaves of the Romans, then of the Slavic invaders, afterward of the Crusaders, till finally all of them, masters and slaves, groaned127 under the yoke of the Osmanlis. The traveller can now scarcely find the few mouldering128 ruins of the once proud and enslaving city. Spartan history covers nearly a thousand years: and for centuries the destructive disease was at work. Some of its symptoms, in the course of half a century, are already highly developed in the South.
Piracy and kidnapping, which in Greece originated at a time when every man saw an enemy almost in his immediate129 neighbor, did not wholly cease when national relations became more normal and regular. When slavery began to permeate130 the domestic economy, piracy and the slave-traffic were of course more active. The Southern enslavers assert that their region is not yet supplied with the necessary number of chattels. They draw on piracy, kidnapping, and bloodshed in Africa. The almost incessant131 wars between the Greek neighboring tribes and nations encouraged slavery; and innocent citizens, going from one Greek state to[Pg 112] another, were often enslaved through enmity and greed. However, this savage custom became softened and finally abandoned when the mutual132 relations became more civilized and regulated; whereas free-men from free states of the union are arrested and imprisoned133 in the so-called civilized slave-holding states, and in some cases they can be legally sold as slaves.
In B?otia slaves were not numerous—being only occasionally made and used. Neither serfs, bond-men, nor chattels, were held in Elis, Locris, or by the Arcadians, Phocians, or Ach?ans, until the downfall of Greek dignity, liberty, and independence, under the Macedonian and Roman rule. The Phocians prohibited slavery by express legislation.
The Ionians in Attica boasted that they sprang from their native soil. They were therefore the primitive tillers and cultivators of their not over-fertile and rather rocky land, of about one hundred and ninety square miles. This land was divided more or less equally into small homesteads worked by yeomen, to whom chattels would have been a burden. Centuries after the heroic or legendary epoch, when Attica possessed134 wealthier landowners, Hesiod advises the agriculturists to work their lands by the free labor of the Thetes in preference to slave labor.
Athens became very early a commercial city, and perhaps piratical expeditions for the kidnapping of slaves were fitted out from the Pir?us. At any rate, slavery, chattelhood, was especially, if not exclusive[Pg 113]ly, fostered when commerce became more extensive. Athens was the seat and focus of domestic slavery. In the course of time almost all trades were carried on by slaves, as also mining, and finally, farming. But all this was the growth of the long process of centuries.
Debtors135 were enslaved; but Solon abolished this right of the creditor136. He likewise abolished the custom of going about armed in the community. Generally it is a sign of a dangerous and very degraded state of society when men carry arms as a necessity. By a strange coincidence, since slavery has been proclaimed a moral and religious duty, the use of bowie-knives, revolvers, and rifles becomes more and more the order of the day in the South. Not against the slave, not against any foreign enemy, not even against the abolitionist, do the men of the South arm themselves, but it is against each other that they have recourse to armed assaults in their private and public intercourse137. From the South the savage custom invades the North, and it has in some cases been forced on peaceful Northern members of Congress in self-defence against the assaults of their Southern colleagues.
The Ionic race had no serfs or Helots, either in Attica or elsewhere. But in Attica, as in other Greek communities, and indeed throughout the whole world, from among the primitive yeomen or peasants, emerged those who, more thrifty138, more successful, or more brave, accumulated wealth in various ways. Such[Pg 114] was one mode in which aristocracy originated. These yeomen growing richer, acquired more land, bought out smaller farmers, and could hire more field hands. Even before Solon the aim of the rich was to transform freeholders into tenants139, but Solon stemmed this current for a long period of time.
Parents could sell their children into slavery; Solon reduced this right to such daughters as willingly submitted to seduction. A poor man could sell himself into slavery, and children exposed by their parents were enslaved by the public authorities.
War and traffic furnished the great supplies of slaves or chattels for the Athenians. Such chattels were from all nations and races, and the black slaves constituted an accidental and imperceptible minority. Witness ?sop141 telling the story of a rustic62 who bought a black slave and unsuccessfully tried to bleach142 or to whitewash143 it. If blacks had been common merchandise, the rustic would have been familiar with its nature. Slavery was transmitted from parents to children, if the prisoner of war was not ransomed144 or the slave not manumitted. But at any time a slave could receive or buy his freedom, and a chattel once liberated145 could not, under penalty of capital punishment, again be violently enslaved. In the South they begin to legislate146 for the re-enslavement of the liberated: the odium no longer falls on the individual but on the whole body politic. All over the ancient world the state watched over and protected the once enfranchised147 slave: the modern slave-holding polity ex[Pg 115]pels him or legislates148 for his disfranchisement. In Athens, as all over Greece, the offspring of freemen and slave-women were free.
At first slaves performed domestic service, and afterward, when their number increased, they were employed in various trades. The state used them in public works, sometimes to row the ships. But the greatest number were employed to work the mills and mines of Attica. However, the state itself did not work the mines, but rented them generally without the slave labor; though private individuals rented them for a term of years, together with the slaves who worked them. Slowly chattelhood spread over the rural economy of Attica.
About the time of the Persian wars, rural property was still nearly equally divided among the citizens. Wealth was accumulated and represented in commerce, in various industries, and in the precious metals. But at that time slaves nowhere outnumbered the freemen. At the battle of Marathon the Athenians had ten thousand hoplites or heavily armed able-bodied citizens; at Platea eight thousand; and in both battles nearly as many peltasts or lightly-armed troops—poorer citizens, but not serfs, or retainers, or slaves. Before the invasion of Xerxes, the free population of Attica probably amounted to more than one hundred and twenty thousand of both sexes and all ages. The slave population is estimated at the utmost as sixty thousand.
Athens, like all the other Greek republics, colonized149[Pg 116] other countries with the surplus of their free—mostly poor—population. Herodotus died in such an expedition. The Dorians very likely colonized Sicily, the Ionians Italy or Magna Grecia. Such colonizations relieved the over-populated mother-country, extended the Hellenic culture, but likewise, in more than one way, fostered and nursed slavery. The Greek colonists in Sicily and in Italy, conquering or pushing into the interior the aborigines of these lands, enslaved, kidnapped and sold them. Then the Greek cities warred with and enslaved each other. Such was the case between Sybaris and Crotona, or in Sicily between Syracuse, Girgentum, etc. The rich men of Athens bought more and more slaves, purchased the lands of the poor, substituted in various handicrafts their gangs of slave laborers150 for freemen, and exported the impoverished freemen.[13] The increase of large estates and chattels went hand in hand with the decrease of freemen and public spirit in Athens; and the same was the case in other large commercial cities of Greece.
After the Persian war Athens became the wealthiest of commercial cities, and the Athenians a conquering nation. Both circumstances increased the number of slaves. But still the landed property was not yet absorbed. Alcibiades owned only about three hundred plethra, or about seventy-five acres of land in Attica. The wealthy slave-owners and oligarchs were[Pg 117] not in power, but they owned mines in Attica and landed estates in various Greek dependencies and colonies. Slavery prevailed in the city, and it became more and more common on the farms. However, on the eve of the Peloponnesian war, democracy still prevailed. The oligarchs, proud of their slaves, mines, plantations and estates, scorned the democracy of Athens, composed of artists, yeomen, operatives, artisans—who really formed the soul of the great Periclean epoch.
Oligarchies151 are alike all over the world; in most of them, slave-holders, however called, live upon the labor of others; all of them scorn the laboring152 classes. The Southern militant planters and their Northern servile retainers scorn the enlightened masses of working-men, the farmers and operatives of the free states. But it is those masses which exclusively give original signification to America in the history of human development. Athens and the various monuments of the Periclean epoch coruscate153 over doomed154 Hellas: so the villages of the free states, with their schools and laborious, intelligent, self-reliant populations, shed their rays now over the Christian world. And the sight of such a village is a far different subject of contemplation from that of the slave-crowded plantation34.
Slavery increased rapidly in Athens, as in all the great commercial centres, and in the adjacent isles155 of Greece. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, Attica had a population of about twenty thousand[Pg 118] male adults, or a little over one hundred thousand free persons of all ages and sexes. The whole free population of Greece is estimated to have been at that time about eight hundred thousand souls; and the slaves—the Spartan serfs or Helots included—perhaps outnumbered the freemen. Thucydides says that the island of Chios had about two hundred and ten thousand slaves, the largest number next to Sparta; then came Athens, with nearly two hundred thousand human chattels; while other great commercial cities of Greece, as Sycyon and Corinth, likewise contained very large numbers.
The Peloponnesian war was waged with all the violence of a family feud156. It spread desolation, impoverishment157, carnage and slavery over Greece. Captives made by the one or the other contending party, were sold by tens of thousands into slavery; these captives were principally the small freeholders, the thetes and geomori—operatives, artisans, and, indeed, free workmen of every kind. Their number consequently diminished, and their small estates were either bought or taken violently by the rich, who thus simultaneously158 increased the number of their chattels and their acres of land. Thus did slavery permeate more and more the Greek social polity, until, at the epoch between Pericles and the beginning of the Macedonian wars, the number of slaves in Athens and Attica was nearly doubled: but the free population did not thus increase. Large landed estates became more and more common, till, in the time of Demos[Pg 119]thenes, the soil of Attica, was concentrated in comparatively few hands. At Cheronea, the Athenians fought against Philip with mercenary troops, and even armed their slaves. But the spirit of Marathon and of Plat?a was gone, and Athens succumbed159. The gold of Philip was acceptable to the rich slave-holders, and went principally into the hands of the oligarchs; but alas160! no second Miltiades ever emerged from their ranks.
It is supposed that at the epoch of the Macedonian conquest, the proportion of slaves and freemen was as seven to three. Near the beginning of the reign26 of Alexander, the free population of Greece amounted to one million, and the slaves to one million four hundred and thirty-five thousand. The census taken in Attica about that time, under the archon Demetrius of Phaleris, gives for Athens and Attica twenty-one thousand adult male citizens, or a little over one hundred thousand persons of all ages and sexes, and four hundred thousand slaves. The slave population pre-ponderated, however, only in the wealthy part of Greece; the poorer agricultural communities, as already mentioned, having been free from its curse. Thus Corinth had four hundred and fifty thousand, and ?gina four hundred and seventy thousand slaves; and this is the reason that Philip, Alexander, Antipater, and other conquerors had such comparatively easy work in destroying Greek liberty.
The Macedonian wars also spread desolation, slavery and ruin; and of Thebans alone, Alexander sold over thirty thousand into slavery.
[Pg 120]
Thus ended the independent political existence of Greece and Athens. Rich slave-holders, indeed, they still had; but they ceased to have a history of their own, or a distinct political existence; and Greece became a satellite successively of Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Rome.
To conclude: in Athens, as indeed throughout Greece, the commercial cities inaugurated domestic slavery. Slavery first penetrated161 into domestic life; then entered into the various trades and industries, and finally, almost wholly absorbed the lands and the agricultural economy. It also penetrated into the functions of state, and various minor140 offices were held by slaves—which anomaly was afterward reproduced in Rome, especially under the emperors.
In the slave section of our own country the system has already got possession of domestic and family life, of agriculture, and of some of the handicrafts; and slaves are employed on some of the railroads as brake-men and assistant-engineers. This may be a cheering proof of the intellectual capacity of the colored race, but it proves also the analogy which exists everywhere between the workings of slavery, whatever may be the distance of ages or the color of the enslaved.
It was only during the period of the moral, social and political decomposition of Greece that slavery flourished. A certain Diophantus at one period proposed a law to enslave all the laborers, artisans and operatives in Athens—so that those who now so loudly demand the same thing here, had prototypes more[Pg 121] than twenty-four centuries ago; for, though history has transmitted to infamous162 memory only the name of Diophantus, yet undoubtedly he stood not alone.
In Athens and in Greece we see the cancer growing steadily163 over the whole social and political organism, until all Attica and almost the whole of the ancient world were divided only between slave-holders and chattels.
In the slave marts of Athens and of Corinth, and afterward in that of Delos, the sale of chattels was conducted in precisely the same way as it now is in Richmond, in New Orleans and in Memphis. The proceedings164 of the auctioneers and the traders, of the buyers and the sellers, were as cruel then as they are now. The same eulogies165 of the capacities of able-bodied men, the same piquant166 descriptions of the various attractions of the women, the same tricks to conceal167 bodily defects, and similar guaranties between vender168 and buyer, then as now.
When, finally, laborers of almost every kind, handicraftsmen and agriculturists, had thus become enslaved, all the freemen, both rich and poor, were speedily swallowed up in an equal degradation169. The family became disorganized; the republics perished. This was completely accomplished170 when Greece passed from Macedonian to Roman rule: then domestic slavery flourished as never before. In that final struggle the password of the Greek slave-holders was, "Unless we are quickly lost, we cannot be saved." The non-slaveholding mountaineers of Achaia fought against[Pg 122] the Romans until they were almost exterminated171. But Rome conquered, and large numbers of Greeks were sold into slavery by the Roman consuls172. Paulus Emilius alone sold one hundred and fifty thousand Macedonians and other Greeks, while the whole population of Corinth was sold by Mummius; and Sylla depopulated Athens, the Pir?us and Thebes. The Roman rule in Greece and over the Greek world was a fierce stimulant173 to the growth of domestic slavery. The Roman senate and the Roman proconsuls especially favored the large slaveholders, since they were the fittest persons to tolerate the yoke. The Romans helped them to degrade and to enslave as much as possible. Rome wanted not freemen in Greece, but slaves and obedient slave-drivers; and Roman tax-gatherers and the farmers of public revenues sold freemen into slavery for debt. Finally, the celebrated174 Cilician pirates desolated175 Greece, carrying away and selling, in Delos, almost the last remnants of the free laboring population.
A small body of free citizens now ruled immense masses of slaves. The normal economy of nature was thus destroyed, and the depopulation of Greece went on rapidly. At the time of Cicero, almost the whole of Attica formed the estate of a single slaveholder, who also owned other estates in other parts of Greece. Many militant slave oligarchs doubtless envy that Athenian slaveholder; at any rate they are doing their utmost to bring the Southern States to a condition similar to that just depicted176 in Athens and Greece.
[Pg 123]
During the Peloponnesian wars, insurrections of slaves often took place in Attica, especially in the mines. But the greatest slave rebellion, as far as history has recorded, was under the Roman administration. The revolted slaves then seized upon the fortress177 of Sunium, and for a long time fought bravely for their freedom.
The Greeks, as in some degree all the peoples of antiquity, considered domestic slavery a social misfortune to the enslavers, and an accursed fatality inherent in human society. They never presented it under the false colors of a normal and integral social element. The striking analogies between the workings of slavery in the ancient world and in the American republic, show that the disease is everywhere and eternally the same, and that it does not ennoble either the community or the individual slaveholder, as the pro-slavery combatants apodictically assert.
If in the despotic oriental empires, domestic and political slavery at times played into each other's hands until they jointly178 destroyed national life, it was domestic slavery, single-handed, which did the work in Greece, and particularly in Sparta and Athens. Domestic slavery enervated179 the nation and made it an easy prey to foreign conquest. It converted into a putrescent mass the once great and brilliant Grecian world.
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1
gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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3
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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7
arable
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| adj.可耕的，适合种植的 | |
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8
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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10
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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11
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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12
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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13
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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14
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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18
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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incitement
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| 激励； 刺激； 煽动； 激励物 | |
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piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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21
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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22
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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subjugate
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| v.征服；抑制 | |
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24
clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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25
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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27
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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28
barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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29
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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30
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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31
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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32
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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33
conditional
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| adj.条件的，带有条件的 | |
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34
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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35
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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36
nomads
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| n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 )；流浪者；游牧生活；流浪生活 | |
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37
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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38
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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39
enfranchisement
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| 选举权 | |
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40
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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41
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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42
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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43
softens
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| （使）变软( soften的第三人称单数 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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44
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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46
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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47
incited
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
depredations
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| n.劫掠，毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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49
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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50
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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51
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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52
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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53
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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54
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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55
subduing
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| 征服( subdue的现在分词 )； 克制； 制服； 色变暗 | |
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56
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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57
politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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58
chattel
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| n.动产；奴隶 | |
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59
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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60
tenure
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| n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期 | |
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61
rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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62
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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63
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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64
chattels
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| n.动产，奴隶( chattel的名词复数 ) | |
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65
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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66
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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67
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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68
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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69
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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70
culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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72
apportioned
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| vt.分摊，分配（apportion的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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73
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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74
spartan
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| adj.简朴的，刻苦的；n.斯巴达；斯巴达式的人 | |
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75
oligarchy
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| n.寡头政治 | |
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76
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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77
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
agglomeration
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| n.结聚，一堆 | |
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79
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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80
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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81
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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82
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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83
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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spartans
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| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
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85
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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86
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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87
deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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88
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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89
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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91
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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92
nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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93
militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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94
decomposition
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| n. 分解, 腐烂, 崩溃 | |
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95
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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96
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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97
renovation
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| n.革新，整修 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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100
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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101
curtailing
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| v.截断，缩短( curtail的现在分词 ) | |
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102
conspiracies
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| n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 ) | |
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103
tumults
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| 吵闹( tumult的名词复数 )； 喧哗； 激动的吵闹声； 心烦意乱 | |
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104
inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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105
fermenting
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的现在分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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106
succor
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| n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助 | |
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107
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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108
humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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109
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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110
legislative
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| n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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112
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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113
renouncing
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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114
fecundity
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| n.生产力；丰富 | |
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115
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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116
census
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| n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查 | |
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117
systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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118
afflicting
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| 痛苦的 | |
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119
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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120
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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122
dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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123
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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124
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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125
scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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126
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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127
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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128
mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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permeate
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| v.弥漫，遍布，散布；渗入，渗透 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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132
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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133
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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debtors
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| n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 ) | |
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creditor
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| n.债仅人，债主，贷方 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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sop
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| n.湿透的东西，懦夫；v.浸，泡，浸湿 | |
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142
bleach
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| vt.使漂白；vi.变白；n.漂白剂 | |
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143
whitewash
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| v.粉刷，掩饰；n.石灰水，粉刷，掩饰 | |
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ransomed
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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146
legislate
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| vt.制定法律；n.法规，律例；立法 | |
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enfranchised
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| v.给予选举权( enfranchise的过去式和过去分词 )；（从奴隶制中）解放 | |
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legislates
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| v.立法，制定法律( legislate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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colonized
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| 开拓殖民地，移民于殖民地( colonize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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oligarchies
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| n.寡头统治的政府( oligarchy的名词复数 )；寡头政治的执政集团；寡头统治的国家 | |
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152
laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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153
coruscate
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| v.闪亮，闪光 | |
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154
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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155
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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156
feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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157
impoverishment
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| n.贫穷，穷困；贫化 | |
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158
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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159
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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160
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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161
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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164
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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eulogies
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| n.颂词，颂文( eulogy的名词复数 ) | |
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166
piquant
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| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
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167
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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168
vender
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| n.小贩 | |
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169
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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170
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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171
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
consuls
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| 领事( consul的名词复数 )； （古罗马共和国时期）执政官 （古罗马共和国及其军队的最高首长，同时共有两位，每年选举一次） | |
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173
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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174
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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175
desolated
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| adj.荒凉的，荒废的 | |
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176
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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177
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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178
jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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179
enervated
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| adj.衰弱的，无力的v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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