XII. Exports of the Islands, Italy, Gaul, and Spain 355 XIII. Exports from Africa and the East 381 XIV. Funeral Ceremonies 414 THE HISTORY OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE. -------------- BOOK V. CHAPTER VII. SLAVES. It will have been remarked, that both in town and country, the mean and painful drudgery was chiefly performed by slaves,[1] whose origin, condition, and numbers, in the principal Grecian states, it now becomes necessary to describe. The greatest writers of antiquity[2] were on this subject perplexed and undecided. They appear to have comprehended the full extent of the evil,[3] but to have been too much the slaves themselves of habit and prejudice to discover, that no form or modification of servitude is consistent with human happiness or with justice, without which no happiness can be. This is evident from the conversation in Crete between Plato and his Gnosian and Spartan companions. They do not trouble their minds with inquiries respecting the origin of slavery, which, while some tribes of men are stronger and more civilised than others, could never be difficult to be conjectured; but considering its existence easy to be accounted for, they are concerned to discover by what means may be avoided or mitigated the mischiefs they everywhere saw accompanying it. ----- Footnote 1: On the state of domesticity in modern times, see the interesting work by Monsieur Grégoire, Sur la Domesticité, p. 3, sqq. Footnote 2: Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 38. Footnote 3: Thus Metrodoros:—Δοῦλος ἀναγκαῖον μὲν κτῆμα, οὐχ ἡδὺ δὲ. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 62. 44. ----- Most perplexing of all,[4] however, was the Laconian Heloteia; because in that case the comparatively great number of the servile caste rendered it necessary, in the opinion of some, to break their spirit and bring them down to their condition by a system of severity which constitutes the infamy of Sparta. The discredit, however, of subsisting on slave labour was to a certain extent shared by all the states of Greece, even by Athens. They appear to have supposed that no slaves, no body politic.[5] But in the treatment of those unfortunate men there was as much variation as from the differences of national character might have been inferred. The Athenians in this respect, as in most others, being the antipodes of the Spartans, and falling into the error, if such a thing can be conceived, of extreme humanity and indulgence. ----- Footnote 4: Cf. Plat. de Legg. vi. t. vii. p. 460. Footnote 5: Even no house according to Aristot. Polit. i. 3. Stob. Floril. Tit. 62. 44. -----