The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 3 (of 3)St. John, James Augustus
History
The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 3 (of 3)
St. John, James Augustus
Greece -- Social life and customs
Poll. vii. 20. x. 112. Suid. v. παυσικάπη. t. ii. p. 467. b. This and
similar practices are noticed by M. Grégoire. “Les anciens mettoient
aux esclaves, (v. Fabretti Inscrip. Antiq. Explic. p. 522,) comme on
met aux chiens, des colliers ou cercles de fer, sur lesquels étoient
gravés les noms, profession et demeure du propriétaire, avec
invitation de les ramener à leurs maîtres en cas de fuite. Dans le
Supplément aux Antiquités Grecques et Romaines de Poleni, on peut lire
diverses inscriptions de ce genre.(Utriusque Thesauri Antiquitatem,
etc., nova supplementa, ab J. Poleno, t. iv. p. 1247.)Les colons
avoient enchéri sur les anciens en inventions, pour torturer leur
semblables: telle est, par example, l’énorme triangle de fer au cou
des nègres, pour les empêcher de fuir. Cependant, la coutume de
museler les esclaves, de leur cadenasser la bouche afin qu’ils ne
puissent se désaltérer en suçant une canne à sucre, n’est qu’une
imitation de l’antiquité, car Suidas et Pollux nous apprennent qu’on
leur mettoit au cou une machine, nommé _pausicape_, en forme de roue,
qui les empêchoit de porter la main à la bouche et de manger de la
farine lorsqu’on les occupoit à tourner la meule.” De la Domesticité
chez les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, p. 6. Cf. Pignor. de Servis, p.
15, seq.
Footnote 141:
Pac. 12. seq.
Ιδού,
Ἑνὸς μὲν, ὦνδρες, ἀπολελῦσθαί μοι δοκῶ.
Οὐδεις γὰρ ἂν φαίη με μάττοντ᾽ ἐσθίειν.
Upon which the Scholiast remarks: εἰώθασι γὰρ ἅμα τῳ μάρτειν, ἐσθίειν.
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In the city of Abdera, as we find from an anecdote of Stratonicos,[142]
every private citizen kept a slave who served him in the capacity of
herald, and announced by sound of trumpet the appearance of the new
moon, and the festival by which it was followed. A _bon mot_ worth
repeating is ascribed to this travelling wit. Being one day in the
cemetery of Teicheios, a town of the Milesian territory,[143] inhabited
by a mixed population from all the neighbouring countries, and seeing on
every tomb the name of some foreigner, “Come,” said he to his slave,
“let us depart from this place. Nobody dies here but strangers.”
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Footnote 142:
Athen. viii. 41.
Footnote 143:
Athen. viii. 43.
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One of the most steady and faithful of the domestics was usually
selected to be the porter.[144] Occasionally, moreover, in the
establishments of opulent and ostentatious persons, as Callias
for example, eunuchs, imported from Asia, were employed as
door-keepers.[145]
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Footnote 144:
Mention is also made of female porters. Dem. in Ev. et Mnes. § 10.
Footnote 145:
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