The slaves who fought on the Athenian side at Arginusae were manumitted and enrolled among the Plataeans, being thus admitted into the πολίτευμα. We learn this from a fragment of Hellanicus, preserved in the Scholiast on Arist. Ran. 694: the words are, τοὺς συνναυμαχήσαντας δούλους Ἑλλάνικός φησιν ἐλευθερωθῆναι, καὶ ἐγγραφέντας ὡς Πλαταιεῖς συμπολιτεύσασθαι αὐτοῖς. See also Niebuhr (Hare and Thirlwall), p. 204. The Langobards upon a somewhat similar occasion manumitted their serfs. “Igitur Langobardi, ut bellatorum possint ampliare numerum, plures a servili iugo ereptos, ad libertatis statum perducunt. Utque rata eorum haberi posset libertas, sanciunt, more solito, per sagittam, inmurmurantes nihilominus, ob rei firmitatem, quaedam patria verba.” Paul. Diac. de Gest. i. 13. Footnote 412: “Si qui vero velit servum suum liberum facere, tradat eum vicecomiti,” etc. Leg. Wil. iii. § 15. “Qui servum suum liberat, in aecclesia, vel mercato, vel comitatu, vel hundreto,” etc. Leg. Hen. I. 1, § 78. Practically however, it is probable that the dissolution of servitude did not absolutely confer all the privileges of freedom. The numerous acts of manumission directed by the wills of great landowners are totally inconsistent with the notion of any interference on the part of the assembled people, as necessary to their validity: the instances, it is true, are mostly of modern date, but still we hear of manumissions by wholesale at very early periods, where nothing but the lord’s own will can possibly be thought of[413]. It seems therefore probable that a certain amount of dependence was reserved; that the freedman became relieved from the harsher provisions of his former condition, but remained in general under the protection and on the land of his former lord, perhaps receiving wages for services still rendered. In the eighth century Wihtraed of Kent enacted that even in the case of solemn manumission at the altar, the inheritance, the wergyld and the mund of the family should remain to the lord, whether the new freedman continued to reside within the Mark or not[414]. The mode of provision for the emancipated serf must, in a majority of cases, have led to this result. The lord endowed him out of his own land, either with a full possession, secured by charter, or a mere temporary, conditional loan, _lǽn_: the man therefore remained upon the lord’s estate, and in his _borh_ or surety, though no longer liable to servile disabilities[415]. ----- Footnote 413: For example Wilfrið's, at Selsey; see above, p. 211. Footnote 414: Leg. Wihtr. § 8. Footnote 415: Wulfwaru in her will directs her legatees to feed twenty freolsmen or freedmen. Cod. Dipl. No. 694. Ketel commands that all the men whom he has freed shall have all that is _under their hand_,—probably all they had received as stock, or had been able to gain by their industry. Cod. Dipl. No. 1340. -----