Niall mckeown introduction
The study of slave resistance raises particular problems of method. Our reconstructions are largely dependent on the ‘footprint’ left by resistance in the record produced by slave-owners. The size of that footprint may not accurately reflect the importance of the original phenomenon. Slaveowners can exaggerate the scale of potential resistance through paranoia or downplay it to reassure themselves. Or they may have little interest in recording it at all. Different authors, even different texts, can have different intentions. Interpreting the scattered traces and disentangling dream, nightmare and reality are far from straightforward. The (sparse) evidence often allows more than one interpretation. One of the aims of this chapter is to reveal the ambiguities that can sometimes be lost in more general discussions.
Slave rebellion and the problem with narrative sources
Little evidence of slave rebellion survives from the classical Greek world. The encyclopaedist Athenaeus of Naucratis in Egypt, writing around ad 200, discusses (265d—266e) a band of runaways led by Drimacus on the island of Chios. The date could range from the seventh to the third centuries bc. Drimacus made a truce with the local slave-owners limiting the scale of future raiding and flight. Eventually, however, the Chians turned on him. He persuaded his (male) lover to deliver his head to the slave-owners and claim the reward offered (and freedom). The Sicilian city of Syracuse experienced a slave revolt during a siege between 415 bc and 413 bc. The rebellion was undermined by the seizure of the slave leaders at a parley and the granting of terms to the remainder so that ‘only’ three hundred fled to the enemy. The episode is reported by Polyaenus (1.43.1) writing half a millennium later.
The importance of these stories comes not from what little they tell us but how we know about them. Only Athenaeus (or rather his third-century bc source Nymphodorus) tells us about Drimacus. Thucydides wrote at
Length about the siege of Syracuse, but he nowhere tells us about a slave rebellion. Polyaenus mentions it as a fine example of trickery. It is possible that both stories are fictions, but it is difficult to imagine a motive for inventing them. It would appear that some of the key Greek writers whose work survives had little interest in reporting slave uprisings.
Curiously this may also be true of modern historians. Keen to avoid discussing a slave revolution that failed to happen in antiquity, some Marxist historians have downplayed group action by slaves, stressing instead their internal divisions and the one-sidedness of the class struggle in the ancient world.250 Where Greek myth and history report troubles fomented by exploited groups, Vidal-Naquet (1986: 205—25) has argued that these were not slaves but serfs, whose cultural and familial links allowed them greater cohesion. It is nonetheless at least possible, given the generally parlous state of the evidence, that some of these episodes contain echoes of action by slaves.
More predictably, perhaps, non-Marxists have also downplayed large-scale slave resistance. Hans Klees argued (1998: 418—21) that, while slaves were certainly involved in political crises in several city-states in the fourth century bc, they were simply used by would-be dictators (‘tyrants’) to bolster their support. Again there is some truth in this, but slaves could sometimes have been more than passive tools and their intervention significant even if restricted to the (far from uncommon) conflicts involving tyrants. That said, as Klees notes, the danger from slaves is ignored in the copious writings of Isocrates documenting the social and political problems of the period. Further, accusations that a ‘tyrant’ sympathised with slaves helped blacken his reputation, whether true or not. Nonetheless, the participation of slaves at some level in the political troubles of the time is suggested by a provision of the League of Corinth in 338 bc (imposed by Philip of Macedon), forbidding the freeing of slaves for revolutionary purposes ([Demosthenes] 17.15). Significant group action involving slaves was seen as a possibility.
Slave troubles were perhaps under-reported, but it is still difficult to believe there were, for example, unacknowledged rebellions in Athens, the source of most of the surviving classical evidence. Some have suggested (e. g. Westermann 1955:18) that slaves failed to rebel there because they were relatively well treated and content. Paul Cartledge (2001b), however, suggested that Athens differed in key ways from modern societies that experienced slave rebellions. Athens had a lower proportion of slaves (a third or less), and they were dispersed in relatively small groups with a relatively personal relationship to their masters. Ethnic diversity and differing opportunities for social mobility (for example, through trade or manumission) further undermined slave solidarity and removed potential leadership. Geopolitical conditions failed to provide places of refuge (Greece, a patchwork of tiny states, was relatively densely settled) and levels of economic distress may also have been lower than in some modern slave societies.
The nature of the evidence means that debate is possible concerning several of these factors, notably the impact of geography and the lack of a slave leadership. Maroon societies were possible in Chios (and in Sparta) and opportunities for social mobility did not prevent Roman slaves from rebelling. Further, large numbers of slaves (perhaps tens of thousands) were concentrated in the Athenian silver mines at Laurium (see Ian Morris’ chapter in this volume). They were (probably) exploited by absentee masters in units of dozens to hundreds in very poor conditions with restricted possibilities of social mobility. They therefore satisfied many of the conditions that might be thought conducive to revolt, and indeed they rebelled in the later, Hellenistic, period (Ath. 272e—f). However, given the difficulties of organising a rising and the penalties for failure, the occurrence of rebellion probably requires more explanation than its absence.
Other forms of resistance in narrative sources
If rebellion has left few traces, the same is almost as true of individual resistance. We are left with a number of interpretative choices. (1) Absence of evidence may be evidence of absence: there was little resistance. (2) Given the unlikelihood of Greeks wanting to preserve stories of resistance, the few that have survived should be interpreted as the tip of the iceberg: there was a lot of resistance. (3) A different approach to the data is required. Let us examine the differing forms of resistance before suggesting just such a different approach.
Slave flight could sometimes be on a large scale. According to Thucydides (7.27 with 1.142, 6.91; cf. 4.118.7; Xenophon, Hellenica 1.2.15), more than 20,000 slaves (from a total of 100,000?) allegedly escaped from Athens after 413 bc when Sparta established a garrison post at Decelea within Attic territory. Athens had recently invited war on two fronts, attacking Sicily while tensions with Sparta remained unresolved, and Thucydides could be exaggerating to illustrate the losses caused by such arrogance: the precise number should perhaps not be taken too literally. Athens itself supported flight among the slaves of Chios a few years later (Thuc. 8.40). A Spartan army invading Corcyra in the late 370s found vast numbers of slave deserters (Xen. Hell. 6.2.15). The besieged (and hungry) Corcyreans did not want them, so the significance of the episode is debatable.251 Nor can one deduce much from the desertion of slaves travelling with armies (e. g. Thuc. 7.13 and 7.75)- The decision to stay or run may have had as much to do with an estimation of who would win, the reputation of the enemy, or a concern for loved ones left behind in the masters’ homes, as with loyalty or disloyalty.
Flight was not just a wartime phenomenon. Athens punished the town of Megara for (among other things) harbouring runaways (Thuc. 1.139— 40). Several law-court speeches mention owners chasing escaped slaves (Ps.-Demosthenes 49.9, 53.6).3 Travelling after runaways could be a risky business, but these texts do not imply that it was unusual. There is some epigraphic evidence too (SEG iii 92.9—19). Other evidence, however, is more problematic.
The pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica lists clever financial schemes. In one of these (i352b33—I353a4) Antimenes, an official of Alexander the Great at Babylon, sought to borrow slaves for the army’s baggage train. Owners were allowed to register the value of the slaves and offered full insurance at a cost of 8 drachmas a year. It is difficult to judge the price of slaves in this period, but in the previous century many slaves in Athens might have cost around 150 drachmas. The owners here had presumably no interest in declaring a low value. For Antimenes to make money, the possibility of runaways during the campaign would appear to have been real but also relatively restricted. Whatever the truth of the story, the author expects his audience to believe him. Antimenes shows his cleverness in getting both the slaves and the cash.
Xenophon’s De vectigalibus is a text of the mid-fourth century arguing for the expansion of Athens’ silver mines, potentially exploiting tens of thousands of slaves (4.17). While foreseeing problems such as theft on the part of slaves (4.21), flight is not mentioned. This is all the more remarkable since many of the slaves who fled to Decelea fifty years before may have been miners. Xenophon does mention the damage done then (4.25). He also suggests security measures (4.43—48), chiefly a series of fortifications. There is no reason, however, to see these as places of incarceration rather than of refuge.4 Xenophon even suggests that future wars should be less difficult for Athens since his plan would provide both extra finance and extra manpower (for fighting) so long as the slaves were treated well (4.41—42)! Admittedly Xenophon had little reason to stress difficulties while gathering support for his proposals, but ignoring recognised problems would hardly have helped his cause.
Flight certainly took place, sometimes on a very large scale. Our evidence, however, is so patchy that it is extraordinarily sensitive to the manner in which it is reported. This section illustrates the point. It began with some episodes of flight but ended with two stories implying a comparative lack of 252 253 concern for the problem, suggesting its relative unimportance overall. One might, however, have begun with Xenophon or Ps.-Aristotle’s apparent equanimity and then implied that it was contradicted by the historical examples, leaving the opposite impression. Later we shall examine how far we can escape this type of impasse.
The surviving evidence for violence against masters is also sparse, but it may nonetheless be highly significant. There are two cases of murder. A concubine who was probably a slave was executed for a poisoning (Antiphon 1.14—20: the speaker protests the woman’s innocence, but may have ulterior motives. It is also possible that the speech is a rhetorical exercise). Elsewhere a man accused of murder argues that courts should not condemn on appearances alone. He cites the (recent) case of a twelve-year-old slave who killed his master (Antiph. 5.69; cf. 5.48). Only his attempted flight (and subsequent confession) saved ‘all those within’ from death: his guilt would otherwise have seemed unbelievable. This implies that the Athenians were prepared to kill an entire slave household where a murder remained unsolved, even if Antiphon argues in this case that it would have been an injustice. Such ‘terroristic’ action is often (though as we shall see later, not always) based on fear. We have no other evidence on this topic (unfortunate, since Greek orators cannot always be trusted to paraphrase laws correctly), nor is suspicion directed towards slaves in other murders. Indeed, Athenians sometimes contemplated arming chattel slaves in times of war (e. g. Hyperides Fr. 29; Xen. Vect. 4.42). This may have been a sign of desperation rather than trust and certainly need not imply mutual loyalty, but it suggests limits to any paranoia.254 Hyperides and Xenophon apparently did not expect their proposals to be laughed at.
Law-court speeches contain several allegations of slaves stealing or otherwise acting against the interests of their masters. According to Demosthenes (48.15—17) Callistratus complained that a slave, Moschion, had stolen 8,000 drachmas from his master Comon (equivalent to wages for an unskilled worker for more than a decade). His opponent apparently denies that this happened: typically, both sides had good reason to lie. We are told by Isocrates (17.12) of an allegation by a banker (Pasion) that one of his slaves (Cittus) had been bribed and corrupted by the speaker. The speaker himself later claims that Pasion had suborned the slaves of one Pyron to alter the wording of a legal affidavit (17.23). If the speeches seem to modern eyes wildly (and entertainingly) inconsistent and improbable, they were presumably not meant to seem so to an ancient audience. It is, however, impossible to judge their truthfulness.255
Slaves were used sexually by their masters, but they might occasionally have been able to use their sexuality to their advantage. In Lysias (4.1) we learn of a case of assault involving two men who jointly own a slave-girl. The defendant claims that the girl had switched her allegiances one way and then the other (4.9: note that the prosecution claims that the girl is free, 4.12). Demosthenes 59 alleges that a former slave-prostitute (Neaira) has been able to inveigle her way into Athenian citizen society with the help of her lovers, but it is moot whether (a) it should be regarded as ‘resistance’ and crucially whether (b) we ought to believe the prosecution’s claims about her origins. There are occasional statements as to the danger of bringing an enemy into one’s home (the probably spurious Andocides 4.22, where Alcibiades has a child by a captive Melian woman; cf. Euripides, Andromache 519—22). The plots of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Helen also raise the issue of the possible supplanting of the mistress of the house by a war captive (Clytemnestra by Cassandra and especially Hermione by Andromache). It is, however, difficult to judge how far the stories ofthe mythical princess-captives ofdrama relate to historical reality and how far Athenians typically would have used their own war captives as slaves.7 Menandrian comedy produces the image of the kind-hearted courtesan: Chrysis in The Samian Girl and Habrotonon in Arbitrants are portrayed as loyal and helpful, but Krateia utterly enthrals (and turns the tables on) her captor Thrasonides in The Man She Hated. We have only hints of sexual contact between free women and male slaves (Dem. 45.84; cf. Plato, Laws 93od). Solonic law apparently forbade male slaves being the lovers of freeborn boys (Aeschines 1.139).
Slaves also knew secrets and could use them to their advantage. The curiosity of slaves is sometimes stressed in Athenian tragedy (e. g. Phaedra’s nurse in Eur., Hippolytus esp. 176—361). We shall see myriad examples in our discussion of Athenian comedy below. The phenomenon is, however, more difficult to trace beyond the stage. There was little reason for it to enter the public record. In one court case we learn of a slave-girl who is aware of her mistress’s infidelity, but there is no implication that she has used the information to her advantage (Lysias 1.8, 16—22). There are, however, criminal cases (notably involving impiety and treason) where slaves could gain freedom by informing against their masters. The speaker of Lysias 5 complains about the use of slave evidence (5.3—4). In Lysias 7 the speaker protests his innocence on a charge of impiously digging up an olive stump sacred to Athena: he would never have given his servants power over him by doing this in front of them (7.16—17). In 415 bc slaves gave evidence against their masters concerning allegations of sacrilege (Thuc. 6.27—28;
See further McCoskey 1998.
Andoc. 1.11—12,17, with Lys. 6.22 for a slave reportedly murdered before he could give information).
The power that this gave to slaves may be exaggerated, however. Athens was a democracy of slave-owners who could change the laws concerning informers if they became problematic. Slaves did not give evidence without risk: one can imagine their fate if the prosecution failed. Jurors may well have been slave-owners and Athenian courts judged more by character than material evidence or witnesses, so the strongest slave testimony did not mean certain prosecution. In summary, using information against one’s master was a possibility, and there may have been a degree of self-censorship among masters because of it, but it is difficult to tell how significant it actually was.256
The least obvious, probably safest and presumably commonest way of resisting exploitation was simply to work badly. It is not something one would, however, expect to be traceable in our narrative historical sources, though a metaphorical passage in Herodotus (5.48) is sometimes cited in support. It is easier to trace in more literary works, to which we now turn. Rather than ask how often Athenians mention slave resistance, let us ask a different question. What did Athenians think about this phenomenon? We shall focus on the texts that supply the vast bulk of our evidence. The context of the material needs always to be kept in mind, since the writers involved are typically dramatists or philosophers rather than historians. We shall examine the comedies of Aristophanes and Menander, the Oeconomi-cus and Memorabilia of Xenophon, Plato’s Laws, Aristotle’s Politics and the Pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica. What mark has slave resistance left in this material?
The comic slave
The comedies of Aristophanes (c. 445—385 bc) and Menander (c. 342—292 bc) have the advantage (unlike Greek tragedy) of being set in contemporary Athens rather than a mythical past. Slaves are prominent characters. Since comic writers competed for prizes in popular contests, we may assume that they reflected the views of their audience (probably the majority of Athenian citizens) to some extent. But how far? How do we disentangle reality, comic exaggeration and utter fantasy? And to what extent might individual authorial styles affect this evidence?
In Aristophanes’ Frogs a slave, Xanthias, is ordered by his master Dionysus to swap identities (496—97). Aeacus, another slave, is unaware of the arrangement and wonders how Xanthias will escape punishment for
Impersonating a free man. Let Dionysus try to punish him, boasts Xanthias. Aeacus, aroused, joins in the fun (743—53):
A: Now you’re acting like a real slave, just the way I enjoy acting.
X: Excuse me, but how do you enjoy it?
A: Well, I feel I’m in heaven whenever I secretly curse my master.
X: And how do you mutter when you charge outdoors after getting a good beating? A: Oh yes, I love that too.
X: And how about meddling?
A: I know nothing like it!
X: O Zeus of our common heritage! How about listening in when your master’s having a chat?
A: But oh, that works me up into even more of a frenzy!
X: And how about blabbing what you’ve heard to people outside?
A: I? Whenever I do that, I come.
The knowledge slaves have of their masters’ affairs is a commonplace in Greek comedy (see e. g. Men. Epit., esp. Frs. 849K and 850K, 425—7, 575-7; Sam. 298-300; The Shield 189-204; and Aristophanes, Wealth i-55). Aristophanes’ slaves often inform the audience of events within their masters’ households (Knights 35-70; Wasps 54-136; Peace 50-81). Slaves with such information are, however, depicted as loyal (e. g. Men. Mis. 15100, 959-72 and The Shorn Locks 318-21). Even the long-suffering Xanthias is true to his master, whatever the carping described above. The scene quoted could hint at a darker reality, but we should remember its context. It was written when Athens had exiled those involved in a recent coup but was willing to free slaves who fought for Athens in battle. The world (to Aristophanes) was indeed upside down (see 686-737). The quoted scene, emphasising the way that slaves could behave (not necessarily the way they usually did) may have been particularly pointed.
Providing a context for possible exaggeration does not, however, prove that Aristophanes exaggerated. He expected the idea of the prying and gossiping slave to resonate with his audience, and if such slaves are nonetheless depicted as loyal, comedy is an unlikely place to find the evil or disloyal. It is symptomatic of the difficulty of interpretation that, when Dionysus in the Frogs imagines a slave having his front teeth knocked out for watching the master have sex with a flute girl, we cannot tell whether the offence was the watching, or the accompanying masturbation, or both (542-48).
There are, however, other areas where conclusions are easier to draw. Slaves are not depicted running away from their masters in comedy, even if they sometimes beat a temporary retreat (Menander, The Bad-Tempered Man 144; Sam. 324, 641-57, especially 654-5; and the fragmentary Girl from Perinthos). They do, however, discuss the possibility of flight or even suicide (Ar. Eq. 20-26, 73, 80-84; cf - Plut. 1146-50; Theophrastus, Characters 12.12—14). Aristophanes depicts how things forbidden on earth are allowed in cloud-cuckoo-land, including beating one’s father and running away: whip marks will help one fit in with the other mottled birds (Birds 760—61). His Peace lists those who profit from war as including shield makers, men who want to be generals — and slaves thinking about running away (451; cf. possibly Acharnians 1187—8). The opportunity of escaping to the enemy may explain Strepsiades’ complaint (Clouds 6—7) that he cannot punish his slaves because of the war. Even Menander with his generally positive portrayal of slaves mentions running away as something associated with the ‘bad’ slave (e. g. Pk. 350) and ‘runaway’ is used as an insult (Asp. 398; The Carthaginian 35). One loyal slave is (ironically) insulted for lacking the manliness to flee (Asp. 238—45, cf. Herodotus 4.142). Gauging the scale of flight from such comments is obviously difficult, and there is certainly nothing like the evidence available to historians of modern slavery, but it does imply that Athenians saw flight as a significant problem.
Theft is also significant. Aristophanes’ Wealth contains a series of references to the thievery of Karion (e. g. 27, 318—20, 672—95, 1139—45). Aristophanes assumes that slaves steal food (Ran. 980—88; Vesp. 449—51; cf 836—38; Pax 1053), or wine (Eq. 101—2; cf. Vesp. 10). Acharnians (272—75) mentions the theft of wood. A slave preparing food for a giant dung beetle in Peace (i4) is relieved he will not be accused oftaking some himself. The picture is one of low-level pilfering. If Menander supplies fewer examples, we should nonetheless be wary of exaggerating the differences with Aristophanes. Pyrrhias is accused (unfairly) of theft in The Bad-Tempered Man (142) and there may be another reference in The Shield (465—66) (though they may be free women). Hired cooks are clearly distrusted (Asp. 226—32). In The Shorn Locks ‘careers’ are imagined for the slave Parmenon that presuppose a continuing underlying stereotype of the thieving slave (275—90: managing a cheese shop apparently requires no honesty).
Other elements of a negative slave stereotype are less obvious. The lying slave is largely absent in Aristophanes, but Menander depicts Daos in The Shorn Locks telling his master what he believed the latter wanted to hear (327—53). If slaves lie in Menander’s plays, however, they generally lie in the interests of others, not for themselves, even if hoping for a reward (e. g. Sam. 315; Epit. 511—80; Asp. 315—90). The cunning and deceitful slave is far more prominent in later Roman comedy, which derived from Greek New Comedy. Some have interpreted this as indicating a Roman fear of servile subterfuge. It would be difficult to argue the same for Greek comedy from the small number of examples we have.
Greek comic slaves are sometimes cheeky behind their masters’ backs (e. g. Ar. Vesp. 1299-1306; Eq. 40-3; Pax 54; Men. Pk. 172-4,185-8; cf. Dys. 403 and possibly Asp. 385-6). Direct rudeness is, however, more prominent. Xanthias in the first half of Aristophanes’ Frogs derides Dionysus as cowardly, Karion at the start of Wealth despairs of Chremylus, and Try-gaeus’ slave in Peace (90) accuses his master of madness. Menander offers comparable examples (Dys. 562—70 and 874—8; Asp. 338—9 and 353). Par-menon in The Samian Girl is prepared to tell his master that he is talking nonsense, even after he has been struck for questioning him (690). How ‘realistic’ are such slaves? Fitzgerald (2000: 32—47) argues that the freedom of speech allowed to later Roman comic slaves was part of ‘carnivale’, a licensed inversion of normally expected behaviour, and McCarthy (2000) maintains that slave characters offered a means for the poor or young to (indirectly) mock their social superiors or elders. We must be careful, therefore, before we draw too many conclusions from the interplay of slave and master, particularly when Greek slave characters could also be used metaphorically (famously in Aristophanes’ Knights where two of the slaves are usually assumed to represent the politicians Nicias and Demosthenes).
One could, therefore, simply dismiss the outspokenness of the slave as fiction. While some contemporaries praised Athens for the freedom of speech given even to slaves, others suggested that it was precisely the need to hold one’s tongue that defined slavery (Dem. 9.3; Isoc. 5.93; cf. Eur. Andr. 186—90; Phoenician Women 391—92; Ion 674—5, but note the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens (59.5) for a law to prevent slaves slandering citizens). Flattery and an over-eagerness to please are often seen as the failing of the slave, not cheekiness (Pl., Theaetetus 173a, 175c; Arist., Rhetoric I373ai5— 16, I4i5b22—3; Nicomachean Ethics ii49a25—7). To reject the evidence of comedy entirely, however, smacks of special pleading. The idea of comic transgression, of ‘carnivale’, perhaps works better for the Roman slave characters of Plautus than those of Aristophanes and Menander. Greek comic slaves neither control the action nor invert traditional ethical norms in quite the same manner as Roman (most, particularly those of Menander, share the morality of the free). On the other hand, even if the cheeky slave is ‘real’, he proves steadfastly loyal. One could, of course, argue away the significance of such loyalty. As suggested earlier, comedy may be unlikely to reflect uncomfortable aspects of reality, perhaps even deliberately reversing them. The cheeky stage-slave may therefore be either realistic or unrealistic or metaphorical. In the absence of more contextual evidence (and no other genre generates a comparable picture), it is very difficult to decide.
If the cheeky slave appears only occasionally, the ‘slow’ slave appears frequently. In Aristophanes’ Birds, Peisthetaerus hurries up Manes, insulting him as blakikos, ‘lazy’ (1317, 1324; cf. 1328). In Wasps, Philocleon worries that his son’s steward will prepare food slowly, cursing while serving it (614—17). In Peace, War’s servant Uproar is struck for not acting quickly enough (255—58), as is Parmenon in Menander’s The Samian Girl (and for asking too many questions: 679, cf. 657—64, 203 and 105). Menander hints that quickness was something to be praised (Asp. 391 and The Necklace Fr.
333, lines 15—16). Context, however, may again be important. Most references to hurrying up can be interpreted as orders rather than complaints (e. g. Ar. Vesp. 187,1361, Thesm. 1186; Pax 727, 842, 960; Av. 464 and 1309; Men. Dys. 454, 596; The Cithara Player 52, Per. 10, Double Deceiver 52). The impatience of owners may imply deliberately slow work, but again it does not necessarily do so. Free characters are asked (even told) to hurry up too (e. g. Ar. Nub. 88, 182, 506, with several dozen more references in other plays). Sometimes slaves tell the free to hurry up (Ar. Pax 1126; Ran. 480; Plut. 57, 768; Men. Asp. 379; Dys. 866; Pk. 992; Sam. 691). Isolated statements hurrying up slaves might, therefore, appear to hint at resistance but in the context of the statements directed to the free they become more problematic.
On some occasions, however, slaves clearly work poorly. At the opening of Aristophanes’ Clouds, Strepsiades complains that his slaves are getting away with idleness because of the war. Given, however, that Strepsiades has also lost control of his wife and son, a contemporary audience might have viewed his slaves’ behaviour as reflecting more his peculiar weakness than any wider problem. The beginning of Aristophanes’ Wasps has Xanthias and Sosias preferring sleep to work (though they recognise they may suffer for it). Xanthias is caught napping again later (395). In the Knights ‘Demos’ has apparently ceded authority in his household to a violent Paphlagonian slave (43—72; cf. 1120—30). The latter is a rare example of a thoroughly bad slave, a depiction possibly affected by being modelled on Aristophanes’ political enemy Cleon. Demos’ other slaves wallow in despair rather than work. While they, like Xanthias and Sosias in the Wasps, quickly move on to political jokes and operate as mouthpieces for the free, the domestic parody must have had some basis in the everyday expectations of the audience, though perhaps as an extreme rather than a commonplace. The same is possibly true when we see Hermes being bribed to disobey his master in Peace (416—25). Surviving Menandrian comedy lacks explicit examples of such insubordination (though a full text of the Girl from Perinthos might have supplied one). In The Farmer, however, it is claimed that ‘barbarian’ slaves all too willingly leave their master in the lurch (56—8, though lacking a full context). Getas in The Bad-Tempered Man aims a few well-chosen insults at a lazy slave-girl, more interested in sex than work (459—63). So, even if the ‘bad slave’ appears seldom in comedy, the idea of the bad slave remains just below the surface, implying some difficulty of control.
Violence directed at slaves might indicate a reaction to resistance. In Wasps, Xanthias famously envies tortoises their hardened backs (1292— 6; cf. 429). Again, however, the context may be significant: his master Philocleon’s almost pathological willingness to use violence against anyone he meets. And if historians often quote the subsequent joke linking pais (‘slave’) with paiein (‘to beat’: 1297), a pun is a pun, not a sociological statement. There is, however, a limit to how far one can (or should) deconstruct this evidence. Xanthias in Frogs engages in a contest to withstand pain with the god Dionysus: the slave is so used to beating that he will not blink first (612—73). Aristophanes also refers to beatings or the threat of beatings in Peace 257 and Clouds 57 (cf. Vesp. 247 where a child who committed a similar offence is not threatened in the same way). We also find theft punished with a beating (Vesp. 449—51, though once again involving Philocleon, whose proclivity to violence we noted above).
Menander also mentions threats (e. g. Sam. 321—24: cf 304 and, implicitly, 663; also Dys. 900—1 and Epit. 425—7). In Arbitrants, Parmenon may actually be struck (679: other translations are possible), and the evil Smikrines threatens to ‘break the head’ of the old nurse Sophron, probably a slave or ex-slave (1062—9). There are several references to ‘hanging up’ possibly as preparation for whipping (Dys. 249 and Pk. 269). Slaves could also be sent to the mill as punishment (Pk. 277; Asp. 245; Heros 3 also mentions fettering). A fragmentary comment in The Shield apparently connects beatings with improved behaviour (537—8). We find a statement that it is wrong to strike free women with a stick, implying that it is quite proper to strike slave women (Sam. 577). The insults directed towards slaves may also be significant. Some tell us little (kakodaimon, athlios, ‘wretch’, or hierosylos, ‘temple-robber’), but note mastigias, ‘deserving a whipping’ (e. g. Men. Dys. 139, 473; Epit. 1113; Pk. 324; Sam. 324, used of a brothel keeper). It is also found in the extant corpus of Aristophanes (though not often: e. g. Ran. 501 and 756; Eq. 1228).
This emphasis on punishment may indicate an expectation of poor work. It may also represent, as some specialists on Roman comedy have suggested, a way of repressing a fear of slaves by emphasising control (again implying resistance). It could also, however, be an assertion of the ideological superiority of free over slave, stressing the physicality and beastlike quality of the latter, with consequently fewer implications for judging their actual behaviour. The frequency of references to punishment is not on the scale found in Roman texts (and one doubts it would justify the kind of psychoanalytical conclusions suggested there), but it still suggests a rather different kind of world from that of the loyal slaves given such explicit prominence, particularly by Menander.
What conclusions can be drawn? At first sight comic evidence suggests Athenians were not unduly concerned with slave control. Slaves are generally loyal adjuncts of the free. This loyalty may be exaggerated, however. Comedy might be shying away from disagreeable aspects of life, unconsciously ‘repressing’ slave-owners’ fears (though this is difficult to prove or disprove). Aristophanes hints at self-censorship, tired of jokes about punishing bad slaves (Pax 742—6: though beware irony!). We have also seen that there is some evidence from the plays that the loyal slave is indeed a rather one-sided representation of the reality outside the theatre. Regardless of how few references there are to overt resistance, comic language and casual remarks also indicate the existence of the concept of the ‘bad’ slave. Thieving was easily associated with slaves, as was gossip (though its impact is debatable). Running away was an issue, and the mark of the bad slave, but it is difficult to judge how major a problem it was. Neither Aristophanes nor Menander may fear slaves, but even the latter’s generally positive picture of master-slave relations fails to hide the difficulties.
Xenophon and slavery
Xenophon is another important source for Athenian attitudes to slaves. In his Hiero (4.3; cf. 6.3, 9.3) he emphasised the isolation of tyrants compared to citizens:
For citizens act as unpaid bodyguards for one another against slaves and as bodyguards against evildoers, for the purpose of preventing that any citizen should die a violent death.
The bodyguards of tyrants make them unpopular, but that need not be so (10.4):
I presume that you maintain them to guard yourself. But many masters as well have died violently at the hands of slaves. This therefore might be the first thing assigned to the mercenaries, as bodyguards of all — to render help to all of the citizens whenever they see anything of this nature: there are, as we all know, always evildoers in the cities. If, then, these men are posted to guard them, the citizens would therefore recognise that they too were being helped by them.
These passages certainly suggest serious problems (though the mercenaries are to help against external enemies too: 10.6). Xenophon devoted particular attention to slavery in his Memorabilia and especially his Oeco-nomicus, fictional conversations involving the philosopher Socrates. Early in Memorabilia (2.1.16—17), Socrates argues that men have the choice to rule or be ruled; his companion Aristippus favours a retiring life. Socrates asks whether he hopes to avoid slavery because no one wants a slave used to the high life:
S: But now let us examine this: how masters treat such servants. Don’t they chasten lasciviousness through hunger, stop theft by shutting off wherever there might be something to take from, prevent running away with fetters, and force out laziness with blows? And you, what do you do, whenever you observe that there is a slave such as this?
A: I punish them with all kinds of evils until I force them to behave like a slave.
This obviously indicates potential slave punishments and the weaknesses of slaves with a fondness for the high life, but not, of course, how common such slaves might be. How does it fit, for example, with the praise of agriculture from the Oeconomicus (5.10)?:
Which [trade] is more pleasing to slaves, or pleasanter to a wife, or more desired by children, or more agreeable to friends?
We shall see below passages where Xenophon assumes slaves can be made to work happily, alongside texts hinting at a different reality. One might ask which is the ‘real’ Xenophon. Or one might argue that we should not try to fit such passages together, but instead be sensitive to the reasons why he is producing both.
Xenophon was aristocratic, closely associated with Socrates, pro-Spartan and, for much of his life, an exile from Athens. This was an unorthodox curriculum vitae. His comments were probably not produced for a general audience (as comedy was), depriving us of an important control in assessing their plausibility. On the other hand, Xenophon comes from a social group used to dealing with comparatively large numbers of slaves.
Xenophon’s aim, however, is not reportage or even managerial advice. Nor is his primary focus slavery. He wishes his audience to become better leaders of men. Both the Memorabilia and the Oeconomicus equate managing a household (an oikos) and other forms of power, notably military and political (Mem. 3.4.6; Oec. 5.14—17, 21.2, 21.12). This is more moral philosophy than economics, potentially affecting his picture of slave management. For example, using persuasion with slaves rather than violence may fit better his political aims, and he may exaggerate the need for personal supervision because he clearly believed leaders should be energetic. He may also de-emphasise ‘external’ constraints (such as recalcitrant slaves) that might limit the apparent applicability of his ideas. These issues import a good deal of uncertainty but may make the surviving examples of resistance all the more significant.
In Memorabilia, we saw that lasciviousness, theft, running away and laziness are listed as problems. It says something of the difficulty of interpreting individual comments that Xenophon says little about lasciviousness elsewhere. Sexual self-discipline is required of both estate steward and stewardess (Oec. 9.11,12.13), and sex is to be a reward for good slaves (Oec. 9.5): bad slaves, apparently, find more ways to do ill when allowed to mate (though good slaves become better).
Theft was the second failing. Slaves should not steal if trained properly, however (Mem. 2.1.9). How realistic is this? Ischomachus, Xenophon’s paragon of a gentleman farmer, has to apply the laws of Draco and Solon to punish thefts by slaves (Oec. 14.5—7). Theft may also be implied by Ischomachus’ advice that a wife should know about everything entering and leaving the house (Oec. 7.35—6, 9.3—6,9.9—10). Locked male and female slave quarters not only prevented unauthorised intimacy but also ensured that nothing was moved without permission (Oec. 9.5). It should be noted, however, that Ischomachus feels that knowing the whereabouts of everything is also a good thing in itself (Oec. 8.20; cf. 8.1 on Ischomachus’ wife).257
Running away is mentioned in Memorabilia (2.10.1—2): Socrates expresses surprise that people sometimes give more effort to hunting runaways (or looking after sick slaves) than cultivating friends who are much more useful. More famously, in Oeconomicus (3.4) Socrates explains why some men become rich and others poor. Partly it is the putting of things in their proper place, but there is more:
What then if I show you, moreover, one place where virtually all the slaves are fettered but often run away, another where the slaves are unconstrained but want to stay and work? Will I not thus show you that the matter of estate management is a thing well worth examining?
The difficulty, once again, is deciding how typical the two ends of the spectrum shown might have been. For example, how realistic is the idea of controlling slaves without fettering? How far is it affected by the philosophical agenda mentioned earlier?
Laziness is listed last. One must encourage one’s workers in the fields: working to time can determine success or failure (e. g. Oec. 12.20, 21.10—11, 16, 19—20). Slaves require encouragement (Oec. 13.9—13, 5.14—16, 7.41), and overseers should be controlled (e. g. Oec. 9.11—15). Ischomachus believes one should and can win over slaves. Another character, however, casually associates lack of initiative with slaves (Oec. 1.16—17). Ischomachus does not want his wife to sit around ‘like a slave’ (Oec. 10.10). Socrates notes (Mem. 2.4.2—5 and 2.10.3) how much more useful a friend is than a slave (or a horse), and Euthydemus berates himself as being as worthless (phaulotes) as a slave. A lack of initiative could, of course, be an effective form of resistance rather than an innate quality. On the other hand, it could also help masters justify slavery, which might lead them to exaggerate it.
There are, of course, methods of resistance that are not listed in Memorabilia 2.1.16. What might the violent/intemperate (akratos) slave of Memorabilia 1.5.2 do to herds or tools? Bad (poneroi) slaves are also mentioned (Mem. 2.5.5; 3.13.4: a lazy and stupid attendant fond of food and money).258 Slaves cannot, apparently, always be won over. Not all can be taught, for example, to be honest bailiffs (Oec. 14.3, 12.9—16; cf. 9.11—15). A good master can have bad slaves (Oec. 12.19). This contradicts Xenophon’s general optimism and may be all the more significant for that.
Signs of resistance can be subtle. Xenophon’s methods are relatively paternalistic. One should do one’s duty to one’s slaves (Mem. 1.2.48, 2.1.32, 4.4.17: the nature of that duty is left unclear). Critobulus’ complaint that Socrates’ masochistic lifestyle would drive ‘even a slave to desert his master’ implies that a slave should not be pressed too hard (Mem. 1.6.2). We have seen Xenophon suggest a system of rewards (e. g. Oec. 13.9; 13.11—12 for workers; 9.12, 13.6—7, 13.16 for stewards; 14.8 for honesty). Ischomachus’ wife cares for sick slaves, hoping for their gratitude (Oec. 7.37). Better clothes and food should be given to the better servants to encourage them (Oec. 13.10) — sex too (Oec. 9.5). These could be regarded as concessions won by resistance.
Xenophon, however, certainly expects slavery to be profitable (e. g. Mem. 2.7.1—3), and the advice given in the Oeconomicus to be successful. Ischomachus does worry that his wife will complain about the effort required (Oec. 9.14—16, esp. 16), but he is also concerned that his method of training a bailiff might appear laughably easy (Oec. 13.4).
We should not, however, paint too positive a picture of slave/master relations from these texts. It is clear that slavery and moral inferiority are, for Xenophon, closely related ideas. The seriousness of resistance is, nonetheless, difficult to judge. One can argue that Xenophon’s optimism is a product of his philosophical and pedagogical hopes, and so stress the resistance that ‘leaks’ into the texts. Or one could stress the author’s confidence that good management can deal with the problem. Both positions seem possible. It is difficult to see from the evidence itself why one should be chosen over the other. It is striking that there is no sign here, in his most detailed of discussions of slavery, of the near paranoia of the Hiero, though that could be a function of the different aims of the texts.
Slaves in plato s republic and laws
Plato left behind a significant number of statements concerning slavery.11 Socrates and Glaucon famously discussed the vulnerability of slave-owners in Republic 578e:
S:. . . what if one of the gods lifted a man, with fifty or even more slaves, and his wife and children out of the city and placed him with his slaves and all his possessions in a wasteland, where none of the free would help? How greatly, do you suppose, would he be afraid that he himself and his children and his wife might be killed by his slaves?
G: Utterly. 259
S: And wouldn’t he have to fawn on some of his own slaves, to promise them much, freeing them when he didn’t need to? And wouldn’t he be made into a the flatterer of his own slaves?
G: By necessity, or perish.
These lines are often quoted, but one should examine how they were introduced. Socrates is discussing ‘tyrants’, emphasising how miserable their lives are. They are one ruling over many. He looks for a comparison (578d-e):
S: [One should spy out] each of the wealthy private citizens in our cities who have acquired many slaves because they have this in common with a tyrant — they rule over many, the difference being the number.
G: Yes, that’s the difference.
S: And do you know that they hold them without fear and are not afraid of their slaves?
G: What would they be frightened of?
S: Nothing. Do you know the reason then?
G: Yes. It’s because the whole city comes to the aid of each private citizen.
S: Correct. But what if one of the gods lifted a man. ..
The relationship between slave and master rests upon force. The hostility of the slave is a given. On the other hand ‘Socrates’ explicitly denies that masters generally live in fear.
Plato’s longest discussion of slavery is in Laws 776c—778a (a tiny fraction of his surviving work). An unnamed Athenian suggests that slaves are a ‘troublesome property’ (776b—c), citing Sparta’s Helots. This illustrates a key problem from a modern perspective. Plato combines comments on Spartan Helots (indigenous serfs) and Athenian chattel slaves, groups most would now analyse separately. When noting that controlling men is difficult because of their temper and that they are a ‘difficult beast to handle,’ he mentions rebellions in Sparta and troubles in Italy and areas where slaves ‘speak the same language’ (777b—c). Helotage may therefore form much of the background for the advice he gives, for example when he suggests that ‘slaves’ should be divided by origin and language. Elsewhere it is often unclear whether his comments are written with Helots in mind, or chattel slaves, or both.
Plato implies (776d—777a) a division of opinion about the nature of ‘slaves’. Some stress their trustworthiness. Others argue that ‘there is nothing virtuous about a slave’s soul’. The difference of opinion, and the professed need to get oneself the ‘best and most well-disposed’ slaves, presupposes a problem. Apart from ‘divide and rule’, Plato’s advice to owners is that one should not treat slaves as friends (778a, cf. 757a). ‘Many senseless people’ have made life more difficult by forgetting that. Slaves should be punished for wrongdoing, not just admonished, but some owners who use whips and goads only succeed in making their servants more slavish (777a—777e). It would be better not to humiliate them ‘and mistreat them even less, if it were possible, than you would an equal’ (777d). Virtuous treatment sows the seed of virtue (777e).
Plato’s proposed form of control could represent a concession to the slaves, indicating successful resistance (as fear of familiarity may represent a fear of being taken advantage of). Note also the recommendation that slave-owners in an ideal state should decide the amount of food given to slaves (8q8b—c), perhaps implying a reward system similar to Xenophon’s.
Plato’s Laws 776—778 consequently suggests a fundamental antagonism between master and slave, though perhaps not as pronounced as in the Republic (578). Plato may, however, be understating conflict in the Laws. He seeks there to sketch out an achievable ideal state based on the effectiveness of‘education’ (e. g. 838d). It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that Plato implies slaves can be successfully controlled by means other than force. On the other hand, the rationale for creating his laws is that some people will be impervious to instruction (88oe—88ia). Suspicious but successful control might be a good summary.
Most of Plato’s remaining comments in the Laws appear as he details the laws of his ideal state. There are Draconian punishments for slaves who kill or injure free men (868b—c, 869a—b, e, 877b, 879a, 88ia—c). If, for example, a slave kills a free man in cold blood he is to be whipped in clear view of the dead man’s tomb as many times as decided by the prosecutor, and killed if he survives the beating (872b). Free men who committed similar crimes are generally treated less harshly (869d—e, 871a, d—e, 877a—b, 878c— d, 88ob—c). The free who killed in anger had only to purify themselves and undergo a period of exile (867c—d; cf. 865a—866d, 868 c—869a). The harsher penalties for the slaves may imply a need to intimidate potentially violent slaves. After dealing with the ‘killing in anger’ of a free man by a slave, Plato discusses killings involving parents and children with the qualification, ‘this is a rare occurrence, but not unknown’ (868c). This might hint that the murder of a master was not seen as rare by Plato, but any statistical analysis is impossible. If, for example, the country-wardens deal with cases where a slave has injured a ‘neighbour or citizen’ (76ie), they deal also with assaults by the free, and nothing in the description of their other duties suggests a particular fear of slaves (758a—b, 76ob—e). Further, while the severity of a penalty might reflect the fear of the frequency of a crime, it could also represent the level of horror attached, regardless of frequency. The horror of attacks on immediate family members, particularly parents, is also expressed in heightened penalties similar to those for slaves (869b—c, 873b, 877b—c, 878e). Contrasting penalties may also reflect a desire to emphasise the difference in status between slave and free.
Violence is not the only potential form of resistance, however. Slaves are mentioned in the legislation against theft (914b, 845a—b: one stroke of the whip for each grape stolen). The free are, however, mentioned too, even if they are punished less severely (except in cases of temple robbery), possibly in accordance with their higher status (844e—845d with 853d, 854e). Curiously there is only a passing reference to the possibility of slave flight. Citizens are allowed to seize fugitives on their own behalf or that of a friend or relative (9i4e).260
Slaves can be punished for inaction as well as action. They are sometimes obliged to render help or give witness (88ic, 914a, 932d). This may suggest that Plato expects limited loyalty from slaves, but resident aliens, foreigners and citizens likewise require encouragement to act. Any supposed danger arising from giving slaves the power (and incentive) to inform was apparently balanced by the good it did the state (9i7d, 937b).
On a more mundane level slaves were not to be left unattended (8o8d). The mistress and master should always rise first (8o7e—808a). This stress on supervision could suggest passive resistance from the slaves. Closer examination, however, again produces a potentially more complicated picture. Plato believes wakefulness to be a good in itself — it would be a source of shame, he says, for a citizen to spend the whole night sleeping and not be seen by his servants as being the first in the household to wake and rise. And, if slaves need supervision, children need it even more (8o8d). He is keen on supervision even for citizens (e. g. 942a), but there still seems problematic behaviour to be punished: an errant boy is to be punished as if he were a slave (809 e).
Plato’s negative attitude towards slaves is clear. There seems to be a core assumption that slaves are mindless and ill-disciplined, requiring constraint. If a man of forty starts fights, he will be considered a boor with the manners of a slave (880a; cf. 879e and foreigners). Acquiring a reputation for vice was apparently something that would not concern a slave (914a, though some slaves could be virtuous: 936b and 777d—e). Plato’s generally low opinion of slaves could again reflect the persistence of low-level dissent.
Ultimately, once again, one has a choice. One might argue that Plato (like Xenophon) does not want to stress intractable resistance but allows reality to break through in a few explicit comments (e. g. Resp. 578). Or one might argue that the supposed danger seen in a few explicit comments is shown to be an exaggeration by the general complacency elsewhere. Whatever position one takes, one should remember that Plato’s failure to think about slaves in more detail is due to his primary focus on the free.
Even if one were to argue that resistance is relatively absent in Plato’s work, this may say more about the text than anything else.
The slave of Aristotle’s politics and the ps-aristotelian oeconomica
Aristotle’s philosophical starting point in his Politics is very different from Xenophon’s or Plato’s. Aristotle denies that running a slave household is equivalent to running a state (i252a7—9; cf. I253bi8—20, I255bi6—18). Training slaves should be left to stewards or teachers of slaves (i255b2i— 37). More importantly, Aristotle sees a slave as part of, or a tool of, his master (i253b29-33, i25qa28-33, i255bii-i2). This effectively philosophises opposition between master and slave out of existence (one cannot oppose a part of oneself). A community of interest between master and slave allegedly operates when the right people are enslaved: natural slaves (in effect barbarians). Difficulties chiefly arise when the wrong people are held by constraint and by force (i255b4—5). Aristotle in a sense creates an ‘ideal type’, passive, slave. Even if his philosophy might cause him to downplay resistance, however, he still recognises problems. Slaves apparently range in a spectrum between high-spirited (but dim) and intelligent (but cowardly), though (again by definition) not so ill-disciplined or cowardly as to be incapable of serving (i26oai—2, cf. i327b23—9). Aristotle has no interest in discussing real situations in which slaves were indeed too cowardly or too ill-disciplined, but, by implication, such slaves existed. That there were more difficulties with real slaves than Aristotle’s theoretical comments imply is also seen in his criticism of communism. It creates too much intimacy and we often quarrel with those with whom we are most intimate, such as fellow travellers — and servants (i263ai8—2i). Like Plato, he also advises against keeping too many slaves of one people in case of rebellion and suggests that one needs to hold out the hope of freedom (i33oa25—8).
Aristotle explicitly recognises very high levels of resistance amongst Spartan Helots and similar groups (i269a36—9). Unlike Plato, he separates Helots and other slaves. Helots are seen as a standing danger to their states: they are either too insolent if given freedom or plot if too repressed. Aristotle’s separation of the two groups implies that he believes that his audience will not particularly associate the problems of Helots with Athenian slaves. Aristotle allows us therefore to read between the lines and provides evidence for low-level resistance, but not for a particular fear of rebellion.
The pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica of the early Hellenistic period draws together many of the themes already seen. Only a small part deals with slaves. One should not allow them to be insolent by giving them food but no punishment. Work without sufficient food, however, saps strength (i344bi-2). The author continues (i344b3-9):
Those who are not paid cannot be controlled, and sustenance is a slave’s pay. As with all others, so too with slaves: whenever the good do not get better things and there is no reward for virtue or evil, they become worse. One must therefore consider this and assign and allow each slave food, clothes, rest, and punishment according to their effort. . .
The concept that food is a slave’s pay suggests recognition of a paradox: the chattel slave represented an investment masters needed to protect, thereby removing part of the slave’s incentive to work. Concessions must be made, and there is a hint of something perhaps more dangerous in the background (i344bi3-i8):
Those who are too craven have no endurance, and the overly hot-tempered are not easily governed. It is therefore necessary to set out an end point [to slavery] for all. It is both right and expedient to offer the prize of freedom: for they are willing to work hard whenever there is such a prize and a term set. One must also use the begetting of children as way of getting hostages and also not buy many slaves from the same race. . .
In addition, a porter should check everything going in and out on larger farms (i345a33—bi). Echoing Xenophon and Plato, the author of the Oeconomica also suggests that personal supervision is both morally good in itself and essential for successful control of slaves, with the emphasis on the latter (i345ai—17). Owners’ behaviour is being moulded by their slaves. In summary workers can be made keen, but only with concessions.
Conclusion
We can assume that many slaves found ways of resisting their masters. The difficulty is tracing this in our evidence. Looking at what ancient authors thought about resistance, at the ‘footprints’ in the consciousness of the slave-owners, is perhaps the most promising way forward.261 It produces a complex picture. The danger of mining isolated nuggets of information is readily apparent. Some of the most quoted statements on slave resistance (particularly from Aristophanes, Xenophon and Plato) become much more ambiguous when examined in context. It is certainly difficult to maintain that Greeks feared their slaves, particularly when our evidence is affected by the tendency to bracket together Sparta’s Helots (who may very well have excited fear) and Athens’ chattel slaves.
The types of resistance do become clear, however. It is also evident that some forms of resistance are almost certainly under-reported (e. g. flight and perhaps even rebellion). Particular authors may also be providing an overoptimistic view of relations between masters and slaves: even Menander’s often postive picture is implicitly underpinned by clear negative stereotypes. Aristotle had philosophical reasons for downplaying slave resistance (as possibly did Plato and Xenophon). To summarise the evidence that has survived, the control of slaves was seen as potentially irritating, but it was, ultimately, portrayed as a problem of ‘middle management’. Athenians generally defined slaves by their powerlessness and their cowardice (however exaggerated and self-serving such a definition may have been). As stated earlier, however, the absence of evidence of resistance is not evidence of its absence. While part of the aim of this chapter has been to challenge an over-simplified orthodoxy, we should not replace a picture of ‘high’ levels of resistance with one of‘low’ levels: interpretative choices inevitably remain.
In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (8.3.40—50), Pheraules complains that wealth is a burden that one cannot enjoy without fearing its loss and that slaves are merely more mouths to feed and clothe (8.41). When his guest, an unnamed Sacian, expresses surprise at such views, Pheraulus offers to give him all that he owns in return for his basic maintenance (8.3.46). The story is fictional and set in Persia, not Greece. The point, however, is not the truth of the tale, but the assumptions made by this Greek writer for his Greek audience about the fate of the two men. Pheraules, relieved of his property and slaves, apparently lives happily ever after. And so, having gained them, does the Sacian (8.3.50).
One can, however, exaggerate the plasticity of the evidence. There are still some clear conclusions to be drawn. Athenian authors were under no illusion that slavery was a form of education or an apprenticeship into a higher civilisation. While some degree of loyalty and friendship could be imagined between master and slave, there was nonetheless an understanding that slavery was a system of forced and unwilling labour, with slaves presenting a problem to be dealt with. Slaves might not have been feared, but they were definitely a ‘troublesome property’, albeit one that Athenians were happy to live with
World History
