Among the Greeks slavery existed from the heroic times, and the purchase and use of slaves are repeatedly men tioned by Homer. The labours of hus bandry were performed in some instances by poor freemen for hire, but in most places, especially in the Doric states, by a class of bondmen, the descendants of the older inhabitants of the country, resem bling the serfs of the middle ages, who lived upon and cultivated the lands which the conquering race had appropriated to themselves; they paid a rent to the re spective proprietors, whom they also at tended in war. They could not be put to death without trial, nor be sold out of the country, nor separated from their families; they could acquire property, and were often richer than their masters. Such were the Clarotse of Crete, the Penestte of Thessaly Proper, and the Helots of Sparta, who must not be con founded with the Perimci, or country inhabitants of Laconica in general, who were political subjects of the Doric com munity of Sparta, without however being bondmen. In the colonies of the Dorians beyond the limits of Greece, the condi tion of the conquered natives was often more degraded than that of the bondmen of the parent states, because the former were not Greeks, but barbarians, and they were reduced to the condition of slaves. Such was the case of the Kallirioi or Kallikurioi of Syracuse, and of the native Bithynians at Byzantium. At Heraclea in Pontus, the Mariandyui submitted to the Greeks on condition that they should not be sold beyond the borders, and that they should pay a fixed tribute to the ruling race.
The Doric states of Greece had few purchased slaves, but Athens, Corinth, and other commercial states bad a large number, who were mostly natives of bar barous countries. The slave population in Attica has been variously estimated as to numbers, and it varied of course con siderably at different periods; but it ap pears that in Athens, at least in the time of its greatest power, they were much more numerous than the freemen. From a fragment of Hyperides preserved by Suidas (v. bredevotcraro), the number of slaves appears to have been at one time 150,000, who were employed in the fields and mines of Attica alone. Even the poorer citizens had a slave for their household affairs. The wealthier citizens had as many as fifty slaves to each family and some had more. We read of philo sophers keeping ten slaves. There were private slaves belonging to families, and public slaves belonging to the community or state. The latter were employed on board the fleet, in the docks and arsenal, and in the construction of public build ings and roads. At the sea fight of Argiuusse there were many slaves serving in the Athenian fleet, and they were emancipated after the battle. Again, at Cheronsea the Athenians granted liberty to their slaves who served in the army.
Slaves were dealt with like any other property : they worked either on their master's account or on their own, in which latter case they paid a certain sum to their master; or they were let out on hire as servants or workmen, or sent to serve in the navy of the state, the master receiving payment for their services.
Mines were worked by slaves, some of whom belonged to the lessees of the mine, and the rest were hired from the great slave proprietors, to whom the lessees paid a rent of so much a head, besides pro viding for the maintenance of the slave, which was no great matter. They worked in chains, and many of them died from the effect of the unwholesome atmosphere. Nicias the elder had 1000 slaves in the mines of Laurium ; others had several hundreds, whom they let to the contractors for an obolus a-day each. At one time the mining slaves of Attica murdered their guards, took possession of the fortifications of Sunium, and ravaged the surrounding country. (Fragment of Posidonius's Continuation of Polybius; see Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens, b. i.) The thirty-two or thirty-three iron-workers or sword-cutlers of Demos thenes annually produced a net profit of thirty mime. their purchase value being 190 minte; whilst his twenty chair makers, whose value was estimated at 40 mime, brought in a net profit of 12 mince. (Demosthenes Against Aphobus, i.) The antients were so habituated to the sight of slavery, that none of the Greek philosophers make any objection to its existence. Plato, in his Perfect State,' desires only that no Greeks should be made slaves.
The Etruscans and other antient Italian nations had slaves, as is proved by those of Vulsinii revolting against their masters, and by the tradition that the Bruttii were runaway slaves of the Lucanians. The Campanians had both slaves and gladiators previous to the Roman conquest. But the Romans by their system of continual war caused an enormous influx of slaves into Italy, where the slave population at last nearly superseded the free labourers.
The Roman system of slavery had peculiarities which distinguished it from that of Greece. The Greeks considered slavery to be founded on permanent di versities in the races of men. (Aristotle, i. 5.) The Romans admitted in principle that all men were originally free (histit., i., tit. ii.) by natural law (jure naturali), and they ascribed the power of masters over their slaves en tirely to the will of society, to the " jus gentium," if the slaves were captives taken in war, whom the conquerors, in stead of killing them, as they might have done, spared for the purpose of selling them, or to the " jus civile," when a man of full age sold himself. It was a rule of Roman law that the offspring of a slave woman followed the condition of the mother. i., tit. 3.) Emancipation was much more frequent at Rome than in Greece : the emancipated slave became a freedman (libertus), but whether he be came a Roman citizen, a Latins, or a Dediticius, depended on circumstances.