servants were, from a modern standpoint, extremely large.

Slaves are everywhere: not merely are they the domestic servants,
but they are the hands in the factories, they run innumerable little
shops, they unload the ships, they work the mines, they cultivate
the farms. Possibly there are more able-bodied male slaves in
Attica than male free men, although this point is very uncertain.
Their number is the harder to reckon because they are not required
to wear any distinctive dress, and you cannot tell at a glance
whether a man is a mere piece of property, or a poor but very proud
and important member of the "Sovereign Demos [People] of Athens."

No prominent Greek thinker seems to contest the righteousness and
desirability of slavery. It is one of the usual, nay, inevitable,
things pertaining to a civilized state. Aristotle the philosopher
puts the current view of the case very clearly. "The lower sort
of mankind are BY NATURE slaves, and it is better for all inferiors
that they should be under the rule of a master. The use made of
slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both by their
bodies minister to the needs of life." The intelligent, enlightened,
progressive Athenians are naturally the "masters"; the stupid,
ignorant, sluggish minded Barbarians are the "inferiors." Is it
not a plain decree of Heaven that the Athenians are made to rule,
the Barbarians to serve?--No one thinks the subject worth serious
argument.

Of course the slave cannot be treated quite as one would treat an
ox. Aristotle takes pains to point out the desirability of holding
out to your "chattel" the hope of freedom, if only to make him work
better; and the great philosopher in his last testament gives freedom