to five of his thirteen slaves. Then again it is recognized as
clearly against public sentiment to hold fellow Greeks in bondage.
It is indeed done. Whole towns get taken in war, and those of
the inhabitants who are not slaughtered are sold into slavery.[*]
Again, exposed children, whose parents have repudiated them, get
into the hands of speculators, who raise them "for market." There
is also a good deal of kidnapping in the less civilized parts of
Greece like Aetolia. Still the proportion of genuinely GREEK slaves
is small. The great majority of them are "Barbarians," men born
beyond the pale of Hellenic civilization.

[*]For example, the survivors, after the capture of Melos, in the
Peloponesian War.


40. The Slave Trade in Greece.--There are two great sources of
slave supply: the Asia Minor region (Lydia and Phrygia, with Syria
in the background), and the Black Sea region, especially the northern
shores, known as Scythia. It is known to innumerable heartless
"traders" that human flesh commands a very high price in Athens
or other Greek cities. Every little war or raid that vexes those
barbarous countries so incessantly is followed by the sale of the
unhappy captives to speculators who ship them on, stage by stage,
to Athens. Perhaps there is no war; the supply is kept up then
by deliberately kidnapping on a large scale, or by piracy.[*] In
any case the arrival of a chain gang of fettered wretches at the
Peireus is an everyday sight. Some of these creatures are submissive
and tame (perhaps they understand some craft or trade); these can
be sold at once for a high price. Others are still doltish and
stubborn. They are good for only the rudest kind of labor, unless