they are kept and trained at heavy expense. These brutish creatures
are frequently sold off to the mines, to be worked to death by the
contractors as promptly and brutally as one wears out a machine;
or else they become public galley slaves, when their fate is
practically the same. But we need not follow such horrors.

[*]A small but fairly constant supply of slaves would come from
the seizure of the persons and families of bankrupt debtors, whose
creditors, especially in the Orient, might sell them into bondage.

The remainder are likely to be purchased either for use upon the
farm, the factory, or in the home. There is a regular "circle"
at or near the Agora for traffic in them. They are often sold at
auction. The price of course varies with the good looks, age,[*]
or dexterity of the article, or the abundance of supply. "Slaves
will be high" in a year when there has been little warfare and
raiding in Asia Minor. "Some slaves," says Xenophon, "are well
worth two mine [$36.00 (1914) or $640.80 (2000)] and others barely
half a mina [$9.00 (1914) or $160.20 (2000)]; some sell up to five
mine [$90.00 (1914) or $1,602.00 (2000)] and even for ten [$180.00
(1914) or $3,204.00 (2000)]. Nicias, the son of Nicaretus, is
said to have given a talent [over $1,000.00 (1914) or $17,800.00
(2000)] for an overseer in the mines."[+] The father of Demosthenes
owned a considerable factory. He had thirty-two sword cutters
worth about five mine each, and twenty couch-makers (evidently less
skilled) worth together 40 mine [about $720.00 (1914) or $12,816.00
(2000)]. A girl who is handsome and a clever flute player, who will
be readily hired for supper parties, may well command a very high
price indeed, say even 30 mine [about $540.00 (1914) or $9,612.00
(2000)].