At the time we speak of, these unhappy beings were in the full
excitement of that wild and melancholy gaiety which is almost peculiar
to slaves in their hours of recreation, and in which reaction of
wretchedness modern writers have discovered the indulgence of a native
humour. Some of them were drinking deep, wrangling, jesting, laughing
in loud discord over their cups. At another table rose the deep voice
of a singer, chanting one of those antique airs known but to these
degraded sons of the Homeric Achaean, and probably in its origin
going beyond the date of the Tale of Troy; a song of gross and rustic
buffoonery, but ever and anon charged with some image or thought
worthy of that language of the universal Muses. His companions
listened with a rude delight to the rough voice and homely sounds, and
now and then interrupted the wassailers at the other tables by cries
for silence, which none regarded. Here and there, with intense and
fierce anxiety on their faces, small groups were playing at dice; for
gambling is the passion of slaves. And many of these men, to whom
wealth could bring no comfort, had secretly amassed large hoards at
the plunder of Plataea, from which they had sold to the traders of
Aegina gold at the price of brass. The appearance of the rioters was
startling and melancholy. They were mostly stunted and undersized,
as are generally the progeny of the sons of woe; lean and gaunt with
early hardship, the spine of the back curved and bowed by habitual
degradation; but with the hard-knit sinews and prominent muscles which
are produced by labour and the mountain air; and under shaggy and
lowering brows sparkled many a fierce, perfidious, and malignant eye;
while as mirth, or gaming, or song, aroused smiles in the various
groups, the rude features spoke of passions easily released from the
sullen bondage of servitude, and revealed the nature of the animals
which thraldom had failed to tame. Here and there however were to be