In the Second Iliad, the remonstrance of Ulysses with the commonalty declares that it is the king, and to the king alone, to whom Jupiter has committed the sceptre and the administration of justice, that by these he may fulfil his regal office111:
εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω,
εἷς βασιλεὺς, ᾧ ἔδωκε Κρόνου παῖς ἀγκυλομήτεω
σκῆπτρόν τ’ ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσιν ἐμβασιλεύῃ.
Now the sceptre is properly the symbol of the judicial authority, as we know from the oath of Achilles112:
νῦν αὖτέ μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας
πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται.
From the combined effect of the two passages it is clear that the duties of the judicature, the determination of relative rights between the members of the community, constituted, at least in great part, the primary function of sovereignty. Still the larger conception of it, which includes the deliberative office, is that presented to us in the speech of Nestor to Agamemnon, on the occasion of the Council which followed the Night-assembly113.
καί τοι Ζεὺς ἐγγυάλιξεν
σκῆπτρόν τ’, ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσι βουλεύῃσθα.
The judicial function might, however, even in the days of Homer, be exercised by delegation. For in the Assembly graven on the Shield, while the parties contend, and the people sympathize some with one and some with the other, it is the γέροντες, or elders, who deliver judgment114. Of these persons each holds the sceptre in his hands. The passage, Il. i. 237, seems to speak of one sceptre held by many persons: this scene on the Shield exhibits to us several sceptres. In the simile of the crooked judgments, a plurality of judges115 are referred to. But as we never hear of an original and independent authority, like that of Il. ii. 204, in the senators or nobles, it seems most likely that they acted judicially by an actual or virtual delegation from the king.
The duty of the king to command his troops is inscribed on every page of the Iliad; and the only limit to it seems to have been, that upon the approach of old age it was delegated to the heir, or to more than one of the family, even before the entire withdrawal of the sire from public cares. The martial character of the sovereign was indeed ideally distinguishable from his regal one; for Agamemnon was116
ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς, κρατερός τ’ αἰχμητής.
Still, martial excellence was expected of him. When Hippolochus despatched his son Glaucus to Troy, he enjoined him always to be valiant, and always to excel his comrades in arms117.
Lastly, the king was a proprietor. Ulysses had very large landed property, and as many herds and flocks, says Eumæus in a spirit of loyal exaggeration, as any twenty chiefs alive118. And Homer, who always reserves his best for the Lycians, has made Sarpedon declare, in an incomparable speech, the virtual condition on which estates like these were held. He desires Glaucus to recollect, why it is that they are honoured in Lycia with precedence at banquets, and with greater portions than the rest, why looked upon as deities, why endowed with great estates of pasture and corn land by the banks of Xanthus; it is that they may the more boldly face the burning battle, and be great in the eyes and in the minds of their companions. So entirely is the idea of dignity and privilege in the Homeric king founded upon the sure ground of duty, of responsibility, and of toil119.
What Hippolochus taught, and Sarpedon stated, is in exact correspondence with the practical part of the narrative of Glaucus in the Sixth Book. When Bellerophon had fully approved himself in Lycia by his prowess, the king of the country gave him his daughter in marriage, together with one half of his kingdom; and the Lycians presented him with a great and fertile demesne.
As proprietor; the τέμενος.
This estate is called τέμενος; a name never applied in Homer but to the properties of deities and of rulers. He uses the word with reference to the glebe-lands of
Spercheius, Il. xxiii. 148.
Venus, Od. viii. 362.
Ceres, Il. ii. 696.
Jupiter, Il. viii. 48.
And to the domains of
Bellerophon, Il. vi. 194.
Æneas (promised by the Trojan community if he should slay Achilles), Il. xx. 184.
Meleager, Il. ix. 574.
Sarpedon and Glaucus, Il. xii. 313.
The βασιλεὺς on the Shield, Il. xviii. 550.
Iphition (πολέων ἡγήτωρ λαῶν), Il. xx. 391.
Alcinous, Od. vi. 293.
Ulysses, Od. xi. 184, and xvii. 299.
On the other hand, the merely rich man (Il. xi. 68) has an ἄρουρα, not a τέμενος; and the farm of Laertes is called ἀγρὸς, not τέμενος. And why? Because it was a private possession, acquired by him apparently out of savings (Od. xxiv. 206);
ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸς
Λαέρτης κτεάτισσεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πόλλ’ ἐμόγησεν.
The word τέμενος is probably from τέμνω, or from the same root with that verb, and signifies land which, having been cut off from the original common stock, available for the uses of private persons, has been set apart for one of the two great public purposes, of government or of religion.
Revenues and burdens on them.
Besides their great estates, the kings appear to have had at least two other sources of revenue. One of these was not without resemblance in form to what we now call customs’-duties, and may have contained their historical germ. In the Book of Genesis, where the sons of Jacob go down to buy corn in Egypt, they carry with them a present for the ruler; and doubtless the object of this practice was to conciliate the protection to which, as foreigners, and perhaps as suspected persons, avowedly seeking their own gain, they would not otherwise have had a claim. ‘Take of the best fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present; a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds120.’ In conformity with the practice thus exemplified, when Euneus in the Seventh Iliad despatches his ships from Lemnos to sell wine to the Greek army, in return for which they obtain slaves, hides, and other commodities, he sends a separate supply, χίλια μέτρα, as a present to the two sons of Atreus121. Agamemnon indeed is, in the Ninth Book, slily twitted by Nestor with the largeness of the stores of wine, that he had contrived to accumulate.
So likewise we find that certain traders, sailing to Scheria, made a present to Alcinous, as the sovereign, of the captive Eurymedusa. When we compare this with the case of Euneus, the gift obviously appears to have been a consideration for permission to trade122.
The other source of revenue traceable in the Iliad was one sure to lead to the extensive corruptions, which must already have prevailed in the time of Hesiod. It consisted in fees upon the administration of justice. In the suit described upon the shield, the matter at issue is a fine for homicide. But quite apart, as it would seem, from this fine, there lie in the midst, duly ‘paid into court,’ two talents of gold, to be given at the close to him, of all the judges, who should deliver the most upright, that is the most approved, judgment123:
τῷ δόμεν ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.
However righteous the original intention of a payment in this form, it is easy to estimate its practical tendencies, and curious to remark how early in the course of time they were realized.
On the other hand, the great possessions of the king were not given him for his own use alone. Over and above the general obligation of hospitality to strangers, it was his duty to entertain liberally the principal persons among his subjects. Doubtless this provided the excuse, which enabled the Suitors to feast upon the stores of Ulysses, without the shame, in the very outset, of absolute rapine. And it would appear from the Odyssey that Alitherses124 and other friends of the royal house, frequented the table there as well as its enemies, though not perhaps so constantly.
In the Seventh Iliad, after his fight with Hector, Ajax125 repairs, not invited, but as if it were a matter of course, to share the hospitality of Agamemnon. In the Ninth Book, Nestor urges Agamemnon to give a feast to the elders, as a duty of his office:
ἔοικέ τοι, οὔτοι ἀεικές126,
adding, and then to take their counsel. But perhaps the ordinary exercise of this duty is best exhibited in the case of Alcinous, who is discovered by Ulysses on his arrival entertaining his brother kings in his palace127.
πολέεσσι δ’ ἀνάσσεις128,
I have not here taken specific notice of the δώτιναι, or tributes, which, as Agamemnon promised, Achilles was to receive, from the seven cities, that it was proposed to place under his dominion. The expression is129,
οἵ κέ ἑ δωτίνῃσι θεὸν ὣς τιμήσουσιν,
καί οἱ ὑπὸ σκήπτρῳ λιπαρὰς τελέουσι θέμιστας.
The connection of the ideas in the two lines respectively would appear to show, that the δώτιναι may be no more than the fees payable to the sovereign on the administration of justice.
Thus then the king might draw his ordinary revenues mainly from the following sources:
First and principally, the public τέμενος, or demesne land.
Next, his own private acquisitions, such as the ἀγρὸς of Laertes.
Thirdly, the fees on the administration of justice.
Fourthly, the presents paid for licenses to trade.
The position of Agamemnon.
The position of Agamemnon, the greatest king of the heroic age, constitutes in itself too considerable a feature of Greek polity at that period to be dismissed without especial notice.
He appears to have united in himself almost every advantage which could tend to raise regal power to its acmè. He was of a house moving onward in its as yet unbroken career of accumulating greatness: he was the head of that house, supported in Lacedæmon by his affectionate brother Menelaus; and the double title of the two was fortified with twin supports, by their marriages with Clytemnestra and Helen respectively. This family was at the head of the energetic race which ruled, and deserved to rule, in the Greek peninsula; and which apparently produced such large and full developments of personal character, as the world has never seen, either before or since, at so infantine a stage of civilization. There were various kings in the army before Troy, but among them all the race of Pelopids was the most kingly130. Agamemnon possessed the courage, strength, and skill of a warrior, in a degree surpassed only by the very greatest heroes of his nation; and (according to Homer) evidently exceeding that of Hector, the chief Trojan warrior opposed to him. He must have been still in the flower of his age; and though neither gifted with extraordinary talents, nor with the most popular or attractive turn of character, yet he possessed in a high degree the political spirit, the sense of public responsibility, the faculty of identifying himself with the general mind and will. Avarice and irresolution appear to have been the two most faulty points in his composition.
His dominions were the largest which, up to that time, had been known in that portion of the world: including Greece, from Mount Olympus to the Malean Cape, reaching across to the islands on the coast of Asia Minor, and even capable of being held to include the island of Cyprus. Before Troy, his troops were πολὺ πλεῖστοι καὶ ἄριστοι (Il. ii. 577), which must imply, as his ships were not greatly more numerous than those of some other contingents, that they were of large size; and he also supplied the Arcadians, who had none of their own, (v. 612.) Lastly, he bore upon him the mellow brightness of the patriarchal age, signified by the title ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.
Thucydides was not an antiquarian, or he would have left on his history more marks of his researches in that department. But he seems to have formed with care the opinions which he expresses on archaic Greece, in the admirable introduction to his great work. Among them he says that, as he conceives, the fear of Agamemnon operated more powerfully than the oath given to Tyndareus131, or than good will, in the formation of the confederacy which undertook the war of Troy.
It seems clear from Homer, that the name and fame of Agamemnon were known far beyond the limits of Greece, and that the reputation of being connected with him was thought to be of value. For Menelaus, on his return from Pharos to Egypt, erected there a funeral mound in his honour132, ἵν’ ἄσβεστον κλέος εἴη; which he would not have done in a country, to whose inhabitants that monarch was unknown. And again, when Ulysses is challenged by the Cyclops to declare, to what and to whom he and his crew belong, he makes the reply, that they are the subjects of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus133:
λαοὶ δ’ Ἀτρείδεω Ἀγαμέμνονος εὐχόμεθ’ εἶναι,
τοῦ δὴ νῦν γε μέγιστον ὑπουράνιον κλέος ἐστίν.
Ulysses evidently conceives the fame of the great monarch, thus enhanced by success, to have been likely to supply any one who belonged to him with a defence against the formidable monster, before whom he stood.
Governing motives of the War.
The statements of Homer respecting the position of Agamemnon and the motives of the war, fall short of, but are not wholly at variance with, the opinion which has been expressed by Thucydides. Of the oath to Tyndareus Homer knows nothing: but he tells us of the oath, by which the Greek chieftains had bound themselves to prosecute the expedition. Before setting out, they had a solemn ceremonial at Aulis; they offered sacrifices, they made libations, they swore, they pledged hands134, they saw a portent, and had it interpreted by Calchas135. But all this only shows that the Atreidæ were conscious how formidable an enterprise they were about, and how they desired accordingly that their companion kings should, after having once embarked, be as deeply pledged as possible to go forward. It does not tell us what was the original inducement to enter into the undertaking. Again, it does not appear that the Greeks in general cared much about the abduction or even the restoration of Helen. The only passage directly touching the point is the one in which Agamemnon136 expresses his opinion that, if Menelaus should die of his wound, the army would probably return home. It seems as if Agamemnon thought, that without doubt they would then be in honour released from their engagement, and that they would at once avail themselves of their freedom. The hope of booty, however, would do much; and the members of a conquering race unite together with great facility for purposes of war, through a mixture of old fellow-feeling and the love of adventure, as well as through anticipation of spoil. On the other hand, it was evidently no small matter to organize the expedition: much time was consumed; a friendly embassy to Troy had been tried without success; the ablest princes, Nestor and Ulysses, were employed in obtaining cooperation. The general conclusion, I think, is, that a combination of hope, sympathy, respect, and fear, but certainly a very strong personal feeling, whatever its precise ingredients may have been, towards the Pelopid house, must have operated largely in the matter. And it is in this spirit that we should construe the various declarations of Homer respecting those who came to the war, as courting the Atreidæ, and as acting for their honour; namely these,
χάριν Ἀτρείδῃσι φέροντες. Od. v. 307.
Ἀγαμέμνονι ἦρα φέροντες. Il. xiv. 132.
τιμὴν ἀρνύμενοι Μενελάῳ σοί τε, κυνῶπα. Il. i. 159.
Before Troy, Agamemnon is always regarded by others as responsible for the expedition, and it is plain that he so regards himself. The use of his sceptre by Ulysses in the great effort to stem the torrent of the retiring multitude, is highly significant of the influence belonging to his station; and when Ulysses argues with the leaders, he rests his case on the importance of knowing the whole mind of Agamemnon, while he strongly dwells on his royal authority, and on the higher authority of heaven as its foundation.
His position, however, did not place him above the influence of jealousy and fear: for he was gratified when he saw Achilles and Ulysses, the first of his chieftains, at variance137. And his weight and authority depended for their efficacy on reason, and on the free will of the Greeks. Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles by an act of force; but he nowhere seeks to move the army, or the individuals composing it, upon that principle; nor does the prolongation of the service appear to have been placed beyond the judgment of the particular chiefs and of the troops. Achilles not only declares that he will go, but says he will advise others to go with him138, and asks Phœnix to remain in his tent for the purpose. The deference paid to the Head is a deference according to measure; and the measure is that of his greater responsibility, his heavier stake in the war139. His functions in regard to the host are, to think for and advise it in council, and to stimulate it by exhortation and example in the field. If we may rely on Homer, it was essentially, so far as regarded the relation between the general in chief and the rest of the body, a free military organization.
Personal Character of Agamemnon.
The Agamemnon of Homer does not appear to be intended by the Poet for a man of genius. But on this very account, the dominance of political ideas in his mind is more remarkable. On political grounds he is ready to give up Chryseis140. On political grounds he quells his own avarice, and slays Trojans instead of taking ransom for them141. He deeply feels the responsibilities of his station, and care banishes his sleep. The amiable trait in his character is his affection for Menelaus, and in this, as in many other respects, he recalls the Jupiter of Homer, whose selfishness is nowhere relieved, except by paternal affection.
Further, Agamemnon, though without genius, is a practitioner in finesse. In his love of this art, I fear, he resembles the tribe of later politicians. He resembles them, too, in outwitting himself by means of it: he is ‘hoist upon his own petard.’ This seems to be, in part at least, the explanation of his unhappy device in the Second Iliad, to prepare the people for an attack on Troy, by counselling them to go home forthwith. The breakdown of his scheme is, as it were, the first-fruits of retribution for his ἄτη in the First Book. —
As, upon the whole, there is no idea of selfishness involved in the prerogatives of the Homeric king, so is it clear that, except as against mere criminals, there is no general idea of coercion. The Homeric king reigns with the free assent of his subjects – an assent indeterminate, but real, and in both points alike resembling his kingly power. The relation between ruler and ruled is founded in the laws and condition of our nature. Born in a state of dependence, man, when he attains to freedom and capacity for action, finds himself the debtor both of his parents and of society at large; and is justly liable to discharge his debt by rendering service in return. Of this we have various indications in Homer, with respect to parents in particular. Those who die young, like Simoeisius by the hand of Ajax142, die before they have repaid to their parents the cost, that is the care, of their education (θρεπτρά). In a most remarkable and characteristic passage. Phœnix describes how, when he was young, some deity restrained his wrath against his father, and shows the infamy that would attend the taking away of that life, in a country where voluntary homicide, in general, was regarded more as a misfortune than a crime143:
ὅς ῥ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ
δήμου θῆκε φάτιν, καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων,
ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην.
The reciprocal obligations of father and son are beautifully shown by Andromache in her lament over Hector, when she speaks of her child144:
οὔτε σὺ τούτῳ
ἔσσεαι, Ἕκτορ, ὄνειαρ, ἐπεὶ θάνες, οὔτε σοὶ οὗτος.
The relation of sovereign and subject free.
As to the relation between the subject and the sovereign authority, it seems everywhere to be taken for granted. In the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, the object of those who march against Ulysses is not to put down authority, but to avenge the deaths of their sons and brothers. But there appears nowhere in Homer the idea that in this relation could be involved a difference of interest, or even of opinion, between class and class, between governors and governed. The king or chief was uplifted to set a high example, to lead the common counsels to common ends, to conduct the public and common intercourse with heaven, to decide the strifes of individuals, to defend the borders of the territory from invasion. That the community at home, or any regularly subsisting class of it, could require repression or restraint from the government, was an idea happily unknown to the Homeric times.
Those classes, indeed, were few and simple. There was, first of all, the king; and round him his family and his κήρυκες, the serjeants or heralds, who were his immediate, and apparently his only immediate, agents. They conveyed his orders; they assisted him in the Assembly, in sacrifice, and in banquets. They appear to be the only executive officers that are found in Homer. With these was the Bard, apparently also an indispensable member of royal households. Both were recognised among the established professions.
Next to the kings and other sovereigns, we must place the chief proprietors of the country. In the Odyssey, we find the members of the aristocracy having their own estates and functions, and sustaining the part of γέροντες, or leaders in the Assembly. The judicial office, as we have seen from the Shield and otherwise, was in their hands, probably by delegation. But it would appear, that the distinction between them and the sovereign family was rather a broad one; since, in almost every case, we seem to find the prince contracting a marriage beyond his own borders. Laertes brings Anticlea145 from the neighbourhood of Parnassus; Theseus marries Ariadne from Crete; Agamemnon and Menelaus, belonging to Mycenæ, are united to the daughters of the king of Sparta; of the two daughters of Icarius, Ulysses in Ithaca married Penelope, and Eumelus in Pheræ married Iphthime (Od. iv. 797); one of the two, at least, and perhaps both, must have married from a considerable distance; Menelaus sends his beautiful daughter Hermione to be the wife of Neoptolemus in Thessaly: and the only instance, even apparently in the opposite sense, seems to be that of his son Megapenthes, who married a Spartan damsel, the daughter of Alector. But then Megapenthes was not legitimate; he was born of a slave-mother, and therefore he was not a prince146. All these facts seem to show us that the royal houses formed a network among themselves, spread over Greece, and keeping pretty distinct from the aristocracy: a circumstance which may, in some degree, help to explain the wonderful patience and constancy of Penelope.
Other classes of the community.
Next to the nobles, and in the third place, we may class what we should now call trades and professions: observing, however, that, in Homer’s time, both the useful arts and the fine arts had a social dignity, as compared with that of wealth and station, which the former have long ago lost, and which the later have not retained in as full manner as perhaps might be desired, not for their own advantage merely, but to secure due honour for labour, and the humanizing effect of this kind of labour in particular for society at large. I draw the proof of their estimation in the heroic age, first, from the manner in which they are combined under the common designation of δημιοεργοὶ, and arranged in a mixed order, the preference being only given by a more emphatic description to the bard147:
τῶν, οἳ δημιοεργοὶ ἔασιν,
μάντιν, ἢ ἰητῆρα κακῶν, ἢ τέκτονα δούρων,
ἢ καὶ θέσπιν ἀοιδὸν, ὅ κεν τέρπῃσιν ἀείδων;
Here I take τέκτονα δούρων to represent the entire class of artificers, of whom many are named in Homer; in a poor country like Ithaca, depending very much on the use of boats for fishing and for its communications, the carpenters might naturally represent the whole.
And next, from the manner in which these arts were practised by princes, it seems plain that there was nothing in the pursuit of them inconsistent with high rank. The physicians, or surgeons rather, of the Greek army, Podaleirius and Machaon, were themselves princes and commanders of a contingent: and even Paris, who was not the man to demean himself by employments beneath his station, seems to have taken the chief share in the erection of his own palace148:
τά ῥ’ αὐτὸς ἔτευξε σὺν ἀνδράσιν, οἳ τότ’ ἄριστοι
ἦσαν ἐνὶ Τροίῃ ἐριβώλακι τέκτονες ἄνδρες.
Again, the bard of Agamemnon was appointed quasi-guardian149 to Clytemnestra in her husband’s absence: and Phemius, the bard of Ulysses150, proceeded to the Assembly of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey in order to prevent any tumult, together with Medon the herald, who addressed the people accordingly. The heralds, or serjeants, are also recognised as δημιοεργοί151. Again, Alitherses, being the μάντις or seer of the island, and apparently the only one, takes part in the debates both of the Second and of the Twenty-fourth Books.
The professions, then, thus far are five:
1. Seers.
2. Surgeons.
3. Artificers.
4. Bards.
5. Heralds.
We may remark the absence of priests and merchants. Not that merchants were unknown: we find them mentioned by Euryalus the Phæacian, as πρηκτῆρες, but their business was esteemed sordid; it too much resembled that of the kidnapper or swindler, and it is the reproach of seeming to belong to this class that smartly stings Ulysses152. And even the merchant Mentes, whose form was assumed by Pallas, belonged to the Taphians, a tribe of pirates153. As yet, neither the order of priests would seem to have been completely taken over from the Pelasgians, nor the class of merchants formed in imitation of the Phœnicians.
Slaves in the Homeric age.
After the classes we have named, come the great mass of the population, who till the ground and tend the live stock for themselves or their employers, if free, and for their lords if slaves. The fisherman, too, is distinctly noticed154 in Ithaca. Mr. Grote classes with the free husbandmen the artisans155, and separates both of them from the θῆτες, or hired labourers, and the slaves. It appears to me, however, that we ought to distinguish the artisans from the mere husbandmen, as having been in a higher station. On the other hand, I see no passage in Homer which clearly gives to the husbandmen as a class a condition superior to that of the hired servants, or even, perhaps, the slaves. The evidence of the poems is not clear as to the existence or extent of a peasant proprietary. We must beware of confounding those conceptions of a slavery maintained wholesale for the purposes of commerce, which our experience supplies, with its earliest form, in which the number of slaves would seem to have been small, and their ranks to have been recruited principally by war, with slight and casual aid from kidnapping. In those times, the liability to captivity would seem to have affected all men alike, independently of all distinctions whether in rank or in blood. The sons of Priam were sold into slavery like any one else: the only difference was, that, in proportion to the wealth of the parents, there was a better chance of ransom. It would appear that the slaves of Homer were properly, even when not indoor, yet domestic. The women discharged the indoor and household offices: except that a few men performed strictly personal services about their masters, as δρηστῆρες and as carvers156 (θεράποντε δαήμονε δαιτροσυνάων). But the men-slaves were more largely employed out of doors in the care of flocks and herds, fields and vineyards. Thus, the slaves were in a different position apparently from the freemen, for they seem to have been gathered as servants and attendants round the rich. It would appear, however, from the case of Eumæus, who had a slave of his own, Mesaulios157, that they might hold property for themselves. Again, not Eumæus only, but in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey Dolius and his six sons, sit down to table together with Ulysses, and fondly clasp his hands. They bear arms too; and this could not have been very strange, for Homer describes the arming of the sons without remark, while he calls both the father and Laertes, on account of their old age158, ἀναγκαῖοι πολεμισταί. The moral deterioration of slaves is noticed very strongly by Eumæus himself159, though not with reference to himself. We have, however, no reason to suppose that their outward condition was inferior to that of the free labouring population in any thing, except that we must presume they did not take part in the assemblies or in war. When Achilles160 in the infernal regions compares the highest condition there with the lowest on earth, he does not choose the slave, but the labourer for hire (θητεύεμεν is his expression), as the type of a depressed condition upon earth. The state of the hired servant probably resembled that of the slave in being dependent upon others, and fell beneath it in the point of security. This is the more likely, because the point of the passage turns on the poverty of the employer,
ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βιοτὸς πολὺς εἴη,
as constituting the misery of the servant.
Indeed, if we consider the matter a little further, we shall perhaps see the greater reason to think, that the expression θητεύεμεν has been chosen otherwise than at random. What do we mean by a hired servant, at a period in the movement of society when money did not exist? We can only mean one who was paid by food, clothes, and lodging, like a slave, but who was not, like a slave, permanently attached to his master or his master’s estate. The difference between the two would thus lie in the absence of the permanent tie: a difference much more against the θὴς, than in his favour.
The position, then, of the slaves was probably analogous to that of domestic servants among ourselves, who practically forfeit the active exercise of political privileges, but are in many respects better off than the mass of those who depend on bodily labour. It doubtless grew out of the state of things in which slaves were practically servants, and servants of the rich, that masters, or ἄνακτες161, were regarded as constituting the wealthy class of the community.