Book 6
92
But the Athenians, having a prudent regard to the condition of their slaves, made a law that there should be a γραφὴ ὕβρεως, even against men who ill treated their slaves. Accordingly, Hyperides, the orator, in his speech against Mnesitheus, on a charge of αἰκία, says, They made these laws not only for the protection of freemen, but they enacted also, that even if any one personally ill treated a slave, there should be a power of preferring an indictment against him who had done so. And Lycurgus made a similar statement, in his first speech against Lycophron; and so did Demosthenes, in his oration against Midias. And Malacus, in his Annals of the Siphnians, relates that some slaves of the Samians colonized Ephesus, being a thousand men in number; who in the first instance revolted against their masters, and fled to the mountain which is in the island, and from thence did great injury to the Samians. But, in the sixth year after these occurrences, the Samians, by the advice of an oracle, made a treaty with the slaves, on certain agreements; and the slaves were allowed to depart uninjured from the island; and, sailing away, they occupied Ephesus, and the Ephesians are descended from these ancestors.
