Book 6
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Ath. That is quite natural, Megillus. For probably the most vexed problem in all Hellas is the problem of the Helot-system of the Lacedaemonians, which some maintain to be good, others bad; a less violent dispute rages round the subjection of the MariandyniThese ancient inhabitants of N.E. Bithynia were conquered by the people of Heraclea Pontica and make tributary vassals. to the slave-system of the Heracleotes, and that of the class of Penestae to the Thessalians.Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1269a 36. Penestae (= serfs) were the old Aeolian inhabitants of Thessaly, subdued by the Heraclid invaders. In view of these and similar instances, what ought we to do about this question of owning servants?Cp. Aristot. Pol. 1259b 22 ff. The point I happened to mention in the course of my argument,—and about which you naturally asked me what I referred to,—was this. We know, of course, that we would all agree that one ought to own slaves that are as docile and good as possible; for in the past many slaves have proved themselves better in every form of excellence than brothers or sons, and have saved their masters and their goods and their whole houses. Surely we know that this language is used about slaves?
776
Meg. Certainly.
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Ath. And is not the opposite kind of language also used,—that the soul of a slave has no soundness in it, and that a sensible man should never trust that class at all? And our wisest poet, too, in speaking of Zeus, declared that—Of half their wits far-thundering Zeus bereavesThose men on whom the day of bondage falls.Hom. Od. 17.322Thus each party adopts a different attitude of mind: the one places no trust at all in the servant-class, but, treating them like brute beasts, with goads and whips they make the servants’ souls not merely thrice but fifty times enslaved; whereas the other party act in precisely the opposite way.
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Meg. Just so.
