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five minas and others even for ten ; and Nicias the son of Niceratus is. said to have given no less than a talent for an overseer in the mines." Bockh (Publ. Econ. of Atliens, p. 67, &c., 2d ed.) has collected many particulars respecting the price of slaves ; he calculates the value of a common mining slave at from 125 to 150 drachmas. The know­ledge of any art had a great influence upon the value of a slave. Of the thirty-two or thirty-three sword-cutlers who belonged to the father of Demosthenes, some were worth five, some six, and the lowest more than three niinas ; and his twenty couch-makers together were worth 40 minas (in Apliob. i. p. 816). Considerable sums were paid for courtezans and female players on the cithara ; twenty and thirty minas were common prices for such (Ter. Adelph. iii. 1. 37, in. 2. 15, iv. 7. 24 ; Phorm. iii. 3. 24) : Neaera was sold for thirty ininas. (Demosth. c. Neaer. p. 1354. 16.)

The number of slaves was very great in Athens. .According to the census made when Demetrius Phalereus was arch on (b. c. 309), there are said to have been 21,000 free citizens, 10,000 Metics, and 400,000 slaves in Attica (Ctesieles, ap. At/ten. vi. p. 272,c): according to which the slave popu­lation is so immensely large in proportion to the free, that some writers have rejected the account altogether (Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome^ vol. ii. note 143), and others have supposed a corruption in the numbers and that for 400,000 we ought to read 40,000. (Hume, Essays, vol. i. p. 443.) Bockh and Clinton (F.H. ii. p. 391), however, remark with some justice, that in computing the citizens and meti.es the object was to ascertain their po­litical and military strength, and hence the census of only males of full age was taken ; while in enumerating slaves, which were property, it would be necessary to compute all the individuals who composed that property. Bockh takes the pro­portion of free inhabitants to slaves as nearly one to four in Attica, Clinton as rather more than three to one ; but whatever may be thought of these calculations, the main fact, that the slave population in Attica was much larger than the free, is incontrovertible: during the occupation of Decelea by the Lacedaemonians, more than 20,000 Athenian slaves escaped to this place. (Thuc. vii. 27.) In Corinth and Aegina their number was equally large: according to Timaeus, Corinth had 460,000, and according to Aristotle Aegina 470,000 slaves (Athen. I. c.), but these large num­bers, especially in relation to Aegina, must be un­derstood only of the early times, before Athens had obtained possession of the commerce of Greece.

At Athens even the poorest citizen had a slave for the care of his household (Aristoph. Plut. init.), and in every moderate establishment many were employed for all possible occupations, as bakers, cooks, tailors, &c. The number possessed by one person was never so great as at Rome during the later times of the republic and under the em­pire, but it was still very considerable. Plato (de Rep. ix. p. 578) expressly remarks, that some per­sons had fifty slaves and even more. This was about the number which the father of Demosthenes possessed (in Apliob. i. p. 823) ; Lysias and Pole-marchus had 120 (Lys. in Eratostli. p. 395), Philemonides had 300, Hipponicus 600, and Nicias 1000 slaves in the mines alone. (Xen. de Vect. iv. 14, 15.) It must be borne in mind, when we read of one person possessing so large a number of

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slaves, that they were employed in various work­shops, mines, or manufactories: the number which a person kept to attend to his own private wants or those of his household, was probably never very large. And this constitutes one great distinction between Greek and Roman slaves, that the labour of the former was regarded as the means by which an owner might obtain profit for the outlay of his capital in the purchase of the slaves, while the latter were chiefl}7- employed in ministering to the wants of their master and his family, and in grati­fying his luxury and vanity. Thus Athenaeus (vi. p. 272, e) remarks, that many of the Romans possess 10,000 or 20,000 slaves and even more, but not, he adds, for the sake of bringing in a revenue, as the wealthy Nicias.

Slaves either worked on their masters’ account or their own (in the latter case they paid their masters a certain sum a day) ; or they were let out by their master on hire either for the mines or any other kind of labour, or as hired servants for wages (airotyopa). The rowers on board the ships were usually slaves (tsocrat. de Pace, p. 169, ed. Steph.) ; it is remarked as an unusual circumstance, that the seamen of the Paralos were freemen. (Thuc. viii. 73.) These slaves either belonged to the state or to private persons, who let them out to the state on payment of a certain sum. It ap­pears that a considerable number of persons kept large gangs of slaves merely for the purpose of letting out, and found this a profitable mode of in­vesting their capital. Great numbers were required for the mines, and in most cases the mine-lessees would be obliged to hire some, as they would not have sufficient capital to purchase as many as they wanted. We learn from a fragment of Hyperides preserved by Suidas (s.v. ‘ATre^rj^tVaro), that there were at one time as many as 150,000 slaves, who worked in the mines and were employed in country labour. Generally none but inferior slaves were confined in these mines: they worked in chains, and numbers died from the effects of the unwhole­some atmosphere. (Bockh, On the Silver Mines of Laurion.} We cannot calculate with accuracy

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what was the usual rate of profit which a slave-proprietor obtained. The thirty-two or thirty-three sword-cutlers belonging to the father of De­mosthenes produced annually a net profit of 30 minas, their purchase value being 190 minas, and the twenty couch-makers a profit of 12 minas, their purchase value being 40 minas. (Demosth. in Apliob. i. p. 816.) The leather-workers of Timar-chus produced to their masters two, the overseers three, oboli a day (Aeschin. in Tim. p. 118): Nicias paid an obolus a day for each mining slave which he hired. (Xen. Vect. iv. 14.) The rate of profit upon the purchase-money of the slaves was naturally high, as their value was destroyed by age, and those who died had to be replaced by fresh purchases. The proprietor was also exposed to the great danger of their running away, when it became necessary to pursue them and offer rewards for their recapture (crcocrrpa, Xen. Mem. ii. 10. § 1, 2 ; Plat. Protag. p. 310). Antigenes of Rhodes was the first that established an insurance of slaves. For a yearly contribution of eight drachmas for each slave that was in the army, he undertook to make good the value of the slave at the time of his running away. (Pseudo-Arist. Oecon. c. 35.) Slaves that worked in the fields were under an overseer en-iToTros to whom the