People on Lesbos had long been planning an insurrection and watched the fall of Samos with dismay. The governing aristocracy of Mytilene had no special grievance, but were striking out for the principle of freedom. They were waiting until they had narrowed the mouths of their harbors, completed some fortifications, and built more warships, but were betrayed before they were ready to rebel.
From the Athenian point of view this revolt was a challenge to the whole rationale of the empire. It came at the worst possible moment, when the city had been devastated by the plague and the treasury was beginning to run low. Worse, Lesbos entered into an alliance with Sparta.
Nevertheless, the Athenians made a great effort. An emergency property tax was introduced. A sizable expeditionary force sailed to Lesbos and placed Mytilene under siege. The Spartans (very boldly for them) sent out a fleet to help the Lesbians, but its commander was nervous and dilatory and arrived too late to save the city.
What happened was that the aristocrats armed ordinary citizens to help with the Mytilenes’ defense. However, these were mostly democrats and, once they had weapons in their hands, mutinied and insisted on surrender to the Athenians. The terms agreed were tough. Athens was accorded the “right to act as it saw fit with regard to the people of Mytilene,” but they in turn were allowed to send representatives to Athens to put their case.
The demos at Athens had received a shock and was in a filthy mood. On a motion from Cleon, “the most violent of its citizens,” it decided to have the entire male population of Mytilene executed immediately and to make slaves of the women and children. A trireme was immediately dispatched to convey the terrible command to the Athenian general on Lesbos.
Overnight there were second thoughts. People worried that the decision was unprecedented and punished the innocent as well as the guilty. It was particularly unjust to kill the democrats, who had in fact opposed the revolt and whose resistance to the government had caused its collapse. The representatives of Mytilene were still in the city and noticed the change of mood. Together with some friendly Athenians, they approached the authorities and asked if the matter could be debated again. They won their point and an immediate meeting of the ecclesia was called.
Cleon spoke again to his original proposal. He was unrepentant. According to Thucydides, he told the demos:
By giving way to your feelings of compassion you are putting yourself in danger and your weakness will not win you any thanks. What you do not realize is that your empire is a tyranny exercised over subjects who do not like it and are always plotting against you.
It is interesting to note that whatever their other quarrels, Cleon and Pericles took the same view about the empire—that it was inherently unjust and that their fellow-citizens should acknowledge the fact and live with it. Might was right. Would Pericles have supported Cleon’s official massacre, though?
He would probably have shared the opinion of a certain Diodotus, whose only appearance in history is as a contributor to this debate. He did not appeal to the compassion of his audience, but to its self-interest. This was not a question of justice, he argued, but of policy. Cleon was too hasty and too angry. The death penalty was not a reliable deterrent, for it simply made future rebels desperate and less likely to surrender.
“The right way to deal with free people is this—not to inflict some tremendous punishment on them after they have revolted, but to take tremendous care of them before this point is reached—to prevent them even contemplating the idea of revolt.”
By a narrow majority the previous day’s decision was reversed. A second warship was sent off with all urgency. The envoys from Lesbos plied the crew with wine and food and promised a large reward if they arrived in time to stop the death sentence being carried out. The men were fed as they rowed with barley mixed with oil and wine, and slept in relays while the remainder rowed on. Luckily there were no contrary winds.
The first trireme dawdled on its disagreeable errand and arrived at Mytilene just a little ahead of the second one. The commander there had only had time to read the original decree and to start making the necessary arrangements for a mass execution before he learned that the order had been countermanded. Thucydides remarked drily: “Mytilene had had a narrow escape.”
The same cannot be said of what happened to an ancient Greek polis in Chalcidice called Scione. Its citizens used to say that their ancestors settled there after being blown off course by a storm on their way home to Greece from Troy. Six years after the Mytilene affair they revolted from Athens and were eventually starved out.
This time nobody in the ecclesia is recorded as having objected when all the adult males of Scione were put to the sword, and the women and children sold into slavery. Perhaps to remind the world that Sparta had been the first to practice this kind of atrocity, the empty city was handed over to the homeless survivors of Plataea.
Values had yet further decayed and we hear no more from Diodotus.
—
A starving wolf met a guard dog of his acquaintance. “I knew what would happen,” said the dog. “Your irregular lifestyle will soon be the death of you. Why don’t you get a steady job like me, and have regular meals?”
“I would have no objection,” said the wolf, “if only I could find one.”
“I’ll fix that,” said the dog. “Come with me to my master and you shall share my work.”
On the way to the dog’s home the wolf noticed that the hair on the dog’s neck was worn away, so he asked him how that had happened.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said the dog. “That is where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up. It chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it.”
“Oh, really?” replied the wolf. “Then goodbye to you, master dog.”
This fable is by Aesop, who flourished in the sixth century (if he is not a figure of legend). He was a slave from Thrace and lived on the island of Samos. His exemplary tales mainly featured speaking animals and were immensely popular. Most Greeks would warmly endorse the moral of the encounter between dog and wolf: to starve and be free was far better than to be fat and enslaved.
They knew what they were talking about, for slavery was widespread throughout the Hellenic world. From Homer onwards it was an accepted part of daily life. Aristotle called a slave “a living piece of property.” There was some dispute whether a slave should be treated as a domestic animal or as a child.
An old-fashioned conservative like the anonymous author of The Athenian Constitution had decided views on the subject. Owners were far too soft with their slaves. They were “allowed to take the greatest liberties in Athens. You are not allowed to strike any of them there, nor will a slave stand aside for you….We have put slaves on terms of equality with free men.”
Few slaves would agree to the accuracy of this observation. The majority, who worked in the fields or (worse) the mines, led hard and bitter lives. Boys and girls with good looks could end up in a brothel or at best be compelled to have sex with their owners.
Even poor citizens could afford a slave. Hesiod in the eighth century advised a peasant farmer to “get a house, a bought woman and an ox for ploughing.” The averagely affluent Athenian probably owned two or three slaves and the rich could afford between ten and twenty. By encouraging procreation, owners could add to their stock without making an additional purchase.
A minority, with a good education and good luck, were able to get on in the world. Slave sculptors worked alongside free colleagues on the new temples on the Acropolis. Owners allowed trusted slaves to manage businesses and live in their own houses. Sometimes close ties of affection grew between them (and indeed between slave woman and mistress). Slaves were sometimes set free, but we do not know how often this was done.