Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in
stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a
profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing
but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the
greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society
but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their
own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought of
only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a body"
({~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL
LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}). There was no other law for
them than the will of their master, and he had all power over them--to
make them work, to imprison them, to deprive them of their sustenance,
to beat them. When a citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to
require that the former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell
what they knew. Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious
means for obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isaeus,
"is the surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a
contested question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but,
placing the slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth.
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