• A nthropotogy, p. 434 ft.
462 SERVANT, SLAVE, SLAVERY
SERVANT, SLAVE, SLAVERY
reader will not fail to note that this theory is confirmed by the results of critical imiuiry in the OT, for at the commencement of this article we showed good grounds for believing that the t:^ or hired servant hardly appears in the earlier stages of pre-exilian Hebrew history.
3. Slavery and ancient Civilization.— It can hardly admit of doubt that the advance of early human society in the arts of life was largely aided by the in.stitution of slavery. Through slave labour, agriculture and industrial life progressed, wealth accumulated, and leisure was given to priests, .scribes, philosoi;hers, and literati to reflect and raise the level of human intelligence. What modern machinery accomplishes for man now, slave-labour accomplished then. In a word, early civilization rested upon slavery as a basis. With- out servile toil such vast structures as the pyra- mids and the siiliinx of Gizeh would never have been reared. Tliis is confirmed by the tradition of Heb. bondmen employed by the Egyp. Pharaoh in the erection of his granaries (Ex !"■ "). And when we turn to the Assyr. monuments the same features of slave-labour powerfully impress us. The Assyrian empire, unlike the Babylonian, was essentiallj' military, and the captives obtained by foreign conquest were employed in executing the laborious task of dragging colossal monuments into position. The vivid reliefs discovered at Kouyunjik, portrayed in Layard's Nineveh and Babylon (pp. 25, 27), clearly exemplify the character of those heavy tasks executed in an almost tropical climate. We see the Assyrian king superintend- ing the removal of an enormoiis bull. Several hundreds of slaves, provided with a rope which passes over their shoulders, are struggling in a long succession that ascends in single file up a steep declivity, dragging into position an immense bull which has been landed from the river. By that river it has evidently been conveyed from the stone quarries where it has been hewn and probably shaped. Other slaves are portraj'ed carrying saws, picks, and shovels. A pair of them are dragging along by a rope, passing over the shoulder of each, a cart laden with planks or levers. At inter\'als a task-master can be seen ^Welding a stick.
But slaves were employed not only in the more laborious forms of manual exertion, but al.so in the arts requiring manual dexterity and artistic skill. According to Wilkinson (i. p. 457), the monuments testify that the Egyptian male and female musi- cians and dancers were slaves, just as we know to have been the case in ancient Greece and Rome. The maidens who formed the chorus of the Helene of Eiiripides were slaves brought to the Egyptian market by Pliojnician traders. In Egyptian banquets the men were attended by slaves, while the women were waited upon by handmaids who were female slaves. ' An upper maidservant or a ■white slave had the office of handing the wine or whatever refreshment was offered to the ladies wlio were present at a banquet, and a black woman followed her in an inferior cap.ioity to receive an empty cup.' Female slaves are easily recognized in Egyptian portrayals. For they were not per- mitted to wear the same dress as the ladies, and their hair was adjusted in a difterent fashion. We find it tied at the back of the head into a kind of loop or arranged in long plaits at tlie back, wliile eignt or nine others hang down on either side of the neck and face. Also they wore a long tight gown tied at the neck, with short close sleeves reachin'; nearly to the elbow, or they wore a long loose robe thrown over it. On the other hand the lowest meni.ils, i.e. the men-slaves who toiled in the country, wore ' rough skirts of matting which they were wont to seat with a piece of leatlier'
(Lepsius, Wilkinson), while those who were com- pelled to adopt a more active mode of life wore nothing but a simple fringed girdle, like that which is stiU worn by many African tribes, 'a narrow strip of stufl' with a few ribbons or the end of the strip itself hanging down in front.' Under the New Empire we even find that the young slaves who served wealthy nobles at feasts wore, as their only article of clothing, a strip of leather which passed between the legs, and wsig held up by an embroidered belt (Erman).
4. Slavery in ancient pre-e.>cilian Israel. — In the primitive social conditions of ancient Israel the ditt'erent ranks of the community moved easily and freely amongst each other and came into hourly contact. The courtesies and etiquette of life, especially in salutations and meals, were certainly not neglected ; yet the gulfs created between class and class by our higldy developed modern ci\'ilization were, fortunately for human happiness, then unknown. In the life presented to us in the Books of Judges and Samuel we find high and low equally engaged in pastoral or agri- cultural employment. We are reminded of the genial state of society in Ithaca as depicted in the Odyssey. When the deputies of Jabeshgilead came in quest of Saul, they found the Benjamite chief and Israel's future King returning with a yoke of oxen from his field (1 S IP). We associate Saul witli the figure of the Roman Cincinnatus summoned straight from the plough to a;ssume the office of dictator.