that haunted Euripides. We do not happen to find in our remains of his work any definite pronouncement that slavery is "contrary to nature," as was held by most Greek philosophers of the succeeding century. Probably no practical man of the time could imagine a large industrial city living without the institution of slavery. But it is clear that Euripides hates it. It corrupts a man; it makes the slave cowardly and untrustworthy. Yet "many slaves are better men than their masters"; "many so-called free men are slaves at heart." And again, in the style of a Stoic, "A man without fear cannot be a slave" (fr. 958: cf. fr. 86, 511, etc.). Much more important than such statements as these, which are, according to his manner, generally put in the mouth of a slave, are the many instances of "sympathetic" and courageous slaves, and the panegyrics on men who have no slaves but work with their own hands. These show the bent of the poet's mind. It is not, however, till the year of the Trojan Women that he takes the bold step of actually making a slave his hero and filling his play with discussions of slavery, including a definite contest in aretê between the slaves and the masters. True, the slave turns out in
