The slaves did all the cooking and baking and candlestick making of the entire city. They were the tailors and the carpenters and the jewelers and the school-teachers and the bookkeepers and they tended the store and looked after the factory while the master went to the public meeting to discuss questions of war and peace or visited the theatre to see the latest play of ?schylus or hear a discussion of the revolutionary ideas of Euripides, who had dared to express certain doubts upon the omnipotence of the great god Zeus.
奴隶们把整个城市的烹任、烤面包、制作蜡烛等工作全部承包下来。他们是理发师、木匠、珠宝制作工、小学教师和图书管理员。他们负责看商店、照管工厂。主人们则要么出席公共会议，讨论是战是和的重大问题；要么前往剧院，观赏埃斯库罗斯的最新悲剧；要么聆听对于欧里庇得斯的革命性观念的激烈讨论，因为这位剧作家竟敢对大神宙斯的威严表示怀疑。
Indeed, ancient Athens resembled a modem club. All the freeborn citizens were hereditary members and all the slaves were hereditary servants, and waited upon the needs of their masters, and it was very pleasant to be a member of the organisation.
事实上，古代的雅典酷似一个现代俱乐部。所有的自由 民都是世袭的会员，而所有的奴隶则是世袭的仆人，随时准备听候主人的吩咐。当然，能成为这个组织的会员倒是件很愉快的事情。
But when we talk about slaves. we do not mean the sort of people about whom you have read in the pages of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is true that the position of those slaves who tilled the fields was a very unpleasant one, but the average freeman who had come down in the world and who had been obliged to hire himself out as a farm hand led just as miserable a life. In the cities, furthermore, many of the slaves were more prosperous than the poorer classes of the freemen.
不过当我们谈到"奴隶"一词时，我并非说他们就是你在《汤姆叔叔的小屋》里读到过的那种人。当然，每天替人耕田种地的日子确实不舒服，可那些家道中落的自由 民们也不得不受人雇佣，在富人的农庄作帮工，他们的生活其实跟奴隶一样悲惨。而且在城市里，许多奴隶甚至比下层自由 民更富有。