Note 275 — Chapter XXIII · THE GENIUS OF GREEK ART.

But, while we tell of these good things, we must not conceal the truth that they were planted, like exquisite exotic flowers, upon the black, rank soil of slavery. That is the dark background of Greek life. Greek slaves may not have been worse off than other slaves—may indeed most probably have been better treated than the serfs of feudal Germany and Spanish Mexico. Yet who can forget the stories of Spartan helotry, or the torments of Syracusan stone-quarries, or the pale figure of Phædon rescued, true-born Elean as he was, by Socrates from an Athenian house of shame?