Note 411 — Chapter VIII · THE UNFREE. THE SERF.
Reading edition
The slaves who fought on the Athenian side at Arginusae were manumitted and enrolled among the Plataeans, being thus admitted into the πολίτευμα. We learn this from a fragment of Hellanicus, preserved in the Scholiast on Arist. Ran. 694: the words are, τοὺς συνναυμαχήσαντας δούλους Ἑλλάνικός φησιν ἐλευθερωθῆναι, καὶ ἐγγραφέντας ὡς Πλαταιεῖς συμπολιτεύσασθαι αὐτοῖς. See also Niebuhr (Hare and Thirlwall), p. 204. The Langobards upon a somewhat similar occasion manumitted their serfs. “Igitur Langobardi, ut bellatorum possint ampliare numerum, plures a servili iugo ereptos, ad libertatis statum perducunt. Utque rata eorum haberi posset libertas, sanciunt, more solito, per sagittam, inmurmurantes nihilominus, ob rei firmitatem, quaedam patria verba.” Paul. Diac. de Gest. i. 13.