8. This is a lively illustration of the origin of slaves in ancient Greece. This man did not recognize the land but did recognize the language. He may have been captured in youth and sold, like the captives of V.3.4 and VI.6.38, etc., or he may have been born in captivity and heard the speech of the Macrones from his parents. One may compare the origins of the slaves put up for sale at Athens in 414 B.C. as part of the property of those condemned for the mutilation of the statues of Hermes (Meiggs-Lewis, Greek Historical Inscriptions, p. 247). Because the Greeks in fact got their slaves from barbarian lands, they supposed that the barbarians were by nature slavish (cf. Aristotle, Politics 1255a).

9. Exile was a common, though not inevitable, penalty for unintentional homicide. Only in such rare circumstances would a member of Sparta’s governing class, the Spartiates, have been free to roam abroad. The only others we meet in the Ten Thousand, Clearchus and Chiri-sophus, had been allowed abroad because they had been formally sent by the state. The lowest class, the helots, were even more tied. The other main class, the so-called perioikoi, like Dexippus (V.1. 15) and Neon (V.6.36), were more free. Even so, perhaps few of the 700 hoplites brought by Chirisophus were not mercenaries (cf. VI.2.10).