Xenophon's Proposal To The Athenian Government

This excerpt from the Greek author, Xenophon's proposal to the Athenian government, titled Revenues, offers us great insight into the historical period and society in which he lived. Written in the fourth century B.C.E., Xenophon describes a time when the Athenian silver mine owners were in need of labour assistance, which he believed could be fixed with the Athenian government's acquiring of slaves for lease. Xenophon proposed this idea that would be a "win-win" situation for the Athenian government and the silver mine owners, because the government would obtain revenue by leasing the slaves and the silver mine owners would obtain more silver and gain more profit with the help of the slave labourers, since the value of the silver would not

We can distinctly understand, through Xenophon's writing, that they are connected because as he discusses, slaves were assets to whoever owned them since they were in high demand, especially in the silver mines. Therefore, as he argued, the Athenian government's leasing of slaves would directly benefit their economy's growth and prosperity. Since the Greek economy was in need of a boost, expanding Greek slavery seemed to be their best bet, especially in terms of increasing "... the economic benefit of its silver mines." This observation is justified by Xenophon's entire proposal, since his main goal was to help "...reform the state finances of Athens" by persuading the Athenian government to "...increase its income by buying a large number of slaves, who would then be leased out at a set amount per slave to private subcontractors working the mines." It is important to note that although Xenophon encourages slavery, as well as the branding of slaves, he does refer to them in his proposal as "...the men...", stress their "...strength...", and explain the important role they could play in strengthening his society's economy. This tells us that slaves weren't viewed so much as objects in the Greek society at this time in history, and may even have been valued and respected in some ways by its