slaves, tired of the expense and trouble of maintaining them, to turn them out of doors in that condition, and expose them in the Insula Esculapii, to take their chance of dying or recovering. The emperor issued an edict, not to forbid this practice, but ordering that, if any who had been so treated happened to recover, they should be free. If masters too, should prefer to kill their slaves, when in this condition, rather than expose them, with the chance of their obtaining their liberty, the same edict held them to the penalties of homicide or manslaughter; but not in any other case.

If a master of a family had been murdered by one of his slaves, the Roman law condemned all his family to be put to death, whether partners in the crime or not. Tacitus records an instance under Nero, when this law was rigorously executed on four hundred innocent persons at once. Not long before the same time, a decree had been passed, as he expresses it, ultioni juxta et securitati, that even such slaves as by the will of the deceased party would have obtained their freedom, upon his death, subject however to the condition of continuing to live under the same roof, (as the liberti very often did 8,) should be liable to the same treatment as the rest.

Hadrian was the first of the emperors who mitigated the severity of this law; but only so far, as that none of the family should be considered, a priori, implicated in the guilt of their master's death, except those, qui per vicinitatem poterant sentire. He took away also from masters the power, which they must before have possessed, of

d Suet. Claud. 25, 5. Dio, lx. 29. e Ann. xiv. 42—45. f Ann. xiii. 32. * See Plin. Epp. ii. xvii. 9.

condemning their slaves to death; and ordered that they should be tried and condemned by the regular tribunalsh. Formerly, and as Plutarch tells us in his life of Cato, a master could do what he would in bringing his slaves to justice; and Cato's practice was to cause such of his family, as had done any thing worthy of death, to be tried by their fellow-servants, and acquitted or condemned according to their decision.

Pone crucem servo: meruit quo crimine servus

Supplicium? quis testis adest? quis detulit? audi,
Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est.
O demens, ita servus homo est? nil fecerit, esto.
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas j.

There was, in fact, no degree of authority which a Roman master at one time did not possess over his family; nor any abuse of such unlimited and irresponsible powers, to which slaves, under bad masters, were not exposed. Juvenal thus describes the ill-humour of a Roman mistress, as venting itself on her unfortunate attendantsk;

Si nocte maritus

Aversus jacuit: periit libraria; ponunt
Cosmetæ tunicas, tarde venisse Liburnus
Dicitur, et poenas alieni pendere somni.
Cogitur. hic frangit ferulas; rubet ille flagello,
Hic scutica. sunt quæ tortoribus annua præstent.
Verberat, atque obiter faciem linit; audit amicas,
Et cædit; longi relegit transversa diurni,
Et cædit, donec lassis cædentibus, exi,
Intonet horrendum, jam cognitione peracta,
Præfectura domus Sicula non mitior aula.

h Spartian, Adrian. 18.

vi. 218.

k Sat. vi. 474.

i Cato Maj. 21. Cf. 485-495.

j Juvenal,

In another instance, he draws the picture of a domestic tyrant, who was never happy except when abusing his slaves.

Tum felix, quoties aliquis tortore vocato
Uritur ardenti duo propter lintea ferro.

And again,

Quid suadet juveni lætus stridore catenæ,
Quem mire afficiunt inscripta ergastula, carcer
Rusticus1?

Not to mention these Inscriptiones, or brandings of slaves, either with the names of their owners (which was very common) or with a name of reproach, as a punishment for some supposed offence, nothing was more usual than to condemn them to labour in chains; especially those who did the agricultural business of the community:

Spes etiam valida solatur compede vinctum;
Crura sonant ferro, sed canit inter opus m.

Hoc est cur cantet vinctus quoque compede fossor,
Indocili numero cum grave mollit opus n.

Hæc facit, ut vivat vinctus quoque compede fossor;
Liberaque a ferro crura futura puteto.

Speaking of those, by whose hands Italy was cultivated in his time, Pliny says; At nunc eadem illa vincti pedes, damnatæ manus, inscriptique vultus exercent. And, if Seneca is to be believed, there

1 Sat. xiv. 21. Cf. Hor. Serm. ii. ii. 66-68, and the Schol. in loc. m Tibull. ii. vi. 25. n Ovid. Trist. iv. 5. o Ovid. De Ponto, i. vi. 31. Cf. Hor. Serm. ii. vii. 117, 118. Juvenal, viii. 179, 180. Plin. Epp. iii. xix. 6, 7. P H. N. xviii. 4.

were masters, who carried the refinement of cruelty so far as nicely to assort and match these vincti, according to age, complexion, stature, and the like 9.

There was one description of slave, the janitor or ostiarius, who was almost invariably chained to his post".

Janitor (indignum) dura religate catena,
Difficilem moto cardine pande seram §.

Excute: sic unquam longa relevere catena,
Nec tibi perpetuo serva bibatur aqua t.

Dummodo sic, in me duræ transite catenæ :
Tempora noctis eunt: excute poste seram ".

Quindecim liberi homines, populus est: says Apuleius, (ii. 52:) totidem servi, familia: totidem vincti ergastulum. Condemnation to these ergastula, or carceres rustici, breaking the legs-shackling with heavy fetters-starving-solitary confinement-death itself-were modes of punishment, to which, if we may believe Seneca, a master was at all times ready to resort for very trifling offences *. And indeed, Lactantius himself gives nearly the same account of the treatment of slaves, by their masters, even in his days. To send to the mill, or pistrinum, was a very common punishment, and perhaps not the most severe and Suetonius supplies an instance, where the legs of a slave of Augustus were actually broken; though for a very serious offence”. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us, that Aristotle for

bade the least approach to familiarity or condescension in the behaviour of a master to his slavesa; not so much as even to smile in their presence: and Sel neca says there were masters, in his time, who would not allow a slave to open his lips before them; who would not condescend to speak to them; who conversed with them by a sign, a gesture, a whistle, or the like. Even good masters in other respects, would sometimes make it a rule that their servants should never speak in their houses, except in answer to a question".

The owners of slaves possessed the power of selling their children, if they pleased. Pliny the younger complains that the stock of slaves, on a certain estate, which he was thinking of purchasing, had been much diminished by its former owner, in thus disposing of their offspring. And as it is known that the unnatural and inhuman custom of exposing new-born children, was, at this period of ancient history, almost universal over the Roman empire; so are we told that many persons made a practice of picking up these unfortunate infants, with a view to rear them as slaves-not, however, from a motive of compassion, but to make money of them, as mendici, or objects of charity for which purpose it was usual to mutilate or injure them in some way or othere.

Taciti Ann. xiii. 23.

b De Ira, iii. 35, 2: Clem. Alex. i. De Garrulitate. e Vide Seneca,

c Plut. viii. 34, 35.

Epp. iii. xix. 6.

a Operum, i. 302. 34. Pæd. iii. 12. Epp. xlvii. 2-4: Cf. 204. 8: Pædag. ii. 7. Cf. Cato Maj. 21. Controversiarum lib. v. 33. On the subject, however, of a Roman master's authority over his servants, and in illustration of the possible abuse of it; it is unnecessary to multiply proofs.