en a loss to
him. And so the provincials preferred to appease their governor by
submission. They treated him like a king, flattered him, sent
presents, and raised statues to him. Often, indeed, in Asia they
raised altars to him,[129] built temples to him, and adored him as a
god.

SLAVERY

=The Sale of Slaves.=--Every prisoner of war, every inhabitant of a
captured city belonged to the victor. If they were not killed, they
were enslaved. Such was the ancient custom and the Romans exercised
the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty
and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the
army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.[130] After every
war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves.
Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was
the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for the Romans.

=Condition of the Slave.=--The slave belonged to a master, and so was
regarded not as a person but as a piece of property. He had, then, no
rights; he could not be a citizen or a proprietor; he could be neither
husband nor father. "Slave marriages!" says a character in a Roman
comedy;[131] "A slave takes a wife; it is contrary to the custom of
every people." The master has full right over his slave; he sends him
where he pleases, makes him work according to his will, even beyond
his strength, ill feeds him, beats him, tortures him, kills him
without accounting to anybody for it. The slave must submit to all the
whims of his master; the Romans declare, even, that he is to have no
conscience, his only duty is blind obedience. If he resists, if he
flees, the state assists the master to subdue or recover him; the man
who gives refuge to a fugitive slave renders himself liable to the
charge of theft, as if he had taken an ox or a horse belonging to
another.

=Number of Slaves.=--Slaves were far more numerous than free men. Rich
citizens owned 10,000 to 20,000 of them,[132] some having enough of
them to constitute a real army. We read of Caecilius Claudius Isidorius
who had once been a slave and came to possess more than 4,000 slaves.
Horace, who had seven slaves, speaks of his modest patrimony. Having
but three was in Rome a mark of poverty.

=Urban Slaves.=--The Roman nobles, like the Orientals of our day,
delighted in surrounding themselves with a crowd of servants. In a
great Roman house lived hundreds of slaves, organized for d