, in his question to Eumoeus.

"Did pirates wait, till all thy friends were gone,
To catch thee singly with thy flocks alone;
Say, did they force thee from thy fleecy care,
And from thy fields transport and sell thee here?"[011]

But no picture, perhaps, of this mode of depredation, is equal to that,
with which[012] Xenophon presents us in the simple narrative of a dance.
He informs us that the Grecian army had concluded a peace with the
Paphlagonians, and that they entertained their embassadors in
consequence with a banquet, and the exhibition of various feats of
activity. "When the Thracians," says he, "had performed the parts
allotted them in this entertainment, some Aenianian and Magnetian
soldiers rose up, and, accoutred in their proper arms, exhibited that
dance, which is called _Karpoea_. The figure of it is thus. One of
them, in the character of an husbandman, is seen to till his land, and
is observed, as he drives his plough, to look frequently behind him, as
if apprehensive of danger. Another immediately appears in fight, in
the character of a robber. The husbandman, having seen him previously
advancing, snatches up his arms. A battle ensues before the plough. The
whole of this performance is kept in perfect time with the musick of the
flute. At length the robber, having got the better of the husbandman,
binds him, and drives him off with his team. Sometimes it happens that
the husbandman subdues the robber: in this case the scene is only
reversed, as the latter is then bound and driven, off by the former."

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that this dance was a
representation of the general manners of men, in the more uncivilized
ages of the world; shewing that the husbandman and shepherd lived in
continual alarm, and that there were people in those ages, who derived
their pleasures and fortunes from _kidnapping_ and _enslaving_
their fellow creatures.

We may now take notice of a circumstance in this narration, which will
lead us to a review of our first assertion on this point, "that the
honourable light, in which _piracy_ was considered in the times of
barbarism, contributed not a little to the _slavery_ of the human
species." The robber is represented here as frequently defeated in his
attempts, and as reduced to that deplorable situation, to which he was
endeavouring to bring another. This shews the frequent difficulty and
danger of his undertakings: people would not tamely resign their lives