fortunate people. They used them
with as much severity as they chose; they measured their treatment only
by their own passion and caprice; and, by leaving them on every
occasion, without the possibility of an appeal, they rendered their
situation the most melancholy and intolerable, that can possibly be
conceived.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 016: Herodotus. L. 2. 113.]

[Footnote 017: "Apud AEgyptios, si quis servum sponte occiderat, eum
morte damnari aeque ac si liberum occidisset, jubebant leges &c."
Diodorus Sic. L. 1.]

[Footnote 018:

"Atq id ne vos miremini, Homines servulos
Potare, amare, atq ad coenam condicere.
Licet hoc Athenis.
Plautus. Sticho."
]

[Footnote 019:
"Be me kratison esin eis to Theseion
Dramein, ekei d'eos an eurombou prasin
menein" Aristoph. Horae.

Kaka toiade paskousin oude prasin
Aitousin. Eupolis. poleis.]

[Footnote 020: To this privilege Plautus alludes in his _Casina_,
where he introduces a slave, speaking in the following manner.

"Quid tu me vero libertate territas?
Quod si tu nolis, siliusque etiam tuus
Vobis _invitis_, atq amborum _ingratiis_,
_Una libella liber possum fieri_."
]

* * * * *

CHAP. V.

As we have mentioned the barbarous and inhuman treatment that generally
fell to the lot of slaves, it may not be amiss to inquire into the
various circumstances by which it was produced.

The first circumstance, from whence it originated, was the
_commerce_: for if men could be considered as _possessions_;
if, like _cattle_, they could be _bought_ and _sold_, it
will not be difficult to suppose, that they could be held in the same
consideration, or treated in the same manner. The commerce therefore,
which was begun in the primitive ages of the world, by classing them
with the brutal species, and by habituating the mind to consider the
terms of _brute_ and _slave_ as _synonimous_, soon caused
them to be viewed in a low and despicable light, and as greatly
inferiour to the human species. Hence proceeded that treatment, which
might not unreasonably be supposed to arise from so low an estimation.
They were tamed, like beasts, by the stings of hunger and the lash, and
their education was directed to the same end, to make them commodious
instruments of labour for their possessors.

This _treatment_, which thus proceeded in the ages of barbarism,
from the low estimation, i