re placed upon a stand or stone bench, were
labelled with their age, nationality, defects, and accomplishments,
and were sold either under a guarantee or without one. For an ordinary
room-slave Silius, or his agent for him, has paid perhaps L20; for a
servant of more special skill, such as a particularly soft-handed
barber, perhaps L50; the price of a muleteer who was "too deaf to
overhear private conversation in a carriage" might thereby be enhanced
to L150; for a slave with educational or artistic accomplishments--a
good reader, reciter, secretary, musician, or actor--he may have paid
some hundreds. If he is a man of morbid tastes, and affects a
particular kind of dainty favourite, he may go as far as a thousand.
Curly-haired pages and amusing dwarfs are generally dear. It is the
business of the house-steward to see that each slave receives his
daily or monthly rations of corn, a trifling sum of money for other
needs, and perhaps an allowance of thin wine. Many a slave also
received a considerable number of "tips" from guests, as well as
perquisites and presents from his master. With economy he was thus
enabled to purchase his own freedom. The master might also in some
cases provide the slave with the essentials of his dress, to wit, a
coarse tunic, a rough cloak, and a pair of shoes or sabots.

Over all these persons, so long as they are slaves, the owner
possesses absolute power. He can box their ears, or condemn them to
hard labour--making them, for instance, work in chains upon his lands
in the country or in a sort of prison-factory--or he may punish them
with blows of the rod, the lash, or the knout; he can brand them upon
the forehead if they are thieves or runaways, or in the end, if they
prove irreclaimable, he can crucify them. Branded slaves who
afterwards became free and rich sought to conceal the marks by wearing
patches. There were inevitably some instances in which masters proved
so intolerably cruel that their slaves were driven to murder them. To
prevent any conspiracy of the kind the law ordained that, when a
master was so killed, the slaves should one and all be put to death.
It is gratifying to learn that in the reign of Nero the whole populace
sided with a body of slaves in this predicament and prevented the law
from being carried out.

[Illustration: FIG. 61.--SLAVE IN FETTERS.]

But, being a typical Roman, Silius has a strong sense of justice;
moreover he values public opinion as well as his o