themselves, and if their diligence had
procured them a sum equivalent with their ransom, they could
immediately, on paying it down,[020] demand their freedom for ever. This
law was, of all others, the most important; as the prospect of liberty,
which it afforded, must have been a continual source of the most
pleasing reflections, and have greatly sweetened the draught, even of
the most bitter slavery.

Thus then, to the eternal honour of AEgypt and Athens, they were the only
places that we can find, where slaves were considered with any humanity
at all. The rest of the world seemed to vie with each other, in the
debasement and oppression of these unfortunate 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.


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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 circ