a slave.  At one time the slave’s life was at the absolute control of his master; he could be treated at all times with brutal severity.  Fettered and branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at night was shut up in a subterranean cell.  The laws hardly recognized his claim to be considered a moral agent,—­he was secundum hominum genus; he could acquire no rights, social or political,—­he was incapable of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage; his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a person, “a piece of furniture possessed of life;” he was his master’s property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified.  If a wealthy proprietor died under circumstances which excited suspicion of foul play, his whole household was put to torture.  It is recorded that on the murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his possession was condemned to death.  Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State.  All manual labor was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in the navy to propel the galleys.  Even the mechanical arts were cultivated by the slaves.  Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors, musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an equality with their masters.  Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were white as well as black.  All captives in war were made slaves, also unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but generally their condition became more and more deplorable.  What a state of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress!  What was to be expected of a class who had no object to live for?  They became the most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in the hour of danger.

Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman State.  It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which undermined the empire.  Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse, destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent, powerless.  The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world.  Paganism never recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights.  It had no compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause forgetfulness of immortality.  Slavery thrives best when the generous instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the dominant springs of human action.