[Footnote 006:  The mention of these is frequent among the classics; they were called in general mercenarii, from the circumstances of their hire, as “quibus, non male praecipiunt, qui ita jubent uti, ut mercenariis, operam exigendam, justa proebenda.  Cicero de off.”  But they are sometimes mentioned in the law books by the name of liberi, from the circumstances of their birth, to distinguish them from the alieni, or foreigners, as Justinian.  D. 7. 8. 4.  —­Id. 21. 1. 25. &c. &c. &c.]

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CHAP.  II.

The first that will be mentioned, of the involuntary, were prisoners of war.[007] “It was a law, established from time immemorial among the nations of antiquity, to oblige those to undergo the severities of servitude, whom victory had thrown into their hands.”  Conformably with this, we find all the Eastern nations unanimous in the practice.  The same custom prevailed among the people of the West; for as the Helots became the slaves of the Spartans, from the right of conquest only, so prisoners of war were reduced to the same situation by the rest of the inhabitants of Greece.  By the same principles that actuated these, were the Romans also influenced.  Their History will confirm the fact:  for how many cities are recorded to have been taken; how many armies to have been vanquished in the field, and the wretched survivors, in both instances, to have been doomed to servitude?  It remains only now to observe, in shewing this custom to have been universal, that all those nations which assisted in overturning the Roman Empire, though many and various, adopted the same measures; for we find it a general maxim in their polity, that whoever should fall into their hands as a prisoner of war, should immediately be reduced to the condition of a slave.

It may here, perhaps, be not unworthy of remark, that the involuntary were of greater antiquity than the voluntary slaves.  The latter are first mentioned in the time of Pharaoh:  they could have arisen only in a state of society; when property, after its division, had become so unequal, as to multiply the wants of individuals; and when government, after its establishment, had given security to the possessor by the punishment of crimes.  Whereas the former seem to be dated with more propriety from the days of Nimrod; who gave rise probably to that inseparable idea of victory and servitude, which we find among the nations of antiquity, and which has existed uniformly since, in one country or another, to the present day.[008]

Add to this, that they might have arisen even in a state of nature, and have been coequal with the quarrels of mankind.

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FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 007:  “Nomos en pasin anthropois aidios esin, otan polemounton polis alo, ton elonton einai kai ta somata ton en te poleis, kai ta chremata.”  Xenoph.  Kyrou Paid.  L. 7. fin.]