in describing the sort of slaves best suited for work on the great sheep-runs, says that they should be such as are strong enough to defend the flocks from wild beasts and brigands—­the latter doubtless quite as ready to seize human beings as sheep and cattle.  And slave-merchants seem to have been constantly carrying on their trade in regions where no war was going on, and where desirable slaves could be procured; the kingdoms of Asia Minor were ransacked by them, and when Marius asked Nicomedes king of Bithynia for soldiers during the struggle with the Cimbri, the answer he got was that there were none to send—­the slave-dealers had been at work there.[315] Every one will remember the line of Horace in which he calls one of these wretches a “king of Cappadocia."[316]

There were two other sources of the slave supply of which however little need be said here, as the contribution they made was comparatively small.  First, slaves were bred from slaves, and on rural estates this was frequently done as a matter of business.[317] Varro recommends the practice in the large sheep-farms,[318] under certain conditions; and some well-known lines of Horace suggest that on smaller farms, where a better class of slaves would be required, these home-bred ones were looked on as the mark of a rich house, “ditis examen domus."[319] Secondly, a certain number of slaves had become such under the law of debt.  This was a common source of slavery in the early periods of Roman history, but in Cicero’s day we cannot speak of it with confidence.  We have noticed the cry of the distressed freemen of the city in the conspiracy of Catiline, which looks as though the old law were still put in force; and in the country there are signs that small owners who had borrowed from large ones were in Varro’s time in some modified condition of slavery,[320] surrendering their labour in lieu of payment.  But all these internal sources of slavery are as nothing compared with the supply created by war and the slave-trade.

This supply being thus practically unlimited, prices ran comparatively low, and no Roman of any considerable means at all need be, or was, entirely without slaves.  He had only to go, or to send his agent, to one of the city slave-markets, such as the temple of Castor,[321] where the slave-agents (mangones) exhibited their “goods” under the supervision of the aediles; there he could pick out exactly the kind of slave he wanted at any price from the equivalent of L10 upwards.  The unfortunate human being was exhibited exactly as horses are now, and could be stripped, handled, trotted about, and treated with every kind of indignity, and of course the same sort of trickery went on in these human sales as is familiar to all horse-dealers of the present day.[322] The buyer, if he wanted a valuable article, a Greek, for example, who could act as secretary or librarian, like Cicero’s beloved Tiro, or even a household slave with a special character for skill