this point, there must be in the bosom of society a being similar to man and freed by public opinion from all the moral obligations proclaimed by the human conscience, a being who can be turned to vice as well as to virtue without outrage to his nature, all whose excesses are lawful as soon as commanded." Such was the slave in Rome. The details of his character will be recalled by any one familiar with the Latin comedy.

In other ways, also, slavery was productive of similar results. The common practice of emancipation, hardly less advantageous to the master than to the slave, because the freedman was nearly as much under his control as the slave, created thousands of citizens of low character and of foreign birth, so that the people of Rome was no longer Roman.

"The true Roman people, that plebeian and free race, which had laid the foundation of the greatness of Rome, had long ceased to exist; and slavery had not only enfeebled and degraded it, it had in some sort transformed it. When Scipio Emilianus was resisting the murmurs of the crowd, saying, 'You will not frighten me, unchained, you whom I brought to Rome loaded with irons,' he might excite resentment, but could not be contradicted.". Wallon, Vol. II. p. 392.

No doubt emancipation was often a real benefit conferred by a kind or grateful master on a faithful slave; no doubt, too, it often introduced valuable citizens into the state, we read of freedmen of wealth and character, and we know that teachers and secretaries were chiefly slaves, but the great mass of the slaves were the refuse of all nations swept into Rome by conquest and kidnapping; and even a good slave was spoiled in a year, by the corrupt atmosphere in which he lived. Of course the root of the evil was slavery itself, and the harm wrought by emancipation was indirect, giving to wretches whom Rome had first stolen and then corrupted, and "to whom Rome was a stepmother, not a mother," the government of Italy and of the world. Emancipation in itself was, on the other hand, beneficial so far as it had any influence; and when Augustus endeavored to suppress the practice, he was really cutting off the supply of free citizens.

66

Augustus, on founding his empire, was terrified at the mobility of

the soil on which he had to establish it. He wished to render the people stable, and he thought he should reach this result by struggling against the progress of manumissions, not seeing that the mobility of the Roman people came from a double current, — one which swept away the freeman, another which brought the freedman into his place; and that to stop off the second without restraining the first, was not to bring about a reform, but a void."- Wallon, Vol. II. p. 425.

A third evil we have already briefly considered in the reaction on the city population of the absorption of small estates, -a process which drove the peasants to swell that formidable and ever-increasing army, the Roman proletariat,—a true Nemesis, bringing double vengeance on the city for the injustice it had permitted.

Still another mischievous effect of slavery was, that it rendered labor disgraceful. A large number of pursuits, in themselves honorable, were given over to slaves, and hence esteemed servile, while the accepted rule, that "no respectable man would suffer himself to be paid for personal services," arose, doubtless, in part from this prejudice.

If in these various ways slavery poisoned the inner life of the state, the insurrections of the seventh century of the city shook its outward frame no less fearfully. The slaves of Italy were not an ignorant, timid race, but were in every way equal to their masters, cultivated Greeks, wily Cretans, athletic Syrians, fierce Thracians and Dalmatians. Eunus, Athenion, and Spartacus proved themselves more than matches for average Roman commanders, and, knowing that, when one servile war was suppressed, there were still left the same scheming minds, and the same restless spirits, as materials for another, we need not wonder at the barbarity of the vengeance, nor at the watchfulness of the police. After the defeat of Spartacus, six thousand of the insurgents were crucified along the road from Rome to Capua; and an incident related by Cicero is a worthy companion-piece to that of the Italian farmer who successfully defended himself with arms against robbers, and was consequently punished by the Austrian government for having

For instance, the Lex Cincia forbade a lawyer to receive a fee for arguing a case. No public officer received anything for his services, and agencies, bailments, &c. among friends gave no claim for recompense.

arms in his possession. A slave in Sicily, who had delivered the country from an enormous wild boar, was crucified by the prætor for having had the spear with which he killed it in his possession," a weak and unworthy piece of cruelty," says Wallon, "which Cicero does not dare to blame, and which Valerius Maximus approves."

We have indicated a final stage in the history of Roman slavery, when slaves came to be held rather for luxury and show than for profit. How far this stage existed side by side with the others, it is impossible to determine; but in itself it is a marked characteristic of society under the empire, as was natural with a rudely luxurious people. The theatre and the gladiatorial shows exemplify this in public and on a large scale; for although the owners of the actors and gladiators held them for profit, for the community they were unproductive. In private the nobles indulged themselves to excess in this species of ostentation. When they went out, they were accompanied by "legions" or "cohorts" of slaves, as ancient writers express it. "The moderation of Cato the Censor, Scipio, Carbo, Mark Antony, and Cato Uticensis is lauded, because they restricted themselves in their expeditions to taking with them three, five, seven, eight, and twelve slaves." And as regards the two Catos, Valerius Maximus, "after having compared with the three slaves of the elder, the twelve carried by the younger under similar circumstances, adds, 'It is numerically more, but less when we take into account the difference of manners in their times.'' So rapid had been the growth of luxury. This was still under the republic; under the empire no bounds were placed to extravagance.

"Cato was indignant in his day that more should be paid for a handsome slave than for a piece of land. Martial speaks of entire inheritances absorbed in such purchases; of women, of young children, costing 100,000 sesterces ($5,000); and Pliny gives a detailed instance, with the names of the merchant and the purchaser. What brought Rome to this prodigality was not only the sensuality which was to be satisfied, but also the pleasures of the mind,-literature, the fine arts; noble fruits of civilization, which ripened freely in the open air in Greece, but whose cultivation in Italy still demanded the care of a foreign hand;

* A respectable show of gladiators cost, says Mommsen, 50,000 thalers ($ 37,500).

and, besides, the aristocracy disdained sometimes to cultivate them itself, thinking it had the right to command their services for money. The merchants exerted themselves to meet its wants; they procured men of letters, artists.". Wallon, Vol. II. p. 165.

A story told by Seneca (Ep. XXVII. 4 seq.) is cited in illustration of this. It is of a certain Sabinus, a rich man, who had so poor a memory that he could not remember even the names of Ulysses and Achilles.

"Nevertheless, he desired to seem learned. Therefore he devised this short-hand method. A large sum of money bought slaves, - one to have the charge of Homer, one of Hesiod; and among nine others he distributed nine lyric poets. It is not to be wondered at that they cost him much; if he could not find such, he had them made (faciendos locavit). When this band was ready, he began to torment his companions. He had at his feet those from whom he would from time to time ask verses to quote, and often break in in the midst of a conversatlon." One Satellius Quadratus, "when Sabinus had said that each of his slaves cost him a hundred thousand sesterces, answered, 'You might have bought so many cases of books for less.' But he was of opinion that he knew whatever any one in his house knew. The same Satellius began to advise him, a man weak, pale, and slender, to learn to wrestle. When Sabinus answered, 'How can I? I am hardly alive.' 'Do not say so, I beg,' said he; 'do you not see how many vigorous slaves you have?'"

So also there were virtuosi in slaves, - men who prided themselves on their collections of slaves of rare qualities and accomplishments, like stock-fanciers at the present day. We will close this division of our subject by quoting from Wallon the account of the household of Livia, wife of Augustus, as seen in her columbaria, discovered near the beginning of the eighteenth century in Rome.

"There are slaves for the principal departments of service, service of chamber and antechamber, care of the body and of health, education of children, the toilet, and what the Latins called, in imitation of the Greeks, the world of the women, mundus muliebris; the care of garments, of jewels, the adjustment of pearls, with the delicate mission of choosing among these ornaments that which can make up the most complete ensemble, and make of the mistress a work of art;—an injudicious tomb has disclosed to us the colorator of Livia. A thousand other minute cares, to read or hold the tablets, to follow or sit at the

feet, functions in which that more entertaining than useful troop of young children made their début; the services of display in which, when grown larger, they played the principal part, the service of sacred objects, images or statues of ancestors and gods, - finally, general service, and the care of business."- Vol. II. p. 145.

We have thus reviewed the history of Roman slavery, so far as the plan we proposed to ourselves demands. Into the details of the institution itself and the wretchedness of its victims, we have not thought it desirable to enter: it was its history rather than its antiquities that we wished to consider. This we have done from two points of view, - the changes it underwent in form and nature, and the ruin it brought upon liberty and civilization. But the two aspects have illustrated each other, as slavery and Roman institutions have reacted on each other. It was the degeneracy of the Roman character that made slavery so harsh; but it was in great part slavery that debauched the Roman character. It was the latifundia that gave slavery its political power; but slavery enabled the system of latifundia to develop itself. It was slave labor that annihilated small estates in Italy; and it was foreign captives, brought as slaves to Rome, that as freedmen crowded the city tribes and constituted the city mob. It seems not too much to say, that slavery more than aught else was the worm which gnawed at the root of ancient civilization; its soundness and vitality gone, the whole fabric fell.

ART. VI.- The Life of Thomas Jefferson. By HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D. New York: Derby and Jackson. 3 vols. 8vo.

1858.

WE have already given a critical notice of this work, and we now return to it not for the purpose of giving it a thorough examination, still less for that of reopening old subjects of controversy connected with the name of the distinguished man whose career it records. We propose to say a few words concerning the personal character of Mr. Jefferson, leaving his