quinquagesima, or two per cent.; under Nero, to the vicesimaquinta or four per cent. h Lipsius observes of this tax, that it was probably the most productive of any in the empire.

Julius Cæsar is said to have more than once made every soldier in his army a present of a slave. Augustus allowed even the exiles, who had been interdicted from fire and water, the possession of twenty slaves or freedmen apiece, if not morek. Cato Minor himself was attended in the civil wars by a train of twelve slaves; whereas his great ancestor, Cato the Censor, had never gone abroad with more than three, or at the utmost five 1.

We read of five thousand aides or linkboys, with their heads shaved in derision of the emperor Tiberius who was bald, being employed by one of the prætors, Lucius Sejanus, to light the people home from the Floralia, U. C. 785 m. When Pedanius Secundus, Urbis Præfectus, U. C. 814. was assassinated by one of his slaves, he had not less than four hundred in his family at the time ". Pudentilla, a rich African widow, married to Apuleius, some time in the reign of Antoninus Pius, gave her two sons, among other things, four hundred slaves and more o. Cæcilius Claudius Isidorus, a Roman knight of middling circumstances, left behind him, at his death, A. D. vI. Kal. Februar. U. C. 746. four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves; though his pro

h Dio, xlvii. 16; i Suet. Jul. 26, 10. k Dio, lvi. 27.

xlviii. 31; lv. 31.

Tac. Ann. xiii. 31. 1 Valerius Maximus, m Dio,

iv. iii. ii. 12. Apuleius, De Magia Oratio, 21, 22.

Iviii. 19.

n Tac. Ann. xiv. 42, 43.

De Magia Oratio.

o Opera, ii. 97.

perty had suffered much in the civil wars. Horace observes of the Sardus (Sardinian) Tigellius 9,

Habebat sæpe ducentos,

Sæpe decem servos:

And of himself",

Vestem, servosque sequentes

Ut magno in populo, si quis vidisset, avita
Ex re præberi sumtus mihi crederet istos :

So that a long train of slaves was a characteristic of the rich, in those days, when they appeared abroad. Juvenal, in like manner,

Maxima quæque domus servis est plena superbiss.

And again,

Protinus ad censum: de moribus ultima fiet

Quæstio: quot pascit servos, quot possidet agri
Jugera', &c.

There is a striking and perhaps not an exaggerated description of the pompous magnificence and luxury of the wealthy citizens of Rome, with respect to the number and variety of the slaves, who formed their retinue in public, in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, the middle or latter end of the fourth century ".

The proportion of the slave population to the free, in the country, at least, must have been in the ratio of three to one; or, we may presume, Julius Cæsar would not have thought it necessary to pass a law, that none qui pecuariam facerent (kept grazing farms) should have fewer than one third puberum ingenuorum, among their pastores. A motion was

p Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 47. i. vi. 78. s Sat. v. 66. u Lib. xiv. 6. p. 25, 26.

q Sermon, i. iii. 11. r Ibid. t Sat. iii. 142. Cf. vii. 141, 142. * Suet. Jul. 42. 1.

once proposed in the Roman senate, to distinguish the slave population from the free, by their dress. It was abandoned, says Seneca, upon reflecting what risk would be run, if the slaves should begin to count their masters. Alexander Severus afterwards entertained a similar design; from which, however, he was dissuaded by his great legal advisers, Ulpian and Paulus".

Larensius, the host of the party who are supposed to constitute the guests at the Convivium of Athenæus, (the time of which was about the reign of M. Aurelius,) observes there, that very many of the Romans had ten thousand, twenty thousand, and even more domestic servants; that is, slaves, whose sole business it was to attend their masters abroad a. The allusions to the numbers of slaves, in the possession of private owners, which occur in general terms in Tacitus, Seneca, Pliny the Elder;—all writers contemporary with the first publication of the Gospel--are such as to give us the most extraordinary conception of their multitude and variety. Postquam vero nationes in familiis habemus, quibus diversi ritus, externa sacra, aut nulla sunt, conluviem istam non nisi metu coercueris -Quid enim primum prohibere .... adgrediar? villarumne infinita spatia? familiarum numerum et nationes?— O miserum, si quem delectat sui patrimonii liber magnus, et vasta spatia terrarum colenda per vinctos, et immensi greges pecorum per provincias ac regna pascendi, et familia bellicosis nationibus major d.

y De Clementia, 24, 1. a Athenæus, vi. 104.

z Lampridius, Alex. Severus, 27. b Tac. Ann. xiv. 44. c Ibid. iii. 53. d Seneca, De Beneficiis, vii. x. 4. Cf. ad Helviam Matrem, 11, 4: De Tranquillitate Animi, 2, 5: De Vita Beata, 17, 3: Epp. cx. 16.

Hoc profecere mancipiorum legiones, et in domo turba externa, ac servorum quoque causa nomenclator adhibendus e.

It may not be amiss to conclude this account of the prodigious numbers of slaves in the families of antiquity about this time, by specifying some instances of the prices given for them, whether ordinarily or extraordinarily.

Xenophon tells us that Nicias gave a talent (about one hundred and ninety-three pounds) for the σTάτns, or head slave, (the foreman,) who had the management of his pitmen in the silver mines: and he observes further, that the price of an oikétys, or domestic slave, might vary commonly from half a mina, to two, or five, or ten minæ, (somewhat more than thirty pounds f.) Demosthenes reckoned the slaves left him by his father, (who were swordcutlers by trade,) to be worth from three to five or six minæ apiece; and the rest of them (who were kλıvOTool, bed-makers or cabinet-makers) about two minæ apieces.

Plutarch mentions that Cato the Censor would never give more than one thousand five hundred drachmæ (about forty-eight pounds) for such a slave as he wanted; which was for his farming businessh: yet even in his time slaves were sometimes sold for as much as four talents (nearly eight hundred pounds) apiece. Aulus Gellius reports a saying of Varro's, from his Satyra, Tepì èdeoμáτwv: Si, quantum operæ sumpsisti, ut tuus pistor bonum faceret panem,

e Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 6. xxvii. 11, 12. in Aphobum i.

f Memorabilia, ii. v. 2. g Orat. h Vita Caton. Maj. 4. i Athen. vi. 109. Diodor. Sic. Frag. lib. xxxvi. Operr. x. 175.

ejus duodecimam philosophiæ dedisses; ipse bonus jam pridem esses factus. nunc, illum qui norunt, volunt emere millibus centum, (about eight hundred pounds,) te, qui novit, nemo centussisk. Julius Cæsar sometimes gave so much for slaves, that he was ashamed to allow it to appear in his accounts1. Seneca tells us a story of a contemporary of his, one Calvisius Sabinus, a rich man, but very ignorant; who thought it quite sufficient to pass himself off as learned, if he could produce learned slaves. So he got one, who knew Homer by heart; another, who knew Hesiod; nine more, for the nine Lyric poets. These cost him centena millia (eight hundred and seven pounds) apiece m. The value set upon slaves, no doubt, rose in proportion to the number, variety, and intrinsic excellence, of their accomplishments. Pliny says the largest sum ever given in his memory for a slave, was that of seven hundred great sesterces, (about five thousand six hundred pounds,) which Marcus Scaurus paid for Daphnus, a slave well instructed in grammar ". The numbers of Pliny in this passage are much disputed; and probably the above reading underrates the actual amount. There are many more instances in the same chapter, of large sums paid for slaves.

Josephus mentions an instance of a talent apiece being given for one hundred boys, and the same for one hundred girls, intended to be presented to the king and queen of Egypt, Ptolemy and Cleopatra o. In the war with Mithridates, a slave might be bought in the Roman camp, for four drachmæ, (about two

k Lib. xv. 19. 1 Suet. Jul. 47, 2. m Epp. xxvii. 4-7. n Plin. H. N. vii. 40. Cf. Suet. De illustribus Gramm. iii. 3. o Ant. Jud. xii. iv. 9.