Part 2 (2/2)
We may now take notice of a circ.u.mstance in this narration, which will lead us to a review of our first a.s.sertion on this point, ”that the honourable light, in which _piracy_ was considered in the times of barbarism, contributed not a little to the _slavery_ of the human species.” The robber is represented here as frequently defeated in his attempts, and as reduced to that deplorable situation, to which he was endeavouring to bring another. This shews the frequent difficulty and danger of his undertakings: people would not tamely resign their lives or liberties, without a struggle. They were sometimes prepared; were superior often, in many points of view, to these invaders of their liberty; there were an hundred accidental circ.u.mstances frequently in their favour. These adventures therefore required all the skill, strength, agility, valour, and every thing, in short, that may be supposed to const.i.tute heroism, to conduct them with success. Upon this idea piratical expeditions first came into repute, and their frequency afterwards, together with the danger and fort.i.tude, that were inseparably connected with them, brought them into such credit among the barbarous nations of antiquity, that of all human professions, piracy was the most honourable.[013]
The notions then, which were thus annexed to piratical expeditions, did not fail to produce those consequences, which we have mentioned before.
They afforded an opportunity to the views of avarice and ambition, to conceal themselves under the mask of virtue. They excited a spirit of enterprize, of all others the most irresistible, as it subsisted on the strongest principles of action, emolument and honour. Thus could the vilest of pa.s.sions be gratified with impunity. People were robbed, stolen, murdered, under the pretended idea that these were reputable adventures: every enormity in short was committed, and dressed up in the habiliments of honour.
But as the notions of men in the less barbarous ages, which followed, became more corrected and refined, the practice of piracy began gradually to disappear. It had hitherto been supported on the grand columns of _emolument_ and _honour_. When the latter therefore was removed, it received a considerable shock; but, alas! it had still a pillar for its support! _avarice_, which exists in all states, and which is ready to turn every invention to its own ends, strained hard for its preservation. It had been produced in the ages of barbarism; it had been pointed out in those ages as lucrative, and under this notion it was continued. People were still stolen; many were intercepted (some, in their pursuits of pleasure, others, in the discharge of their several occupations) by their own countrymen; who previously laid in wait for them, and sold them afterwards for slaves; while others seized by merchants, who traded on the different coasts, were torn from their friends and connections, and carried into slavery. The merchants of Thessaly, if we can credit Aristophanes[014] who never spared the vices of the times, were particularly infamous for the latter kind of depredation; the Athenians were notorious for the former; for they had practised these robberies to such an alarming degree of danger to individuals, that it was found necessary to enact a law[015], which punished kidnappers with death.--But this is sufficient for our present purpose; it will enable us to a.s.sert, that there were two cla.s.ses of _involuntary_ slaves among the ancients, ”of those who were taken publickly in a state of war, and of those who were privately stolen in a state of innocence and peace.” We may now add, that the children and descendents of these composed a third.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 009: Thucydides. L. 1. sub initio.]
[Footnote 010: Idem.--”the strongest,” says he, ”engaging in these adventures, Kerdous tou spheterou auton eneka kai tois asthenesi trophes.”]
[Footnote 011: Homer. Odyss. L. 15. 385.]
[Footnote 012: Xenoph. Kyrou Anab. L. 6. sub initio.]
[Footnote 013: ouk echontos po Aischynen toutou tou ergou pherontos de ti kai Doxes mallon. Thucydides, L. 1. sub initio. kai euklees touto oi Kilikes enomizon. s.e.xtus Empiricus. ouk adoxon all'endoxon touto.
Schol. &c. &c.]
[Footnote 014: Aristoph. Plut. Act. 2. Scene 5.]
[Footnote 015: Zenoph. Apomnemon, L. 1.]
CHAP. IV.
It will be proper to say something here concerning the situation of the unfortunate men, who were thus doomed to a life of servitude. To enumerate their various employments, and to describe the miseries which they endured in consequence, either from the severity, or the long and constant application of their labour, would exceed the bounds we have proposed to the present work. We shall confine ourselves to their _personal treatment_, as depending on the power of their masters, and the protection of the law. Their treatment, if considered in this light, will equally excite our pity and abhorrence. They were beaten, starved, tortured, murdered at discretion: they were dead in a civil sense; they had neither name nor tribe; were incapable of a judicial process; were in short without appeal. Poor unfortunate men! to be deprived of all possible protection! to suffer the bitterest of injuries without the possibility of redress! to be condemned unheard! to be murdered with impunity! to be considered as dead in that state, the very members of which they were supporting by their labours!
Yet such was their general situation: there were two places however, where their condition, if considered in this point of view, was more tolerable. The aegyptian slave, though perhaps of all others the greatest drudge, yet if he had time to reach the temple[016] of Hercules, found a certain retreat from the persecution of his master; and he received additional comfort from the reflection, that his life, whether he could reach it or not, could not be taken with impunity. Wise and salutary law![017] how often must it have curbed the insolence of power, and stopped those pa.s.sions in their progress, which had otherwise been destructive to the slave!
But though the persons of slaves were thus greatly secured in aegypt, yet there was no place so favourable to them as Athens. They were allowed a greater liberty of speech;[018] they had their convivial meetings, their amours, their hours of relaxation, pleasantry, and mirth; they were treated, in short, with so much humanity in general, as to occasion that observation of Demosthenes, in his second Philippick, ”that the condition of a slave, at Athens, was preferable to that of a free citizen, in many other countries.” But if any exception happened (which was sometimes the case) from the general treatment described; if persecution took the place of lenity, and made the fangs of servitude more pointed than before,[019] they had then their temple, like the aegyptian, for refuge; where the legislature was so attentive, as to examine their complaints, and to order them, if they were founded in justice, to be sold to another master. Nor was this all: they had a privilege infinitely greater than the whole of these. They were allowed an opportunity of working for themselves, and if their diligence had procured them a sum equivalent with their ransom, they could immediately, on paying it down,[020] demand their freedom for ever. This law was, of all others, the most important; as the prospect of liberty, which it afforded, must have been a continual source of the most pleasing reflections, and have greatly sweetened the draught, even of the most bitter slavery.
Thus then, to the eternal honour of aegypt and Athens, they were the only places that we can find, where slaves were considered with any humanity at all. The rest of the world seemed to vie with each other, in the debas.e.m.e.nt and oppression of these unfortunate people. They used them with as much severity as they chose; they measured their treatment only by their own pa.s.sion and caprice; and, by leaving them on every occasion, without the possibility of an appeal, they rendered their situation the most melancholy and intolerable, that can possibly be conceived.
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