Juvenal represents a
woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what
crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave,
then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order
it, my will is reason enough."
The law was no milder than custom. As late as the first century after
Christ, when a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves
were put to death. When some wished to abolish this law, Thraseas,
one of the philosophers of high repute, rose to address the Senate to
demand that the law be maintained.
=The Ergastulum.=--A subterranean prison, lighted by narrow windows so
high that they could not be reached by the hand, was called the
ergastulum. The slaves who had displeased their master spent the night
there; during the day they were sent to work loaded with heavy chains
of iron. Many were branded with a red-hot iron.
=The Mill.=--The ancients had no mills run by machinery; they had the
grain ground by slaves with hand-mills. It was the most difficult kind
of work and was usually inflicted as a punishment. The mill of
antiquity was like a convict-prison.
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