Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/61

standing, to Lave been generally exhibited until the time of Honorius, by whom they were finally suppressed.

Gladiators were divided into different classes, according to their arms and different mode of fighting, and other circumstances. One class wore helmets without any aperture for the eyes, so that they were obliged to fight blindfold, and thus excited the mirth of the spectators; another class fought with two swords; another on horseback; another from chariots, like the Gauls and Britons. The laqueators used a noose to catch their adversaries. The meridiani fought in the-middle of the day, after the combats with the wild beasts to the morning. The retiarii carried only a three-pointed lance, and a net, which they endeavored to throw over their adversaries, and then attack them with the trident while the$ were entangled. If he missed his aim in throwing the net, he fled and endeavored to prepare his net for another cast, while his adversary followed him round the arena in order to kill him before he could make a second attempt. The Thraces were armed with a round shield, and a short sword or dagger. When a gladiator was killed, the attendants, appointed for the purpose, dragged the body out of the arena with iron hooks.

 

CHAPTER V.

Slavery in Rome. — Continued.

Abstract of the laws in regard to Slavery. — Power of Life and Death. — Cruelty of Masters. — Laws to protect the Slave. — Constitution of Antoninus: of Claudius. — Husband and Wife could not be separated; nor parents and children. — Slave could not contract marriage, nor own property. — His peculiurn, or private property, held only by usage. — Regulations in respect to it. — Master liable for damages for wrongful acts of his Slave. — The murderer of a slave, liable for a capital offense, or for damages. — Fugitive Slaves, not lawfully harbored; to conceal them, theft. — Master entitled to pursue them. — Duties of the authorities. — Slave hunters. — Laws defining the condition of children born of Slaves. — Laws to reduce free persons to Slavery. — How the state of Slavery might be terminated; by manumission; by special enactments; what Slaves entitled to freedom. — Practice of giving liberty to Slaves in times of civil tumult and revolution. — Effects of Slavery under the Republic, and under the Empire.

We now proceed to give an abstract of the laws in regard to Slavery. According to the strict principles of the Roman law, it was a consequence of the relation of master and slave, that the master could treat the slave as he pleased; he could sell him, punish him, or put him to death. Positive morality, however, and the social intercourse that must always subsist between a master and the slaves who are immediately about him, ameliorated the condition of slavery. Still, we read of acts of great cruelty committed by masters in the later republican and earlier imperial periods, and the Lex Petronia was enacted in order to protect the slave. The original power of life and death over a slave,