[76] Biot, loc. cit. p. 297 sq.
[77] Chinese Repository, xviii. 362.
It has been suggested that in ancient Egypt the aboriginal inhabitants of the country were made slaves by the conquering race. “Si nous consultons les monuments,” says M. Amélineau, “nous remarquons dans les peintures qui ornent les parois des tombeaux de Saqqarah une certaine race d’hommes sur laquelle Mariette avait déjà appelé l’attention…. Je crois que ce sont là des esclaves, vieux restes des populations primitives soumises par les conquérants nouvellement arrivés dans la vallée du Nil, descendants des premières tribus humaines qui s’étaient installées en Égypt.”[78] During the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, which form the chief period of Egypt’s foreign conquests, mention is frequently made of the employment of prisoners of war as slaves. Every Pharao of these dynasties recounts how he filled the god Amon’s storehouses with male and female slaves from his spoil. These slaves are occasionally represented in tombs; thus in the tomb of Rekhmere some slaves who are making bricks and building a wall are designated as “the spoil which his Majesty brought for the construction of the temple of Amon.”[79] M. Amélineau believes that slavery was in Egypt milder than in Greece and Rome.[80] According to the Book of the Dead, the pity of the god extends to slaves; not only does he command that no one should ill-treat them himself, but he forbids that their masters should be led to ill-treat them.[81]
[78] Amélineau, Essai sur l’évolution des idées morales dans l’Égypt Ancienne, p. 78.
[79] For these statements I am indebted to my friend Dr. Alan Gardiner.
[80] Amélineau, op. cit. p. 349.
[81] Book of the Dead, ch. 125. Cf. Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 191.
In ancient Chaldæa, beneath the free Semite and Sumerian population, there was a class of slaves largely consisting of captives from foreign races and their descendants, but continually reinforced by individuals of the native race such as foundlings, women sold by their husbands, children sold by their fathers, and probably debtors whom their creditors had deprived of their liberty.[82] Their position was evidently not one of excessive hardship.[83] As a rule, they were permitted to marry and bring up a family; and it seems that masters, when selling their slaves, as much as possible avoided separating parents and children.[84] The master often apprenticed the children of his slaves, and as soon as they knew a trade he set them up in business in his own name, allowing them a share in the profits.[85] A slave could hire himself out for wages, and could himself acquire slaves to work for him.[86] He was even entitled to purchase his freedom.[87] “La loi babylonienne,” says M. Oppert, “lassait aux esclaves sur quelques points plus de prérogatives que le Code français n’en accorde à nos épouses.”[88]
[82] Meissner, Beiträge zur altbabylonischen Privatrecht, p. 6. Oppert, ‘La condition des esclaves à Babylone,’ in Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres—Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 1888, ser. iv. vol. xvi. 122. Maspero, op. cit. p. 743.
[83] Meissner, op. cit. p. 7. Oppert, loc. cit. p. 121 sqq.