[27]. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12. The demoralising effects of this traffic were never perhaps better illustrated than by Barbot. This writer, while describing the arts by which men entice their own children, kindred, or neighbours, to the European factories for the purpose of selling them, relates an anecdote exhibiting the ne plus ultra of human depravity: “I was told of one who designed to sell his own son; but he, understanding French, dissembled for a while, and then contrived it so cunningly as to persuade the French that the old man was his slave, and not his father, by which means he delivered him up into captivity; and thus made good the Italian proverb, a furbo furbo e mezzo; amounting to as much as ‘set a thief to catch a thief’ or ‘diamond cuts diamond.’” Descr. of Guinea, i. 4. The son immediately after was relieved of his ill-got gains and himself sold for a slave.
[28]. Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8. 4.
[29]. Odyss. α. 397.
[30]. Iliad. ω. 734.
[31]. See Joach. Hopp. Comment. Succinct. ad Instit. Justin. 1. i. Tit. viii. § 1. p. 61. Grot. De Jur. Bell. et Pac. ii. 5. 28. iii. 7. 3.
[32]. Odyss. ρ. 369. χ. 475, sqq. In most parts of the ancient world the punishments of slaves were to the last degree disproportionate and unjust: “Cibum enim adurere, mensam evertere, dicto tardius audientem fuisse, cruce, aut flagellis ad minus expiabantur. (Cf. Plut. De Cohibend. Irâ. § 13. 15.) Dixisses, omnes penitus dominos professos fuisse Stoicam sectam, adeò illis altè insederat, omnia servorum peccata æqualia esse. Quo factum est, ut servi nuper empti non quærerent an superstitiosum, vel invidum, sed an iracundum herum nacti essent. Seneca; (de Irâ. iii. 28) quid est, quare ego servi mei hilarius responsum, et contumaciorem vultum, et non pervenientem usque ad me murmurationem, flagellis et compedibus expiem.” Pignor. De Servis, p. 5.
[33]. Feith. Antiq. Hom. ii. 20.
[34]. Odyss. χ. 462.
[35]. Eustath. ad loc. p. 1934. Cf. Virg. xii. 603.
[36]. In later times freedmen accused of ingratitude returned, if convicted, to slavery. Etym. Mag. 124. 53, seq. This also was the practice under the Roman law, but among our own ancestors, a bondsman, once disenthralled, could never again be reduced to servitude. Fortescue de Laud. Leg. Angl. cap. 46. p. 108 b. Under certain circumstances, we find Athenian emancipated slaves accounted honourable and permitted to marry free women. Dem. in Steph. i. § 20. Mention occurs in Demosthenes of a magnificent monument made in honour of the wife of one of these freedmen. § 22.