[26] This might easily happen, for after successful raids or slave hunts, the victims were sold by their pirate captors by the thousand. The fact is on record, that at Delos, a famous slave market, 60,000 were sold by Celician pirates in a single day.
[27] Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos, interest nihil. Lactant. Div. Inst. v. 14, 15.
[28] These were the most common faults of slaves, for attempting which they were often branded on cheek or brow.
[29]Over $4,000 of our money. Very beautiful or accomplished slaves sometimes brought twice that amount.
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE LOST FOUND.
"Do you remember buying or selling a slave named Demetrius, a Jew?" asked Isidorus of Ezra, the slave-dealer of Milan. He wasted no words in circumlocution, for he knew that there was no use in trying to deceive the keen-eyed Jewish dealer in his fellowman; and that his best chances of success were in coming directly to the point.
"Selling a Jew? Oh, no! I never sell my own kinsmen. That's against our law. It is like seething a kid in its mother's milk. I often ransom them from pirates and set them free."
"But this Demetrius was a Christian Jew—a convert from Moses to Jesus," said the Greek.