'Shameful!'--'dastardly!'--'cowardly!'--broke from one and another of the company.

'That's the mark I never miss,' observed Antiochus; and at the same time regaled his nose from a box of perfume.

'Tis his own chattel,' said the Queen; 'he may do with it as he lists. He has trenched upon no law of the realm, but only upon those of breeding and humanity. Our presence, and that of this company, might, we think, have claimed a more gentle observance.'

'Dogs!' fiercely shouted Antiochus--who, as the Queen said these words, her eyes fastened indignantly upon him, had slunk sulkily to his seat--'dogs,' said he, aiming suddenly to brave the matter, 'off with yonder carrion!--it offends the Queen.'

'Would our cousin,' said Zenobia, 'win the hearts of Palmyra, this surely is a mistaken way. Come, let us to the palace. This spot is tainted. But that it may be sweetened as far as may be, slaves!' she cried, 'bring to the gates the chariot, and other remaining chattels of Antiochus!'

Antiochus, at these words, pale with the apprehensions of a cowardly spirit, rose and strode toward the palace, from which, in a few moments, he was seen on his way to the city.

'You may judge me needlessly harsh, Piso,' said the Queen, as we now sauntered toward the palace, 'but truly the condition of the slave is such, that seeing the laws protect him not, we must do something to enlist in his behalf the spirit of humanity. The breach of courtesy, however, was itself not to be forgiven.'

'It was a merciful fate of the slave,' said I, 'compared with what our Roman slaves suffer. To be lashed to death, or crucified, or burned, or flayed alive, or torn by dogs, or thrown as food for fishes, is something worse than this quick exit of the thrall of Antiochus. You of these softer climes are in your natures milder than we, and are more moved by scenes like this. What would you think, Queen, to see not one, but scores or hundreds of these miserable beings, upon bare suspicion of attempts against their master's life, condemned, by their absolute irresponsible possessors, to death in all its most revolting forms? Nay, even our Roman women, of highest rank, and gentlest nurture, stand by while their slaves are scourged, or themselves apply the lash. If under this torture they die, it is thought of but as of the death of vermin. War has made with us this sort of property of so cheap possession, that to destroy it is often a useful measure of economy. By a Roman, nothing is less regarded than life. And in truth, I see not how it can be otherwise.'

'But surely,' said Julia, 'you do not mean to defend this condition of life. It is not like the sentiments I have heard you express,'

'I defend it only thus,' I replied: 'so long as we have wars--and when will they cease?--there must be captives; and what can these be but slaves? To return them to their own country, were to war to no purpose. To colonize them were to strip war of its horrors. To make them freemen of our own soil, were to fill the land with foes and traitors. Then if there must be slaves, there must be masters and owners. And the absolute master of other human beings, responsible to no one, can be no other than a tyrant. If he has, as he must have, the power to punish at will, he will exercise it, and that cruelly. If he has the power to kill, as he must have, then will he kill and kill cruelly when his nature prompts. And this his nature will prompt, or if not his nature absolutely, yet his educated nature. Our children grow up within the sight and sound of all the horrors and sufferings of this state of things. They use their slaves--with which, almost in infancy, they are provided--according to their pleasure--as dogs, as horses; they lash, they scourge them, long before they have the strength to kill. What wonder if the boy, who, when a boy, used a slave as his beast of burden, or his footstool, when he grows to be a man, should use him as a mark to be shot at? The youth of Antiochus was reared in Rome. I presume to say that his earliest play-things were slaves, and the children of slaves. I am not surprised at his act. And such acts are too common in Rome for this to disturb me much. The education of Antiochus was continued and completed, I may venture also to say, at the circus. I think the result very natural. It cannot be very different, where slavery and the sports of the amphitheatre exist.'