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15.16. 16. Regulations between Masters and Slaves.

The magistrates ought to take care that the slave has his food and raiment; and this should be regulated by law.

The laws ought to provide that care be taken of them in sickness and old age. Claudius [28] decreed that the slaves who in sickness had been abandoned by their masters should, in case they recovered, be emancipated. This law insured their liberty; but should not there have been some care also taken to preserve their lives?

When the law permitted a master to take away the life of his slave, he was invested with a power which he ought to exercise as judge, and not as master; it was necessary, therefore, that the law should ordain those formalities which remove the suspicion of an act of violence.

When fathers, at Rome, were no longer permitted to put their children to death, the magistrates ordained the punishment which the father would have inflicted. [29] A like custom between the master and his slaves would be highly reasonable in a country where masters have the power of life and death.

The law of Moses was extremely severe. If a man struck his servant so that he died under his hand, he was to be punished; but, if he survived a day or two, no punishment ensued, because he was his money. [30] Strange that a civil institution should thus relax the law of nature!

By a law of the Greeks, [31] a slave too severely treated by his master might insist upon being sold to another. In later times there was a law of the same nature at Rome. [32] A master displeased with his slave, and a slave with his master, ought to be separated.

When a citizen uses the slave of another ill, the latter ought to have the liberty of complaining before the judge. The laws of Plato, [33] and of most nations, took away from slaves the right of natural defence. It was necessary then that they should give them a civil defence.

At Sparta slaves could have no justice against either insults or injuries. So excessive was their misery, that they were not only the slaves of a citizen, but also of the public; they belonged to all, as well as to one. At Rome, when they considered the injury done to a slave, they had regard only to the interest of the master. [34] In the breach of the Aquilian law they confounded a wound given to a beast and that given to a slave; they regarded only the diminution of their value. At Athens, [35] he who had abused the slave of another was punished severely, and sometimes even with death. The law of Athens was very reasonable in not adding the loss of security to that of liberty.

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