But though the persons of slaves were thus greatly secured in Ægypt, yet there was no place so favourable to them as Athens. They were allowed a greater liberty of speech;[018] they had their convivial meetings, their amours, their hours of relaxation, pleasantry, and mirth; they were treated, in short, with so much humanity in general, as to occasion that observation of Demosthenes, in his second Philippick, "that the condition of a slave, at Athens, was preferable to that of a free citizen, in many other countries." But if any exception happened (which was sometimes the case) from the general treatment described; if persecution took the place of lenity, and made the fangs of servitude more pointed than before,[019] they had then their temple, like the Ægyptian, for refuge; where the legislature was so attentive, as to examine their complaints, and to order them, if they were founded in justice, to be sold to another master. Nor was this all: they had a privilege infinitely greater than the whole of these. They were allowed an opportunity of working for themselves, and if their diligence had procured them a sum equivalent with their ransom, they could immediately, on paying it down,[020] demand their freedom for ever. This law was, of all others, the most important; as the prospect of liberty, which it afforded, must have been a continual source of the most pleasing reflections, and have greatly sweetened the draught, even of the most bitter slavery. Thus then, to the eternal honour of Ægypt and Athens, they were the only places that we can find, where slaves were considered with any humanity at all. The rest of the world seemed to vie with each other, in the debasement and oppression of these unfortunate people. They used them with as much severity as they chose; they measured their treatment only by their own passion and caprice; and, by leaving them on every occasion, without the possibility of an appeal, they rendered their situation the most melancholy and intolerable, that can possibly be conceived. * * * * * FOOTNOTES [Footnote 016: Herodotus. L. 2. 113.] [Footnote 017: "Apud Ægyptios, si quis servum sponte occiderat, eum morte damnari æque ac si liberum occidisset, jubebant leges &c." Diodorus Sic. L. 1.] [Footnote 018: "Atq id ne vos miremini, Homines servulos Potare, amare, atq ad coenam condicere. Licet hoc Athenis. Plautus. Sticho." ] [Footnote 019: "Be me kratison esin eis to Theseion Dramein, ekei d'eos an eurombou prasin menein" Aristoph. Horæ. Kaka toiade paskousin oude prasin Aitousin. Eupolis. poleis.] [Footnote 020: To this privilege Plautus alludes in his _Casina_, where he introduces a slave, speaking in the following manner. "Quid tu me verò libertate territas? Quod si tu nolis, siliusque etiam tuus Vobis _invitis_, atq amborum _ingratiis_, _Una libella liber possum fieri_." ] * * * * * CHAP. V.