As to the barbarity of which the slave at Rome was the victim, we might speak with less reserve if our space allowed. But we can devote only a few words to a subject which would fill volumes. We will, then, confine ourselves to suggesting two subjects for the consideration of our readers,--first, the wholesale slaughter, merely for amusement, which was one of the most cherished and universally diffused institutions of Roman society, and was the delight of women as well as men; next the state of the law with regard to slaves, and the manner in which it was administered. The life of a Roman was of course always held subject to the despair of his slaves, and hence it was the law, that if a master was killed by his slave, under whatever circumstances, or for whatever cause, every one of his slaves, male and female, old and young, however manifestly innocent of all complicity in the murder, however without power to have prevented it, was to die upon the cross.[7] Tacitus tells how, in the reign of Nero, even the populace of Rome was horrified at the execution of this law in the case of the 'family,' as it was called, of a man of consular dignity murdered by one of his slaves, it was reported, in consequence of rivalry in a matter of infamous passion, or because the master had received the price of his slave's freedom and then refused to fulfil his engagement by giving him his liberty. His slaves were four hundred in number; among them were not only men and women, but little children, and the matter was brought before the Senate by some who wished to temper in this instance the severity of the law. But the proposal was indignantly rejected by Cassius, a Roman of noble family, and whom the philosophic historian Tacitus expressly praises for his knowledge of the laws of Rome. He argued that although in this case the innocent would perish with the guilty, this must happen even when a legion was punished by decimation, and that if some injustice was committed, it would be outweighed by the public benefit. But his chief argument was the authority of ancestral law: 'Our ancestors were wiser than we. I have often abstained from resisting proposals to dispense with their laws, when I felt that the change would be for the worse, lest I should seem to be carried away by love of my profession. To-day I cannot abstain. They suspected the disposition of their slaves, even when they had been born in the same lands and houses, and bred up in affection for their lords. But since we have begun to have in our families whole nations who have different customs, different religious rites, or none at all, this confused sediment of all peoples can be mastered only by terror.' His arguments prevailed, and the whole four hundred, men, women, and children, were sent to execution. The indignation of the populace was overawed by soldiers supplied by the Emperor.