to ransom, which exercised a two–fold influence in favour of slaves: first by enabling them to acquire freedom at the sacrifice of wealth; secondly, by removing the utter hopelessness and degradation of their state, and introducing a possibility that the slave and master might some day be replaced in their original relation to each other. This practice was familiar in the Homeric age, though revenge or the heat of battle often caused mercy and interest to be alike disregarded. Melancholy indeed was the fate of a captured city. The adult males were usually slaughtered, the females and children reserved for slavery; those even of the highest rank were employed as menial servants in the victor’s household. “What evils,” says Priam, “does Jupiter reserve me to behold on the threshold of age! My sons slain, my daughters dragged into slavery, my chambers plundered, the very infants dashed against the ground in mournful warfare, and my sons’ wives dragged by the destructive hands of the Greeks. The dogs which I fed in my palace, at my own table, to protect it, will tear me, even me, stretched dead at the outer door, as they lie ravening in the vestibule lapping my blood. To a young man it is becoming to lie slain in warfare, pierced by the sharp sword; to such nothing that can happen in death is unseemly. But that dogs should defile the grey head and the grey beard of a slaughtered elder, this is the mournfulest thing that happens to wretched mortals.”[113] For the lot of those who were reserved, we may quote Hector’s parting speech to Andromache. I know the day draws nigh when Troy shall fall, When Priam and his nation perish all: Yet less forebodings of the fate of Troy, Her king, and Hecuba, my peace destroy; Less that my brethren, all th’ heroic band, Should with their blood imbrue their native land; Than thoughts of thee in tears, to Greece a prey, Dragged by the grasp of war in chains away, Of thee in tears, beneath an Argive roof Labouring reluctant the allotted woof, Or doomed to draw, from Hypereia’s cave, Or from Messeis’ fount, the measured wave. A voice will then be heard which thou must bear, ‘See’st thou yon captive, pouring tear on tear? Lo! Hector’s wife, the hero bravest far When Troy and Greece round Ilion clashed in war.’[114]