Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12. The demoralising effects of this traffic were never perhaps better illustrated than by Barbot. This writer, while describing the arts by which men entice their own children, kindred, or neighbours, to the European factories for the purpose of selling them, relates an anecdote exhibiting the ne plus ultra of human depravity: “I was told of one who designed to sell his own son; but he, understanding French, dissembled for a while, and then contrived it so cunningly as to persuade the French that the old man was his slave, and not his father, by which means he delivered him up into captivity; and thus made good the Italian proverb, a furbo furbo e mezzo; amounting to as much as ‘set a thief to catch a thief’ or ‘diamond cuts diamond.’” Descr. of Guinea, i. 4. The son immediately after was relieved of his ill-got gains and himself sold for a slave. Footnote 28: Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8. 4. ----- Before proceeding, however, with the history of the slave-trade, it may be proper to describe the power possessed by masters over their domestics during the heroic ages. Every man appears to have been then a king in his own house, and to have exercised his authority most regally. Thus we find the young Telemachos taking pleasure in the idea that he shall be king over his slaves;[29] and Andromache, with a mother’s fondness, fears lest her son should become the drudge of an unfeeling lord.[30] Power generally, when unchecked by law, is fierce and inhuman, and over their household, gentlemen, in those ages, exercised the greatest and most awful power, that of life and death, as they afterwards did at Rome.[31] This is illustrated by an example in the Odyssey, where the hero being, while in disguise, insulted grossly by Melanthios, threatens the slave that he will incite Telemachos to cut him in pieces. Afterwards, when he has recovered his authority, the terrible menace is remembered and fulfilled. The culprit is seized and mutilated with savage barbarity, his members, torn from the body, are thrown to the dogs, and even the poet, upon the whole so humane, does not seem to consider the punishment too great for the offence.[32] It has even been supposed that this kind of mutilation was a punishment peculiar to slaves; for Laomedon, while menacing the gods in the manner above described, adds, that he will cut off their ears.[33] When supposed to deserve death they were executed ignominiously by hanging, as in the case of the domestics of Odysseus, whose offences, though grave, would scarcely in any free country be visited with capital punishment.[34] This was regarded as an impure end. To die honourably was to perish by the sword.[35] ----- Footnote 29: Odyss. α. 397. Footnote 30: Iliad. ω. 734. Footnote 31: See Joach. Hopp. Comment. Succinct. ad Instit. Justin. 1. i. Tit. viii. § 1. p. 61. Grot. De Jur. Bell. et Pac. ii. 5. 28. iii. 7. 3. Footnote 32: