§170. Less painful and degrading for the moment, but far more dreaded by the slave, was a sentence to harder labor than he had been accustomed to perform. The final penalty for misconduct on the part of a city slave, for whom the rod had been spoiled in vain, was banishment to the farm, and to this might be added at a stroke the odious task of grinding at the mill (§148), or the crushing toil of labor in the quarries. The last were the punishments of the better class of farm slaves, while the desperate and dangerous class of slaves who regularly worked in the quarries paid for their misdeeds under the scourge and in heavier shackles by day and fewer hours of rest by night. These may be compared to the galley slaves of later times. Those utterly incorrigible might be sold for gladiators. §171. For actual crimes, not mere faults or offenses, the punishments were far more severe. Slaves were so numerous (§131) and their various employments gave them such free access to the person of the master, that his property and very life were always at their mercy. It was indeed a just and gentle master that did not sometimes dream of a slave holding a dagger at his throat. There was nothing within the confines of Italy so much dreaded as an uprising of the slaves. It was simply this haunting fear that led to the inhuman tortures inflicted upon the slave guilty of an attempt upon the life of his master or of the destruction of his property. The Romans had not learned twenty centuries ago, as some of our own citizens have not yet learned, that crimes are not lessened by increasing the sufferings of the criminals. [Illustration: FIGURE 33. SLAVE'S COLLAR--_Servus sum dom(i)ni mei Scholastici v(iri) sp(ectabilis). Tene me ne fugiam de domo Pulverata._] §172. The runaway slave was a criminal: he had stolen himself. He was also guilty of setting a bad example to his fellow slaves; and, worst of all, runaway slaves always became bandits (§161) and they might find a Spartacus to lead them (§132). There were, therefore, standing rewards for the capture of _fugitīvī_, and there were men who made it their business to track them down and return them to their masters. The _fugitīvus_ was brought back in shackles, and was sure to be flogged within an inch of his life and sent to the quarries for the rest of his miserable days. Besides this, he was branded on the forehead with the letter F, for _fugitīvus_, and sometimes had a metal collar riveted about his neck. One such, still preserved at Rome, is shown in Fig. 33, and another has the inscription: FUGI. TENE ME. CUM REVOCAVERIS ME D. M. ZONINO, ACCIPIS SOLIDUM.[1] [Footnote 1: I have run away. Catch me. If you take me back to my master Zoninus you'll be rewarded.]