Principles of western civilisation

178 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

the Italian peninsula at six or seven millions, as against the slave population of thirteen or fourteen millions ; and Gibbon estimates” that in the time of Claudius the slaves were, throughout the entire Roman world, at least equal in number to the free inhabitants.*

Yet we do not reach the true inwardness of the principle upon which the institution of slavery rested in the ancient State from these facts. It is the custom to associate the condition of slavery with an inferior race. But the cultured Greek made slaves of other Greeks when they became his by conquest in war, or by other recognised methods, During the historic period slaves were made not only in contests between Hellenes and barbarians, but between Hellenes and Hellenes; and the fact that during this period slaves in Greece were mostly of outside races was, as Bluemner points out,* due simply to the fact that captive Greek slaves were generally exchanged. In later Rome the talents of cultivated slaves became a large source of income. The richer capitalists had often great numbers of educated slaves who, as writers, lecturers, bankers, physicians, or architects, often earned large profits, which they were required to turn over to their masters.

Mommsen’s History of Rome, trs. by W. P. Dickson, vol. ii. p. 76. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. ii. Wallon, after an exhaustive examination of the conditions in the Roman State as it approaches the period of the empire, concludes :—“‘Ces évaluations sont trop hypothétiques pour que nous cherchions 4 leur donner par le calcul un faux air de précision; mais il nous semble qu’au milieu de tant d’incertitudes, on peut s’arréter 3 ces conclusions, savoir: qu’a la diminution du nombre des hommes libres a correspondu, généralement, une augmentation des esclaves, et que ce dernier nombre plus faible que Vautre au commencement de la seconde guerre punique, l’a maintenant au moins égalé (Histoire de LP Esclavage dans V Antiquité, t. ii. c. ui.)

4 Leben und Sitten der Griechen (English trs. by A. Zimmern), c. xv.