their own. They were given indiscriminately
all sorts of soubriquets, even to the names of animals. (Givin, p. 339.)

[17] It was the custom to throw in "for good measure," upon the purchase
of a lot of slaves for labor or for pleasure, a few old men who were
nothing but skin and bones. See Plautus, _Bachid._ IV, _Prospera_ IV;
and _Terence_, _Eun._ Cited by Wallon, _History of Slavery in
Antiquity_, vol. II. p. 56.

[18] There were in the selling of slaves, as in the vending of animals
established grounds entitling the purchaser to recover in full or in
part his purchase price. Six months were allowed for causes of the first
class to manifest themselves, a year for the latter.

Deafness, dumbness, short-sightedness, tertiary or quaternary ague,
gout, epilepsy, polyp, varicose veins, a breath indicating an internal
malady, sterility among the women--such were the grounds accepted for
complete abrogation of the contract. As to moral defects, nothing was
said. Nevertheless, the merchant was not allowed to ascribe to a slave
qualities he did not possess. One was bound above all to make known
whether a slave possessed a tendency toward suicide. (Wallon, _History
of Slavery in Antiquity_, vol. II, p. 63.)

[19] We do not dare to expatiate on these monstrosities. We shall only
cite the words of the lawyer Heterus: "Shamelessness is a crime in a
free man--a duty in a freedman--and a necessity in a slave." For further
details of the abominable and precocious depravity into which slaves and
their children were dragged, see Wallon, _History of Slavery in
Antiquity_, p. 266, following.

[20] "Masters disemboweled their slaves, to search for prognostications
in their entrails."--Wallon, vol. II, p. 251.

[21] The characteristics of different nationalities of slaves had passed
into bywords with the dealers. Thus they said "timid as a Phrygian,"
"vain as a Moor," "deceitful as a Cretan," "intractable as a Sardinian,"
"fierce as a Dalmatian," "gentle as an Ionian," etc., etc. (Wallon, vol.
II, p. 65.)

[22] Caesar wished to make a severe example. So "He put the Senate to
death, and sold the rest at auction."--Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, book
III, ch. XVI.

[23] See Wallon, vol. II, ch. III, for the singular means employed by
the "horse-dealers" to rejuvenate their slaves.

[24] The Gauls in the north and west of France attached so much
importance and dignity to the length of their hair that the provinces
they inhabited wer