That inestimable
character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a
Roman could no longer enact his laws, or create the annual ministers of
his power: his constitutional rights might have checked the arbitrary
will of a master: and the bold adventurer from Germany or Arabia was
admitted, with equal favor, to the civil and military command, which the
citizen alone had been once entitled to assume over the conquests of his
fathers. The first Caesars had scrupulously guarded the distinction of
_ingenuous_ and _servile_ birth, which was decided by the condition of
the mother; and the candor of the laws was satisfied, if her freedom
could be ascertained, during a single moment, between the conception
and the delivery. The slaves, who were liberated by a generous master,
immediately entered into the middle class of _libertines_ or freedmen;
but they could never be enfranchised from the duties of obedience and
gratitude; whatever were the fruits of their industry, their patron and
his family inherited the third part; or even the whole of their fortune,
if they died without children and without a testament. Justinian
respected the rights of patrons; but his indulgence removed the badge of
disgrace from the two inferior orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be
a slave, obtained, without reserve or delay, the station of a citizen;
and at length the dignity of an ingenuous birth, which nature had
refused, was created, or supposed, by the omnipotence of the emperor.
Whatever restraints of age, or forms, or numbers, had been formerly
introduced to check the abuse of manumissions, and the too rapid
increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and the
spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic servitude.
Yet the eastern provinces were filled, in the time of Justinian, with
multitudes of slaves, either born or purchased for the use of their
masters; and the price, from ten to seventy pieces of gold, was
determined by their age, their strength, and their education. But the
hardships of this dependent state were continually diminished by the
influence of government and religion: and the pride of a subject was no
longer elated by his absolute dominion over the life and happiness of
his bondsman.

The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their
infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the
returns of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute, and pe