s not the ordinary practice to place chains on
the slaves; but when any one had incurred punishment or was thought
likely to attempt an escape, he was set to work in chains and was shut
up during the night in the slaves' prison.(7)

Other Labourers

Ordinarily these slaves belonging to the estate were sufficient; in
case of need neighbours, as a matter of course, helped each other with
their slaves for day's wages. Otherwise labourers from without were
not usually employed, except in peculiarly unhealthy districts, where
it was found advantageous to limit the amount of slaves and to employ
hired persons in their room, and for the ingathering of the harvest,
for which the regular supply of labour on the farm did not suffice.
At the corn and hay harvests they took in hired reapers, who often
instead of wages received from the sixth to the ninth sheaf of the
produce reaped, or, if they also thrashed, the fifth of the grain:
Umbrian labourers, for instance, went annually in great numbers to the
vale of Rieti, to help to gather in the harvest there. The grape and
olive harvest was ordinarily let to a contractor, who by means of his
men--hired free labourers, or slaves of his own or of others--
conducted the gleaning and pressing under the inspection of some
persons appointed by the landlord for the purpose, and delivered the
produce to the master;(8) very frequently the landlord sold the
harvest on the tree or branch, and left the purchaser to look
after the ingathering.

Spirit of the System

The whole system was pervaded by the utter regardless-ness
characteristic of the power of capital. Slaves and cattle stood on
the same level; a good watchdog, it is said in a Roman writer on
agriculture, must not be on too friendly terms with his "fellow-
slaves." The slave and the ox were fed properly so long as they could
work, because it would not have been good economy to let them starve;
and they were sold like a worn-out ploughshare when they became unable
to work, because in like manner it would not have been good economy to
retain them longer. In earlier times religious considerations had
here also exercised an alleviating influence, and had released the
slave and the plough-ox from labour on the days enjoined for festivals
and for rest.(9) Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of Cato
and those who shared his sentiments than the way in which they
inculcated the observance of the holiday in the letter, and evad