A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Slavery 553
lances. Practice has perfected their skill and skill their
grace; yet they do it not to make money or a living.
Daring
as the game is, its sole reward is the spectator's pleasure.
GambHng with dice, it is strange to find, they reckon
as a serious occupation. They play while sober, and
show such recklessness in winning and losing that when
all else fails, on the last throw of all they stake their liberty
and person. The loser goes into voluntary slavery.
Though he may be the younger and stronger, he suffers
himself to be bound and sold.
This shows their wrongheaded
obstinacy; they call it themselves a sense of honor.
Slaves thus obtained they usually sell in the market, to
rid themselves of the shame of such a victory.
Their ordinary slaves are not employed, as ours are, Slaves,
on distinct duties in the establishment. Each has his /j. 25.
own hearth and home. The master fixes a certain measure
of grain or number of cattle to be paid as a sort of rent;
this forms the only obligation.
All the household obligations
are performed by the master's wife and children.
Slaves are very rarely beaten or condemned to imprisonment
or taskwork. They are sometimes killed by their
masters, not, however, as a severe act of discipline, but
simply in a fit of passion, just ^s one might kill a private
enemy, except that it is legal to kill a slave. The position
of freedmen is not much higher than that of slaves. In
the household they rarely have any influence, in the state
never, except in those tribes which are ruled by kings.
There they rise even above the free-born and above the
nobles. In the other tribes the inferiority of freedmen
is a proof of freedom.
The lending of money and its multiplication by interest
Economy,
is unknown to them. Ignorance proves a better preven- Tac. Germ.
tive than prohibition. The fields are held by village-