Читать книгу The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery. How it came into the world and how it shall be made to go out онлайн

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There were masters and slaves amongst the ancient Hebrews, the proofs of which are abundantly scattered throughout the Old Testament and in Josephus’s “History of the Antiquities of the Jews.” There were masters and slaves amongst the Greeks in the remotest periods of their annals. This is shown by numerous passages in Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey;”—as, for instance, in book xxi. of the “Iliad,” where Achilles boasts to Lycaon of the captives he had taken, and sold into slavery; and in book xxii. of the “Odyssey,” where Euryclea, the governess of Ulysses’ household, says to him, “You have in your house fifty female slaves, whom I have taught to work in wool-spinning, and to support their servitude.” That masters and slaves existed at every epoch of the Roman republic and empire is evident from the testimony of every ancient classic whose writings or recorded sayings are extant. The Institutes of Justinian make slavery expressly a subject of legislation. That the relation of master and slave obtained in ancient Gaul and in ancient Germany we have abundant evidences in Cæsar’s Commentaries and in several passages to be found in Tacitus’s treatise “De Moribus Germanorum.” Indeed, masters and slaves are known to have existed in France as late as the twelfth century, and in Prussia as late as one hundred years ago, as may be seen by the General Code of the Prussian States, published in 1794. Masters and slaves are still to be found in all Mahomedan countries, throughout the kingdoms of the East generally, and (tell it not in Gath!), until lately, in several of the republics of the United States of America.