Slavery must be accepted as one of the stages in the evolution of man toward a recog nition of universal freedom. Early man was wholly selfish and sought to dominate. When a war of conquest was undertaken, the scarcity of valuable goods obtained was compensated for by making slaves and menial workers of the men and household drudges and mistresses of the women. It was a phase of the rule of might, but the institution carried with it the seeds of destruction for the conquerors. The morality of the slave-owners and their sons was undermined and destroyed by the possession of female slaves, and the position of a wife in the family, was lowered and debased by the contamination of the domestic circle. A con siderable progress in slavery in time ruined a nation, as ancient Rome. Not only was degen eracy encouraged among the masters, but in case of a foreign war dissatisfied slaves at home were a serious menace. But as the ma jority of human beings have a kind side to their natures, so very many slave masters were generous and liberal in their treatment of their slaves, not only caring for their general pros perity, but arranging their marriages,, and as sisting their religious worship, permitting them to accumulate private funds, often to buy their own freedom. The Athenians had their pub licly owned slaves as well as privately owned, the state often owning those who served pub lic officials or who worked in the temples. In warfare the slaves were used as armor-bearers, workmen, galley-slaves, cooks and sometimes as archers and spearmen. The latter for spe cially meritorious service in war usually earned their freedom.
There were laws in both Greece and Rome for the protection of the slave, these being gradually developed toward the humane and liberal. In Athens an abused slave could de mand to be sold, and he could not be killed at the whim of his master, even if he slew one of the master's family, but had to be tried by a court. .Plato condemned slavery altogether, but Aristotle and other ancient savants ap proved it, believing it beneficial and necessary.
In the time of Demosthenes, that orator was moved to speak of the general good treatment of the slaves, and to urge that their enemies would laugh if they knew how happy was the lot of a Grecian slave. While the slaves of Rome did gradually improve their condition and receive better treatment as the centuries rolled on, yet legal measures for their good treatment went much slower than in Greece. The law originally gave the master power of life and death over the slave; he was denied the right to marry. A slave could be examined as a witness only by the torture, because it was held that he would surely lie if not tortured. In Rome many slaves were chained at night, and galley-slaves were nearly always chained to their work. They were sometimes driven under the lash to heavy work, as in the mines and fields/ In the later history of Rome, how ever, the slaves fared better, and very many were placed in conditions that enabled them to earn their freedom. Some masters sought a safe guardian for their children by promising a slave liberty when they were grown. Other masters found that it was financially profitable to encourage their slaves to buy their freedom, since they became industrious and earned so much that by the time their freedom was pur chased the master had more than enough money from them to buy another and probably younger slave. In the 2d century the Roman law forbade making eunuchs of slaves, stopped the sale of children into slavery and forbade taking an insolvent debtor as a slave. Under Hadrian the master's power to kill his slave was revoked. Later, under certain con ditions the law allowed a slave to bring an action against his master. Justinian punished the rape of a slave as of a free maiden, but he saw no reason for stopping gladiatorial corn bats between slaves and wild beasts. During the centuries following the fall of Rome the slavery system of Europe gradually merged into serfdom. See UNITED STATES, SLAVERY IN THE.