of the inhabitants of Greece. By the same principles that actuated
these, were the Romans also influenced. Their History will confirm the
fact: for how many cities are recorded to have been taken; how many
armies to have been vanquished in the field, and the wretched survivors,
in both instances, to have been doomed to servitude? It remains only now
to observe, in shewing this custom to have been universal, that all
those nations which assisted in overturning the Roman Empire, though
many and various, adopted the same measures; for we find it a general
maxim in their polity, that whoever should fall into their hands as a
prisoner of war, should immediately be reduced to the condition of a
slave.

It may here, perhaps, be not unworthy of remark, that the
_involuntary_ were of greater antiquity than the _voluntary_
slaves. The latter are first mentioned in the time of Pharaoh: they
could have arisen only in a state of society; when property, after its
division, had become so unequal, as to multiply the wants of
individuals; and when government, after its establishment, had given
security to the possessor by the punishment of crimes. Whereas the
former seem to be dated with more propriety from the days of Nimrod; who
gave rise probably to that inseparable idea of _victory_ and
_servitude_, which we find among the nations of antiquity, and
which has existed uniformly since, in one country or another, to the
present day.[008]

Add to this, that they might have arisen even in a state of nature, and
have been coequal with the quarrels of mankind.


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