be gratified to the extent of their wishes, intemperance proves as
effectual in subduing them as the force of arms. [137]

24. They have only one kind of public spectacle, which is exhibited in
every company. Young men, who make it their diversion, dance naked amidst
drawn swords and presented spears. Practice has conferred skill at this
exercise; and skill has given grace; but they do not exhibit for hire or
gain: the only reward of this pastime, though a hazardous one, is the
pleasure of the spectators. What is extraordinary, they play at dice, when
sober, as a serious business: and that with such a desperate venture of
gain or loss, that, when everything else is gone, they set their liberties
and persons on the last throw. The loser goes into voluntary servitude;
and, though the youngest and strongest, patiently suffers himself to be
bound and sold. [138] Such is their obstinacy in a bad practice--they
themselves call it honor. The slaves thus acquired are exchanged away in
commerce, that the winner may get rid of the scandal of his victory.

25. The rest of their slaves have not, like ours, particular employments
in the family allotted them. Each is the master of a habitation and
household of his own. The lord requires from him a certain quantity of
grain, cattle, or cloth, as from a tenant; and so far only the subjection
of the slave extends. [139] His domestic offices are performed by his own
wife and children. It is usual to scourge a slave, or punish him with
chains or hard labor. They are sometimes killed by their masters; not
through severity of chastisement, but in the heat of passion, like an
enemy; with this difference, that it is done with impunity. [140] Freedmen
are little superior to slaves; seldom filling any important office in the
family; never in the state, except in those tribes which are under regal
government. [141] There, they rise above the free-born, and even the
nobles: in the rest, the subordinate condition of the freedmen is a proof