conclude the universe eternal or incorruptible. The continual and
rapid motion of matter, the violent revolutions with which every part
is agitated, the changes remarked in the heavens, the plain
traces as well as tradition of a universal deluge,—all these prove
strongly the mortality of this fabric of the world, and its passage,
by corruption or dissolution, from one state or order to another. It
must therefore, as well as each individual form which it contains,
have its infancy, youth, manhood, and old age; and it is probable that
in all these variations man, equally with every animal and vegetable,
will partake. In the flourishing age of the world it may be expected
that the human species should possess greater vigour both of mind
and body, more prosperous health, higher spirits, longer life, and
a stronger inclination and power of generation. But if the general
system of things, and human society of course, have any such gradual
revolutions, they are too slow to be discernible in that short period
which is comprehended by history and tradition. Stature and force of
body, length of life, even courage and extent of genius, seem hitherto
to have been naturally in all ages pretty much the same. The arts and
sciences, indeed, have flourished in one period and have decayed in
another; but we may observe that at the time when they rose to greatest
perfection among one people they were perhaps totally unknown to all
the neighbouring nations, and though they universally decayed in one
age, yet in a succeeding generation they again revived and diffused
themselves over the world. As far, therefore, as observation reaches
there is no universal difference discernible in the human species,
and though it were allowed that the universe, like an animal
body, had a natural progress from infancy to old age; yet, as it must
still be uncertain whether at present it be advancing to its point of
perfection or declining from it, we cannot thence presuppose any decay
in human nature.[40] To prove, therefore, or account for the greater
populousness of antiquity by the imaginary youth or vigour of the world
will scarcely be admitted by any just reasoner; these general physical
causes ought entirely to be excluded from that question.
There are indeed some more particular physical causes of great
importance. Diseases are mentioned in antiquity which are almost
unknown to modern medicine, and new diseases have arisen and propagated
themselves of which there are no traces in ancient history. And in
this particular we may observe, upon comparison, that the disadvantage
is very much on the side of the moderns. Not to mention some others
of less importance, the smallpox commits such ravages as would almost
alone account for the great superiority ascribed to ancient times.
The tenth or the twelfth part of mankind destroyed every generation
should make a vast difference, it may be thought, in the numbers of the
people; and when joined to venereal distempers, a new plague diffused
everywhere, this disease is perhaps equivalent, by its constant
operation, to the three great scourges of mankind—war, pestilence,
and famine. Were it certain, therefore, that ancient times were more
populous than the present, and could no moral causes be assigned for so
great a change, these physical causes alone, in the opinion of many,
would be sufficient to give us satisfaction on that head.
But is it certain that antiquity was so much more populous as is
pretended? The extravagancies of Vossius with regard to this subject
are well known; but an author of much greater genius and discernment
has ventured to affirm that, according to the best computations which
these subjects will admit of, there are not now on the face of the
earth the fiftieth part of mankind which existed in the time of Julius
Cæsar. It may easily be observed that the comparisons in this case
must be very imperfect, even though we confine ourselves to the scene
of ancient history—Europe and the nations about the Mediterranean. We
know not exactly the numbers of any European kingdom, or even city,
at present; how can we pretend to calculate those of ancient cities
and states where historians have left us such imperfect traces? For
my part, the matter appears to me so uncertain that, as I intend to
throw together some reflections on that head, I shall intermingle the
inquiry concerning causes with that concerning facts, which ought never
to be admitted where the facts can be ascertained with any tolerable
assurance. We shall first consider whether it be probable, from what
we know of the situation of society in both periods, that antiquity
must have been more populous; secondly, whether in reality it was so.
If I can make it appear that the conclusion is not so certain as is
pretended in favour of antiquity, it is all I aspire to.
In general we may observe that the question with regard to the
comparative populousness of ages or kingdoms implies very important
consequences, and commonly determines concerning the preference of
their whole police, their manners, and the constitution of their
government. For as there is in all men, both male and female, a desire
and power of generation more active than is ever universally exerted,
the restraints which they lie under must proceed from some difficulties
in their situation, which it belongs to a wise legislature carefully
to observe and remove. Almost every man who thinks he can maintain a
family will have one, and the human species at this rate of propagation
would more than double every generation. How fast do mankind
multiply in every colony or new settlement, where it is an easy
matter to provide for a family, and where men are nowise straightened
or confined as in long established governments? History tells us
frequently of plagues which have swept away the third or fourth part of
a people; yet in a generation or two the destruction was not perceived,
and the society had again acquired their former number. The lands which
were cultivated, the houses built, the commodities raised, the riches
acquired, enabled the people who escaped immediately to marry and to
rear families, which supplied the place of those who had perished.[41]
And for a like reason every wise, just, and mild government, by
rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always
abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches. A country,
indeed, whose climate and soil are fitted for vines will naturally
be more populous than one which is only fitted for pasturage; but if
everything else be equal, it seems natural to expect that wherever
there are most happiness and virtue and the wisest institutions, there
will also be most people.
The question, therefore, concerning the populousness of ancient and
modern times being allowed of great importance, it will be requisite,
if we would bring it to some determination, to compare both the
domestic and political situation of these two periods, in order to
judge of the facts by their moral causes, which is the first view in
which we proposed to consider them.
The chief difference between the domestic economy of the ancients
and that of the moderns consists in the practice of slavery which
prevailed among the former, and which has been abolished for some
centuries throughout the greater part of Europe. Some passionate
admirers of the ancients and zealous partisans of civil liberty
(for these sentiments, as they are both of them in the main extremely
just, are found to be almost inseparable) cannot forbear regretting
the loss of this institution; and whilst they brand all submission
to the government of a single person with the harsh denomination of
slavery, they would gladly reduce the greatest part of mankind to
real slavery and subjection. But to one who considers coolly on the
subject it will appear that human nature in general really enjoys
more liberty at present, in the most arbitrary governments of Europe,
than it ever did during the most flourishing period of ancient times.
As much as submission to a petty prince, whose dominions extend not
beyond a single city, is more grievous than obedience to a great
monarch, so much is domestic slavery more cruel and oppressive than
any civil subjection whatsoever. The more the master is removed from
us in place and rank the greater liberty we enjoy, the less are our
actions inspected and controlled, and the fainter that cruel comparison
becomes between our own subjection and the freedom and even dominion
of another. The remains that are found of slavery in the American
colonies and among some European nations would never surely create a
desire of rendering it more universal. The little humanity commonly
observed in persons accustomed from their infancy to exercise so great
authority over their fellow-creatures and to trample upon human nature
were sufficient alone to disgust us with that authority. Nor can a more
probable reason be given for the severe, I might say barbarous manners
of ancient times, than the practice of domestic slavery, by which
every man of rank was rendered a petty tyrant and educated amidst the
flattery, submission, and low debasement of his slaves.
According to the ancient practice, all checks were on the inferior, to
restrain him to the duty of submission; none on the superior, to engage
him to the reciprocal duties of gentleness and humanity. In modern
times a bad servant finds not easily a good master, nor a bad master
a good servant, and the checks are mutual, suitable to the
inviolable and eternal laws of reason and equity.
The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves in an island of the
Tiber, there to starve, seems to have been pretty common in Rome, and
whoever recovered after having been so exposed had his liberty given
him by an edict of the Emperor Claudius, where it was likewise forbid
to kill any slave merely for old age or sickness. But supposing that
this edict was strictly obeyed, would it better the domestic treatment
of slaves or render their lives much more comfortable? We may imagine
what others would practise when it was the professed maxim of the
elder Cato to sell his superannuated slaves for any price rather than
maintain what he esteemed a useless burden.
The _ergastula_, or dungeons, where slaves in chains were forced to
work, were very common all over Italy. Columella advises that they be
always built under ground, and recommends it as the duty of a careful
overseer to call over every day the names of these slaves, like the
mustering of a regiment or ship’s company, in order to know presently
when any of them had deserted. A proof of the frequency of these
_ergastula_ and of the great number of slaves usually confined in them.
A chained slave for a porter was usual in Rome, as appears from Ovid
and other authors. Had not these people shaken off all sense of
compassion towards that unhappy part of their species, would they have
presented all their friends at the first entrance with such an image of
the severity of the master and misery of the slave?
Nothing so common in all trials, even of civil causes, as to call for
the evidence of slaves, which was always extorted by the most exquisite
torments. Demosthenes says that where it was possible to produce for
the same fact either freemen or slaves as witnesses, the judges always
preferred the torturing of slaves as a more certain and infallible
evidence.[42]
Seneca draws a picture of that disorderly luxury which changes day
into night and night into day, and inverts every stated hour of every
office in life. Among other circumstances, such as displacing the meals
and times of bathing, he mentions that regularly about the third hour
of the night the neighbours of one who indulges this false refinement
hear the noise of whips and lashes, and upon inquiry find that he is
then taking an account of the conduct of his servants and giving them
due correction and discipline. This is not remarked as an instance of
cruelty, but only of disorder, which, even in actions the most usual
and methodical, changes the fixed hours that an established custom had
assigned them.[43]
But our present business is only to consider the influence of slavery
on the populousness of a state. It is pretended that in this particular
the ancient practice had infinitely the advantage, and was the chief
cause of that extreme populousness which is supposed in those times.
At present all masters discourage the marrying of their male servants,
and admit not by any means the marriage of the female, who are then
supposed altogether incapacitated for their service; but where the
property of the servants is lodged in the master, their marriage
and fertility form his riches, and bring him a succession of slaves
that supply the place of those whom age and infirmity have
disabled. He encourages, therefore, their propagation as much as that
of his cattle, rears the young with the same care, and educates them
to some art or calling, which may render them more useful or valuable
to him. The opulent are, by this policy, interested in the being at
least, though not the well-being of the poor; and enrich themselves by
increasing the number and industry of those who are subjected to them.
Each man, being a sovereign in his own family, has the same interest
with regard to it as the prince with regard to the state; and has not,
like the prince, any opposite motive of ambition or vainglory which may
lead him to depopulate his little sovereignty. All of it is, at all
times, under his eye, and he has leisure to inspect the most minute
detail of the marriage and education of his subjects.[44]
Such are the consequences of domestic slavery, according to the
first aspect and appearance of things; but if we enter more deeply
into the subject, we shall perhaps find reason to retract our hasty
determinations. The comparison is shocking between the management
of human creatures and that of cattle; but being extremely just
when applied to the present subject, it may be proper to trace the
consequences of it. At the capital, near all great cities, in all
populous, rich, industrious provinces, few cattle are bred. Provisions,
lodging, attendance, labour are there dear, and men find better their
account in buying the cattle, after they come to a certain age, from
the remoter and cheaper countries. These are consequently the only
breeding countries for cattle; and by a parity of reason, for men too,
when the latter are put on the same footing with the former.
To rear a child in London till he could be serviceable would cost much
dearer than to buy one of the same age from Scotland or Ireland, where
he had been raised in a cottage, covered with rags, and fed on oatmeal
or potatoes. Those who had slaves, therefore, in all the richer or more
populous countries would discourage the pregnancy of the females, and
either prevent or destroy the birth. The human species would perish in
those places where it ought to increase the fastest, and a perpetual
recruit be needed from all the poorer and more desert provinces. Such a
continued drain would tend mightily to depopulate the state, and render
great cities ten times more destructive than with us, where every man
is master of himself, and provides for his children from the powerful
instinct of nature—not the calculations of sordid interest. If London
at present, without increasing, needs a yearly recruit from the country
of 5000 people, as is commonly computed, what must it require if the
greatest part of the tradesmen and common people were slaves, and were
hindered from breeding by their avaricious masters?
All ancient authors tell us that there was a perpetual flux of slaves
to Italy from the remoter provinces, particularly Syria, Cilicia,[45]
Cappadocia, and the Lesser Asia, Thrace, and Egypt; yet the number
of people did not increase in Italy, and writers complain of the
continual decay of industry and agriculture. Where then is that extreme
fertility of the Roman slaves which is commonly supposed? So far from
multiplying, they could not, it seems, so much as keep up the stock
without immense recruits. And though great numbers were continually
manumitted and converted into Roman citizens, the numbers even of these
did not increase till the freedom of the city was communicated to
foreign provinces.
The term for a slave born and bred in the family was _verna_;[46] and
these slaves seem to have been entitled by custom to privileges and
indulgences beyond others—a sufficient reason why the masters would
not be fond of rearing many of that kind.[47] Whoever is acquainted
with the maxims of our planters will acknowledge the justness of this
observation.[48]
Atticus is much praised by his historian for the care which he took
in recruiting his family from the slaves born in it.[49] May we not
thence infer that that practice was not then very common?
The names of slaves in the Greek comedies—Syrus, Mysus, Geta, Thrax,
Davus, Lydus, Phyrx, etc., afford a presumption that at Athens, at
least, most of the slaves were imported from foreign nations. The
Athenians, says Strabo, gave to their slaves either the names of the
nations whence they were bought, as Lydus, Syrus; or the names that
were most common among those nations, as Manes or Midas to a Phrygian,
Tibias to a Paphlagonian.
Demosthenes, after having mentioned a law which forbid any man to
strike the slave of another, praises the humanity of this law, and adds
that if the barbarians from whom slaves were bought had information
that their countrymen met with such gentle treatment, they would
entertain a great esteem for the Athenians. Isocrates, too, insinuates
that the slaves of the Greeks were generally or very commonly
barbarians. Aristotle, in his _Politics_, plainly supposes that a slave
is always a foreigner. The ancient comic writers represented the slaves
as speaking a barbarous language. This was an imitation of nature.
It is well known that Demosthenes, in his nonage, had been defrauded
of a large fortune by his tutors, and that afterwards he recovered,
by a prosecution of law, the value of his patrimony. His orations on
that occasion still remain, and contain a very exact detail of the
whole substance left by his father, in money, merchandise, houses,
and slaves, together with the value of each particular. Among the
rest were 52 slaves, handicraftsmen—viz., 32 sword-cutlers and 20
cabinet-makers,[50] all males; not a word of any wives, children,
or family, which they certainly would have had had it been a
common custom at Athens to breed from the slaves; and the value of the
whole must have depended very much on that circumstance. No female
slaves are even so much as mentioned, except some housemaids who
belonged to his mother. This argument has great force, if it be not
altogether decisive.
Consider this passage of Plutarch, speaking of the elder Cato:—“He
had a great number of slaves, whom he took care to buy at the sales
of prisoners of war; and he chose them young, that they might easily
be accustomed to any diet or manner of life, and be instructed in any
business or labour, as men teach anything to young dogs or horses. And
esteeming love the chief source of all disorders, he allowed the male
slaves to have a commerce with the female in his family, upon paying a
certain sum for this privilege; but he strictly forbade all intrigues
out of his family.” Are there any symptoms in this narration of that
care which is supposed in the ancients, of the marriage and propagation
of their slaves? If that was a common practice, founded on general
interest, it would surely have been embraced by Cato, who was a great
economist, and lived in times when the ancient frugality and simplicity
of manners were still in credit and reputation.
It is expressly remarked by the writers of the Roman law that scarce
any ever purchase slaves with a view of breeding from them.[51]
Our lackeys and housemaids, I own, do not serve much to multiply
their species; but the ancients, besides those who attended on their
person, had all their labour performed by slaves, who lived, many of
them, in their family; and some great men possessed to the number of
10,000. If there be any suspicion, therefore, that this institution was
unfavourable to propagation (and the same reason, at least in part,
holds with regard to ancient slaves as well as modern servants), how
destructive must slavery have proved!
History mentions a Roman nobleman who had 400 slaves under the same
roof with him; and having been assassinated at home by the furious
revenge of one of them, the law was executed with rigour, and all
without exception were put to death. Many other Roman noblemen had
families equally, or more numerous, and I believe every one will allow
that this would scarcely be practicable were we to suppose all the
slaves married and the females to be breeders.[52]
So early as the poet Hesiod married slaves, whether male or female,
were esteemed very inconvenient. How much more where families had
increased to such an enormous size, as in Rome, and where simplicity of
manners was banished from all ranks of people?
Xenophon in his _Economics_, where he gives directions for the
management of a farm, recommends a strict care and attention of
laying the male and the female slaves at a distance from each other.
He seems not to suppose that they are ever married. The only slaves
among the Greeks that appear to have continued their own breed were the
Helotes, who had houses apart, and were more the slaves of the public
than of individuals.
The same author tells us that Nicias’s overseer, by an agreement with
his master, was obliged to pay him an obolus a day for each slave,
besides maintaining them and keeping up the number. Had the ancient
slaves been all breeders, this last circumstance of the contract had
been superfluous.
The ancients talk so frequently of a fixed, stated portion of
provisions assigned to each slave, that we are naturally led to
conclude that slaves lived almost all single, and received that portion
as a kind of board-wages.
The practice, indeed, of marrying the slaves seems not to have been
very common even among the country-labourers, where it is more
naturally to be expected. Cato, enumerating the slaves requisite
to labour a vineyard of a hundred acres, makes them to amount to
fifteen—the overseer and his wife (_villicus_ and _villica_) and
thirteen male slaves; for an olive plantation of 240 acres, the
overseer and his wife and eleven male slaves; and so in proportion to a
greater or less plantation or vineyard.
Varro, citing this passage of Cato, allows his computation to be just
in every respect except the last. “For as it is requisite,” says he,
“to have an overseer and his wife, whether the vineyard or plantation
be great or small, this must alter the exactness of the proportion.”
Had Cato’s computation been erroneous in any other respect it had
certainly been corrected by Varro, who seems fond of discovering so
trivial an inaccuracy.
The same author, as well as Columella, recommends it as requisite to
give a wife to the overseer in order to attach him the more strongly to
his master’s service. This was therefore a peculiar indulgence granted
to a slave in whom so great a confidence was reposed.
In the same place Varro mentions it as a useful precaution not to buy
too many slaves from the same nations, lest they beget factions and
seditions in the family; a presumption that in Italy the greatest part,
even of the country-labouring slaves—for he speaks of no other—were
bought from the remoter provinces. All the world knows that the
family-slaves in Rome, who were instruments of show and luxury, were
commonly imported from the east. “Hoc profecere,” says Pliny, speaking
of the jealous care of masters, “mancipiorum legiones, et in domo turba
externa ac servorum quoque causa nomenclator adhibendus.”