SECTION 496. Roman Women.-It is to Roman law that woman is indebted for most of her social influence and property rights in modern civilized states. Among the Semites she did not inherit equally with her brother, nor could she control her inheritance. She might be divorced instantly by her husband without reason, and she had no similar privilege of discarding him. If her husband was rich, she was only one among many prisoners in a seraglio. In ancient Athens, though she had no rival wife, she was kept in seclusion, and treated as a social inferior. It was in Rome that she was first protected, not only by monogamy, but also by sacramental marriage, by equal rights of inheritance, by a near approach to social equality with her husband, by the custom of giving a good education to the woman of the most reputable class, and by enabling her to control her own property. She sat at the table with her husband. She conversed with him in the presence of strangers. With or without him she received male visitors. She went out with him to private entertainments and to public amusements. She controlled her home and its slaves. often directed the education of her sons.

She

There were three kinds of marriage, that by sacrament, that by purchase, and that by cohabitation. The first

was consecrated by a priest, and was indispensable as a qualification for some high official positions. It was the customary form among the patricians of early times. The second kind of marriage, by purchase, was performed by a ceremony similar to that used when a slave was sold. The marriages by sacrament and by purchase gave to the husband the most complete marital dominion over the wife, with the legal privileges of keeping her enchained, selling or killing her, without legal responsibility. The XII Tables said: "If a wife, not married by sacrament or purchase, wishes to avoid subjection to the husband's marital dominion, she shall absent herself for three [successive] nights in each year from his house, and shall thus break the prescription of the year." In other words, she was classed with personal property; absolute ownership could be acquired by undisputed and uninterrupted possession for twelve months.

In the time of Augustus or at an earlier date the law conferring despotic power on the husband, over the property, the freedom, and the life of the wife, fell into discredit; and as a legal formula had been devised to emancipate the son from paternal bondage, so other formulas were adopted by which the wife or prospective wife could be freed from marital bondage. By such liberation she was not only enabled to control her separate property during her life, but also to convey it by will, so that it might pass to her blood relatives, instead of going necessarily, as under the old rule it had gone, to the relatives of her husband. In some respects the woman under the early empire had greater property rights than she has ever had since.

Girls were usually married when about fifteen years of age, and were considered old maids at eighteen. Not

unfrequently they were brides at twelve. The match was always made by a parent or guardian. In a wealthy family there was no wooing by a lover; and sometimes the betrothal occurred while the girl was a young child.

Custom permitted women to bathe in the large tanks with the men; and many of the poorer classes availed themselves of the privilege. There is no mention of a bathing dress; and the language of the Roman authors when speaking of the bathing of the two sexes in the same tanks, implies that both were nude. The manners and speech were subject to much less restriction in the Rome of nineteen centuries ago than they are now in most of the European cities.

SEC. 497. Roman Slaves.-Except during the second Punic war, nearly every year in the last three centuries of the republic witnessed a large addition to the stock of slaves in Rome. Because of their abundance and cheapness, and because of the ignorance of many among them, they were frequently treated with great severity. Many of those employed as laborers in the country were branded and were kept in chains, or marked by iron collars fastened on the neck. The establishment of the empire, the abandonment of the policy of conquest, and the cessation of the reduction to slavery, of large numbers of captives taken in war, gave increased value to bondsmen, and brought about a more kindly treatment of them, and the enactment of laws for their protection. Besides, the higher education of the people and the progress of refinement and moral sentiment demanded more kindness to all the subject classes. "The Roman stoics, beginning with Seneca," says Marquardt, "teach that slavery has no foundation in the law of nature; that all men have an equal natural right to freedom; that the

legal difference between liberty and bondage is external and accidental; and that true freedom is a moral not a legal condition. The soul of the bondman may be free, while that of the citizen may be slavish. And these views were not mere barren theories, but were fruitful rules of action in distinguished families, and found recognition in the Roman laws. It is a remarkable fact that, in this matter, the ancient custom which, for Cicero, was the guide of all political action, had been superseded in the early empire by a philosophical principle which was irreconcilable with the earlier authority of the father and master. The jurists of this period unanimously accept the natural equality of men in political rights, a doctrine noteworthy, not only for its conflict with older usages, but also for its prominence among the indications of a new spiritual development which had begun in the first century of the Christian era."1

Although the law of the republic gave no protection to the slave, many masters were not only kind, but generous, to their bondmen. Cicero and the younger Pliny showed great regard for the feelings of their favorite slaves. In many instances the slave or the freedman was the most devoted friend of the master. In some families, six years of faithful service were considered sufficient to give a right to emancipation.

In the time of Augustus, serfdom had its origin. Some barbarian captives were sold under the condition that they should not be moved from the land on which they were placed. They were called "slaves of the soil;" and, unlike the ordinary slaves, they could contract legal marriages. They were to pay a fixed share of the crop, and the owner of the land could not increase this burden. This new system of bondage at

tracted little attention when first established, but after several centuries it extended into many provinces.

About 60 A. D. the Roman law began to define and to protect certain rights of the slave. He was authorized to contract a legitimate marriage, to acquire a valid title to property, to be a shareholder in a corporate society, to become a legatee under a will, and to convey his property by bequest. To torture him or to kill him maliciously was made a crime. If abandoned when sick by his master, he was emancipated. In short, he was raised from the level of the beast to that of the man.

Hadrian forbade the sale of a slave to be used as a gladiator, and an earlier emperor forbade the master to compel the slave to enter the arena of the sword show unless bought for that purpose. Antoninus Pius provided that certain altars should serve as a refuge to slaves fleeing from the cruelty of masters, and gave jurisdiction to judges in complaints of ill-treatment made by slaves. Marcus Aurelius would not allow slaves to be used against their will to fight with wild beasts.

The law which had authorized the patron to re-enslave his ungrateful freedman, the patron being practically the judge of the ingratitude, was repealed. The law which had adopted numerous presumptions against the condition of freedom was changed so that all its presumptions were against that of bondage. Thus a bequest to "Marcus, my freedman,” in a will liberated Marcus, who was a slave. A bequest of freedom for a time was a final emancipation. A gift of freedom under conditions was construed in favor of freedom without restriction.3 About the time of Marcus Aurelius, Ulpian wrote that "by the law of nature all men are equal."* And Justinian, expressing the ideas that had been accepted in previ