Читать книгу The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery - James Bronterre O'Brien - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Permanence of Slavery under all Revolutions—Ignorance of Principle of Human Equality—Theory and Personal Experience of Plato—Contentment of Slaves with their Condition—Occasional Comfort and Happiness of Slaves—Absence of Revolts against Slavery—Social and Political Rights ignored by Greeks and Romans.

Having, in the preceding chapters, shown how human slavery came into the world, how it originated in the despotism of paternal power, before laws or governments were known, and how, coeval with society itself, it had grown up, flourished, and everywhere established itself, as a domestic institution, before any conventional act or delegated authority of society came to consolidate it as a social institution—having shown all this, and afterwards explained the subsequent modifications, enlargements, and aggravations of slavery made by positive legislation,—let us now ascertain why the diabolical institution endured so long in the world; why it still endures in very many countries; and, above all, why every attempt to get rid of it has hitherto only had the effect of aggravating the evils of society, and making the mass of mankind more miserable slaves, without the name, than any that ever bore the name in ancient or modern times. Having ascertained this, we shall then be prepared to comprehend the only just and practicable means whereby slavery of every sort, and in every form and degree, may be effectually and for ever banished from the world.

Had slavery, amongst the ancients, originated in, and been upheld by, their laws and governments, it may be fairly presumed that some of the revolutions which, at various epochs, swept away their laws and governments would have swept away the institution of slavery amongst the rest. Whatever is forced upon a decided majority of any people, by the will of a minority, can be upheld only by fraud and coercion. Had these been the conditions of slavery amongst the ancients, it is quite certain that the moment a successful revolution, from within or from without, came to break up the authority of rulers in any particular country, the slaves or bondsmen would, that very moment, seize their opportunity to emancipate themselves; and if it was the love of equality or of social justice that made them rise, they would not lay down their arms till they had established a just social order, based upon the recognition of equal rights and equal laws for all.

Now, there is hardly any ancient state or country we could name that has not had its revolutions, and that did not witness, at some period or other, a complete subversion of its government, laws, and institutes; yet do we find the institution of slavery survive in all. In no one instance do we find the slaves of a revolutionalized state avail themselves of such a crisis to establish the rights of man as man. Intestine commotions, military insurrections, foreign invasions, popular triumphs over kings and senates—these and all other like incidents in the life of nations invariably passed away without abolishing the curse of slavery. Why was this? How happened it? Why did not the slaves of the old pagan world take advantage of some popular insurrection, or of the overthrow of their rulers by some invader, to vindicate the rights of humanity in their own persons, by at once establishing a free government for all, and by abolishing slavery altogether?

There is but one true and sufficient answer to these questions: it is this:—The doctrine of human equality, of equality in rights, duties, and responsibilities, was altogether unknown to the ancients: it was denied in theory; it was unheard of in practice. With the solitary exception before adverted to—that of the Essenes (of which more by-and-by), there is no historical record or monument extant to show that the slaves of antiquity, as a class, knew or cared anything about theories of government, much less that they comprehended what a Frenchman would understand by the words république démocratique et sociale, or what a member of the National Reform League understands by “the political and social rights of the people.” Nor does there appear to have been a single writer, teacher, philosopher, legislator, orator, or poet, amongst the whole heathen world, to inspire the slave-class with any such notions. On the contrary, the idea that one class were born to be slaves, and the other to be masters, was an idea as sedulously inculcated by the educators of ancient society, as it was implicitly believed in by the slaves themselves. The poet and the two philosophers who, more than any others of their class, exercised a moral influence upon the ancient world—to wit, Homer, Plato, and Aristotle—agreed, to a hair, in considering mankind as naturally divided into two classes—those made to command and those made to obey, alias masters and slaves. Homer tell us, formally, in the “Odyssey,” that Jove gave to slaves but the half of a soul. Plato, when citing this passage in his “Treatise on Laws,” substitutes the word mind for the Homeric word virtue, and adds his authority to that of the poet, to inculcate that the Father of the Gods bestowed mind and virtue but by halves upon the children of slavery. Plato is still more expressive elsewhere. In his dialogue entitled “Alcibiades,” he makes Socrates teach the same doctrine after his favourite fashion of question and answer. He makes him ask Alcibiades whether it is “in the class of nobles or in the class of plebeians that natural superiority is to be found;” to which the proficient pupil unhesitating makes answer, “Undoubtedly, in the class of nobles,” or “in those nobly born.” Aristotle is still more emphatic than Plato in laying down the theory of human inequality. In one place he goes so far as to call children “the animated tools of their parents,” signifying by that, that children are by birth the natural slaves of their fathers. In his “Treatise on Politics,” he tells us, roundly, that at the very moment of their birth all created beings are naturally fashioned, some to obey, and some to command—or, rather, some to be commanded, and the others to command; for it is the same verb he makes use of in both cases, using the passive mood for the slaves and the active for the slave-owners. In the same treatise he tells us, further on, that nature actually makes the bodies of freemen (genteel folk) different from those of slaves; that the latter are purposely made robust and hardy for the necessities of labour, whilst those of gentlemen are made so slight and upright as to be unfit for physical labour, but well qualified for the business of government. In citing this passage, we have given an almost literal translation of the Greek—a translation more expressive of the author’s sense than a strictly verbal translation would be. The very terms made use of by Aristotle show clearly his belief that slaves were made to be slaves, and their masters to govern them. The words we have rendered by the free translation, “qualified for the business of government,” mean, “literally, availably useful for political life,” which, if not so intelligible, is stronger and of wider signification than our translation. At all events, there can be no doubt as to Aristotle’s meaning. Like Homer and Plato, he was a firm believer in the duality of human nature—that is to say, that slaves were born with one nature, and their masters with another. Indeed, Plato carried this creed so far, that he made slavery to consist in the moral and mental man himself, and not in the servility of his condition as a slave. A wise man, he contended, could not be made a slave of: the natural superiority of such a man would rise superior to any, or all, conditions that might be imposed upon him. Plato lived to have his doctrine tried in his own person. Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, had him sold for a slave by one Pollio, a Lacedemonian chief; but history does not say whether Plato the slave held the same opinions on slavery as Plato the freeman and philosopher. It was one of his maxims that “a wise and just man could be as happy in a state of slavery as in a state of freedom.” Dionysius took him at his word, and, tyrant though he was, we think he served Plato right. The sage who believed in two natures, one for slaves and another for freemen, and who taught that a wise and just man could be as happy in slavery as in freedom, deserved to have such doctrines tried and verified in his own person. Plato had them tried in his; but, great philosopher as he was, we suspect he must have found some little difference between slavery and freedom, when we find him seizing the first opportunity to recover his liberty, and preferring to live a freeman, in Athens, to living a slave at Ægina.

When such were the opinions of philosophers and poets (whose mission and function it was to live for other generations and other times them their own), what may we not expect from the vulgar herd who lived only for themselves? Their ideas were just what we might expect. High and low, gentle and simple, rich and poor, freemen and slaves—all, all believed in the duality of human nature—in the divine origin of kings, and in the no less divine origin of slavery. On these points the whole of pagan antiquity appears to have been unanimous. The treatment of their helots by the Spartans, who, in order to disgust their children with drunkenness, used to exhibit those unfortunates in a state of bestial intoxication, speaks volumes for the notions the ancients had of slaves and slavery. Their occasional decimation of the helots by wholesale and deliberate slaughter, for no other or better reason than to thin their ranks and reduce their numbers for their own convenience, is a still more glaring exemplification. It shows that a slave was a mere thing—a chattel—a nobody—even a nuisance, if his master only chose to think him so.

The Elder Cato, who was cried up for his goodness as a master to his slaves, thought it not unworthy of himself, nor unjust to them, to keep them always quarrelling with one another, by artfully fomenting jealousies amongst them. Plutarch tells us, too, that when they got old and broken down, Cato used to treat them as he (Plutarch) would not use the ox or the horse that had served him faithfully. He used to sell them, or dispose of them any way, when there was no more work to be got out of them. Yet Cato was a model for the gentlemen slave-owners of his day. He was the Benjamin Franklin of his republic; the Adam Smith of the Roman political economy of his time. When he behaved so to his slaves, what must have been the opinions and behaviour of such masters as were brutes by nature, tyrants by instinct and culture? Seneca describes one of these worthies to us, under the name of Vedius Pollio, who, if we are to believe that philosopher, was in the habit of feeding the fish in his ponds with the flesh of his slaves! It is impossible to conceive that slaves must not have been considered of a different and inferior nature, when every description of masters, good and bad, are found (however differing in their mode of treatment) to deal with them as with beings having no rights of their own—no rights but what their masters might choose to confer.

The slaves, on their side, appear to have been perfectly reconciled to slavery as an institution. The writings of the ancients have left us nothing to countervail this opinion, but, on the contrary, much to confirm it. We can nowhere discover any evidence to show that the slaves of antiquity regarded slavery in any other light than as an institution natural in itself, and neither unjust nor unreasonable, provided they (the slaves) were well treated. It is true they often complained of their lot, and sometimes rebelled, too, in order to change it; but, in so doing, it is to be observed, they never complained of slavery as an institution, nor invoked the principle of Equality as the end and object of their complaints or rebellions. Their complaint was, not that slavery existed, but that they, themselves, and not others, were the slaves. And when they rebelled, it was not in order to put down slavery and establish liberty for all; it was to exchange conditions with their masters, or else to secure their own freedom at the price of taking away other people’s. The idea of making common cause with other slaves, in order to emancipate all slaves, never entered their heads. Principle, or love of equality, had nothing whatever to do with their movements. The principle of liberty for all was too sublime an idea for them. Equality before God and the law was still further beyond them. Slavery, as a principle, they had no fault to find with; they complained only of the accident that made them slaves and others free. Even of this the vast majority never complained, because the vast majority (there is reason to believe) were content with their lot, and satisfied with their masters’ treatment of them. Indeed, the whole tenour of what we read of in history respecting slaves leads to this conclusion. The vast majority were content with their condition. In general they were kindly treated; and as they knew no other state, and saw nothing unjust or unreasonable in slavery, they were attached to their masters as to benefactors (regarding them as the authors of their comfort), and might, mayhap, as a general rule, be pronounced happy.

The old classics are full of allusions and passages which go to show the high state of domestic comfort enjoyed by certain descriptions of slaves, and the free and familiar relations which subsisted between them and their masters. A kindly and homely sort of intercourse was the rule; harshness and ill-nature would appear to have been the exception. Indeed, slaves were regarded so much in the light of mere animals by masters, and masters so much as demi-gods, or superior beings, by slaves, that no possible rivalry, jealousy, or misgivings could subsist between them; but, on the contrary, that sort of mutual confidence, fidelity, and fondness with which favourite horses and dogs reciprocate the kindly treatment and caresses of their owners. Whenever we find slaves breaking out into insurrection, we may be sure it is either because they have harsh masters, or have been torn from distant homes, or are being seduced by insurgent chiefs who promise them rapine and freedom; or because they expect, through a successful insurrection, to become pirates or robbers, which was the highest occupation of honour and profit that a slave could aspire to in those days. In these insurrections, as already observed, equality was never invoked. The “rights of man” was a profound mystery in the womb of the future. The insurgents thought of no slavery but their own; and of no other or better advantages from liberty than the spoils of their masters, and exchanging conditions with them.

Limiting ourselves, for the moment, to Roman history, we find some six revolts of slaves recorded by Livy, and some three or four more made mention of by Aulus Gellius, Tacitus, and others. Livy does not go much into detail; but, from the little he says, he makes it manifest that real liberty or equality had nothing to do with any of the six revolts he treats of. The sixth revolt, which was headed by one Eunus, a Syrian, is related at greater length by Diodorus of Sicily. And what does Diodorus show? That Eunus was an impostor, who pretended a mission from the Syrian Venus, and, ejecting flames from his mouth by means of a hollow nut that he had filled with lighted sulphur, succeeded in fanaticising some 2,000 slaves, and inducing them to break loose from the work-houses. He had soon an army of some 60,000 men, gained several actions in the course of a long and bloody war, made himself master of the camps of four prætors; but at last, pressed by increasing numbers, and forced to shut himself up in the city of Enna with his followers, he and they, after defending themselves with courage and bravery amid indescribable difficulties, were at last overpowered, and perished all, by famine, pestilence, and the sword. This insurrection, which took place in Sicily, was no sooner quelled than another broke out, of a similar kind, and upon as large a scale, under the command of a slave named Athenio, who, after assassinating his master, and causing all the work-houses to rise in insurrection, had soon as large an army under his command as Eunus had. Like Eunus, Athenio had some incipient successes; he stormed and made himself master of two prætorian camps: like Eunus, however, he had soon to succumb to the united force of famine and the sword. He perished, with nearly all his followers. The immediate cause of these two servile wars—which, next to the famous one under Spartacus, appear to have been the most formidable of their kind—was the alleged violation of the work-house regulations by the masters. Indeed, Diodorus testifies, positively and clearly, that the revolt headed by Athenio arose solely from the inability of the prætor in Sicily to enforce the laws or regulations which had been made in favour of the slaves, and which, like our modern factory lords, the masters were continually seeking to evade. Plutarch lets it appear that a similar cause provoked the revolt of Spartacus.

Those three revolts, which took place during the last sixty years of the Republic—namely, the two under Eunus and Athenio, in Sicily, and the third under Spartacus, in Italy—were the most serious and destructive of the servile wars recorded of Rome. They had the ablest commanders, and met with the largest measure of success. In these, if in any wars of the kind, might we hope to find the dignity of human nature vindicated by the insurgent bondsmen. There was nothing of the sort. The harsh conduct of masters and the violation of work-house rules were the motive powers of each revolt: no higher motive seems, for a moment, to have actuated the revolters.

The conduct, too, of Eunus and Athenio, during their brief success, showed how thoroughly undemocratic, and even aristocratic, were their plans and objects. Instead of setting about the abolition of slavery and the establishment of equality, they began forthwith to ape the pomp and circumstance of their oppressors, and to deal with their followers as though they were little kings, and not fellow-slaves in rebellion. They wore purple robes and gold chains. Athenio carried a silver staff in his hand, and had his brow wreathed with a diadem, like a monarch. Indeed, Florus tells us that, while these adventurers assumed all the state and airs of royalty, they imitated royalty no less in the havoc, plunder, and devastations they spread around them. At first they contented themselves with plundering and pulling down the castles, villas, and mansions of the aristocrats and master-class; but, this accomplished, they soon began to exact the same servility from their followers that they had themselves kicked against. Liberty and equality were out of the question. Had they succeeded, their wretched followers would soon have found that they had but exchanged masters.

The revolt under Spartacus is the most horrible of all, because it was a revolt of men who were gladiators as well as slaves. Liberty or the rights of man had no more to do with this revolt than with any of the others. It arose from brutal oppression on the part of one Lentulus Batiatus, to whom a portion of the insurgents belonged: he was training them, in fact, that they might combat one another to death in the arena for his recreation. Neither in its origin, conduct, nor results did this servile war differ from any of the others. Like all of them, it originated in private wrongs, was purely personal in its antecedents, and neither in its progress nor results did it exhibit a single indication of democratic, philanthropic, or any other virtues than the usual military ones common to all Romans at the time. In truth, what we moderns understand by political and social rights (and without which we know that real liberty cannot exist for any people) was an idea altogether foreign to every class of Greeks and Romans, and, indeed, to the whole of antiquity, with the solitary exception of the Essenes.

Thus, public opinion conspired with law and custom to uphold direct human slavery throughout the ancient world. This opinion must have been all but universal, since not even slaves in revolt ever dreamt of abolishing slavery as an institution. They warred against certain incidents and accidents of slavery; never against the principle itself. This universality of public opinion in its favour, coupled with the fact that direct slavery is an evil of far lesser magnitude than the indirect slavery of modern civilization, we take to be the true explanation of the old pagan system having endured so long in the world.