Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/405

Rh The law of Moses was extremely severe. "If any one struck his slave so that he died under his hand, he was to be punished; but if he survived a day or two, he was not, because he was as his money." Strange chat a civil law should thus amongst these people relax the law of nature!

By a law of the Greeks a slave too roughly treated by his master, might insist upon being sold to another. In the latter times there was a law of the same nature at Rome. A master displeased with his slave, and a slave with his master, ought to be separated.

When a citizen uses a slave of another ill, the latter ought to have liberty to complain before the judge. The laws of Plato and of most nations took away from slaves the right of natural defence. It was necessary then that they should give them a civil defence.

At Sparta, slaves could have no justice against either insults or injuries. So excessive was their misery, that they were not only the slaves of a citizen, but also of the public; they belonged to all, as well as to one. At Rome, when they considered the injury done to a Have, they had regard only to the interest of the master. In the breach of the Aquilian law, they confounded a wound given to a beast, and that given to a slave; they regarded only the diminution of their value. At Athens he who had abused the slave of another, was punished severely, and sometimes even with death. The law of Athens was very Rh