9o 



Slaves, who together with free servants, formed tlie most 

 mimerous part of the inhabitants of Attica were wholly at the 

 discretion of their masters, and might in most places be 

 starved, beaten and tormented, without any appeal to supe- 

 rior power; — they were not permitted to plead for them- 

 selves, nor be witnesses in any case ; yet it was customary to 

 extort confessions from them by torture ; they were stigma- 

 tized on the forehead with a red hot iron. However it is cer- 

 tain that for undeserved ill usage they had some redress, 

 either by taking refuge in the temple of Theseus, or by a 

 suit at law ; but how miserable the condition of those, who 

 from their distance from that temple, or otherwise, could do 

 neither t 



Farther, women were confined to their houses ; were not 

 permitted to appear at public entertainments. Concubinage 

 was universally practised, and even unnatural crimes were 

 not interdicted. 



Thus we see that the condition of every class of the inha- 

 bitants of Attica, was upon the whole miserable ; and that 

 the Athenian commonwealth can at most be deemed only 

 semi-civilized^ 



Of 



