Slavery not challenged 335 



free men make a community, 15 slaves make a household, and 15 

 chained ones a lock-up.' I take these vincti to be troublesome slaves, 

 not debtors. Again, in refuting the suggestion that he had bewitched 

 the lady, he states as proof of her sanity that at the very time when 

 she is said to have been out of her mind she most intelligently audited 

 and passed the accounts of her stewards 1 and other head-servants on 

 her estates. And in general it has been well said 2 that Apuleius, with 

 all his wide interest in all manner of things, did not feel driven to 

 inquire into the right or wrong of slavery in itself. He took it as he 

 found it in the Roman world of his day. That he had eyes to see some 

 of its most obvious horrors, may be inferred from the description 8 of 

 the condition of slaves in a flour-mill, put into the mouth of the man- 

 ass. But with the humanitarian movements of these times he shews 

 no sympathy ; and he can depict abominable scenes of cruelty and 

 bestiality without any warmth of serious indignation. 



1 viliconum, Apol^l. Cf Metam vin 22. 



2 Norden p 81. 8 Metam ix 12. 



