The AEgyptian slave, though perhaps of all others the greatest drudge, yet if he had time to reach the temple[016] of Hercules, found a certain retreat from the persecution of his master; and he received additional comfort from the reflection, that his life, whether he could reach it or not, could not be taken with impunity.

Wise and salutary law![017] how often must it have curbed the insolence of power, and stopped those passions in their progress, which had otherwise been destructive to the slave! But though the persons of slaves were thus greatly secured in AEgypt, yet there was no place so favourable to them as Athens.

They were allowed a greater liberty of speech;[018] they had their convivial meetings, their amours, their hours of relaxation, pleasantry, and mirth; they were treated, in short, with so much humanity in general, as to occasion that observation of Demosthenes, in his second Philippick, "that the condition of a slave, at Athens, was preferable to that of a free citizen, in many other countries." But if any exception happened (which was sometimes the case) from the general treatment described; if persecution took the place of lenity, and made the fangs of servitude more pointed than before,[019] they had then their temple, like the AEgyptian, for refuge; where the legislature was so attentive, as to examine their complaints, and to order them, if they were founded in justice, to be sold to another master.

Nor was this all: they had a privilege infinitely greater than the whole of these.

They were allowed an opportunity of working for themselves, and if their diligence had procured them a sum equivalent with their ransom, they could immediately, on paying it down,[020] demand their freedom for ever.