Manumission was thus no remedy for the deterioration of the citizens: it was powerless even to better the condition of the slave."[364] 3.

The ethical aspect of Roman slavery.

What were the moral effects of the system (1) on the slaves themselves; (2) on the freemen who owned them?
First, as regards the slaves themselves, there are two facts to be fully realised; when this is done, the inferences will be sufficiently obvious.

Let us remember that by far the greater number of the slaves, both in the city and on the land, were brought from countries bordering on the Mediterranean, where they had been living in some kind of elementary civilisation, in which the germs of further development were present in the form of the natural ties of race and kinship and locality, of tribe or family or village community, and with their own religion, customs, and government.

Permanent captivity in a foreign land and in a servile condition snapped these ties once and for all.